Tag: reading

I know I’ve kind of been in the habit of updating musings most everyday and in the last few; I’ve been slacking off, but I have a pretty, good excuse. I’ve purchased a new domain name for this website and I’m busy working away at a new theme to fit the new name. I hope to have to ready in the next week or so (and then I need to get back to working on some templates for a friend’s new site).

In other news, I once again succumbed to the lure of buying a new sketchpad. I don’t know why I do this because if I look around my apartment I know I can find at least 4 sketchbooks that I haven’t used all the pages in yet. *sigh* Oh well, this one’s a lot nicer than my previous one. which was a cheapish clearance item from a bookstore, hardcover but with a standard spin so pages are not really removable and one can’t really scan the sketches either. The new one is roughly 6″x8″, has a cover made of a dark corkboard, the pages are bright, white acid-free paper and the book is spiral bound; so I can actually scan the drawings from it without killing the book. I was thinking I would save this sketchbook for my Japan trip later this summer, but last night as I was laying down trying to go to sleep, an idea came to me and the new sketchbook was the first one I could find. So, it won’t be blank for trip but that’s probably just as well; since I only want to take one sketchbook with me and it wouldn’t hurt to have some art in it to show people in the class I’ll be taking.

Umm, what else can I write about to pacify my non-existant audience….. Oh, I know. Last night after I got home from work, Ariesna and I walked down to the local Farmer’s Market. On the way down, we stopped in the library and I picked up a copy of Neil Gaimen’s American Gods to read. Some friends of mine (Bryon & Aizuchi) have been talking about the book in relation to the new RPG that we’ll be starting up soon. From our group’s last discussion, it doesn’t sound like we’re going to be following the premise of the book as closely as perhaps was originally thought but I still thought it would be worth reading through and so there you go. I hope to have the book finished in a week or so and I’ll let you know what I think then.

Err, the last thing I can think of is that I’ve been thinking about getting a digital camera again. The one that I’m currently leaning towards is the Canon PowerShot S 500 Digital Elph. My main concern is that I’ve got no real money to speak of and plenty of bills to pay. To compound the problem, I see that Best Buy is currently offering 10% of all their digital cameras (only when you order online) and I know I could get at least 6 months 0% financing. But I also know that I should replace the following bits on my car:

  • Timing belt & water pump: The estimates I’ve gotten on this tell me it’ll cost between $600 & $800. Ouch!
  • Air bag sensor: $500
  • Front brakes: They still work, but are getting really damn soft and I’ve not checked into this yet.
  • Speedometer: Sometimes when I first start up the car in the morning, I’ve notice it takes it a while before it actually starts registering my speed. Fortunately, my morning drive is all in town, on 25 MPH roads, so it’s pretty easy to guestimate my speed to keep it under the limit.

*sigh* Some days I really hate being an adult and long for those golden days of yesteryear when my parents handled all this sort of thing.

I finished reading Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic quite a while back but just didn’t feel motivated to write a review about it. Don’t get me wrong; I think Terry Jones did a wonderful job and I did enjoy it a lot (4.5 out of 5 points). I just didn’t feel like writing another review, so I am going to give the reviews a rest for now. I’ll probably restart them when I read a book that’s new to me (right now I’m reading through Asimov’s Foundation series).

I just finished reading Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine’s Last Chance to See. Wow. It was great! I’ve been a fan of Douglas Adams since I was knee-high to a grasshopper (mostly for his Hitcher’s Guide to the Galaxy) but I’d never read any non-fiction by him before. It was wonderful to see his irreverent and humorous style remained unchanged. Unfortunately, the copy of the book I got from Fritz was in an electronic format and didn’t include the photographs which I understand exist in the dead-tree version. Still, it was a delightful read and any Douglas Adams fan should enjoy it. Overall, I give it 4.75 out of 5 points.

Next up, I’ll me reading through Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic by Terry Jones. Mr. Jones apparently read Douglas Adams’s Hitcher’s Guide to the Galaxy series, saw the couple of paragraphs that talk about the Starship Titanic and thought to himself “That would make a fun book! I shall sit down and write it, right after I take off all my clothes!”

Oh and in case that wasn’t a sufficient hint for you; this is the same Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. Keen! 🙂

I finished reading I, Robot and while I enjoyed some of the stories; as a whole the book just didn’t work for me as well as some of Asimov’s other has. He tried hanging the stories together as though it was Dr. Calvin telling them to a journalist but the stories weren’t actually told from her point of view. Ah well, it was an okay read; so overall I give it 2 out of 5 points. Then I borrowed a copy of Forever Free from “my friend Fritz” and read through that. It’s a sequel to Forever Peace (which is itself a sequel to Forever War) and it was interesting to see where Haldeman went with the characters, but I wish I’d read Forever Peace first and that “Fritz’s” copy of Forever Free was in better shape. I’ll have to check the local library and see if they have both books so I can try again. Overall, Forever Free was worth 2.75 out of 5 points; it was an interesting read but I couldn’t really get into the characters’ heads and nothing in it really clicked with me.

Currently, I’ve just started reading Last Chance to See by Mark Carwardine and Douglas Adams and I’ll let you know how I liked it later, but now it’s lunch time and I’m outta here! 😀

This evening I went out to help Pukka celebrate his last night as a single man. We went over to the Cantebury Inn’s restuarant/bar and had big, big goblets of alcoholic beverages. It was no wild party with strippers and hookers. But we had fun anyway; at least, I think we had fun. The night is kind of blurry in my memory. 🙂

I also finished reading Joe Haldeman’s Forever War, which I’m happy to say that I enjoyed very much. Basically the story deals with a war with an alien race viewed from the perspective of one of our soldiers and how space travel (with the accompanying relativistic effects) affected his life. The story is a bit dated now (some of the events take place starting in the 1990s) but it’s still a good read and overall, I give it 4.5 out of 5 points.

Next up, I’ll be reading Robert A. Heinlein’s Number of the Beast. This book is about double the previous 2 I’ve read combined so it might be a bit longer before I make any further comments on it. On the other hand, when I read Heinlein’s work; I usually get so absorbed into it that I forget about time/sleep/food, so it might take less time than I think.

On a different note, I updated my copy of the Amazon Media Manager hack for WordPress. As such, you can now see what video games; I’m currently playing (UT2004 – rockin’!, Wild Arms 2 – ‘sokay). I’ve also added another DVD set to the movies I’m watching.

Ultraviolet is the modern, vampire thriller mini-series that was made over in Britian. I’ve had it for a while but just restarted watching it the other night and it’s fantastic, though that bit in the 2nd episode where the biker girl is walking around gives me the willies! If you like British movies/tv or are just a fan of well made vampire stories; I highly recommend you check this out!