Tag: writing

Hi, I’m Mark (aka Manzabar1). If you want to know more about me; well, you’ll just have to keep reading this blog and see what you can learn as I go along.

I’ve had this domain for a short time now and finally plunked down the moolah to get a proper host for it (thank you Digital Sense Hosting).

I imagine if you’ve probably got some questions about the who/what/why of CoffeeBear.net, so here are some of the answers. If you have a question that’s not answered in this post; contact me and I’ll reply. Though if your question is too personal, then the reply might be no more than “I’m not going to answer that.”
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This post over on Dooce’s blog, reminded me of some of the crap joy I’ve had to deal with growing up. See, I’m about 6’5″ tall and not the least bit scrawny. So I always got the questions from Aunts & Uncles (e.g. “when are you going to join the basketball/football/whateverball team?”). Unfortunately for them, I spent my early formative years in North Carolina and what we played down there, back then, was soccer. Basketball was for older kids and football was maybe somthing that you could do in your backyard; if you couldn’t afford a soccer ball and some shin guards.

Then I moved form NC to Iowa and up here (back then) there really wasn’t any where to play soccer. You basically had your choice of basketball or football; neither of which I give a fig for. My favorite memory of this sort of thing was when I met the coach at my 2nd high school and told him that I had no interest in either basketball or football. I could just see the disappointment build in his eyes.

Then again, I probably shouldn’t relish that moment because he more than got his revenge on me in the next 3 years of PhysEd classes. *ugh*

But the main thing about dooce’s post that reminded me of my own experiences was volleyball. While having me on your team was no guarantee of winning1; it certainly helped. What really helped was my “backhanded beeeatch-slap return” (patent-pending); see I’d be standing next to the net waiting for the ball to come over. I’d have my hands clasped ready to bump the ball back up, but I’d get bored waiting for the it, look up for the ball, see it hanging there just over the next and with my back still to the next reach up and smack the ball with the back of my hand. This worked rather like a low-flying spike; except that the other team almost never saw it coming because I was facing the wrong way. Ah, those were the days. *grin*

Oh for the record, my other 2 favorite activities in PhysEd class were Archery (I read too many fantasy novels) and floor hockey. Gods, I loved playing that game. Simply because I can fondly recall the kids who I truly disliked running full-tilt at me with the puck; expecting me to either move aside or fall down. Let’s think about this a moment; I’m 6’5″ and I wasn’t a skinny little kid. Dude, in floor hockey, I was the WALL. I didn’t dodge and I didn’t fall down. That’s what the other kids had to do. Muhahahahaha! Okay, I really should be doing some work; so that’s enough writing for now.

1 I’ve absolutely no jumping ability whatsoever, which makes some hits difficult to counter and is one of the reasons I hated basketball.

We’re just returning to work after a 3 day week (hope everybody enjoyed their Memorial day) and it was sooo nice not to have to get up & come to work yesterday. Alas, I’ve to find anybody to sponsor me to live without working; so I’m back to work today. :p Not too much to report about the weekend; I slept late everyday and didn’t do very much other than that.

Friday night, Ariesna and I visited our friend Bryon (and Sekhmet and Baset and Toby-san and Cap’n Jack). We all went out to this sub-shop in Vinton that Ariesna & I had never been to and it was fabulous! They have a similar setup to the Quiznos chain, but they do a much better job. Then we went back to Bryon’s place and watched some anime. I can’t quite recall the title right now, but I’ll look it up later and add it in the comments or update this post. It was cool and I’ve bumped it higher on my playlist (at the moment, I’m watching PlanetES).

Saturday, we basically slept the day away and the same for most of Sunday. Monday, we only slept have the day away and then went out to do some shopping. I got some new shirts and a new toy, but I’m not talking about that yet because I’m going to surprise some of my co-workers with it first (and I know at least one of them reads this blog).

Muhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Back to reality and time for the reviews….

I finished reading The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint and while it wasn’t bad; there’s definitely a sense that I read this book out of order from the series it appears to be in. There were issues that somewhat came up that never got really explained and that annoyed me to some extent but they weren’t vital to the story; so it wasn’t too big of an issue. The other thing I noticed about this book is how different the writing style is from what I generally read.

Most authors that I like tend to dump massive amounts of detail on you with a shovel. Mr. de Lint didn’t do that; instead, he only gave a bare minimum of detail and spent the rest of the pages dealing with the emtions & personality of the characters. It took me a bit to get into the book; but once I really got going with it, I found it most enjoyable. Overall, I give it 3.75 out of 5 points.

Then I went ahead and read The Little Country also by Charles de Lint and found it to be a much better book. The story was much richer in detail and I found it easier to empathize with the characters in this book; as compared to the ones in The Onion Girl. It probably helps that this is set over in Cornwall and I’ve always wanted to visit the British Isles. 😀 Overall, I’d give this book 4.25 out of 5 points.

Oh and next up, I’ll be reading Elizabeth Peter’s Children of the Storm.

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 saw this post over at Mindful Musings and thought it was too cool, but also too short. So here’s the revised list:

  1. When you are sad, I will get you drunk and will help you plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad.
  2. When you are blue, I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.
  3. When you smile, I will know you finally got laid and give you a high five.
  4. When you are scared, I will rag you about it every chance I get.
  5. When you are worried, I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be and to quit whining.
  6. When you are confused, I will use small words and draw pictures to explain.
  7. When you are sick, stay the hell away from me until you’re well again. I don’t want whatever you have.
  8. When you fall, I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass.
  1. When you do something stupid, I will let you know. By pointing it out as loudly as possible to make sure you never do it again.
  2. When you get drunk off your ass, I will drive you home. But only because I am going to shave your eyebrows off.
  3. When you are lonely, I will keep my eyes open to find a mate for you. But I will never set you up on a blind date; unless you ask for it and then I will laugh at how desperate you’ve become.
  4. When you are angry, I will help you kick the other guy’s ass.
  5. When you are in love, I will be supportive even if I think s/he’s totally unworthy of you.
  6. When you get married, I will be happy to show up at your wedding and eat the free food. I will even try to find you a wedding present that you might like.
  7. When you have kids, I will give you my congratulations and then immediately change my phone number so you can never ask me to babysit your kid.

Ok, so my additions to the list aren’t as good as the original stuff; but what the heck, I had fun writing them.