Study

I’ve never been one for lyricless music.  The words to a song are more important to me than the actual music.  Often the first thing I connect with when looking for new music is a phrase or word that seems to say something I like.  And I realize I’m not unique in this respect, I [...]

Songbird

While it isn’t quite ready for prime time, Songbird is an excellent music player with the potential to be a one stop music application.
The biggest thing that differentiates Songbird from other library managers like iTunes is the built in browser. Based on the Mozilla engine, the browser works just like any other, only that [...]

Flash Post 3

Casino Royale = good movie, great Bond movie.  Very close to original story with only details changed to bring it up to date.  Fun and entertaining.  Recommended.

TED

A while back my friend the One Man blogged about the TED Conference.  This is just a quick note to say thanks.
I’ve been taking the time to watch just a single presentation per day, but it is among the best twenty minutes of my day every time.
The TED Conference is, essentially, to paraphrase the One [...]

Decoder Ring Theater’s Black Jack Justice

Just a quick plug today as I have far too many things to do, like prepping for my classes starting again, to be taking up too much time with blog posts.
Right, uh, so…
Decoder Ring Theater’s Black Jack Justice is just a hell of a lot of fun. The actors involved put on a show [...]

Another Quick Book Post

Last night I finally got my copy of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City: Local Heroes and it was definitely worth the wait. 
This series of graphic novels is a brilliant post-modern look at superheroes and how interactions with ordinary citizens might happen were they real.  This book is a collection of un-related stories all set in [...]

Covered

Coldplay is one of those bands that I thought were promising, but I just did not have the time to check them out when they were rising.  Now, they are a big, established, million selling rockband and I still have not had time to check them out beyond the occasional song or two.
Much to my [...]

Belle de Jour

This post deals with sex and erotica. If you are offended and / or weirded out by reading about such things, you may want to click away and come back tomorrow, when I plan to have a nice, safe, minor-level rant about movies. But, for now, for today, I’m writing about sex. [...]

Mythlandia and Other Links

Just a couple of quick links tonight.
First is an incredibly cool, interactive map called Mythlandia, made by artist Julian Hector for his senior thesis.  I had not previously heard of Julian Hector but he has an amazing site and it looks like his books will definately be worth a read for those of you who [...]

Pirates

M and I went to see “Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest” tonight and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. The story is just a bit darker than the first one and the effects are a little campier in places but it sure made two and a half hours go by rather quickly.
I don’t [...]

Sword of Damocles Redux

Well, not to be outdone by the One Man, who has opened up a great cafepress store to make his artwork more available to all of you out there in the world, I created a new cafepress store today, celebrating my drawing of the Sword of Damocles.
For anyone who is not up on their Greek [...]

I (Heart) Huckabees

I (Heart) Huckabees is a really bizarre movie. In a good way. I think.
It bills itself as an "existential comedy" and it is that. That story centers around a young man (Jason Schwartzman), who has been working to save the environment from developers, looking to resolve an existential crisis. He turns [...]

Temeraire

Well, it's finally happened. For the first time since I was fourteen, I bought a book with a dragon on the cover.
Based on a recommendation from the Dragon Page: Cover to Cover, I ordered a copy of Naomi Novik's "His Majesty's Dragon". I sat down with it last night and finished it [...]

Social Drinking

In recent years, I've been drinking a lot less than I used to, for a variety of reasons.  Health, finances, general acting-like-a-grown-up, stuff like that.  There have been some side effects, naturally – I have more money, get fewer headaches, and am generally a lot more pleasant to be around.
One of the unexpected side effects [...]

Second Life, and Golf

Yesterday, I had a bit of free time on my hands, so I walked over to a driving range near my apartment and put in the first practice of the season.  I tore up my hands and twisted up my back pretty badly, but the driving range itself is really cool.  
You buy a card [...]

Mucho Mojo

Joe R. Lansdale's Mucho Mojo came recommended from a good friend, saying that the central protaganists' relationship mirrored ours to some extent.
He's got a point. The two protaganists are friends who have obviously been through a lot together and even because of each other, yet constantly take snipes at each other. They even [...]

Scar Tissue

 
I stayed up all night reading Anthony Kiedis' Scar Tissue, an autobiography much more about one man’s coming to terms with his addictions than it is a book of being a rock and roll frontman.
The story is written in an engaging, conversational style, leaving the reader feel that a friend is telling them the story [...]

The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, was an incredibly fascinating read. Gladwell proposes that fads and trends are epidemic in nature and can be identified, launched, and even prevented.
The book is organized in classic style – section one deals with defining the Tipping Point and it’s [...]

Blogging the Bible

Occasionally, an internet meme will come around and catch me completely off-guard.
I have been reading Will Shetterly's re-write of the Bible at fatbible.blogspot.com since he began writing it in October of last year.  I have found it to be a very interesting way to look at the Good Book; a book I haven't sat down [...]

Killer Bunnies, Dude

Finally, we got our copy of Killer Bunnies!  Woot!
We were introduced to the game by friends of ours who brought it with them when they came for our wedding last September.  We had a great time learning to play the game and decided to buy our own copy.  
The problem, we found, was that the [...]

Veronica Mars

Another TV show that I was horribly late to the game on.  But what a great show.  Good characters, good stories, a bit of humor, a lot of drama, good music.  Makes me wish I was a teenager again, but only in a nostalgia way, not a real way, 'cause, like God, that would suck.
Anway.  [...]

Shopgirl

A couple of months ago, I watched the movie Shopgirl, starring Steve Martin and Claire Danes. It was a good movie, slow and subtle and interesting, so I picked up the book to read on the plane during my last trip back to the States.
The book, written by Steve Martin, was a delight.  It is [...]

Stadium Arcadium

 
This album sounds like the Chili Peppers finally let John Frusciante off his leash.  It just rocks.  Well, the first disc does anyway, the second disc is much slower, full of ballads and love songs that we're not too used to hearing from the Chili Peppers.  Where before we may have gotten one or two [...]

Pandora’s Star

Pandora's Star has kept me up reading far too late for the past several nights.  It's a fantastic book; it's got action, intrigue, politics, personal stories, and space battles all wrapped up in a neat, little sci-fi package.  Well, not little.  The paperback clocks in a just under 1,000 pages….
Peter J. Hamilton writes really good [...]

My Current Favorite Song

Colin Haye, formerly of Men at Work, has released a fantastic solo album that I can not find here in Japan or on the interwebnets. I may have to order it from Amazon Australia and that just irritates me.
Grrr.

I Should Be Writing

Mur Lafferty has a couple of great Podcasts.  I had been listening to Geek-Fu Action Grip for a while but only started listening to I Should be Writing recently.
She’s got a lot of great advice for writers and wanna-be writers. Some of it I even intend to follow.  For example, write a thousand words a [...]

Another Mid-Week Book Post

Recieved my copy of Roald Dahl’s “Going Solo” in the mail today and got halfway through it waiting for dinner to cook. It’s that enthralling. Dahl’s writing style is just as simple and clear in this auto-biography as it is in his fiction. The stories he tells are fascinating and provide a [...]

Quick Plug

My commuting time this week has been spent listening to Michael Palin’s “Around the World in 80 Days”. (You know, Michael Palin from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, that Michael Palin.) It was thoroughly entertaining and quite fun to listen to.
Next up is Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the [...]

Knife of Dreams

This one’s a lot better than the previous two. Lots more action and a lot less politics and it seems like the story is actually going somewhere this time around.

The Seanachai

The Seanachai is a podcast I’ve been listening to for about a month. It’s great. The author puts up a story every once in a while that’s usually funny, sometimes scary, always good.
What I especially like about it is that Patrick uses sound effects to accent the story; they always serve to further [...]