Better luck next time – oh, I see you had lots

I read Angels & Demons. I bought this on the recommendation of someone working in a bookstore 5 years ago. They said it was better than The DaVinci Code. When I started it the first time I had to put it down because of some flaws in the details, not the writing itself but the content. They aren’t big things, they aren’t things most people would know about or even care about, but they put me off the character and the author. Before the movie came out, my wife bought me The DaVinci Code as a diversion because boy did I need one. She also knows that I like to read the book before I see the movie. I read it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Dan Brown may not be remembered as a writer of great literature, so what, he can sure plot a thriller. And I like the main character. Well, I want his job, anyway.

Now that the movie of Angels & Demons is out, I needed to read the book. So I took my disbelief, suspended it, wrapped it in bubble wrap, sealed it with duct tape and locked it in a back room. It didn’t matter; it got loose and I could feel it reading over my shoulder. But once I got past my personal problems with the book I had fun. I don’t think it’s as tightly plotted as The DaVinci Code, but it is an earlier book. Assuming that I’m remembering the book and not the movie, The DaVinci Code had a more fully realized conflict and leaner plot – which is not to say that there weren’t some things that could have been edited. Though the more I think about, I think I am comparing the movie to this book.

I expect the movie version of this one to have the requisite changes to get the story on film but it should translate well. Go ahead and read Angels & Demons. My complaints are nitpicking in a very real sense.

Overall, easy to dance to with a good beat.

I feel almost human

My wife and I went out with a friend to see a movie yesterday. It was like being a real person. We have now broken our long-standing annual total of movies seen in one year. For 2009 our total is now 3! Yay!

We saw Star Trek. It was, in a word, fun. I expected some major changes – as you would need to do to make a movie of this sort where many pieces are reworked into a whole – and I have some complaints, but for now I’ll keep them to myself. They managed to get in all of the original main characters in a reasonable way which was not easy. The cast was very good, but for me there were two standouts.

I think Zachary Quinto nailed it as Spock. There was one moment there with a raised eyebrow and an expression where he absolutely channeled Leonard Nimoy. Karl Urban was also pretty darn good as McCoy. He just had the personality down. Oh, I almost forgot Simon Pegg. How could I do that? He was fun and exuberant and a little crazy. His attitude was pure Scotty.

I also loved the lines they threw in: I’m a doctor not a physicist. I’m givin’ you all she’s got. There might have been more, I forget. That was fun. At one point it got a laugh out of us at a tense moment, but it was too much fun to care.

Go see it.

Languishing car update

I have my car back. Much worse could have gone wrong in a year of being little more than a sculpture. It needed a new battery, brakes, oil change and a tuneup – plus a few ignition parts. Not bad considering, but it still cost about 35% more than I was hoping it would.

Oh well, at least it's a functioning automobile again.

On the expected unhappiness of yet to be reported events – or, Bleh

Some things just need to be done, no matter what the cost. Well, actually, it's just that some things have to get done even if you can't really afford them.

Last month I took my wife’s car in to check out a few problems. It needed a new catalytic converter. That did not make me happy.

Today I dropped my car off to find out just how much can go wrong when you don’t drive a car for a year because you can’t afford to get it fixed. I’ll find out tomorrow. Any bets on how unhappy this is going to make me?

Old words

While I haven’t been reading much, I realized that what I have read recently is old words: Rex Stout, Robert E. Howard and Isaac Asimov. I didn’t plan it that way. Of course the words are old because that’s just the way it is. It’s that the stories that are old, though except for the Asimov they were new to me (I reread Foundation and started on Foundation and Empire).

It gives me a view of the world from the authors’ perspectives. Howard looks back, Stout looks around and Asimov looks forward. I didn’t read these things looking for social commentary, I read them for fun. Sometimes the rest just happens on its own.

In the Nero Wolfe novel, it was just a few lines that were used to define the characters – very concisely and nicely sarcastic in one particular character’s voice. I got a glimpse of people from different backgrounds living through a time of change. For the novel, it tells you who the people are and how they fit together. For me, it shows me clues to where we came from and how our society got to where it is now.

I’ve only read the first story in a Howard anthology, so all I can see is a dramatically different style. It’s flamboyant, broad-brush, bold color characterization – well, dark colors in this one, but still rich. You have to be uninhibited to write like that. It’s fun and enticing.

Asimov is, well, Asimov, offering a calculated look at all of human nature as seen from the future. It’s the question of ‘where do we go from here?’ when the ‘here’ is the scientific maelstrom of the 1950s. Of course, science will show the way.

I did try some new stuff; I started a new fantasy novel at the end of last year, but I put that on the shelf. It’s entertaining, but long and not engaging. There just isn’t anything happening. I got halfway through a 700 page book, and if this is all a setup it better be for one heck of a payoff. I might not ever get to it though because I just don’t feel connected to the book. I figure I get credit for reading a book, though, since I’ve invested so much time and effort just to get to where I am.

I’ve been putting down books I just don’t get into, no matter what the reviews. I have a pile of books to sort through and old words to read.

Stockpiling, or maybe just piling things up

I have not been reading much lately. It’s been a combination of some of my medical problems and the fatigue associated with some of my other medical problems. I have also been going through some tests the insurance company required on top of the class I’ve been taking and it’s been all I could do just to get by.

Enough of that. I am going to try to reverse this abject decline in my consumption of fiction and non-fiction. Towards that end I am putting together a list from my to-be-read pile. Then I am going to attack it.

Wish me luck. I’m going in.

Culinary Literacy

I want a cookbook called There’s the Rub: BBQ in the works of William Shakespeare. I don’t think it exists anywhere but in my mind, but wouldn’t it be awesome if it did?

Motorcycle Insanity

I have nothing against motorcycles – except for the ones driven noisily down my residential not-a-through-street signed street. Really, I think they’re fine. I’ll probably never ride one because I don’t think it’s safe in my current condition, but that’s me. But sometimes I have to wonder about some of the people who do ride them.

I was coming home from my Mother’s yesterday, and as I neared my exit on the highway a half dozen motorcyclists entered the roadway from an on-ramp. Here is the scene. It is dusk, the road is pretty crowded, cars are entering and jockeying for an exit that comes up in less than a mile. The three lanes of high-speed traffic have to rearrange themselves to exit and those cars that enter the highway have to get out of the far right lane because that will become an exit very quickly.

Enter 6 motorcyclists who are speeding (OK, they’re not alone in that) and then cutting across lanes to get out of the exit lane. But they are not leaving enough room, they are cutting people off and they are passing between cars, not in lanes. They eventually spread out over three lanes – and then suddenly decide that they really did want the exit after all. Four of them start cutting back through traffic while one of them overshoots and makes it onto the shoulder to make a roundabout turn back onto the ramp. One rider misses the exit completely and by the cloud of smoke I thought he had wiped out but it was just smoke from his tires (I looked so I could call 911 if I had to). High speed panic braking in the center lane of a crowded highway is not my idea of safe driving.

I was paying close attention because I needed to get over into the exit lane. If I hadn’t been watching and anticipating their crazy riding, I could have killed 3 of the riders all while signaling and legally changing lanes. I didn’t really want to do that.

One of the reasons I’m posting about this is because I’m not sure that it qualifies as the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen by motorcycle riders on that same highway. The other contenders are 2 guys speeding down the same highway during a weekday evening rush hour. They’re in the running because they were popping wheelies in the middle lane.

I have seen some weird shit on that road.

And just a hint of mint

The Milky Way doesn’t taste like nougat. Scientists (you know, generic science guys in white lab coats or something) have discovered that the Milky Way Galaxy is just full of ethyl formate. Which means that the Milky Way tastes like raspberries. Apparently that’s the chemical that makes raspberries taste the way they do.

If you get the reference in the post title, well, then you know weirdly obscure things.

Forward, into the past

Actually, this is about moving forward, but I couldn’t resist that title. But first…

I am not the man I used to be.

Don’t worry, this isn’t really going to be one of those posts. In fact, I’m trying to move on. But, I am not the man I used to be and therein lies the source of the dilemma. I am not the man I used to be and I need to stop trying to be who I used to be but while I need to accept who I am now I also need to keep trying to get better so I need to face who I am in order to get past where I was but also move beyond where I am today. I am also looking to maintain my standing as a master of the run-on sentence.

I need to be who I am now and stop trying to reclaim the past. Then I can move on from here – which is really where you always start from anyway.