Yearly Archives: 2011

Stumbling on a Musical Gold Mine

Winter is historically my season for inspiration. Everything is dead or dying, cold and gray. It’s a blank slate for creativity and thought. I adore these months. My writing, drawing and music all come alive in the winter. I also listen to a lot more country music in the winter. This stems from spending winter months in Germany when I was in the service, being couped up in a barracks room with one other American guy, snowed in and unable to go anywhere, and all we listened to was country music. I love it.

I understand sometimes it gets annoying and begins to all sound the same. But I have very little respect for people who just automatically dismiss it as if none of it is worth listening to. “I listen to everything but country and rap.” Yeah, yeah, you’re too cool for school. So if this describes you, then you probably need not read on. The column ends here for the closed-minded. If, however, you have an ear for talent – whether or not you actually listen to country music, then read on, dear reader. I listen to everything. This even includes Tejano and Irish polkas in which cases I can’t even understand what they’re saying – so long as the music itself is tolerable and attractive.

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SpaceBrew Review: No Country for Old Men

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time – and frankly, the desire – to watch a movie. I’ve been reading a lot more lately, and what with having three kids who need what seems like almost constant attention until almost nine o’clock, it seems I never really have time. How, you might ask, do I have time to read, but not watch movies? Well, the answer is rather obvious if you ask me. Movies involve a lot more than just yourself. And not all movies I like to watch are rated PG or below.

Anyway, whatever supernatural forces favored me, the stars aligned, and I was finally granted a few hours to sit back and watch some good cinema. I chose No Country For Old Men. As always, my red-haired wife fell asleep after about forty minutes, leaving me to absorb the picture basically alone. Allow me to tell you what I thought.

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  • Reading time:4 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Insidious

I finally watched this film last night. I’ve been wanting to see it for a long time, and my daughter wants to see it too. So I needed to watch it so that I could screen it and see if it was going to be okay for her to watch it. Under supervision, of course. But yeah, I’ve been wanting to see this for some time. I love getting the cobbles scared out of me. And this was touted as being one of the most terrifying movies ever made. Well, it’s kind of hard to get my red-haired wife to agree to sit down in the dark with me and watch a scary movie – much less the scariest movie ever filmed. And oh, it has to be dark.

So I finally got the chance last night! I was so excited. I turned off the lights and got my couch all centered and up close, turned off the dryer and all of the walk lights in the house. Made sure it was nice and quiet. I wanted absolutely no breaks or attention thieves. I was going to get the ever loving holy horse dung scared out of me. Oh man, I have to tell you about this too. I had to force myself to stick with it. My red-haired wife had fallen asleep next to me with a blanket over her face. And I’m here to tell you friends, I literally had to force myself to finish watching it. Because it was so absolutely, horrifically, incredibly… stupid.

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SpaceBrew Review: The Wasp Factory

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

I enjoyed this book well. It was far different than anything I’ve ever read – which I’m sure most people who’ve read it will agree with – but not bad at all. If you’ve read any other reviews of this book, you know how violent and gruesome it is with animal cruelty and murder. Some people have said it makes them physically ill and they’re not able to finish it. I didn’t have that problem. I guess I’m desensitized from all my years of working on computers. Anyway, if you can fight through it, just tell yourself it’s fiction. It’s a book and nothing more. I think it’s worth reading.

My writing here will be vague and make references to events without spoiling any of the book. You can safely read my review without fear of losing anything in your reading of the novel.

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SpaceBrew Review: Dooms Day Book

I have so many things to say about this book. I’ve never really read anything like it. I do love time-travel tales. It follows that I love anachronistic situations, people getting stuck in a different time, and – well, just a bunch of bad schlit happening. This book has all that. I also rather enjoy tales set in medieval times, or the Middle Ages, as it were. I’m not, however, big on fantasy. You show me a dragon or a wizard, and I’ll show you how to set down a book so fast you risk injury to the wrist. Alas, this novel had nothing of the sort. This book was more like a National Geographic presentation about the Middle Ages.

I hesitate to say anything about what happens in the book for fear of the spoiler. It seems to be that every other review on the book sort of just expects you to know it though. The thing that perplexes me is that if Connie Willis had expected you to know the preliminary twist, why did she write so deeply into the book trying to add suspense and mystery over it? Why did she not just advertise it on the dust jacket? Well, I don’t know. But assuming you aren’t only going to read one review – my review – of the book, I’m going to have to go with the notion that you probably already know what the book was about, and that huge plot device that seems so carefully hidden by Connie yet so destructively advertised by every other reviewer I’ve seen. Further, if I don’t talk about it, then I really can’t tell you why I thought so highly of this story.

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There’s Got To Be A Better Place

I had a most peculiar experience in the men's room this afternoon. And I think I should tell you about it, because A) that's what I do here, and 2) you can get a good chuckle. There aren't very many times one can say he had a 'peculiar experience in the men's room' without getting funny looks, but trust me: this was great, and it had nothing to do with anyone soiling his pants. For once. It all started when I was in the men's room, sitting on the toilet. There was another dude in the second stall. These stalls are arranged where you can't see the feet of your neighbor unless you bend way down. And you don't want to do that, because your junk touches the water. So basically, I didn't know who it was in the other stall, and he certainly didn't know who I was. So…

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

Time Machine Status: Repaired

Some time ago, I requested your help with finding the cause of my failing Fonga Plug on my time machine. I’m sure you remember the column. It ended up not being the Reticulating Cockball Assembly, after all, and instead the Hyperflux Induction Modulator. And since you cannot buy one of those at Auto Zone, I had to craft one myself.

So I started with the basics. Of course you have to have the Hatford Loop. Without a Hatford Loop, your temporal course will never stabilize. You can literally get lost in the ether between seconds, trying to find your way back to 2254. I have heard horror stories about guys tearing off into the mezazoic period with a camera and a dream of photographing a dinosaur and turning up fossilized in the future. Don’t even ask.

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SpaceBrew Review: Slaughterhouse-Five

I have begun my endeavor to read a series of classic books, so that I can fully appreciate and understand the cultural growth and development the industry and art has undergone. I want to be weller read, to put it bluntly. So I bought the classic masterpiece entitled Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Let me first tell you the accolades that adorn this book’s jacket: it was ranked number 18 on the all-time most influential and best literary works of the last century. One of the best and most important books ever written. So clearly we’re not dealing with a lightweight here. And I also happened to luck into this one, as it just happens to be about time travel. I felt like reading this book would be like killing one bird with two stones! I was excited to curl up by my virtual fire with my new eBook Reader and delve into this imaginary world of time travel and literary prowess.

I should just go ahead and end the review there, because everything great I have to say about the book is just parroting what others have already said. But just like one can say the phrase “nice things about the IRS” no one can actually say nice things about the IRS. Yeah I said those great things about this book. But I was merely quoting. I don’t feel that way myself. And it’s a damn shame. I was so excited to participate in something so grand that so many millions of people have read! But here’s my little secret that I shall now share with you, dear reader: I think most people voted this book five stars because they’ve seen the ratings it already has. And they didn’t get it either. So as not to sound like a moron, or not seem intellectual, or – perhaps even more plausible – not to sound like they don’t ‘get it’, they jumped on the bandwagon. Clearly, ten hundred million people can’t be wrong! You didn’t think the book was a masterpiece? Well, aha! You just don’t get it.

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  • Reading time:8 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Comparing eReaders

I set out in search of a good eReader, hoping to facilitate the nessecary dwindling of my rather Brobdingnagian collection of hardback books. There are a lot of choices on the market today, but only a few rise to the top, leaps and bounds above the others. These three are the Kindle, the Nook and the Sony Reader. I shall therefore discuss the pros and cons of all three of these and tell you why I ended up choosing the one I did.

Firstly, I did not want a tablet device that runs Android. I don’t need another computer in the house. Good Greg, I’ve got a lot of mother cussing computers. And a tablet is like a waiter at a busy dolphin diner: it serves multiple porpoises. Sniff. I really just wanted something that reads ebooks, and that’s all. Nothing fancy, but something clean, sharp and comfortable.

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  • Reading time:7 mins read

The Summit of Mount Nerdly

It probably doesn’t come as any big surprise to most of you who know me that I call myself a geek. I am familiar with computers, one might say. I have dabbled in code and graphics design and network administration, internet systems, databases and even paintbrush. Heck, this very site you see in front of you was hand-coded from scratch to finish using nothing more than Notepad++ by yours truly. Meh. Not a large achievement there, but I’m proud of it. I like it. Anyway, I still do some things sometimes that make me step back and blink, and sometimes even go so far as to turn my head and frown, thinking, ‘Damn! I really am an insufferable geek. A ridiculously overboard, head-to-toe nerd to the highest power.’ This here’s one of them stories.

Let me back you up a little bit though, just for the sake of the journal. I took a computer lit and a computer programming class when I was in seventh grade. I did exceedingly well at both, as the language and theory just sort of “clicked” with me. It just made sense. The hot teacher, therefore, invited me back the next year to be her lab assistant. I wish this had some kind of awesome twist to it where I told you stories of being stuck in the lab alone with her on several long, late nights, but alas – nothing like that ever happened. Now my English teacher, on the other hand…

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