My latest food-based obsession is Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution on ABC. Apparently, Jamie Oliver was The Naked Chef. A few years ago, he started a campaign in Britain to bring healthy food to get rid of all the unhealthy food in the schools. He’s had success over there and now he’s brought his campaign to America. The TV show is set in Huntington, WV, which was named the unhealthiest city in the United States.
Yes, it’s a TV show and they are trying to make an entertaining show, but what the show did for me was make me want to eat better foods. I’ve started eating more fresh food and not so much fast food. I ordered his book, Jamie’s Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals, and I’ve tried a few of the recipes. I like the simple, delicious, and affordable part. They need to be simple because unless it’s a weekend, I’m not going to want to spend a long time preparing meals. Affordable is great as well. I don’t want cooking at home to be a lot more expensive than going out to eat. Delicious is a given. The recipes I’ve tried so far have been delicious. It’s fun eating foods prepared differently from the way I’m used to doing it.
Anyway, I’m enjoying the show and it’s motivated me to eat better. There are 6 episodes and they were on Hulu the last time I checked.
I’ve been a fan of Conan O’Brien since I was in high school. When I used to stay up late at night, I watched him on a lot on Late Night. Over time, I didn’t get to see him as much because I was going to bed earlier or doing other things. When he took over The Tonight Show, I watched whenever he had someone on that I was interested in. I was highly disappointed when The Tonight Show was given back to Leno.
When I heard recently that Conan might be going on tour, I knew I wanted to go if it came anywhere nearby. Yesterday, the tour dates were announced. It took a few minutes to get on the site because of all the traffic, but once I got in I knew that I would either go to Atlanta, Manchester (TN), Dallas, or Austin. I’ve been to Atlanta recently and I’ll be going again soon. The Tennessee show is during Bonnaroo. When I go to Bonnaroo for the first time, I want to stay for the entire festival and it seems like I should’ve already started planning for Bonnaroo if I were going there. Also, both of those shows are in June and I wanted to go sooner. I ended up picking Austin over Dallas because I still want to see Austin and I didn’t get to go last year like I wanted to. It would take something major to stop me this time. It’s on May 14 and I hope nothing at work comes up in that short of a time. The tickets are paid for and the hotel room is booked. I’ll finally get to see Texas for the first time.
I haven’t read much over the past few months. I blame it mostly on The Wire, Doctor Who, and Torchwood. Here’s my list for 2010. I know I won’t finish them all this year, so this is probably more of a 2010-2011 list. The one I’m working on now is at the top of the list.
Just a little something because I haven’t written in a while.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been watching an HBO show called The Wire. I tried to watch the first episode twice when it first came on back in 2002, but I got bored early on. I heard so many people say good things about it over the years that I knew I would give it another try someday and stick with it. I’m glad I did. It’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
The Wire is a crime drama set in Baltimore. Each of the 5 seasons focuses on 1 aspect (the drug trade, the educational system, the media, etc.) of Baltimore, but there are characters and storylines that carry over from season to season. I don’t know how many nights I stayed up way too late watching episodes. I kind of want to go back and watch it again. The only small complaint is that they use some non-professional actors. Some were real policemen, politicians, etc. I cringed a little sometimes when they were on screen because it can take you out of the scene a little.
There is plenty to like about The Wire. The writing. The realism. The fascinating detective work. The funny moments. If you get a chance, you should watch it.
2009 was a pretty good year. It was much better than 2008, which was a shitty year for me. I’m hoping for even better in 2010. The only complaint about 2009 was that work got a little too crazy at times mostly due to outside factors. I’m not going to complain too much, because crazy is better than boring.
I’ve probably given more to charity this year than all previous years combined. I have given to: Autism Speaks, The American Red Cross, The Humane Society, and The Andy Roddick Foundation.
I didn’t get a lot of electronic gadgets this year. The biggest one I got was an iPhone. It is the best gadget ever.
The place I’m living in now was supposed to be short-term. I should be out of here when my lease runs out in July. I don’t like the place. I don’t like the neighborhood. I don’t like not having a fenced yard. I’m going to start looking for something soon.
The decade is also ending tonight. This decade I’ve had the best times of my life and the worst times of my life. Of course, I’m looking to make things better in the next decade.
Right now I’m enjoying another quiet New Year’s Eve at home with the dog. I’m finishing my Lord of the Rings re-watch today as is tradition. I used to watch the New Year’s Eve stuff on TV, but not anymore. Who knows what I’ll be doing tonight. Maybe next year I’ll go out somewhere.
I really enjoy these 2-week Christmas breaks we get every year. I know the dog likes having me around more. I spent the first few days working on a few projects but since then I’ve been in full enjoyment mode.
I went to Jackson for Christmas, but stayed for only a day. Once again I just wanted to be in my own home and the dog was unhappy being cooped up. I didn’t have a lot of Christmas spirit this year until Christmas Eve. I’ve enjoyed having a low-key year in terms of holidays and not doing much to celebrate. Next year I think I want to start some of my own traditions. Maybe I’ll do that traveling thing I keep telling myself I’m going to do. One of these years I want to spend Christmas in my home even if I have to buy tickets for everyone.
Once again there weren’t a lot of gifts because people didn’t have money to spend. I know Christmas isn’t all about getting presents, but I do miss getting presents. I like being surprised. Maybe things will be better next year. What did I get?
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 on blu-ray
A new wallet to replace the one I accidentally washed a while back
Dexter coasters (early present that I got a few months ago)
I did buy myself some CDs, clothes, video games, and blu-rays. Every time I tried shopping for others, I found good deals on stuff that I wanted for myself. I’m going to get good use out of everything.
I had a pretty good Thanksgiving break. I really needed that. For the first time in a while I had a weekend that didn’t fly by way too fast, but that’s probably because it was over twice as long as normal.
This was only the 3rd Thanksgiving that I can remember where I didn’t go back to Jackson. I was kind of glad when I saw how many people on Twitter were stressing out over cooking and relatives and what not. Also, I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of boarding the dog somewhere. I wish we had some real kennels around here. It’s good to spend a break doing only what I wanted to do. I even went an entire day without seeing another human being.
What did I do?
caught up on all the stuff on my DVR
finished the Babylon 5 re-watch that I started last year
did some shopping and bought stuff for me and the dog
played video games
After 3 more weeks of work, I get a 2 week break. I’m ready for another break.
The first one was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I became interested in it because the movie is coming out in December and Peter Jackson made the movie. The story starts in 1973 and it’s about a teenage girl that was raped and murdered by a neighbor. She’s up in her own personalized heaven, which she calls “my heaven”, and watches over her family and her killer over the next several years. She can’t directly affect anything on Earth, but there are times when people see her or feel that she’s near. The book is mostly about her family and friends as they deal with their grief over losing her. It’s very melancholy at times. It’s a pretty good book, but I’ll probably like watching as a movie more than liked reading the book.
The second one was Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer. Sawyer is the guy that wrote Flashforward. For some reason I thought this was a sequel to Flashforward, but it’s not. It takes place about 40 years in the future. In 2009 (their past), we received a transmission from aliens and we sent a response. This book is centered on the response they sent to our response. An extremely rich guy, who is a major benefactor to SETI, wants the woman who translated the original message to work on the new message. She and her husband are in their 80s now and don’t think they have much time left. The benefactor pays for her and her husband to have a rejuvenation procedure, which is called a “rollback”. They decide to reverse their bodies back to age 25. The procedure works for her husband and not for her. The book focuses on her struggling to decrypt the code and him trying to adjust to being young again while having a much older wife. You do see a lot of flashbacks to back when she was working on the original 2009 message. I didn’t like those parts as much. It’s a pretty good book overall. Short and sweet.
Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself
Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged
Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks
Pearl Jam is releasing their new album called Backspacer on September 20 (a Sunday), which is less than 2 weeks away. Of course I’m excited!!! The video for the first single, “The Fixer”, has been on iTunes and Youtube for a couple of weeks now and I can’t stop listening to it.
Earlier this year they were saying this album could end up sounding a lot different than their other ones. Judging by the few songs I’ve heard so far, that could be true. Eddie’s experience with making the Into the Wild soundtrack may have had a little influence on the way it sounds. They made it sound like the lyrics on this album were more straightforward, without all the multiple meanings. I like that. Simplicity can be good.
Take a look at the video. They’re getting so old now :).
I first became interested in Flashfoward by Robert J. Sawyer when I heard that it was going to be made into a TV series on ABC this fall. I heard that it was a good book and wanted to read it before the series came on.
Real life for a minute: Have you heard about the Large Hadron Collider over in Europe? It was supposed to go online last year, but didn’t because of some technical issue. The purpose of the device is to create conditions that existed shortly after the big bang so they can observe some kind of particle. Some people were concerned about this experiment because they feared it could create a black hole that would cause the end of the world. If you haven’t heard about the LHC, you can read about it here.
Back to the book: it was written in 1999, but it’s set in 2009. A group of scientists are firing up the Large Hadron Collider. At the exact second that the experiment starts, everyone blacks out. By everyone I mean the entire planet. The blackout lasts for 2 minutes. During this time everyone gets a 2 minute glimpse into their own future in the year 2030.
There was some chaos caused by the incident. People blacking out behind the wheel, pilots blacking out in the air, etc. Some were upset by the damage caused and the lives lost. For the most part, however, the world was happy to have had the visions. Some saw stuff in the future that they didn’t like and of course wanted to change it. There was a lot of debate about whether everyone saw a possible future or a fixed future. That debate gets resolved later in the book. Eventually, the scientists were able to figure out exactly how it happened.
There were a few times when the book briefly got bogged down in physics, but I just glossed over those sections. I hate physics. Overall, it would a great book and I recommend it to scifi fans. I’m even more excited about the TV series now.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks
Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, Stanislaw Lem
The Stormcaller, Tom Lloyd
The Day Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
The Twilight Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
The Final Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
Inside Straight, George R.R. Martin
Busted Flush, George R.R. Martin
The Final Crusade, Chaite Naasiri
The Darker Mask, George Phillips
Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling
The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson
The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson
The Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson
A Memory of Light: The Gathering Storm, Brandon Sanderson
I’ve been a fan of Conan O’Brien since I was in high school. When I used to stay up late at night, I watched him on a lot on Late Night. Over time, I didn’t get to see him as much because I was going to bed earlier or doing other things. When he took over The Tonight Show, I watched whenever he had someone on that I was interested in. I was highly disappointed when The Tonight Show was given back to Leno.
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