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After many weeks of doing nothing but going to work, watching TV, working out, shopping, and going to see movies, I started to get out and enjoy Portland again this week. A lot of the events that I bought tickets for weeks or months in advance are starting take place now.

On Wednesday I went to a Foster the People concert. FTP is my favorite new band over the past year or so. Their first album is one that I can listen to all the way through without skipping any songs. The concert was outside and the weather was perfect. There was lots of skin on display, and I love seeing lots of skin. A singer named Kimbra opened up. She was good. The next performer was Mayer Hawthorne, who I liked a lot better. He has more of a soul kind of sound. After a while the songs started to sound alike, but I definitely want to give him another listen. FTP was last, of course, and they were SO GOOD!!! They played most, if not all, of their first album and some songs I didn’t recognize. They left the stage without playing “Pumped Up Kicks”, so everybody knew there would be an encore. When they did play “Pumped Up Kicks”, they changed the ending to make it sound like a techno song. Great concert!

On Thursday night I went to see Aziz Ansari perform. He plays Tom on Parks and Recreation. A comedienne name Chelsea Peretti opened up. She was pretty good, but I was eager for Aziz to get on stage. His act was very funny! My favorite part was when he talked about meeting President Obama.

On Friday night, I went to see the 80s Room. I learned about this event from Brian. Basically, a PSU student started collecting 80s TV commercials. He categorized them and showed some of them that night. I actually recognized some and the jingles from a few others. It was a really fun snapshot of the 80s.

On Saturday night, I went to see Patton Oswalt. This was at the same place I saw Marc Meron. I think I went online and bought tickets the moment the show was announced. I was close for the Meron show, but this time I was right in front of the stage. It was great. Both the opening act (I can’t remember his name) and Patton Oswalt spoke to me during the show. I kept noticing them looking at me. Before the show when I had to sign my name saying that I received my tickets, I saw the names Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein, and Corin Tucker at the bottom of the list. Google them if you don’t know who they are. I didn’t get to look for them, but I overheard someone say they saw Fred Armisen. Awesome show!

I was so exhausted last night. I must really be getting old. I want to stay home every night for the next week, but I think I have stuff on my calendar.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I decided to read this a few weeks back when the trailer for the movie was released and I saw how excited everyone was about it. I’ve seen it listed on so many Facebook profiles under favorite books, but I had never been tempted to read it.

It’s a good book. It’s presented as a series of letters written by the main character, Charlie, to some unknown person. Charlie is a very introverted and feels lonely after the death of best friend. The letters chronicle Charlie’s first year in high school.

It’s was published by MTV in 1999 and I can see why a lot of young people like it. Give it a try.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a cool, fun, quick book this turned out to be!

I thought it was going to be crazy silliness, but the one is a lot more serious than I was expecting. What if all the tragedies in Lincoln’s life and the Civil War were caused by vampires? Now I want to read more about Lincoln just to see how much of this was real and how much was made up or changed for the book.

I’m excited to see the movie in a a couple of weeks.

Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework by Adam Freeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a great book for learning ASP MVC. It doesn’t baby you, but it does give many examples and tips.

I did skip over a lot of sections that I didn’t think I would need.

Maybe it would’ve gotten 5 stars if I were more interested in the subject matter.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started this book with The Sword and Laser a couple of months ago, but got way behind. I finally managed to finish it tonight.

It’s about an orphan boy (yet another orphan boy) who becomes a part of a group of thieves/con artists called the Gentleman Bastards. While they’re in the middle of one of their schemes, they get caught up in a power struggle in the criminal underworld. Bad things happen.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked how the story went back and forth between the past and the present. We learned a lot about the main characters by seeing glimpses of their pasts. I’m sure there’s more to learn, like one mystery that’s mentioned throughout the book, but not revealed to the reader by the end. I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking up the next book in the series, but not right away.

I really want to read something with wizards and soldiers soon.

The Hunger Games Tribute Guide by Emily Seife

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is okay. It’s really not worth reading unless you’re a big fan of The Hunger Games like me and just want to devour as much as you can.

The coolest part of the book is seeing pictures from the movie and seeing pictures of all the tributes, some of whom are unnamed. The guide doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know if you’ve read the books.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved loved loved this book! Once I started reading, it was hard to stop!

It’s about what it was like for black maids to work for white families in Mississippi in the 60s. I liked the 3 main characters whose point of views the story was told from. The chapters written in the dialect didn’t bother me, and that kind of thing usually does bother me. I like the way the story unfolds with a good mix of seriousness and humor. I got really nervous at times and couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen.

I know one of the reasons I enjoyed the book was that it’s set in and around my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. I recognized a lot of the areas that were mentioned. It sucks to think that things were that bad just 50 years ago. The story begins about 16 years before I was born. A lot has changed and a lot still needs to change.

It’s a great book. Check it out if you haven’t already. I’ll probably be watching the movie sometime this week.

HTML5 Cookbook by Christopher Schmitt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A good book. Well-written with helpful examples. It looks like they tried to make things a lot better with HTML5.

The book does a great job of explaining HTML5 features. It presents everything in the form of a problem and a solution. It shows features that are widely supported, features that are supported by some browsers, and features that aren’t supported by any browsers yet. You get workarounds for pretty much every feature just in case the user is using a browser that doesn’t support the feature.

Rule 34 by Charles Stross
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the latest Sword & Laser pick. It’s based around the Internet meme Rule 34 that says if it exists, then there’s a porn for it. The book is set in the near future in Scotland and there’s a police force set up to make sure people aren’t doing anything illegal in this regard. Overall, I thought the book was okay. It’s definitely not my favorite S&L pick.

Most of the book is told from the point of view of one of 3 main characters. As you get further into the book, more characters are introduced. Just like the A Songs of Ice and Fire series, the name of the point of view character for that chapter is at the beginning. The problem is that I didn’t care for most of the characters. And didn’t care for the author’s writing style either.

An odd thing about this book is that it’s mostly written in the 2nd person point of view. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book in this point of view before. Made up example: “You wake up. You get out of bed, take a shower, and put some clothes on. You grab your keys and head out the door.” Weird, isn’t it? The “you” isn’t the reader, it’s the point of view character for that chapter. I got used to it, and it didn’t bother me after a while.

Something that did bother me was the Scottish dialect/vernacular. I’ve always hated reading dialogue written in the vernacular because it’s makes for slow reading. In this book, there were words written in a Scottish accent and words that I didn’t know the meaning of. Annoying.

I suggest passing on this book unless you’re a fan of the author. I’ve heard that his earlier work is better, so check that out instead.

CSS: The Missing Manual by David McFarland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I got to refresh my memory and hopefully learn something new, which I did. It’s a good book. I didn’t read everything in detail, but I skimmed through the whole thing. The humor in this book wasn’t funny to me, but it’s easy to ignore it.