Longklaw.com

These are going to be short and sweet from now on if they weren’t already.

The Colorado Kid by Stephen King. I only read this book because the new Syfy series Haven is based on it. From the Haven previews, I think it’s only going to be loosely based on the book. Almost the entire book consists of these two old journalists telling their intern a story about an unsolved mystery that happened years earlier. Reading it made me remember why I don’t read Stephen King anymore. Something about his writing style gets on my nerves. I advise passing on this one and just watching the TV show. I read this book using the Kindle apps on my iPhone and my work PC. It’s the first time I’ve read a book that way.

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis. This was another Sword and Laser pick. It was interesting. Think alternate history WWII with super-powered people that use batteries to power their abilities. I love alt history and I love superpowers and they go pretty well together in this book. I wasn’t really into the beginning and the end, but I really enjoyed the middle. When I started getting close to the end I could tell that this was the first in a series. I later found out that it is the first in a trilogy. If I had known that before I started, I may have waited to read it. At this point, I’m not sure if I’m going to finish the trilogy.  Maybe if I had the other two to read right away I would’ve been more likely to continue.

• Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself
• Joe Abercrombie, Before They Are Hanged
• Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings
• Go, Mutants: A Novel, Larry Doyle
• Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
• Incarceron, Catherine Fisher
• American Gods, Neil Gaiman
• The Law of Nines, Terry Goodkind
• The Associate, John Grisham
• The Fourth Hand, John Irving
• The Colorado Kid, Stephen King
• The Stormcaller, Tom Lloyd
• The Day Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• The Twilight Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• The Final Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
• Busted Flush, George R.R. Martin
• Suicide Kings, George R.R. Martin
• Kraken, China Mieville
• The Final Crusade, Chaite Naasiri
• Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, Bryan Lee O’Malley
• Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World, Bryan Lee O’Malley
• Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness, Bryan Lee O’Malley
• Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Bryan Lee O’Malley
• Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 5: Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe, Bryan Lee O’Malley
• Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, Bryan Lee O’Malley
• The Darker Mask, George Phillips
• The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson
• The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson
• The Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson
• Towers of Midnight, Brandon Sanderson
• Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
• Bitter Seeds, Ian Tregillis
• The Dragonbone Chair, Tad Williams
• Stone of Farewell, Tad Williams
• To Green Angel Tower, Tad Williams

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.

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.

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.

When I was in college I downloaded a lot of stuff from the Internet using file sharing programs. I hope that saying this here isn’t going to get me in any trouble 🙂 . I downloaded music that way if I wanted to get only one song instead of the full album. I downloaded movies and TV shows. I even downloaded games where you had to get 30-something zip files, unzip them all, and then run a program that would combine the pieces into 1 game.

Now that I have a full-time job and I’m making decent money, I don’t do that anymore. I don’t really have the time or patience. I don’t leave my computer running all the time. Even when I tried to leave it running more so that stuff could download, it would take days or even weeks for it to finish. Why wait hours for a TV show when I can pay $2 and download in less than half an hour or instantly if I’m streaming? Also, when I’m at work and a song pops into my head I’m not going to start up a file sharing program and look for it. I go to Amazon MP3 or iTunes and get it there. The only time I might make an exception is when I check all my legit sources (Amazon MP3, iTunes, Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, Xbox Live, DirecTV on Demand, etc) and still can’t find it. That’s pretty rare these days and if it’s a TV show I’ll delete as soon as I’m finished. I have reformed.

With DVRs and the Internet, we can watch TV shows whenever we want to. We’re not forced to sit down in front of the TV at a certain time on a certain night to watch out favorite shows. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

One thing you have to be really careful about is spoilers. Nobody really likes to be spoiled when it comes to shows that you watch, especially popular shows with big mysteries like LOST and Battlestar Galactica. We want to find out for ourselves what happened.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the articles I read online have carefully worded headlines that don’t give anything away. Also, on podcasts that I listen to they are usually carefully about not giving away spoilers or putting them at the end so that people can avoid them if they like. If there are spoilers contained within these articles or podcasts, there is usually a spoiler warning. Fortunately, avoidance of giving spoilers doesn’t last forever. After a certain amount of time people feel that it’s okay to talk about the important developments in an episode and it’s not their fault if someone hasn’t seen it yet. Depending on the source that amount of time could be a few days, a few weeks, a few months, etc. I don’t like getting spoiled, but it’s not that big a deal and I’m over it in a second.

My problem is with spoilers on Twitter. Whenever a big show like Heroes or LOST comes I see at least one person warning everyone not to spoil anything or scolding someone who gave away a big plot point. Yes, I do understand that West Coast viewers see everything 2 hours after we do and some people choose not to watch live anyway. But still. Twitter is all about the conversation, but I can’t talk about this show that I’m so excited about that I’m taking the time to watch it and watch it live and that. I hate being peer pressured into anything.

I’ve seen Twitter described as the tech watercooler. Haven’t TV shows traditionally been watercooler conversation topics? It seems to me like you shouldn’t hang out around the watercooler if you don’t want to have anything spoiled. If you go into the break room/kitchen at work and people are talking about an episode that you haven’t seen, would you tell everyone to shut up because you don’t want to be spoiled? I don’t think so. I think this may be another situation where people behave differently on the Internet than they do in real life.

I don’t remember spoilers being as big of a problem in the VCR days. Those tapes could only hold a few hours so you couldn’t wait too long to watch what you recorded before you needed that space back. And technological changes in general have made it easy now to watch an episode when you want and get spoiled before you watch it.

It’s just frustrating that when I’m most excited about a TV show episode, I can’t talk about it. As much as I want to blurt out plot points sometimes, I don’t out of politeness. Maybe some Twitter client out there will implement a filter where users can enter keywords (LOST, the hatch, Oceanic 6, etc.) and not receive tweets can contain those keywords. Maybe there is one already.

For the first week and a half or so of the Olympics I was really into it. Now I’m getting tired of it. I still leave it on in the background, but I’m usually not paying attention to it. Congratulations to all the winners, but I’m ready for you to be off my TV.  I call upon the youth of the world to go home so I can watch Heroes, Chuck, Life, The Office, etc. I’m also ready to get back on a normal sleep schedule.

There was this one commercial for a lawyer in Tupelo that came on almost every commercial break during the first week or so of the Olympics. It’s so bad that it’s funny and if you see it enough it gets stuck in your head.

It turns out that this commercial ripped off another commercial, which I think is done better.

So The Wheel of Time is finally being made into movies. This isn’t as exciting to me as it would have been 5 or 6 years ago, but I’m still glad. I think The Eye of the World and the next 1 or 2 should get their own movies, but after that they should start combining books. In some of those later books, not much happens….

That’s probably why the one season per book TV show thing wouldn’t work like they’re doing with A Song of Ice and Fire and The Sword of Truth. Speaking of The Sword of Truth, its series starts up in November.