Scooter Chronicles

Last night I finished Guy Gavriel Kay’s “The Lions of Al-Rassan”. This is the second book that I have read by Kay (”Tigana” being the first), who has a reputation as a real wordsmith who is also excellent of ravelling a great tale together with great characters. This did not disappoint at all.

This is not your typical fantasy book. There is really no magic. The only thing that could be seen as such is one characters knack for knowing where and what his father is doing, and being able to feel the presence of his twin brother and mother as well. So the story is bascially historical fiction.

The setting is essentially...

Continue reading »

Didn’t do much at all this weekend. Marcia has had a migraine that started on Wednesday, stalled out, then came back on Friday. So given the rain and her not feeling well, we didn’t go to Pizza Night (which was another backyard BBQ). The migraine continued during Saturday and Sunday, so I just stuck with reading or trying to straighten up the house a bit.

Another night, another rental for Marcia and I. ; )

I wasn’t too sure about seeing “Starsky & Hutch” because they turned it into a comedy. I thought it was kind of disrespectful to do it that way. But then thinking about it, how could they really do it and it be taken seriously.

The thing that did help this was Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Now, they played the characters more like typical Stiller and Wilson characters. Though honestly it has been so long since I have seen the show, I don’t really remember what the characters were like anyway! But given the chemistry between the two, it made it an enjoyable...

Continue reading »

Another rental for Marcia and I, “Mystic River”. This highlights Sean Penn’s Oscar Award winning performance for Actor in a Lead Role, and Tim Robbins’ Oscar Award winning performance for Actor in a Supporting Role.

The movie is based around Sean Penn’s character Jimmy, who owns a convience store in the Boston area. His daughter is murdered, and throughout the investigation he is brought in contact with a boyhood friend Sean who is the investigating officer played by Kevin Bacon. The two of them along with Tim Robbins’ character Dave were involved in a strange event when they were 11 years old, where Dave was abducted.

The...

Continue reading »

Marcia and I rented this last night. We watched the “Director’s Cut”. One word response to the movie …. WOW! I am not much of an Ashton Kutcher fan. But when Marcia and I saw the trailer for this, it interested us.

It’s about a psychology student in college, who during his childhood had blackouts. It actually starts in his childhood, where you see him go into a situation, then are immediately cut to where he wakes up from the blackout. You the viewer are much like the character, Evan Treborn, left wandering what happened. From the time he was 7 years old though, a psychologists suggests that he keeps journals...

Continue reading »

OK, I have changed my “Currently Reading” link three times in the last two days. I originally started with Kevin J. Anderson’s “Hidden Empire”, which is book one of his “Saga of Seven Suns Series”. I bought it before I knew too much about him and his writing. Even after hearing the bad reviews and reading the “Jedi Academy Trilogy” myself, I figured I would give it a chance. But after about 30 pages (which was 8 chapters!), I gave up.

I then switched to Sean Williams and Shane Dix’s “The Prodigal Sun”, which is book one of their “Evergence Trilogy”. It interested me, but after 18 pages I just realized that I didn’t want to get into another...

Continue reading »

I finished Absolution Gap today. From previous posts it will be clear that Alastair Reynolds has become one of my favorite authors. He mixes hard sci-fi with space opera, and has seemed to make it work so well together.

AG is the last book of the loosely based trilogy that started with Revelation Space and continued with Redemption Ark. And where the first two books had developed some really cool characters and sent them through some incredible stuff, AG kind...

Continue reading »

Pizza Night last night was hosted by John and Kathleen Forte, but we didn’t have Pizza. From time to time we like to mix is up and do something different. And any time the Forte’s host, it is during warm weather and they do a cookout. Always is a great time. They have a smaller house, but wonderfully decorated (Kathleen is an amazing talent!). But they also have an beautifully landscaped backyard, which acts like an extension of the house.

The food was great as always; burgers, dogs, and some kind of sweet sausage, along with corn on the cob, beans, all kinds of great appetizers, and ice cream for dessert. And it was really, really nice how John, Kathleen, and other guests went out of their way to make sure I was...

Continue reading »

In celebration of their 30th anniversary, Rush did something that probably no other recording artist at the same point probably would have even considered. Release an EP of covers! Most bands would have released a box set or at least some kind of compilation. But given the history of Rush’s former record company Mercury, who have abused their rights to release their material with countless compilation, the boys decided on the fun approach. Go back and pay a bit of tribute to the music that they grew up honing their chops on and influenced their path to a musical career.

The first thing a release like this says is that there can’t be much ego here. After spending 30 years touring and recording, being given accolades...

Continue reading »

Got a good night sleep for the first time since my mishap. The problem has been just getting comfortable in bed. I have always been one to sleep on my stomach or one of my sides. And with the cast, it is not the best thing to be doing. It is either way too uncomfortable to do, or I worry about messing up the repair to the tendon by moving one way that will pull it.

But last night about 8:00 I took one of my perscribed painkillers and fell asleep quite easily. Then about 12:00, I woke up again and took another. This way I got a good 8 hours of sleep. I have not been able to sleep more than about 4 hours through the night. But I think just being drained from going to work again and getting about 3 hours of sleep the night before,...

Continue reading »