Scooter Chronicles

Work (Again)
Since posting the update on Tuesday, I have gotten three more leads, and one will be interviewing me on Friday. That one is in York. Of the two others, one of them is in about the same area, and then one is in south Jersey. I have had so many calls for jobs now in south Jersey, I am beginning to worry that they are all for the same employer. Most of these recruiters won’t tell you the name of the place until they are ready to interview you. We are scheduled to go to Michigan to visit family for the July 4th weekend. Don’t want to be overly optimistic, but maybe we will have to cancel the trip because I will have more interviews.

Hockey
Still stinging a bit from the Wings Game 7 loss in the Cup Finals. Though still loving the fact that the Wings have gone to the Cup Finals six times in the last 15 years. It is great to see ownership’s and management’s total commitment to putting together the best team they can. The best thing about this too is that the Wings continue to do it through the draft. Most of the core team that won back-to-back Cups in the late 90’s were draft picks. And the same thing can be said of the recent back-to-back trips to the Cup Finals.

Part of me is really hoping that the Wings and Pens return to the Cup Finals next year. I know it sounds strange to say this, but I think it would be great for the league. Having such a rivalry could only help boost viewership, even if other cities, where fans will hope their team can take down the perennial contenders.

Reading
It is took me some time, but I finally gotten back into the swing of reading, at least of a little bit. I have had some time recently to read more, and I haven’t had the urge to fall asleep. That’s not the fault of the books I have been reading. Just lack of sleep, and having my mind on other things. Lately too, any time I can find, I am usually online looking up job openings. And actually, the last couple of nights I have been preoccupied with that as well.

The book I am reading, “Iron Council” by China Mieville, is turning out to be good, but not as good as the two other books I have read by the author. But given the guy’s talent, that’s still saying a lot.

Idiot
Speaking of books, I have been fascinated by something that was brought to light recently. Have you ever heard of the book “The Kingdoms & The Elves Of The Reaches” by Robert Stanek? Even if you are a huge fan of fantasy, you probably haven’t heard of him and the book. What is amazing about it, is that at Amazon.Com, the book has 330 customer ratings, and 288 of them are FIVE STAR ratings!! Why have none of us ever heard of this incredibly loved book?

Found out this book is self published. Stanek actually has some 50 books, or more, that have been released. A lot of them have the same percentage of great reviews at Amazon. How can such a prolific writer, and apparently so well loved, go so unnoticed by the public? It has been reported that Stanek has created hundreds of identities at Amazon, and other rating sites, and continually rates his own books with a five star rating. A lot of these comments mention him as “the American Tolkien” or “the American C. S. Lewis” and say how these books are so much better then Harry Potter and other young adult fantasy series that are out selling Stanek’s books. On top of this, he is using these identities or others, and rating other up-and-coming fantasy authors books with one star ratings and usually adding the comment “This guy is rubbish, if you want to read real fantasy, go read Robert Jordan, George RR Martin and Robert Stanek!” Fantasy fans will know that Jordan and Martin are rather highly touted and very well known (even if Jordan has a large amount of detractors, too). Then end all of this, is that Stanek apparently has gotten Amazon to take down some of the negative reviews on his books for one reason or another.

I don’t want to go into more. I am just amazed that this kind of thing can happen. I try, so very hard, not to let the reviews on Amazon swing me into buying something. This only proves the point of being careful, no matter what the reviews might be. If you want to take the time to read more about this debacle, you can go to Google and type “Robert Stanek Fraud” and it will lead you to some interesting reading.

Blogs
So I have added two blogs to my blogroll and updated one.

The first new one is “Third String Goalie”, a blog from Jeff, a member of a sports logo forum I hang out at. It’s the same forum that hosts the fantasy Aussie rules football league I am in. He has quite a collection of hockey jerseys. Jeff and I talked a bit about five years ago via private messages at the site regarding our collections, and where to find pictures of the Cleveland Barons’ jersey so I could have mine crested correctly. Still haven’t done that yet either.

Then there is “Bookmarked!”. The young lady behind the blog goes by the name of Blooey, though I know here as Sumthinblue from BookMooch. I requested a book from her, a hard to find book, and thankfully she did me the honor, since she lives in the Philippines. She reads a lot of book, and I do mean A LOT. What is really funny is her posting pictures of herself reading almost anywhere she goes.

The updated one is Renay’s. She moved her blog again. She is now on DreamWidth.