Crazy Guy on the Veldt

Mondo Marcos

2011-02-28T15:24:00.002+08:00

Mondo Marcos: mga panulat sa Batas Militar at ng mga Marcos babies edited by Frank Cimatu and Rolando B. Tolentino

Gorramn me but I don't know where to start. I'm hardly a Marcos baby, I was 5 during the People Power Revolution (or maybe I am) and was too busy reading Pinocchio and the Little Red Hen to notice much. I suppose I can be considered a post-Marcos Baby(...a Cory Baby? that doesn't sound right, or relevant right now) I do remember playing in the street and when several truck loads of soldiers went by (they were supposed to be suppressing rebel activities in the katian near our town) and my young sister and me shouting out "People Power, People Power!" and waving the Laban sign at them with our hands before being rather rudely snatched and hidden away from the street by our relatives.

Anyway.

Living during that time is difficult to imagine now and it's not a subject you can just easily broach with the random acquaintance, therefore I am not going to attempt to review this book in that light. I can't. I didn't exactly lived through it.

Divied up between Short Story, Essay, and Poems these are all written about, and by people who lived through, the Marcos Regime. Of all the various bits, I enjoyed all but a few of the poems which I found rather incomprehensible, my fault really as I couldn't relate.

Right at the start, the short story "Kulto ni Santiago" by K.S. Cordero one is jolted out of any preconception of what the book is about. I think that having that as the first offering shows uncommonly good taste (I can not believed I just wrote that...something you'll understand after reading the story) in that people who approach the book loaded with preconceptions are quickly disabused.

The short stories are quite good; poignant, highly visual, charged emotionally, nostalgic but it's really the essays that should really pull one in, these are actual accounts (well, recounts) of what people went through in that most interesting of times. These are individuals, people who fought, or merely strove to survive. If nothing else than for their sake one must read this book.

So, highly recommended? Absolutely. A must read? Extremely so. Will you enjoy it? Depends on which side of the fence you're at, but (I think and surely do hope that) even the most rabid Marcos Loyalist will find it hard not to sympathize with the people in these stories.

Reportage of Crime

2011-02-28T14:35:00.003+08:00

Reportage of Crime by Quijano de Manila (Nick Joaquin) sub-titled Thirteen Horror Happenings That Hit the Headlines (did it really? I don't have the book right now but gorramn those are a lot of capital letters) is my 3rd Anvil-book-from-Anvil. (yeah I'm dubbing these books from Anvil as Anvil-book-from-Anvil)

Generally I find it a bit iffy to review anthologies due to the simple fact that sometimes the parts just don't live up to the whole...or vice-versa. It's no different here...the being-iffy part not the living-up-to-the-whole/parts part.

RoC shows much more than the title expresses, it's more than crime, more than just Horror Happenings, more even than just simple reportage. This book is a slice of us, of contemporary Filipino life and culture in the 60's. It's our flawed mishmash of catholic religion/Traditions and pre/post hispanic superstitions, our eagerness for social climbing and our shun of those who fall. We have our tribal mentality our "provincialness" and our single minded eagerness for the new and the "modern". It's our love for the lore of the past and our disdain for (and failure to) maintaining a sense of our own history. We have the youthful open mindedness and liberalness against our adherence to the male dominated traditional version of "family". It's our habit of clawing people down and yet standing by them no matter what.
...
It's a very good read, hardly putdownable, it's a perfect blend of light-treatment-of-heavy-material and heavy-treatment-of-light-material.
...
What we have are vine-leaf-sized (alright, I know most of them are vastly more than vine-leaf-sized but I hadn't the heart to put down cabbage-leaf-sized instead) stories culled from the sensational headlines of the decade, embellished by the unique and singular skill of the author into something permanently relevant historically and culturally.

Several Quickies

2011-02-28T13:18:00.003+08:00

Ahh, the revered art of "reviewcastrinating", easy to do but difficult to master. Here's me doing a fair go at it. In no particular order except chronologically:

World Without End by Ken Follet.
Imminently enjoyable. I enjoyed Pillars of the Earth, and this sequel sustains that enjoyment. There hasn't been a book yet wherein I dearly wanted to get a hold of the characters and just slap them silly for their choices...this makes me want to do just that. Extremely enjoyable but absolutely infuriating.

Doctor Who: (oh and if you're wondering...I reviewed these from the bottom up)

Inferno by Terrance Dicks

The Third Doctor and poor old Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, science gone amok, (again, science really should get a better grip of itself) man vs Nature, alternate realities, really ugly mutants and wonky thermodynamics.

The Ambassadors of Death by Terrance Dicks

The Third Doctor and poor old Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in a first contact story. Among all the myriad characters in all the books, I like the staid and proper Brigadier most of all...next only to the Fourth Doctor, of course.

And The Image of the Fendahl by Terrance Dicks

Hooray, another Fourth Doctor adventure against something uncannily Lovecraftian.

And The Crusaders by David Whitaker

or The Crusade. The First Doctor in 12th century Palestine, The Lionheart, Saladin, and courtly intrigues. The Doctor's companion is kidnapped and made a harem girl of a cruel Moor. Good stuff.

Planet of Fire by Peter Grimwade

The Fifth Doctor picks up a hitchhiker on Lanzarote and, with Turlough and Kamelion, proceed to Sarn where Thurlough faces his past. With 3 companions, you just know that they're going to get rid of someone and at the end Turlough leaves and the Doctor destroys Kamelion out of mercy. Oh, and the Master is up to his usual shenanigans...but dies or at least appears to.

The King's Demons by Terence Dudley

The Fifth Doctor and companions in the court of King John of England. The Master against Magna Carta and a new companion: the shape changing android Kamelion.

And The Giant Robot by Terrance Dicks

The Fourth doctor (jelly babies, scarf, and all) perhaps my favourite of all the reincarnations in a staple sci-fi...err..staple. Giant robots and science gone amok with a dash of King Kong thrown in for good measure.

The Smugglers by Terrance Dicks

The First Doctor on a jaunt in 17th century Cornwall; squires, pirates, smugglers

The Twin Dilemma by Eric Saward

I don't like this new Doctor (the Sixth) but I must admit that his moods makes for compelling reading.

The World Swappers by John Brunner
It's a John Brunner, mate, it's good and you should read it. A (hostile) first contact scenario, supermen as only science fiction can make them, a solution to it all with all the hallmarks of science and logic behind it.

Folklore in America edited by T.P. Coffin and H. Cohen
Profit: "As a result, America has been and is now producing a mass of sub-literary, popular material that masquerades as a product of oral tradition, even though the people who can't, don't, or won't read know little of it or care less."

The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
Dated and it shows but compelling nonetheless. The subject matter (not to say that the Author's skill has nothing to do about it) lends itself very well to thoughtful, image rich, and just plain beautiful lines. The Author's craft shows in how well, and easy to pick up she presents the material.

The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective by Carl Sagan
A must read, it may be dated but a mystery is still a mystery and nothing can be more mysterious than those in the outer darkness. It is in a word; Fascinating. the final 3 parts of the book: Starfolk is nothing short of good literature. We are Starfolk, the children of stars and although you might have heard it said and explained before, I dare say that you won't find a more eloquent and inspiring treatment of it than Mr. Sagan's.

Reading Experiment

2011-02-28T13:02:00.002+08:00

It is now the end of February, for the past month I have been conducting an experiment on meself.

Premise: I am more than capable of existing without reading science fiction
Procedure: Limit my reading to anything not science fiction
...
Conclusion: Failure to thrive.

That's right, objective observation reveals that I get to a right foul mood without my esef. Now that may be fun on occasion (especially directed against certain individuals of my acquaintance) but nastiness like the one I've been generating may just eventually get me tarred and feathered ( good thing said individuals have no clue where to procure a suitable amount of said pyrolytic wood product for derisive decorating purposes)

Result: I'm going back to esef.

It's my niche and I fully intend to entrench myself in it...no matter how many bad science fiction books there are.

That being said, I'm not going to attempt to read only science fiction...that route leads to madness, and I should know.

Street-Bound: Manila on Foot

2011-01-08T12:22:00.004+08:00

Another book from ANVIL was Street-Bound: Manila on Foot by Josefina Manahan.

This was a not so random pick. I love to walk. My resume' includes; walking from Monumento to Blumentritt, a sweaty hike from SM North to UP Diliman, several forays from Blumentritt to Recto, leisurely strolls from Blumentritt to Rizal Park(yeah, no prize as to guessing where I live).

The book is well written, and following the author in and around Manila is easy. The narration is pretty straight forward; "turn right at", "now walk straight ahead to", "you should now be at"and the locations are easy to locate in the cute maps included (they look like the maps I scribbled when I began walking in Manila). The recounting of anecdotal reminiscence and the mention of particularly memorable ( to the author) people adds a certain folksy charm to the book.

But sadly...

I had heard that the book was outdated. I did not expect it to be painfully so. In some places the Manila described is so far removed from the Manila now that the author may well be speaking of Manila under the Spanish. In some cases following the author's narration along the major streets of present Manila left me with a distinct sense of "this couldn't be it". Partly, I think the fault lies in the author, at times she was brilliant...she captured a fleeting glimpse...a mood, a sense of places with deep historical significance for people who should have recognized that sense of history. Which just serves to create an expectation that those places may still be there...hidden away.

Sadly, politicians, businessmen, developers (and perhaps to a certain extent...certainly we too) just don't give a damn.

I just know that what little is left of the Manila 10 years ago may be gone 10 years from now. In that case, if you're like me you'd be thinking "I should try and see all of what's left". And so the book accomplishes exactly what the author set out to do...inspire people to walk in and around Manila.

Banana Heart Summer

2011-01-08T11:40:00.005+08:00

Banana Heart Summer a novel by Merlinda Bobis is not just good...it's your-lola's-adobo-when-you-don't-expect-it-but-you-kind'a-really-needed-a-pick-me-up good. I'd like to really thank Honey P. for this unexpected 253-page delight and to think, I just randomly picked it up from a pile of free ANVIL books offered during a book meet. Thanks Honey P. and ANVIL.

I don't know if the book is autobiographical but it certainly is a coming-of-age book, but anyway...

The book is a slice in (of?...from?) the life of a Bicolana girl, Nenita and the peculiar goings-on of a (not-so?) typical backwoods barrio during the, I guess mid or late 1960s. Page after delectable page we see life unfold for Nenita and her family, their friends, and neighbors. In every chapter Nenita sees the people around her, their lives, hopes, and dreams. She equates them or draws parallels to them with the wholesome and earthy food of the Filipino countryside, in most she even gives the recipe and instructions on how to prepare them. The truly great thing is that all this fits, the talk about food does not detract or distract from the commonplace quirkiness that is typical (I assure you) of a quiet small town in the probinsya. In and around this is a solid, provoking story of this probinsyana and how she did good and took care of her family.

For me, this book has everything, kumpletos recados 'ika nga, there's just enough tragedy, comedy, wry introspection, cultural observation, intrigue, folksy wisdom, etc. to provoke that sweet sense of nostalgia for something tip-of-the-tongue familiar and very much Filipino.

The Return of the Time Machine

2010-12-29T20:42:00.009+08:00

A small, innocuous looking book with high aspirations that, sadly, doesn't even come close to meeting them.

The blurb at the back claims that the book was only recently discovered: moldering away in relative obscurity as a limited edition in Germany since 1946 until it was "discovered" by DAW Books and reprinted in 1972.

The editorial introduction reveals a couple of things: that Wells' himself may have read the book, and that the correspondence between Friedell and Wells that serves as the opening for the book may have actually took place. All of which just serves to whet the appetite and sadly makes the book that much greater a disappointment. We are left with the tantalizing possibility that Wells himself may have read and indirectly collaborated with the author in this "sequel".

Wow...it's...it's... canon !

And that is why the books is such a disappointment, it could have been so great...it would have been like finding a long forgotten scroll titled Odyssey II: Polyphemus Strikes Back in a cave somewhere...it had that chance.

1st thing...when you're undertaking to write a sequel to such a great (even then) story, one doesn't begin by undermining the character of the author of the original. The "correspondence" which opens the story consists of Friedell writing like any fanboy to the object of his obsession.

To paraphrase: OMG your such a great author, I'm an author too can I get your autograph and do you mind reading and providing input on this story idea I have. Oh and I have several question about TTM; is it a true story cause you were trying hard to hide the identities of the people and if not then the technique was so great and can I use that? You totally rock and I rock cause I wrote something like what you earlier wrote and OMG we ROCK.
...
...or something to that effect. Then the requisite devastating letter back.

To paraphrase once again: Mr. Wells is not available and is much to busy to answer crude letters from provincial nobodies (genius author that he is) like yourself. This is his secretary, and may I just say that to imply that Mr. Wells-Almighty would fabricate such a story without any shred of truth is just utter and complete blasphemy. Mr H.G.-He-Who-Dispenses-Rainbows-Wells is much too rational to use drivel like dramatic license and suspense to capture the readers' attention, he uses logic and scientific facts.

And lest you all think that all that was an exaggeration, here are actual quotes from that part of the book: "Mr. Wells lets you know that all poets can go to the Devil! Poetry is something for children and primates"... and ..."it is complete arrogance in your part to write to Mr. Wells telling him what he should and what he shouldn't do"

...now either that was meant as a joke; the author lampooning himself in the (unlikely) case that this was a real correspondence, or Friedell had some serious, Jupiter-sized, cojones.

And that's a mere 8 to 9 pages of the book itself. Friedell ends up trying to ferret out the people behind the characters in the original book and finally manages to track down Transic, the only named character in the original story, and it is his correspondent with Transic which reveals the story behind the subsequent trips of James Morton, the Time Traveler.

2nd thing...Friedell made a mess of the characters, I remember in TTM, the Time Traveler was curious to see what man had become in the millenia of time which he traversed, the character was enigmatic, curious, driven to know, a humanist, etc.: he was a perfect foil for an adventure into the unknown. In this "sequel" you won't ever guess what lofty goals of human advancement he puts the Machine to use for after his successful return from the Elois and Morlocks.

Quote from the book: After having disparaged all the ages of antiquity and futurity, Transic finally asks Morton why he constructed the Machine in the 1st place for. The lofty, earth shattering, humanity advancing answer was....
"Because I want to get to the year Eighteen Forty"...."In that year Carlyle delivered his six speeches about heroes, hero admiration, and the heroic element in history. How often I've wished to actually hear the warm and sure prophetic sound of that voice, the rich Scottish accent almost like music, that very special fiery flood of words..."

I almost tore the book in half after reading that, the Time Traveler reduced to a time tourist and the Time Machine boiled down to a work-around because the gramophone wasn't as yet invented. Also the way that the Time Traveler lambasted the follies of the past; the primitiveness of thought, the uncouthness of society, etc. he came of as a snobbish jerk... blegh!.

And we're just at page 46 in this 127 page disaster. Include: meandering, turn-of-the-century, groping about the nature of time, underdeveloped plot elements, an unsatisfying end, and a self-serving Epilogue which is nothing more than a comparison and advertisement of the author's own Culture History against Well's World History and this book adds up to my Worst Book of 2010 (and arguably ever).

From Mudania

2010-12-13T22:50:00.008+08:00

I have recently been on a trip (something quite out of character for me) and the experience has been an eye opener in more ways than one.

Point: time really does accomplish a lot of things: a childhood fear of mine has been misted over to an extent that I needed only one recital of the Litany Against Fear to get me sanely by. Genuine enjoyment followed.

Point: when one decides to go dork...one should go all the way and get a dorky hat too. Then people really do start giving you the "oh my, what a dork" look.

Point: I'll never be a complete urbanite...something which I am sincerely grateful for. Awesomeness still leaves me in awe, futile bravery and heroism still moves me to silence and introspection, my thoughts still grind on without a wall of cynicism (when I want to). I still wonder.

Point: A sunrise should always be greeted with a hush and reverence or not at all.

Point: The sea has an amazing capacity to tell stories...all we need is to listen.

Point: Good times really do keep rolling on...who would've figured.

And now for something completely different...

2010-11-23T17:37:00.003+08:00

Just a work in progress, was channel surfing and the image just popped into my head. Worked on it for 30+ minutes on Paint.Net v3.5.5. You can still see some pixels from the red demon and I'm not quite happy with the flames...I had to cover up the ugly pixels around the edges...but still you can pretty much see what I'm going for.

Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus

2010-11-23T09:26:00.005+08:00

By Paul French, one of the most famous Science Fiction writers of all time. Admittedly written during a time when Venus was still a relative unknown, this book's Venus has a single global Ocean of carbonated water...I couldn't stop imagining dumping a tanker full of Mentos in that...where men live underneath the waves in fantastic domed cities cultivating advanced yeast cultures for food and export.

David Starr volunteers to investigate strange rumors of trouble brewing on Venus. Together with his sidekick, the Martian John Bigman Jones, they have hardly descended into the perpetual Venusian cloud cover when they are attacked by forces-unknown.

The story has our hero battling human controlled mind-controlling aliens controlling humans (let that simmer a bit and you'll get what I mean). The ending seems a bit weird for such a light story though; Starr decides that the mind controlling technique of the villain could be of some use to the Scientific Council which even I ( epimethean that I am) don't think sounds very prudent. I mean if one man was corrupted by that power, what would the possession of that ability do to a council of men who are supposed to be on a Cold War footing against another group of humans in Sirius.

Regardless, this is vintage juvenile science fiction. Very good stuff.

Starburst

2010-11-22T12:42:00.009+08:00

I've actually read about 40 - 60% of this book before, it seems to be popular among editors to snip and prune some parts of this book to include in some anthology or other.

The basic story is this; America sends off 6 astronauts to the planet Alpha-Aleph orbiting around Alpha Centauri. The mastermind of the mission is Dr. Dieter von Knefhausen (of whom a German-er name there is none). So the Constitution, that's the ship, is supposed to take these 3 couples/astronauts/scientists/future colonists out to America's new hope in the stars. The trip takes quite some time to get there as may be imagined and Knefhausen has devised some activities for the crew to perform to relieve boredom. These activities are mostly "recreational" math problems only they're not recreational... *spoilers* they're actually the point of the whole trip, there is no planet Alpha-Aleph, it's all an elaborate hoax to try and generate new basic knowledge. Knefie (Dieter) tells it this way; "A Newton or Kant discovers a new island, and then the R&D people can build on it; but unless someone is is always discovering new islands, soon they have no place to build." *spoilers*

The mission then takes the turn to the bizarre: the crew starts to play around with the I-Ching, they tailor the drug that's supposed to control their sexual urges and ability to procreate into a mind altering hallucinogen, they start playing around with other states of consciousness, one of them even dies..but curiously doesn't...and well...shenanigans ensue.

If you've been buying and reading sci-fi anthologies from the past 20 years, chances are good that you've come across parts of this story, even those small parts are fun reads but I suggest you find a copy of this one as it is magnitudes more enjoyable as a whole. Compelling (at least for me) issues, like structure of language and communication, the nature of reality and consciousness, ethics of research, human evolution, causality, etc. are all present here, just don't expect a detailed yarn about each...just enough, I think, to get you to think.

Homegoing

2010-11-22T11:40:00.015+08:00

A novel by Frederick Pohl, it's centered around Lysander John William Washington. "Sandy" is apparently a human born and raised on an alien ship on it's way back to Earth from an orbit which took it all the way out to Alpha Centauri ( which reminds me to review Starburst later)

The aliens, in this case, are the Hakh'hli. Frog like bipeds, with a strict, regimented society, where the will and opinions of the Major Seniors are truth and law. The Hakh'hli, aside from having some of the funkiest names I've read in a while (ChinTekki-tho, Ceth'ik ti'Koli-kak, Hoh'My'ik perThara-tok 3151 - all sound like excerpts from some heavy-industrial-techno cra...I mean track), breed fast; freezing their eggs in vast freezers for eventual hatching, and specialize their society by breeding and gene altering individuals for specific tasks.

Sandy is part of a cohort altered and trained to be able to produce and understand human speech. The members of the cohort take their name from A Midsummer Night's Dream. They get to Earth with the express mission of spying out current Earth society, distribute gifts, aid the surviving people (more on that later), and generally recon... *spoilers*and prepare the Earth for eventual conquest, a part they left out from Sandy's knowledge. *spoilers*

Earth this time has gone through some tough times; Africa and a fair chunk of the "3rd world countries" have been wiped out by AIDS, the whole world is several degrees warmer thanks to pollution and the protracted effects of a nuclear war, the whole earth is girdled by shell of debris from centuries of space missions, the Star War or SDI, and the clutter of global tele-communications. Low lying cities are now underwater; what's left of New York has been relocated to New Jersey. there are no longer nations to speak off, just independent commonwealths trying to get by. Yet thankfully ( predictably, surprisingly, woefully) the apparatus of a global law enforcement force ( espionage and security) is still in place as the InterSec.

To make a long story short, Sandy saves the day, reconciles himself to his mixed heritage... *spoilers* and I mean mixed; the Hakh'hli rescued the cells from 2 dead male cosmonauts which they proceed to tailor and mix with the DNA from their (and Sandy's) major food animal, the hoo'hik, as spare parts even using a female hoo'hik as womb surrogate to the young Sandy.*spoilers*

All in all, a solidly good story. This is one of the more unique twists to the fish-out-of-water yarn I've read. There's some issues though (there always is);
1. Hakh'hli technology, metabolism, and reproductive rates as it is, they could have quite easily overrun the Earth without guile.
2. The use of strange-matter as propulsion and the part of it being self generating, i.e. the product of matter - strange matter interaction is energy and more strange matter sounds a bit iffy to me...but that's not from any technical know-how of particle physics on my part just the feeling that strange matter was latched onto the story just to produce the requisite obscure scientific soup (not that there's anything necessarily wrong in that...it just doesn't feel...kosher)
3. InterSec sounds like a global entity and I wonder if the world has need or the resources (and reason considering the drastic reduction of global population) to maintain such a group.
4. Africa is shown as wholly depopulated, again something that sounds iffy.
5. InterSec immediately jumps into action to welcome (and maintain surveillance on) the extraterrestrials...but it takes them till the very end to think of obtaining biological data from the visitors which I would think would be the requisite before any encounter.

...but don't let those (personal) issues turn you off, it's still a good read.

Grand Re-opening

2010-11-22T11:26:00.002+08:00

Good day all. More on this later

The Dispossessed

2009-05-06T11:53:00.004+08:00

This is one book I have hunted for in bargain bins for almost 6 years

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. I 1st heard of this book from a short story ( The Day Before the Revolution) by Le Guin, it was about Odo during the days before the Great Strike which would eventually lead to the Revolution, sort of a prelude to the novel. I always wanted to know what happened to Laia Asieo Odo and her ideas.

Marvelous book. The point of view is totaly alien not because of some fundamental difference such as divergent chemistry or biology. The people of Annares are pretty much human. The "alien" feeling comes from their ideology. Which is ultimately depressing when you get to analysing it. Even now, having had time to think about it, I find it hard to actually grasp what Odonianism is although I know it's a form of anarcho-syndicalism, my capitalist grounded mindset refuses to accept even the possibility of such a society existing. People working for the common good of all, without any possession (even in their language any possessive case is absent or discouraged), no laws, no religion .... I'm stopping here before I burst into song.

How would you measure a man's worth and where would my place be in such a society?

Contrast also how Shevek felt and his feelings when he was among the Urrasti. He was the outsider looking in. And what he was looking into is a society obviously patterned on the West / U.S. i.e. our society (or what our society aspires to be) And here is where the ultimately depressing part comes in. His opinion on Urrastian ( our) society makes so much sense. I defy anyone to claim that they don't see the evils and injustices that Shevek describes in our very real world today.

Fast Forward

2009-04-01T17:48:00.003+08:00

This is one of the things I hate most.... missing to post for a goodly length of time. Now I have to recall the things I've read from then to now....

Nebula Winners Fourteen edited by Frederick Pohl
~Good bits: Nebula winners
~Bad bits: fourteen...I don't have one to thirteen

A Fearful Symmetry by James Luceno
~Good bits: if you've ever wondered what would it be like if America's president where a new-age hippie zen practitioner
~Bad bits: the world is almost destroyed by a bunch of octogenarian psychic Nazis.

Martin the Warrior, The Bellmaker, and The Long Patrol by Brian Jacques

Playgrounds of the Mind by Larry Niven
~Good bits: Mr Niven gives us insight into his works, his collaborations with Pournelle, sci fi fandom and conventions
~Bad bits: most of the stories are excerpts from his books....and reading a small tidbit, I can't help myself...I have to read the whole book.

And just now...

Taggerung by Brian Jacques.
~Good bits: Like all other Redwall book, food! I know it's completely fantastical but Mr. Jacques has a talent to make the food and the feasting seem so real.
If you can imagine the characters in "The Wind in the Willows" going at it and battling it out Braveheart style then this is for you.

~Bad bits: the mysterious riddle from the past gets a bit old (harhar) by the 3rd book and some of the riddles are a bit strained
Villains never get a break in Redwall books, vermin are there to be hacked up by goodbeasts or other vermin. As such they become predictable.

The BFG

2009-02-22T09:50:00.003+08:00

I loved this book, and if that makes me sound less than the mature adult I am, then HOORAY for immaturity.

I remember having watched a cartoon of The BFG when I was young. I can't recall the story but I do remember the BFG.

Inspiring and lifting, if you're looking for inspiration and lifting up. Just plain funny if you're looking for fun. This has sparked my curiosity, I'm now hunting for more of Roald Dahl's work.

Good bits:
~ whenever you're lost for an adjective just thumb through this book for some creative ideas.
~ the illustrations reminded me of some of the Educator Classic Library books that I read and loved when I was growing up.

Bad bits:
~ this isn't required reading in our elementary schools.

Garfunkel and Oates

2009-02-22T09:19:00.002+08:00

These gals are just amazing.

I should be on my way right now to take an entrance test to MENSA but I thought..."fuck it, I'll listen to their songs instead"

Garfunkel and Oates are Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci. I hope they make an album soon.

Sample their songs and vids here

And a couple of videos from YouTube not included above:

"I Would Never" which should carry a warning: CAUTION ! DO NOT DRINK (anything) AND WATCH

"Dear Deer" a cute video starring Kate only. If you've already had your RDA of cute for the day this will cause you to OD.

Verily Whodunnit?

2009-02-20T02:20:00.008+08:00

Ahh the absolutely perfect image for this book. It's lucky that this is the 2nd Knights Templar book I've read, forsooth if I didst read this swill ere I did, never would I continue to purvey the works of master Jecks.
(*groan* your pardons, I've not slept 20 hours)

My major gripe is the inconsistent viewpoint used throughout the book. This is supposed to be a murder mystery, actually 3 sets of murders done by 3 different perpetrators. Some of the times we are provided insight on what the characters are thinking and at other times, sometimes suddenly, we get to watch the scene unfold as impersonal spectators. This makes the whole reading experience, for me a bit.... blurry (hah!)

The start and development of Simon and Baldwin's friendship is perhaps one of my favorite parts of the book. Indeed, the character dynamics between the two saves the book from being a very predictable and boring read.

Good bits:
~The scene of Jacques de Molay's execution during the Prologue.
~Seeing Simon's relationship with his wife and daughter.
~And the very lenghty recap of Baldwin's life story at the end.
~well researched examples of medieval life and property laws.

Bad bits
~The whole chase across the moors.
~The way that the first mystery is dangled in front and then the characters being sidetracked by another murder, and then another. Brewer's murder could have been dealt with by the 9th chapter but instead we had to wait near the end to finally see who (as if we couldn't take a wild guess already) did it.
~The description of the countryside and the landscape was a bit excessive no? It almost became Jack Londonish. I have nothing against scenery but do I have to be reminded what the bloody place looked like every paragraph?
~some of the main characters go through an angst-y routine that is a bit too artificial and ... well angst-y for my taste.

Puudly!

2009-02-16T09:28:00.003+08:00

A collection of short stories about precisely what the cover says...Men Hunting Things.

Nice collection.

I was a bit put off by the cover, though. What is that thing?

Now, after reading the book I found no creature in any of the stories that vaguely looks like it....except one.

The puudly.

Now notice that Mr. Simak never did elaborate on what the puudly looks like, he just mentions that it buds to reproduce. Could this thing on the cover be the puudly budding?
Then why the difference in the heads?
As you can see one is distinctly feline the other reptilian.

Normally, I don't care that much about a book's cover. But the puudly has a especial significance for me. I first read "Good Night, Mr. James" when I was 8 or so. To my young mind I always imagined it to be vaguely anthropoid with wicked talons growing directly from it's hands...kind like a sloth's claws. The budding part had me thinking about plants, and thus my puudly must be green... actually my puudly looks like an anthropoidal arrangement of....err.... cucumbers. Don't laugh, I was 8.

My puudly is way cooler than that picture. It just is.

Anyway, great collection.

The Ultimate HItchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2009-02-14T08:31:00.004+08:00

Finally finished with this tome. Somebody told me it was a good read and she was absotutely correct. I would have happily kept on reading... except it ended.

Have any of you ever tried reading while constantly trying to sneak a peak at the next few sentences just to know what's going to happen next?

And then seeing a word that suddenly makes the sentence you're currently reading make perfect sense only to get to that word then seeing another word right at the periphery of your vision about 3 or 5 sentences away that has absolutely no connection to and blows the current makes-sense-of-the-whole-paragraph-word seem suddenly irrelevant?

No?

Then read this book... but be prepared for some major eye strain. By the end, my eyes and my brain were locked in a pretty fierce race trying to out read each other.

Humor? ... let's just say that I've personally discovered that reading something in public that looks like a bible while emitting a sound that sounds suspiciously like constant chuckling (or a chicken being slowly strangled) is evidently frowned upon in some places. The public (especially mother types with children and granny types) also does not appreciate when you close said bible-looking-book to savour a choice line while grinning for apparently (to them) no reason.

Memorable quotes and phrases....fogedaboudit. There's too darned many of them.

The perfect companion: as I've said before; Monty Python. Just don't make the same mistake I did and tried reading this while going on a Monty Python marathon...It'll wrong your brain in so many ways.

...

...

MARVIN LIVES!

I would like to

2009-02-13T20:23:00.004+08:00

apologize for the previous post. That insult was not very good....
I must be losing my touch.
...
No, see there's definitely no rhythm to it.
...
I'll try better next time.

In the meantime...

"Love in unexpected places"
...
Like... the SPLEEN!.

I nominate...

2009-02-13T19:08:00.004+08:00

Bayani Fernando for a Darwin Award. I know that there are some requisites for the award but, heck there's nobody more deserving than Mr. Fernando, and to that end I would gladly like to be the one to assist in making him eligible.

Right now I just saw a news flash about his beloved MMDA tearing up trees along Katipunan. One of his goons claimed that "they were not killing the trees just facilitating their transfer to another area"
.... Yeah right

And that "we have specialized equipment to transport the trees unharmed and safely"

.... "equipment" looking suspiciously like chainsaws and axes and "transport" looking convincingly like dumping-them-on-the-backs-of-trucks-headed-for-the-nearest-landfill.

Enough of that fungus-faced, black arm-pitted, acne besieged, genetically flawed, pie bald, vertically challenged, race disgracing, pin headed, brain numbingly stupid, hamster sired, nit witted, I FART IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION! individual.

Multitasking

2009-02-11T17:48:00.005+08:00

I'm still happily buried under Douglas Adams' The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide so no review yet. Also, I've been re watching The Jabberwocky and The Meaning of Life and also the 3rd and 4th season of Monty Python's Flying Circus.... and reading Romeo and Juliet in between.

.....my head hurts.

Also, I wish I knew the CBCP's (Catholic Bishop's Conference of the Philippines) email address so that I can send them this link. Watch it for yourself and try not to laugh and wince and squirm at the same time....

Hmm, then again, why not? And so I, without a moments forethought, composed and sent the link to the CBCP.

If they take offense....I'll just blame it on The Bard.

The Ultimate HItchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

2009-02-09T14:15:00.006+08:00

Seriously, everyone knows how funny this book is. Even more funnier is if you have Monty Python on the brain then you can imagine the characters being played by the Python actors playing Python characters who play Hitchhiker characters being played by the Python actors......

Oh, poo.

Arthur Dent = Michael Palin
Ford Prefect = John Cleese
Zaphod Beeblebrox = Eric Idle or here
Tricia McMillan = Graham Chapman
Eddie and Marvin = Terry Jones or here

Then the book just becomes BRILLIANT

Bunburying

2009-02-08T08:00:00.003+08:00

Having finished Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays I was struck by a peculiar thought (well several actually, but who's counting?) ...

~Am I some one's Bunbury?. What if?

~Isn't blogging just a modern form of Bunburying? I mean some of us are making personas who are quite different from our real life personalities.

~How many of the people I know are Bunburys or are Bunburyists (Bunburiers?)? You could be one right now... and does it make a difference?

Salome - It's been several years since I've read the New Testament, but I'm pretty sure that Salome doesn't kiss John's severed head. The play does make Salome's character more fleshed out, if monstrous. In one hand I thought that she was acting out of rejection and then spite, on the other I have to consider that she was acting very much like a child... not knowing the consequence of her actions nor comprehending the permanence of Death.

Lady Windermere's Fan - utterly unpredictable. In the end, I think Mrs. Erlynne the better of the two main female characters. Being willing to suffer humiliation and the frustration of her plans in order to save her (unknowing) daughter from a mistake, I think, is a more innately "good act" than faithfulness, constancy, and saving social face. I wonder if that form of social tallying still exists today... do people still really judge you on who you know and the society you keep?

The Importance of Being Earnest - In a word - charming. Right from the start, you can foresee the difficulties that the setup will engender. And that's without the meddling of Algernon. Because of Algy's meddling and his views the story becomes completely delightful.
~ "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his"
~" One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them"
Had me quietly chuckling. I suspect that he has met his match with Cecily, though.

C.B. Anonymous

2009-02-07T18:33:00.005+08:00

Hello everyone, call me Figs. I am a CB addict. It's been 4 days since my last fix.

I affirm that I have a problem.
I understand that the first steps in stopping my addiction is understanding and admitting that I have a problem.

At first it was only a casual thing. Me and my friends would have CBs once a week. Once a week became every 3 days, then everyday, till I was having it twice a day. More than anything it was the taste that I craved....that salty sweet taste with a slight tangy bite. And the overwhelming aftertaste that you can lick from your lips and the roof of your mouth.

But that is behind me now. No more will I fall into it's evil clutches. The last few days have been hard; the craving hits unexpectedly. But I have tried and am trying to sublimate the craving. I read, I keep a journal, I chew gum and suck on hard candies...anything to keep my mind of it.

And I feel that I am succeeding. I know that I am succeeding. I will beat and am going to beat this addiction.

My name is Figs and it's been 4 days since I last had a Cheeseburger.

Inferno v2.0

2009-02-06T10:02:00.007+08:00

It's been 700 odd years since Dante traveled through hell. Since then you'd expect things to have changed a bit even in Hell. This book is the account of an agnostic sci-fi writer's own journey down through the circles of Hell seeking his own escape/redemption.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are great writers in their own right, together they're just brilliant. I can't imagine any other author/s that could have the guts to do a follow up to Dante (except maybe Mark Twain). I had no idea what the book was about aside from the fact that Niven and Pournelle wrote it and it must be good. I thought the book was:

~ about a world of high temperatures and the creatures there
~ the earth's core
~ a building or something else on fire
~ creatures who survive in space and live in and around stars.

Not once did it enter my mind that the book's title meant entirely that: "Inferno". Dante's hell was all well and good for the 12th century but in the book we see that there's been some developments in hell itself... some sins have become obsolete, we've invented some new ones of our own, and several whole new takes on the standard 7 deadly sins.

Now being agnostic myself, I could relate pretty well to the character. I also liked the interpretation of Hell's purpose within the Catholic structure... and strangely (or perhaps maybe not) this interpretation made a whole lot more sense to me than the one that the Catholic church has been preaching. Basically, within the book, Hell is just another barrier/test a soul had to surmount in order to merit heaven. Bible Hell is inescapable and forever, Dante's Hell is peopled by souls who do not want to get out and are punished forever, but this Hell (Hell 2.0?) provides the chance for the damned to change. The punishment is still there; for every sin a corresponding punishment and several new ones have been added and old sins reinterpreted, but there is Hope, something seriously lacking in the standard Bible Hell.

This being based on Dante's journey it wouldn't be complete without the characters meeting some people of note, I ain't telling who exactly they meet but it seems the authors have several people (or class of sinners) in mind.

In the circle for the Heretics who could they mean by ~
AC: "A science fiction writer who lied about being a science-fiction writer because hr got more money that way. He wrote whole novels in baby talk, with sixth-grade drawings in them, and third-grade science, and he new better." ~
B: "If I judge rightly by the size of his tomb, he must have founded his own religion. And possibly worshipped himself."
AC: "No, they where jokes, sort of. But he did found at least two, not that there were any followers..."

And after seeing a particularly corrupted form in the bolgia of the Sowers of Discord:
~ " He founded a religion that masks as a form of lay psychiatry. Members try to recall previous lives in their presumed animal ancestry. They also recall their own past lives ... and that adds an interesting blackmail angle, because those who hear confession are often more dedicated than honorable."

Loan sharks are also given their very own place as are corrupt defense lawyers.

The ending is also a surprise and the action leading up to it is simply genius.

Worthing Saga

2009-02-05T11:39:00.006+08:00

Having finished the book, I can sum up my reaction in one word:

MORE.

or in two words:

MORE, Please.

I think there's still a huge amount of stories that can be told about Worthing World and I for one will be all too eager to read them.

The book is composed of 3 "chapters"; Worthing Chronicles, Tales of Capitol, and Tales from the Forest of Waters. There are inconsistencies between Chap1 and Chap3 but they don't detract from the overall theme of the individual stories.

Overall, the book is standard sci-fi fare... you have psi powers, galactic empires, a pseudo immortality through technology, etc. Yet a large part of the book concerns a society barely out of the medieval stage; Only in Chap2 is high technology found and even there it's the characters that drive the plot. The book almost feels like a fantasy and not sci-fi the same way that the Pern series does, a style that I love.

ALBATROSS!!!

2009-02-03T17:08:00.005+08:00

My my, I do sound entirely too pedantic and serious.

And now for something completely different.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK
I sleep all night and I work all day

I cut down trees, I eat my lunch
I go to the lavatory
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK
I sleep all night and I work all day

I cut down trees, I skip and jump
I like to press wild flowers
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars

I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK
I sleep all night and I work all day

I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspenders and a bra
I wish I'd been a girlie
Just like my dear Mama!

Worthing Saga

2009-02-03T16:19:00.004+08:00

Some of my speculations about how the Worthing Chronicles part of the book was going to develop were not that far off.

Warning
For those who may pick up this book; there's a woozy of an emotional roller coaster right around the parts where Stipock is introduced. I advise reading it in private as readers prone to sudden moistening of their ocular apparatus may suffer exaggerated spasms of their blepharo organs in an effort to minimize a potentially embarrassing lachrymal situation.

Notable passages/s:
"No society can stay the same, because the young ones have to change things to show there's a reason for them to live."

"And they saw in Jason's mind the things he treasured most, the memories that were strongest, and they were all the times of fear and hunger, pain and grief. And they looked into their own hearts, and saw what memories had endured ~ and they where the memories of struggles and accomplishments ~ these had lasted , while the simple contentment had not. They saw that this was what had made them good, even in their own eyes; and because they had left the rest of man no evils to overcome, they had robed them of the hope of greatness, of the possibility of joy"

Now deep down isn't that why we like to watch epic adventures? Why we feel all choked up with emotion during the "hero moment"?
We ask ourselves
'Where now can I distinguish myself like that?'
'Where my chance to be heroic?'
'Where the struggle and the glory?'

Ponder that awhile as I finish reading the book.

Worthing Saga

2009-02-02T09:49:00.004+08:00

Not finished yet with this Orson Scott Card book. Actually I just finished Waking the Children, the 6th story in the Worthing chronicle.

As far as it goes.... Lared is writing the story of Jason Worthing. Simple enough, but this is sci-fi so simplicity won't cut it for long.

Jason Worthing is the name of God for Lared's people and as far as I have gone in my reading, I think I can guess how that came to be. Prominent in Jason's story is somec which I am guessing is a substance used to induce Sleep. Sleep in this context is a state of hibernation which the people used to cheat death; waking for a span of time then returning to sleep thus prolonging the actual years of their existence. Jason is a Swipe, a limited telepath. Limited in a sense because he can pick up people's thoughts and memories but can't project his own. He is accompanied by a girl named Justice, a full telepath... I think.

Another character, and the one I find most interesting, is Abner Doon. To Lared's people he is the Devil to Jason's God. His viewpoint is one I have previously encountered in my reading.
To sum: The world needs change. Only through entropy / chaos is there any progress.

First time I encountered this idea is through Dune, which I read when I was Gr. 6. In Dune this is expressed thus; ' the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.' I've thought on it since then and I must express my affirmation for this principle. In this view the actions of Abner Doon was better for mankind as a whole.

Wenn ist das nunstuck geht und slotermeyer? Ja! Ba yerhund das oder die flipperwaldt gespuhrt! II

2009-02-02T09:37:00.005+08:00

Ich spreche sehr schlect.

Wha?

Random ramble

2009-02-01T20:49:00.001+08:00

From Mel and Joey:
"....hindi magiging kasing puti ni Lucy Torres"

And I thought:
Of course no one can be as white as Lucy Torres...
Heck
Even Lucy Torres can't be as white as Lucy Torres
Besides... Lucy Torres isn't white
She's The Color Out of Space.

Wenn ist das nunstuck geht und slotermeyer? Ja! Ba yerhund das oder die flipperwaldt gespuhrt! I

2009-02-01T20:36:00.002+08:00

Hier spricht man Englisch

Wha?

Flipped

2009-02-01T10:16:00.002+08:00

I'm going to skip what actually happened during the swap.

Thanks guys for making me feel welcome!

Also, my abject apologies for running out like that but I think this will go a long way in excusing my actions in part.

People there may have noticed me fussing with my watch. I'm sorry but I was stressing about becoming late for work. I have a reputation; I am never late. I always arrive at least 30 minutes to 1 hour early, get to read the patient charts (( I'm a Nurse, by the way (and yes I capitalized that on purpose)) and help out before patient endorsement. And this night I was on duty starting 10:30pm.

Anyway I said goodbye when I could, exchanged "nice-to-meet-yous" with some and waved or GANed (grin and nod) to others and hastily made my exit (stage right).

Now the choice.. walk back or ride a trike. Trike won because my watch said so. To the Mini Stop DriverMan! Now when I got (err) off I was looking at a highway with an overpass running down the middle with a walkway huddled under the foundation. I did not remember coming across this on the way to Xocolat...and where was that LRT station? (totally forgetting that it's underground) so I crossed the street hoping to spot the station on the other side. It's pretty dark and my already weak eyes are even weaker in the dark...it's a problem as headlights tend to fill my field of vision, and what little low-light-adjustment that my eyes have achieved is stripped away, leaving me dazzled and in the dark - not fun. Anyway I manage to orient myself and turn myself around (thank you Street Vendors) Walking down the LRT station I turned on my MP3 and judged it time for a little unwinding...cue Bod Dylan.

With Visions of Johanna in my ears I puzzled over the card vending machine. Having scored a minor victory and claiming my terminal card I hurried to the turnstile, entered, and promptly got lost as to which way I'm going, finally got turned around and arrived at the platform and proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. After Ballad of a Thin Man and halfway through Brownsville Girl the train finally arrived. Ahh, sure feels good to sit down; The Ballad of Franky Lee and Judas Priest, You're Gonna Make me Lonesome, Highway 61 Revisited, Desolation Row, Percy's Song, Romance in Durango, Highlands, Tangled up in Blue, Day of the Locusts, Masters of War, With God on My Side.

As Bob was warbling out the first stanza of Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues, I exited the Recto terminus and glancing at my watch (8:56 pm) made my hasty way to the D. Jose station. Surprise, surprise a schedule informed me that the last trip fro passengers going from Baclaran to Monumento was 9:00 pm on weekends and holidays. Good thing I had time to spare.... 2 minutes exactly by the time I purchased my card.

Father of Night and about halfway into All along the Watchtower the train finally arrived. Now I was seriously thinking about dinner... fast food or street food. You know you're running late when you don't have time for "fast" food.

Talkin World War III Blues, Gates of Eden, Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol, Jack-a-Roe, and I was going down Blumentritt station when I decided, street pchops it is. 70 pesos for 2 greasy chops with extra grease and 10 pesos for 2 orders of rice with nothing extra please thankyuoverymuch. (2 of each as one is for my sister which will take a bit of convincing for my part..."These porkchops? they're err gourmet pchops." "Yes, yes, yes the restaurant had a sidewalk theme." "All the grease? It's uh virgin coconut grease." "Yes, you know from coconuts......")

Now from Blumentritt station to point A, it's about 8 blocks as a pigeon flies and 12 blocks as an askal runs.... a 50 peso trike ride, Shelter from the Storm, and Quinn the Eskimo later, I was home. Time: 9:40 or so, dare I lay out plates and kubyertos to eat? Ha! Eat from the plastic and hope I don't choke on the boulders they always put in the brownish 5 peso rice. Now a glass of water, a 15 minute bath. And by 10:25 I was on my way to work.

Flipper! (with youtubie goodness)

2009-02-01T08:40:00.004+08:00

I went to my first FFP meeting last night.

Gather around the monitor while I spin my tale.

Now first, I had to get from point A to point B. Point A being Blumentritt and point B being Xocolat near Katipunan. Okay, easy enough landmarks and directions are provided and I could always google it to find out where it's at.

Here's where sleep deprivation becomes a factor. I was on night duty the day before and when I got home I thought; "screw sleep I'm going to watch Monty Python instead"... so 5 episodes or so later it's time to go. I hastily googled "map B. Gonzales" and right of I noticed a search result "Mirriam College is a place etc." and I says didn't c z a r mention something about Xocolat being near Mirriam college. So I click there and I find a map...and look there's an LRT2 station near there. Lucky. I then hastily scribbled down directions from Katipunan station to the nearest B. Gonzales...it went something like this;

"from LRT station L to along katipunan, L to xavierville, 3 kanto from katipunan corner xavierville"

Now those of you who know where I'm headed are obviously laughing right now. My judgment was a bit hazy what with the being-awake-for-20-hours and all, besides I've firmly believed that the best way to get familiarized to a new place is to get lost. And my definition of walking distance is fucked up, as most of my friends say, because walking distance to me is Blumentritt to Luneta. I once walked from Greenhills to the National Center for Mental Health just because.

So much for getting to point A to B. So back to the story. First time I'm going to ride the LRT2 line, but I knew there was a walkway from the D. Jose station to Recto station. No sweat. So I disembarked at Katipunan station and prepared to get lost. And there's nothing better to listen to when beginning to get lost as Kashmir by Led Zep. And so with Led Zep blasting away I began to walk (Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd)
...and walk (Wish you were Here by Pink Floyd)
......and walk (You Better, You Bet and Baba O'Riley by The Who, Purple Haze by Hendrix, Black Dog by Led Zep, Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple, Changes by David Bowie.)
Then I reached a B. Gonzales street and I asked around there for a Cafe Xocolat the security guard was kind enough to point out the building across the street...but obviously my X didn't come across clearly enough as I found a cozy Cafe Chocolat instead.

No biggy it's bound to be around here, I mean how many chocolate themed cafes can a place support ( around 3 or 4 as I've seen). I asked inside the Cafe (Behind Blue Eyes by The Who in my ears) and I was directed that there was a Cafe Xocolat ( now with eXaggerated X ) around the next street over. Seems like I'm walking some more (Instant Karma by John Lennon)
...and some more (Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane, Me and Bobee McGee by Janis Joplin, Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer, She Loves You by The Beatles) right about here I'm turning in to another corner (Got My Mind Set on You by a Beatle, Wild Night by Van Morrison, Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult, Hair of the Dog by Nazareth, Tush by ZZ Top) and then I come to... a gate. A GATE!, seriously rich people are pretty inconsiderate towards people getting lost like me, barring perfectly good roads with gates and guards who start conversations like;

"Saan po kayo sir"

"Dito" I says

"Saan po kayo papunta"

"Doon" I says... right about know I'm waiting for an armored knight to enter off screen and clobber me with a chicken. (T.N.T. by ACDC...and I seriously have these songs set up like this on my MP3 player) I smile and ask directions to Cafe Xocolat ( with an even more eXaggerated X) and I'm told it's on the next road over with the ever so helpful hand-pointing-in-a-curve indicating my next path.

And now for something completely different.... me walking (Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne, Up Around the Bend by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Paperback Writer by The Beatles, Old Man by Neil Young, Your Song by Elton John, The Joker by the Steve Miller Band, Some Kind of Wonderful by Grand Funk Railroad, I Can See for Miles by The Who, Aqualung and Cross Eyed Mary by Jethro Tull, Dream On by Aerosmith) Now, isn't that a highway I see? There was a bank on the other side with another Manong Sekyu outside and I was told that "Nakalampas ka na ayun sya sa kabila oh".

And then I arrived.

Seriously, again?!?

2009-02-01T08:11:00.001+08:00

I think this is the 3rd time I'm starting a blog. First one, I forgot the site. Second one, I forgot I started one....or two.

So this is the 3rd, and you know what they say about lucky number 3; .... 'then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.' Amen."

And now for something completely different .... or more of the same really. I'm going to discuss books, random thoughts, music, news, etc. all while trying futilely to get rid of the Python randomness that's taken over my brain.

Also check out my Shelf... if that isn't screaming out "Geek", I don't know what is.