1984 To Present

Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Dark Mirror

2012-02-09T14:23:00.000-05:00

I finished this book a week ago (just in time to get Win Tie or Wrangle from the library), and I meant to write a review immediately after. But then I forgot. Woopsie! Here are the basics: the USS Enterprise D, while exploring a really boring area of space in the outer reaches of the galaxy, gets pulled (sucked?) into the Mirror Universe. If you're unfamiliar with the Mirror Universe at all,

Alcatraz

2012-02-03T12:29:00.001-05:00

You may or may not have heard of this new show on Fox from producer J.J. Abrahms called "Alcatraz"; if not, here's the premise: in March 1963, 300+ inmates and guards disappeared without a trace; now, in 2012, they're coming back. And committing their original crimes on top of doing some mysterious dirty work for some higher power. I've watched three episodes now (well, technically four since

A Novel I will be reading through a web browser

2012-01-31T08:36:00.003-05:00

The famous (infamous?) Ryan North linked to this tumblr: http://btothef.tumblr.com/ I can't imagine this project being anything other than awesome, and I will be following along. Oh and this is actually written by Ryan North so it should be fun to read in that respect. That is all.

ShoStoWriMo and other things

2012-01-26T12:53:00.001-05:00

Just thought I'd make a new blog entry, since I've apparently been doing one a week or so thus far this year. I think? Anyway why not keep up with that trend? An idea I thought of earlier this week was to do something I call, "ShoStoWriMo". Now, very likely this acronym already exists on the Internet somewhere, and maybe you can guess what it stands for: Short Story Writing Month. I'm not

Review: Heir to the Empire 20th Anniversary Edition

2012-01-21T13:09:00.000-05:00

According to Goodreads, it took me 9 days to read Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire (20th Anniversary Edition); this is probably a considerably shorter time than when I first read the book, which was I believe 15 years ago or so when I was 12, and at the height of my Star Wars obsession. Obviously, this was not a tough read. This review is actually not concerning the book itself, but rather the

2012 Priorities

2012-01-13T14:19:00.001-05:00

I'm going to straight out save myself from not fulfilling "New Year's Resolutions" by calling them my priorities for 2012. SO THERE DEAL WITH IT My priorities for 2012 are probably not unlike many other peoples', with the key difference being I am me and not other peoples. Uh, yeah. Anyway, my priorities: 1) Weight Loss I started the year with a bang, losing 8 pounds - of course that was

The Lord of the Rings: A Review of a Piece of Classic Fantasy Literature

2012-01-05T13:06:00.000-05:00

January 5, 2012: that is the day that I completed my first-ever reading of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I ate up Fellowship of the Ring, took a bit more time with The Two Towers, and slowed to a painful crawl with Return of the King. In a way, I just about mirrored Frodo's journey with The One Ring. Note that while I say I finished reading Return of the King, I didn't actually read the

Why Movies and Books are The Same

2012-01-03T15:26:00.000-05:00

I am so bad at this Blogging Business - I was going to have three well-thought-out posts about movies/books and try and have something somewhat similar to an intelligent discussion. Well, I got one post out of the bag, and got busy with work, podcasting, and life in general. Oh and I got sick somewhere in there, too (and STILL released a podcast on New Year's Eve). So now I'm scrapping my

On Movie Adaptations of Books - Part 1

2011-11-29T09:40:00.000-05:00

I'm currently reading Fellowship of the Ring (technically, re-reading the first 11 chapters since I tried reading the book before), and it's got me thinking about the movie adaptations of the Lord of the Rings franchise, and movie adaptations of books in general. So I present to you a series of three posts about this very subject. I don't know that I can say I've "always felt this way" about

Harperland: The Politics of Control (2010)

2011-11-18T12:57:00.000-05:00

Harperland: The Politics of Control, by Lawrence Martin: A Review in Haiku form Steve Harper, PM He likes to be in control Book takes aim, misses. Honestly, I don't think I need to expand much more on that. The book tries to come off as a scathing account of how Stephen Harper has abused his power and has taken control of everything, but it barely goes beyond the surface of events that

Little Brother (2008)

2011-11-08T18:57:00.004-05:00

Today I just finished reading my electronic copy of Little Brother, a 2008 Young Adult novel by Cory Doctorow. I decided that I'm going to do a five-minute review of this book in my Five Minutes On segment of the Alternative Airwaves podcast, so this blog post will basically serve as the copy for that. Little Brother (2008, Tor Books) tells the story of Marcus Yallow - AKA W1n5ton - a 17-year

His Girl Friday (1940)

2011-11-03T09:02:00.000-04:00

I have a 5-minute review of this coming up in my next podcast, but I felt in the mood to actually update a review blog I set up months ago. I wrote a haiku about it.

Piracy

2011-11-01T20:37:00.000-04:00

I haven't written here in a while; so why not write about a controversial topic? I don't think anything is as controversial these days as piracy - the "scourge of the Internet". I don't know if that's an actual quote from somebody, but let's pretend that it is. To clarify, I'm thinking of a specific branch of piracy. I don't believe that music piracy - as rampant as it likely still is - is a

Caprica S01E02 - "Rebirth"

2011-09-21T13:11:00.000-04:00

It took me a long time to actually start writing this review; mostly, that's because I have no idea where to start - this episode didn't stick with me mentally like an episode of Battlestar Galactica might have in the past. I find myself needing to re-watch the episode in order to get a better grasp on what's going on in this series. However, I've also decided that I'm not going to do that,

Brief Thoughts: "Caprica" Pilot, Doctor Who S06E09 "Night Terrors", + Cover Me Canada

2011-09-19T15:24:00.000-04:00

I watched a bunch of things over the weekend and got a ton accomplished at home, so I'll condense it all into a few brief thoughts. Word of warning, there are potentially some spoilers happening below. Here's a little jump in case anyone with spoilerphobia comes across this in a google search or something. A warning, these thoughts are not organized in any way. They've been swirling around in

The Search for Sp- I mean a New Computer

2011-09-07T15:45:00.001-04:00

Alas, the time has come to retire my Acer Aspire Laptop (circa 2006); not that there is really anything wrong with it (it's survived being rained on - twice at least, several different liquids, up to and including milk, spilled over the keyboard, dropped, banged around...it's been abused, to put it mildly). I mean, the wi-fi adaptor doesn't work anymore for some reason (the driver is corrupted?)

The Wonderful World of MP3 Players

2011-09-06T14:49:00.002-04:00

At the risk of letting you all in on my personal life from ten years ago, I am linking to a review of an MP3 player I had a few years ago: the Creative Zen 8GB MP3 Player. I'm doing so for a small handful of reasons: 1) I thought that was a pretty darn good review of an electronic device, and I liked the way it sounded when I read it over again 2) It reminded me how much I liked the device (

Thursday Musing - Using Fairy Tales to Craft New Stories

2011-08-11T12:00:00.000-04:00

You may or may not be aware that I am an avid podcast subscriber. More often than not, I can be found at work listening to a podcast on my iPod Touch rather than a specific album (although, I also often listen to new artists to post about over at Alternative Airwaves - but that's serving to discredit my intro here). I listen to both music podcasts, and spoken word podcasts. One of those spoken

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011)

2011-08-08T10:08:00.000-04:00

I've been anticipating this movie for quite some time - not because I'm particularly excited about the Harry Potter franchise (though it is a fascinating piece of work), but because it provides ultimate closure to the series (no matter what JK Rowling has to say about it). I had some expectations, based both on what I saw of the previous movie and what I read in the book. I don't think I need

The Transporter Not Starring Jason Statham

2011-07-25T13:23:00.001-04:00

I finally did a daily prompt and actually wrote something today. Here's the prompt: Prompt for Monday, July 25 2011:In whatever style/genre you like, spend at least 15 minutes writing something based on the following sentence: A team of North American scientists have announced what they claim is the biggest technological break-through of the 21st century: they have created the first

A Non-Screened Review of Friends With Benefits (2011)

2011-07-22T11:45:00.001-04:00

Disclaimer: I have not seen, nor do I intend to see, Friends With Benefits - the new movie starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis due out today. This review is based on what I have gleaned from the trailers. Here is the synopsis, from IMDB: While trying to avoid the clichés of Hollywood romantic comedies, Dylan (Timberlake) and Jamie (Kunis) soon discover however that adding the act of sex

Disappointment - With a Positive Outlook

2011-07-20T11:44:00.000-04:00

Picture shamelessly stolen from Lifehacker The Machine of Death Volume 2 Submission Deadline has come and gone (it was 00:00:00 July 16th 2011). Unfortunately, I did not manage to get anything put together for a submission - that's the disappointment part of this post. I would have loved to put something into contention to get included in a really cool anthology, but I just didn't find

Titanic II (2010)

2011-07-14T09:15:00.000-04:00

In 2012, the 100th anniversary of the disaster of the original Titanic, the Titanic II sets sail from New York to Southampton, UK to recreate the historic voyage - minus the sinking, they hope. Meanwhile, a really big iceberg starts breaking apart, and a really, really big piece causes massive tsunamis - which push an ice field (and a lot of waves) towards the mid-Atlantic...right in the path of

The Hobbit: A Possibly Spoiler-y Review

2011-06-23T13:59:00.000-04:00

I changed my mind about reviewing The Hobbit. More specifically, I was convinced by my buddy Zach to write a big spoiler-y review of the book. Well, this probably won't live up to his expectations, but I'll do my best. Before I begin, how about some news about the upcoming films? A brief recap of the book: Bilbo is a Hobbit who really just likes to stay in his Hobbit-Hole and stick his thumb

The Hobbit

2011-06-15T13:33:00.000-04:00

I'm currently reading The Hobbit (75% completed, according to Goodreads.com), a book I was concerned I might not be able to get through considering previous experiences with Tolkein. Considering the fact that I am 75% of the way through, I'd say that those concerns have long been waylaid. Though I'm still not overly fond of Tolkein's writing style, it's a little easier to read than I remember