For the non-Australians amongst you I apologise, as this is a man you have most likely never heard of.  Hence the over-abundance of youtube clips to introduce you to the awesomeness of Dean Hutton.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md2h8yu-DTk

I used to race home after school on a Thursday afternoon so that I wouldn’t miss The Curiosity Show (The link is well worth a read!), hosted by Dean Hutton and another equally awesome guy, Rob Morrison.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJO8h0qb7XQ

OK, very nerdy and it hasn’t aged well, but these guys- especially Dean- were pure awesomeness to me as a kid. They made science, the world, and my childhood wonderful. Awesome then, and they still are.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIGaDXH9v2o

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL0et1YZNMM

And finally, for those rare lovers of all things Hovercraft, a special treat:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIjYIPoE4_E

The topic was not about an awesome band or specifically awesome music but about an awesome person, but I’m giving the subject a lazy twist by choosing Donald Roeser aka Buck Dharma. Donald is a guitarist of the rock&roll/hardrock/heavymetal formation Blue Öyster Cult and he has been for almost 4 decades. Of course there were up and downs and periods of inactiveness but still you can’t deny you have to be quite awesome to keep rocking for such a period of time.

The manager of the BOC tried to give every bandmember an alias back in the days, but only Donald’s Buck Dharma stuck. That in itself might say something about this man, he’s got a charisma that not too many people can challenge. After all these years, he is one of the most underrated guitarists out there and still defines the sound of the BÖC. Of course he’s getting older, but when he’s rocking on stage you wouldn’t say so. He might take short breaks during the long shows, but that might just be the wise thing to do taking into account that he’s not 25 anymore. Know your awesome, but know your limits.

Here’s a great example of his guitar work:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFRZxyh0vDU

That character is John Matrix from Commando. And if you haven’t seen the movie in question, there will be a lot of spoilers in this post.

There are a lot of Arnold Schwartzenegger characters that could have made the cut, but there is just something about the idea of a one-man army taking on an entire island full of paramilitary forces that elevates this character to the heights of awesomeness.

I might have went with Dutch from Predator if he killed someone by throwing a steam pipe into their torso. I mean, think about that… Matrix, with a wounded arm was still able to rip a pipe that was formerly full of steam and hurl it, Hercules-like, at an opponent and kill them with it. And then had the presence of mind to tell that dying character to let off some steam.

He was a man, who like the later Jack Bauer and Bryan Mills, that you don’t want to kidnap the daughter of, because he will use every resource at his disposal, every facet of his training, not just to get her back, but to make everyone responsible pay with painful interest. And he will do it in a short amount of time too. There is no negotiating with Matrix… if you mess with him, you are just asking for a violent and frightening death.

And let’s be honest, there are only a few men badass enough to not only survive a situation where they are wounded and relatively unarmed in a shed surrounded by armed gunmen, but to come out of that situation stronger and better armed.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FFQ_g8OoQM

I can see why the army is so interested in getting him to start his old unit back up, because he gets results. It may be messy, but if he sets his mind to something, it gets done, and in this world, sometimes you need that. But as the closing song says, “he fights for love.”

He hates the Government that he works for and everything they stand for.  He has two ex wives named Tammy. He likes nothing more than working with wood, hunting and above all else an all you can eat breakfast buffet.

Ron is a character on the workplace comedy show Parks and Recreation which if you haven’t had a chance to catch yet I highly recommend you make the effort.  If you’ve ever worked in or with the government at any level you will find a treasure trove of enjoyment, actually even if you haven’t you’ll find plenty to laugh about.

Ron is a character who is intriguing because he’s the Director of the parks and recreation department yet he can’t stand anything about the government and he avoids all meetings and government functions.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgycSKDRFXs

What makes Ron Swanson awesome? It’s not only that he does have an impressive moustache that even Magnum PI would respect, nor is it that he secretly moonlights as a jazz saxophonist named “Duke Silver” and has three successful albums out.  No everything awesome about Ron Swanson is summed up in this pyramid:

Since we’ve been slowing down as of late, it seemed best to get back to basics and just stick with the awesome over the next two weeks so we can get back on track.

We have good reasons for our recent reduction in posting, but for the most part, a lot of those reasons have cleared up.

So to an awesome future.

I was always a little bit of a geek even as a child, so the idea of a fun fantasy series had me hooked.

But it wasn’t until a few years later that I was able to find a copy of the first book in the Discworld series, The Colour of Magic. At the time, Pratchett wasn’t the worldwide phenomenon that he is now, and there wasn’t an Amazon.com to order books from, so I basically had to wait until it was actually available in my area.

The book tells the tale of Rincewind, the worst wizard in the Discworld, who is given the unenviable task of protecting a lovably naive tourist from harm as he travels the world. The book was a picaresque travel tale through a fantasy world that was not as yet fully developed, and at the time, it was more a parody of other series (like Lord of the Rings and Anne McCaffery) than its own entity. But it was a wonderful start to a series.

But this book has a strange cachet attached to it in my mind as well. You see, every time I read it, something bad happens to me.

The first time I read it, I got into a fist fight, and if you know me, the concept of me being in a fist fight is absurd on so many levels. Granted it was a silly fight too, one with a lot of comedic overtones, but still it was a fight.

And every time I read it, I suffer some form of similar misfortune, and it is never the same kind of thing that befell me the last time. But it does usually end up involving humiliation… that is a constant.

From losing money in a stupid way to finding myself in a seemingly compromising position (it really wasn’t what it looked like) in front of a girl I fancied, and a few other choice incidents which don’t bear repeating at the moment, something always ends up getting me in the end when I read The Colour of Magic.

And yet, even knowing that something bad is about to happen to me, I still feel compelled to read it. The fact that it is a book is about the adventures of a hapless and cowardly wizard who tries to avoid trouble, but somehow always becomes comically entwined with whatever events surround him is likely just a coincidence. I mean, I couldn’t just subconsciously trying to get into trouble just because of the book I was reading, could I? Nah!

I guess I am just a masochist in the end. It is a pleasure which is too great to give up, despite the perils.

Susie was lying on her back, her fangs stretched to the stars. Very carefully, very slowly, Rick felt for the pouch on her stomach. Yes, there was Rose, a soft, painfully thin bundle of skin and claws…. He began to lift her out, stopping dead every time Susie stirred. It took a long time but at last she was free and crouching in his hand. He could feel her heart beating very fast against his fingers. ‘Don’t be frightened, Rose,’ he whispered.

One of the illustrations by Simon Stern

My Grade Five teacher was of the “Old-School” variety – to the extent that you wouldn’t be surprised if she were to tell you that she had taught your father, and his father before him!  We clashed quite often as she couldn’t cope with the way I, as a left-hander, held my pen whilst writing.  There is just no way you can write cursive with your left hand the same way you do as a right-hander, holding the pen loosely and pulling it across the page. Now, if we could write from right to left on the page, in mirror-writing, we can do it – but there was no telling her.  Many was the day that I had a pen lid poked repeatedly on the top of my head, with the words “Don’t strangle your PEN!” being shouted from behind.

Back in the warmth of the fire he rolled up the sleeve of his jersey and placed her fangs against the blue veins in his wrist. ‘Come on, Rose,’ he urged her. ‘Come on.’

She also had an “UM and AH and PAUSE” chart on the wall, and we would be required to give two minute talks without notes; every time an “Um” or “Ah” was spoken, or too-long a pause was taken, a black mark was placed against your name.  What with the way she was messing with my mind in the writing department, and my susceptibility to anxiety attacks, my space on the “UM and AH and PAUSE” chart quickly filled with blackness.  To this day when I’m anxious and am trying to speak, I have to constantly fight attacks of complete tongue-tied frustration – a trait that developed over that year.

It was an awful moment – like holding a crumb to a sick fledgling and wondering if it was strong enough to feed. Would she? Would she not?

You would think that from all this I owe no thanks to my grade five teacher, but that’s not true.  The very first book that I remember ever “owning” me (not counting the myriad of picture books, a lot of which still have a place on my bookcase) was one that she read to us.  Right after lunch we would sit at our desks, and she would read to us for fifteen to twenty minutes; I cannot remember any of the titles, except one.

For a moment Rose stayed still, hunched and trembling. Then her head turned, her mouth groped along his arm and Rick shut his eyes as she made a sudden jab at his wrist.

The book was The Great Ghost Rescue, by Eva Ibbotson, and the whole class sat captivated listening to the plight of Humphrey and his ghost family, forced to flee their castle due to its “modernization” by property developers.  A chance meeting with the boy Rick in his school dormitory finds them with a Champion for their cause – he quickly decides that a Ghost Sanctuary is what is needed.  The rest of the story follows their efforts towards making this dream a reality – tracking down those in need of refuge, and dealing with bureaucracy (both good, and very, very bad)!

And, after all, it was nothing. Susie was right. Less than a pinprick, and then he sat happily watching the tiny thing suck and feeling her warm life in his hand.

The next day they set off across the moors. No one bothered any longer to tell the vampire bats that they couldn’t come. When Susie woke and found Rick had fed Rose she burst into a storm of tears. ‘Oh the relief!’ she cried, flying round and round Rick’s head. ‘Oh, you wonderful boy. I’m sorry I said all those silly things to you. Oh, my baby – look how pink her cheeks are! What excellent blood you have, you dear, dear boy!’

This set has my favorite covers

There are a couple of book series that owned me, to be honest. But only one time was I ever compelled to read a series cover-to-cover twice in a row. As soon as I finished book 3, I was back in book 1 again the following day, and just kept on reading. I never do that. I have re-read series before, but usually with another book or significant time between readings. With Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle, I had to go back right away to re-experience it. And then I went back again a year later.

I want to be clear that I’m talking about the original Cycle, which was a trilogy. When I read the series, that’s all there were. Three books: Taliesin, Merlin, and Arthur.  Some time after I read those, two other books were added to the series – but these books were added on and not part of the original, completely self-contained plan. Everything I’ve read about them paints them as inferior to the original trilogy, and the back covers do nothing to persuade me otherwise so I can’t bring myself to read them, as much as I love that world.

That original trilogy, though… you may glean from the titles that the story is essentially that of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table – but that’s really only the end of the tale (and fair warning to the purists, liberties are taken).

The general Arthurian legend, while interesting in its isolated sub-stories, had never held more than a passing interest for me. I’d dabbled around the edges from time to time (most notably, with Susan Cooper’s “The Dark Is Rising” set) but it never really grabbed me at its core. And it isn’t why I started Lawhead’s series, either. I got into it because I saw that the second book was called Merlin and I wanted to learn more about that character. I thought it would be cool to read a sorcery story. I didn’t get what I bargained for, but I got so much more.

I will weep no more for the lost, asleep in their water graves.
— Charis in Taliesin

The story is simply epic in scope, and I don’t use that term lightly. Generations come and go through the books. Kingdoms (and islands) rise and fall. Taliesin begins as the story of Charis, a young princess of Atlantis who escapes the destruction of her world to see her father become the Fisher King of Britain. She falls in love with the remarkable and mysterious Taliesin, gifted beyond all others, and Merlin is born as tragedy strikes.

This is to be Arthur’s story. Yes, but there is more to Arthur than his birth. To understand him, you have to understand the land. This land, this Island of the Mighty. And you have to understand me, for I am the man who made him.
— Merlin in Merlin

As I mentioned, Merlin was the book I was really interested in when this whole thing started. I was right to focus here, but my expectation was way off. While magic certainly played a role, this was much more depth and character focus than I had initially anticipated – and it thrilled me. This was a tragic, yet noble Merlin, long-lived, with experience hard-won. It has been years since I last read this – almost 20, I believe – and a single scene from this book still comes to me from time to time. I still viscerally feel the pain of the event that unfolded. I don’t believe any single moment from a book has ever stuck with me as strongly.

Arthur is no fit king. Uther’s bastard, Merlin’s pet, he is lowborn and a fool. … All these things and more men say of Arthur. Let them. When all the words are spoken and the arguments fall exhausted into silence, this single fact remains: we would follow Arthur to the very gates of Hell and beyond if he asked it. And that is the solitary truth. Show me another who can claim such loyalty.
— Pelleas in Arthur

Arthur is, as you would expect, about the boy who would be High King of Britain, his training, his reign, and his downfall. Camelot, Guinevere, Lancelot, the Round Table – all are present. Yet, as with the previous books, all are more nuanced and fully realized than I had encountered prior to that time. The ending is huge, personal, tragic, and triumphant all at once. It is a fitting culmination to a truly epic story.

It is this trilogy to which I compare all other Arthurian retellings. While many are excellent and have nothing to apologize for, none have captivated me the way The Pendragon Cycle did.

I think I just talked myself into reading it again.

Some of them you’ve likely heard of or even read… but there may be a few titles which are totally new to you.

And perhaps you’ll consider a book you haven’t read before and give it a chance to buy some property in your own heart.

So, what are the books that have owned you?

I was given Larry by a friend of my mum’s when I was a couple of months old, and he has stayed with me until this day. Granted he’s been living on top of the wardrobe for the past fifteen years or so, but for the first half of my life he had a vital role as my comforter, my confidante, and perhaps most importantly, my pillow.

Around a year ago I happened to mention Larry to my daughter Amy on the walk home from school, and she asked if she could have him now that I was a grown up. This struck me as a lovely idea, and so that evening I clambered up the wardrobe and brought him down from his retirement home.

Amy was very enthusiastic about receiving this beloved family heirloom. Enthusiastic that is until she took a sniff at it.

“Urrrggg, it stinks!” she exclaimed disgustedly.

And to be fair she’s right. A stuffed sheep can only be used as a pillow for so long before it gets ingrained with an oily stench that even the most industrial of washing machines can’t shift.

“Evan can have it instead” she decided graciously, and shoved it into her brother’s arms.

Thankfully Evan’s olfactory sensibilities aren’t as refined as his sister’s, and he and Larry quickly bonded in front of an episode of Backyardigans. He even took him to bed with him, where he has had pride of place ever since. And while he doesn’t use him as a pillow, choosing instead to lull himself to sleep by chewing on the poor sheep’s nose, there was something incredibly heartwarming about seeing my son cuddled up with the constant companion of my own childhood.

And I’m pretty sure I see the faintest glint of happiness in Larry’s eyes too.