nd I have read Barker’s Books of blood volumes 1-3, as well as volumes 4-6, which were released under other names (In the Flesh, The Inhuman Condition, and Cabal).  I have read the Great and Secret Show and its sequel, Everville.  I have read the Hellbound Heart, the basis for the Hellraiser movies, and a Thief of Always, a book geared towards young adults.  I have read his two newest offerings for adults, Coldheart Canyon and Mister B. Gone.

I have not read the Abarat series, which is also geared towards young adults, and I have no desire to at this point.

And that leaves us with, what I call, the Big 3.

Big, because they are massive volumes.  And an 800 page Barker novel would be akin to a 1500 page by most other authors.  I mean, have you ever looked at the type in one of Barker’s books?  They are dense pages.  If you were to take the newest 350-page offering by Koontz and condense his words to be the same size as Barker’s, the Koontz novel would be a paltry 200 pages.

But I digress… I never bought either of these Big 3, Imajica, Galilee or Sacrament because I didn’t want to involve myself in a novel that would take me six months to read.  Between the children, TV, comic books, video games and MLB, my reading time is limited, and there is so much I want to read.  So I purposely eschewed these three novels.

But, of course, I was at a used book store one day, and Imajica was sitting on a stack of $1 books, an old wonderful hardcover copy with a little stain.  The clerk notcied me looking at it and told me it was his favorite Barker book.  And I, being the sucker I am, turned over my $1 and took the book home.

Where it sat on a bookcase for over a year

I finally picked it up three weeks ago, after finishing Lincoln Child’s Terminal Freeze and Simon Greene’s Daemons Are Forever and left with nothing else to read.

I cracked that baby open and…

Here I am, three weeks later, only 230 pages in.

I eat 230 pages for breakfast.  At least I do when there are 33 lines per page and a measly 9 words per line.  And a good amount of the story is dialogue.

I hate to say it, but reading Barker can be a chore sometimes.  He oftentimes takes two pages to describe what most authors would spend a sentence or two describing.  And while the images he paints are compelling and complete, he can often go into overkill mode, describing everything and not leaving enough to the imagination.

His paragraphs are so dense, and his language, while almost akin to poetry, can be stilted at times.  But he is British, so what can you expect?  So many sentences are multiple lines in length that I oftentimes find myself re-reading full paragraphs to fully appreciate the words on the page.  Other times I re-read a line or paragraph to fully appreciate the picture Barker is painting with his words.  Other times I have to re-read a paragraph because I accidentally skipped a line and got lost, as if stumbling through a hedge maze.

All of these reasons, combined with the actual hefty word-count, has made Imajica a chore.  Not an unwieldy chore, and not a chore I am going to cast aside and ask someone else to do.  But its tough.  Its tough to dedicate so much time to a single volume.

I am a man of instant gratification- that is why I sometimes have a hard time working on my own writing.  I enjoy writing, but there is absolutely no guarantee that anyone else will read it, or that I will eventually earn some monetary reimbursement from it.  So many times I eschew writing for those activities which will give me instant gratification: reading comics, playing video games, watching TV, or reading books.

With Imajica, there is no immediate gratification.  It is an enjoyable read, and while the trip is as important as the destination, looking at the tome and realizing anew each time I pick it up how much is left, reminds me of how much more I have to go.  And it is daunting.  Because I know that in the same time I am reading this I could be completing a half a dozen other books from beginning to end and have the enjoyment of the trip as well as the conclusions.

But I am not a quitter and I will continue with the trip as long as it takes me for as long as it takes.  And just hope it is all worth it in July when i eventually put the book down for good.

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Have you ever woken up on a Sunday morning to frantic sound of knocking on your door?  Sure you have.  We all have.  But most of the time its a Jehovah’s Witness or another religious zealot sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong, or some kids trying to sell candy bars to pay for new wrestling unitards or cheerleading outfits.

But have you ever opened the front door early on a Sunday morning and find two men standing in biohazard suits waiting for you?  Bet you haven’t.  But I have.

It was several weeks after 9/11, and I was living in an apartment complex in Edison, New Jersey, and everyone was paranoid.  And when someone smelled something strange…

Anyway, we were given just enough time clothing and then ushered out of the house.  No time to put in contact lenses or even take a piss.  Thankfully I knew where my glasses were.  I felt like I was an extra in the sequel to the movie Outbreak, and as my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I were forced out along with every other bleary-eyed resident, I couldn’t help but scan the roof for a loose monkey.  I saw none, and was slightly disappointed.  But I did see plenty of police cars, fire engines, and guys in funny outfits

We were told we wouldn’t be allowed back into the apartment until the mystery subtance that was discovered was fully examined, and they didn’t know how long that would be.  It was cold, so we left for her parents’ house, stopping along the way at a CVS to use the restroom.

We returned ten hours later as dusk set in and found everything quiet.  We talked to a couple of neighbors and learned the truth of the mystery liquid that was found in the entranceway to the apartment building:

Curry,

Someone had spilled curry.  And someone else freaked out and called the police.

Now, you have to understand, Edison, NJ has a very large Indian population, and the smell of curry is very prominent.  Pervasive, even.  When we moved into the apartment, the handles to all of the kitchen cabinets were covered with a thin layer of curry powder, and if I could have stripped the wallpaper, I would have, because the smell had just sunk in. 

To live in Edison is to be intimate with the smell of curry.

Obviously someone was new in town, and instead of maybe asking someone what the strange smell was, he panicked and called the police.

As if someone would waste their time on a chemical attack against a small apartment building in Northern New Jersey.

Dumbass.

See… not a great story, but better than the crap that most people spew on Jeopardy.

I still can’t smell curry without seeing a biohazard suit in my mind’s eye.  Indian food has been ruined for me forever.

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• Lost-  God, I miss the days of escaped polar bears.  And The Others.  And inputting numbers into an old computer and pushing a button.  I remember complaining about the show back then, but man, it was gold compared to today.  Time travel.  I HATE time travel.  Abhor it.  Its an awful premise in any show.  And all it has done to lost is make it an incomprehensible mess.  I mean, you need a legal pad and pencil to take notes while watching the show to have a shot at understanding what you witnessing.  And even then, its near impossible.  Months later, I’m still trying to figure out how the events that caused the plane to crash in the first place could have occurred considering it required the characters to be on the island and travel through time to help it happen.  It makes my head hurt, and sometimes I think I’m developing a slight psychosis as I try to work everything out.  Man, I am glad that this is the last season.  I don;t even care if it makes sense in the end.  I just want it to be over.

• 24-  Season 1 was awesome.  Season 2 was good.  Missed season 3.  Season 4 was awesome.  Season 5 was good.  Season 6 was okay.  Season 7… my wife and I got so bored we didn’t even bother to watch the last six hours, which we had DVRed.  It was soooo boring.  There were a handful of good episodes, but it hit its high point and reached its conclusion way too quickly, and we stopped caring.  We knew Jack survived because he had signed on for another year, so all of the suspense was gone after hour 18 when the main plot line wrapped up.  I’m glad FOX replayed last season’s finale before the first night this season so we could catch up, but it wasn’t very good.  As for this season, I;ve enjoyed ot for the most part.  We got back to the good ol’ villains: Arabs and Germans.  The first five hours haven;t been extraordinary, but they havebeen entertaining.  I hate, like most viewers, the whole Dana/Jenny subplot, which makes absolutely no sense, but the weak plots can be overlooked because of the new Rene Walker.  The new brooding, violent version is much more fun than the clean cut FBI agent from last season.  Watching her cut off Ziya’s thumb was awesome.  Jack broke her last season, forcing her to accept that the ends justify the means when it comes to extracting information, and we the viewers are rewarded with a much more interesting character.  Will the show even capture the magic of Season 1?  Of course not.  But its trying.  (PS, I miss Edgar)

• Dexter-  Best- show- ever.  The story of a sociopathic serial killer who kills those who slip through the cracks at night and works at Miami police department during the day as a blood expert.  The series is simply amazing.  The acting, especially by Dexter’s sister, can be piss poor at times, but this is the only fault I have with this show through 4 seasons.  Forget the Sopranos.  This is where its at.   Now, we and my wife watched this series in a kind of unique way: We watched the second half of season 3 first, when we discovered the show.  Then we watched the first half of season 3 on demand.  A year later we began watching season 4.  Halfway through season 4, we picked up season 1 on DVD and watched it concurrently with season 4 (which left us very confused at some moments).  And then we watched season 3, finishing the 12 55 minute episodes over two and a half days.  Whenever the kids were down, either at nap time or at night, we started an episode and pounded the season out.  As soon as we have time, we’ll re-watch seasons 3, and then catch season 4 when it is finally released.  Go over to IGN and read up on it if you are interested.  But this is a can’t miss series.  Better than the Sopranos.  Better than Mad Men.  Better than Breaking Bad.  Simply awesome.

• Scrubs- New series is better than I thought it would be.  The new cast is fair, saved only by James Franco’s younger brother Dave, but the returning characters serve as a bridge from the original series which makes the viewers immediately more comfortable with the new premise and cast.  Watchable, but nothing spectacular

• Better of Ted-  Already wrote a dedicated post to the series, but I figured I would touch upon it again.  Great show.  Hysterical.  Portia de Rossi is a jewel, and everything that comes out of her mouth is gold.  I never miss an episode.

• Love Big Bang Theory.  Love Modern Family (finally, a new vehile for the amazing Ed O’Neal, Mr al bundy himself).  Still like the Office, buts getting close to jumping the shark.

• Still hate all things “reality”.  Once Beauty and the Geek left the airwaves, I have boycotted all reality broadcasting.

That’s it for the wrap up, let me know what you think.

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Outlandish cases + attractive men and women + plot threads that have everyone sleeping with everyone else = something women will watch.

I wonder if my wife will tune in.  If so, i guess I lose her for the entirety of Thursday evening.  But I can use some good old video game and comic book time.

Now why bring any of this up?  Just to make this final point, I guess:

• I’ve seen better acting in ‘made for the web” pornography than in Grey’s
• I’ve seen better, more cohesive, plots in the same made for the web pornography
• I’ve seen more disturbing sex scenes on Gray’s Anatomy than in professional porn
• I’ve actually felt dirtier watching Gray’s Anatomy than pornography

So the question is, why do women get so uptight and offended when men watch porn while they are allowed to watch such crap with little or no embarrassment?

That’s it.  Just had to get my thoughts out.  Time to go watch some porn.

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If you said they both have back problems, you would be closer.  After all, Friday is a daschund and my father is a dentist, both of which are prone to back issues.

But if you said they are both diabetic, well then, give yourself a pat on the back because you win the Kewpie doll. 

Less than a month after needing to have one of my dog’s teeth extracted, he stopped eating and started drinking alot.  And peeing.  Alot.  He was always a little overweight, but we managed to get him down to a healthier weight recently.  But he was suddenly looking a little toothin.  Ribs too prominent.  Waist too narrow.  I can think of several women in my life who would love to shed four pounds in less than a month, but this is definitely not healthy for a dog who spends most of his life sleeping and gnawing on bones.

So, having our suspicions, we took the dog to the vet where they did some blood tests, and they came back with a diagnosis of canine diabetes.  After doing some research ourselves the night before, this basically confirmed our suspicions.

Freaking diabetes.  In a five and a half year old dog.

I know how much the vet bill is, and while not astronomical, its significant.  But I can’t even imagine the cost of the soon to be needed daily insulin injections.  Or the cost for weekly or bi-weekly blood sugar tests at the vet.  But it is what it is. (My wife hates it when I use that expression)

Someone at work asked me what I was going to do.  I looked at her strangely.  But I guess that’s the mindset of someone who doesn’t own a dog.  What am I going to do?  Try to give him away (because there is a waiting  list for diabetic dogs)?  Put him to sleep?  Not get him the medication he needs?

The dog is almost 6.  My children are 2 1/2 and 6 months old.  He’s part of the family.  And we treat him like part of the family.  He’s been around twice as long as either of the kids.  Now, if his back gave out and he was borderline crippled, well, that’s another story.  That’s a quality of life issue.  But he’s sick, and can be treated with meds, so that’s what we’ll do.

Its this part of pet ownership I don’t think a lot of people understand.  You have kids coming out of college or grad school and living in their own house or apartment for the first time and they suddenly have the desire to have a dog.  But its not that easy, and I don’t think enough people truly understand the responsibility of owning a dog.  It’s more than feeding them and walking them and putting a house of their head and playing with them.   It’s being aware that, like children, like adults, like people, dogs get hurt.  They get sick.  They get diseases.  And you must, as a potential pet owner, understand the financial toll of having a sick animal before you own one.

A dog isn’t a fish or a hamster.  He’s your friend.  Your strange adopted child.  And when you own one, you better be prepared, and willing, to do everything and anything required to maintain his health.  If not, you should probably get a fish instead.  That, at least, can be flushed down the toilet.

My dog has diabetes.  Maybe he will get better.  Maybe he won’t.  But I love him, and if I have to sacrifice so that he is healthy and happy, then that’s what I will do.

Because that’s the price of being a dog owner.

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“War!  What is it good for?  Absolutely nothing!”

I’m not going to give you a list of every good war, just the biggest ones as they relate to us as Americans:

• The Revolutioanry War, which liberate use from England and ensured us of decent teeth
• The Civil War- Saw the end of slavery and the beginning of a cohesive USA
• WWII-  Saw teh defeat of Nazis and Hitler and other silly stuff like that

Whenever I hear Springsteen on the radio, I can’t help but to wonder what drugs he is taking.  Or what brain damage he suffered as a child.  Of course not all wars are just.  Or good.  Or necessary.  But many wars are just and good and necessary to protect the innocent people of the world, and for someone to ever utter the words “what is it good for”, well, it makes me want to punch them.  And send them to a concentration camp to get gassed.

When evil men arise, war is needed to put them down.  And anyone who ever questions the necessity of war needs to be strapped to a chair with his eye-lids propped open with tooth picks and forced to watch scenes of slaves being whipped and beaten and European Jews being shepparded to their deaths.

I’m ashamed to share statehood with the “Boss”.  Maybe we should ship him off to England where he can become a British citizen, which is obviously what he wants.

This man is treated like a god by millions, yet he can’t even figure out what state he is on before performing.  And we wonder why this country is in such bad shape- people look to music artists to decide what to think because they can’t think for themselves.  As long as an idea, a philosophy, is wrapped in pretty words and set to a catchy tune, the masses will eat it up.  And be thankful that someone else is telling them what to believe.

I used to love Pearl Jam.  Loved them.  Favorite band.  But when Eddie Vedder, laying claim to his own little Messiah Complex, starts spouting off against President Bush because, for some reason, he thinks that he, a lowly musician, knows more about world politics than the President, I stopped listening to PJ.  It pained me.  Like breaking up with a girlfriend after seven strong years.  But my own sense of morality told me that if I wanted to be true to myself, I had to boycott the band that had given me so much pleasure through high school and college.  And I did.  Because ignorance and self-righteousness makes me sick.

Next time I miss work, I’m to going to say I was out with a case of the Bruce Springsteens.

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• 21 years old.  Nothing wrong with that.  We were all 21 at one time.  Or will be.  unless you die early
• In the military since 2007.  Good for her.  Stable, honest work.
• Has a ten month old son… hey, what?
• Not married.  Really?  You don’t say. 
• No contact with the father.  A shocker, right?
• Grandmother can’t take care of the infant because she has too much on her plate already.
• So… Alexis skips out on being deployed, claiming she can’t find anyone to take care of her kid.

This whole thing sickens me.  Makes me absolutely ill.  Just another sign of irresponsibility of Americans and the break down of any sort of family and moral systems.  Hey, bitch, you’re enlisted.  in the military. With responsibilities that you know may see you out of the country for a year or two.  Yet you decide to get pregnant.  You know what?  It’s easier to catch a cold than get pregnant.  You know how you don’t get pregnant?  Keep your goddamn legs closed!  It would be one thing if she were married.  If she had a stable family to care for the child, even being young as she is.  But this irresponsible woman decides to get pregnant by a man whom I am guessing she probably never had any intention of marrying, and then expects to get leniency when she skips out on her duty to care for the child.  Hey, bitch, how about not getting pregnant while you’re single and enlisted.  How about you act like a responsible member of society and not a goddamn burden.  How about you stop making excuses and get your ass where its supposed to be.  You made a committment to the US military long before you decided it was a good idea to become an unwed mother with no father to raise your child.

Young people today… I don’t know what the hell has gone so wrong that being an unwed mother is considered acceptible.  I’m 32, my wife is 30, and its damn difficult to raise children, even when you have strong support from family.  And here you have a kid, and yes, today, 2o years old is a kid, enlisted in the military, getting pregnant and not giving it a second thought.  And I don’t want to hear that it may have been an accident.  That maybe birth control failed.  That maybe a condom broke.  Even if it were an accident and not pure recklessness (unprotected sex), there is no excuse.  If you are in the military, if you are in the military, if you have no one to care for a child while you are halfway across the world, then maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t even take the risk of getting pregnant and keep your jeans zippered up.

It’s people like this that really make me sad for the future of America.  Just selfish, stupid behavior.  No concept of responsibility or of consequences.  No fucking brains, just excuses.  And there is no excuse for an unwed 20 year old who is in the military to go out and get pregnant.  None.  She made her bed, and now she has to lie in it.  She made poor choices, and guess what?  She has to live with the consequences, like it or not.  I hope the military sticks her kid in foster care and ships this woman off to war where she belongs.  Where she made a commitment to be.

Is this callous?  Sure as hell is.  But I’m sick and tired of people not taking responsibility for their actions.  You want to be a mommy at the ripe young age of 20 or 21,  get married first.  (Why the hell is it so hard to wait to have children until you’re married in this country, anyway?!)  And for god’s sake, don’t enlist in the military.

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Technorati Tags: Army, court martial, deployment, military, responsibility, soldier mom, wedlock

A bunch of finger pointers.  Here are a couple of  quick cases:

• Deaths at the Frat House- I don;t like fraternity.  Never have, never will.  Never liked the idea of buying friends.  Never liked the idea of  hazing, which still goes on despite its illegal nature.  Never liked the fact that over 90% of college rapes occur at frat houses.  Sure I did my share of rushing during my freshman year.  Got to see lesbian strippers.  Twice.  Got my party on.  It was fun, for a week.  But I never wanted to walk around campus with three Greek letter stamped on my shirt.  The idea always made me feel dirty.  But I will side with the Greeks on on thing: when someone dies at a frat party, or after getting wasted at a frat party, the fraternity should not be held responsible.  Just like when someone dies at, or after leaving, a house party.  I understand the anguish a parent goes through when the word comes that their perfect little Johnny got drunk at a party and fell from a balcony.  Or died of acute alcohol poisoning.  Or got hit by a car.  I understand the instinctive nature to lash out, to blame someone.  But all too often, these mourning parents refuse to accept that there is really only one person at fault: their dead child.  This may sound inhuman, but it is the truth.  Even in cases when it is an illegal hazing incident that leads to death, well guess what, not doing it is always an option.  The news over the past few years is littered with lawsuits against schools and fraternities for wrongful death, and it is bullshit.  The school is supposed to stop underage drinking off campus?  Fraternity parties are supposed to be dry?  Bullshit.  If 21 is the drinking age, at least 50-75% of people at a frat party are drinking illegally.  And everyone, from the police to the higher-ups at the colleges know this, but there is no way to stop the drinking.  its part of college life, and to try and stop it is a futile exercise.   The most recent case is from Penn State several days ago: two students and two fraternities are being sued after some asshole got drunk (more than 2x the legal driving limit) and fell onto a concrete landing.  I remember several years ago when a local student got drunk and wandered onto campus and got crushed in a trash compactor.  His body was found in a landfill.  His parents sued everyone.  Horrible, horrible stories.  No one is denying that.  But the one undeniable truth rises above everything else: If  these idiots didn’t get drunk, they would still be alive today.  These parents have to stop looking at everyone else while searching for fault and accept the fact that their children are dead because they decided to over-drink.  Done.  End of story.  They know their kids are going to drink.  And do drugs.  That’s part of college life.  And its unfortunate when a young life is snuffed out because of alcohol consumption, but those are the risks every one of us takes when we drink to excess.  And these parents need to, pardon my French, go fuck themselves and stop looking beyond their own offspring’s poor decisions to assign blame.

• Two years ago, a woman in California decided to take part in a contest to win a $250 Wii.  The contest entailed drinking a certain amount of water over a certain period of time without peeing.  Well, she died of water intoxication.  And of course the family sued.  And, because of dumb juries, the family won upwards of 15 million dollars.  Bullshit.  Now, the DJ’s during the event weren’t the most sensitive when callers called up and alerted them to the fact that people, though rarely, do die from water intoxication.  They were crass and insensitive, but last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime.  What is the crime here?  This woman’s family being rewarded for her stupidity.  Just as the law says, ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law.  This is the 21st fucking century, and maybe, just maybe, this idiot should have gotten online before undertaking such a contest and have done some research as to whether or not their was a danger to it.  Or called a doctor.  It may be just me, but I’ve been aware for over a decade that drinking too much water can kill you.  And I would think that common sense would hint that drinking or eating too much of  ANYTHING could have adverse reactions, including death.  Ignorance is no excuse when bad things happen, especially when they are situations you walk into voluntarily.  I mean, this idiot continued to drink the goddamn water even after she began to feel nauseous and ill.  That’s generally when people with half a brain stop doing whatever they are doing.  This woman’s family should have been awarded nothing.  And the judge should have taken her 3 children aside and asked some questions to make sure they weren’t as retarded as their mother.  Harsh, I know, but where’s the personal responsibility?  Did she ask some questions before participating?  No.  She went in blindly and she paid the price for a stupid decision.

• Another recent lawsuit in Montana awarded $850,000 to grieving parents whose child was killed when a pitched ball came off of an aluminum bat, smacking him in the head.  They sued the makers of the bat, not claiming not that the bat was defective, but that there should have been a warning on the bat alerting people to the fact that balls hit by aluminum bats come back faster than balls hit by wooden bats.  There are so many thins wriong with this that I don’t know where to begin.  But here we go:  1) There is still no proof that aluminum bats are more dangerous than wooden bats.  In this case, a ball hit off a wooden bat would have caused the same damage. 2) A warning label on the bat alerting parents and children that aluminum bats are more dangerous than wooden bats.  Yeah that will surely make a difference.  Look, not a single state in this country has made aluminum bats illegal.  Each time a law arises, it is shot down, because, once again, there is no proof.  This lawsuit has no merit because the manufacturer did nothing wrong, and this is a case where even a warning wouldn’t have prevented the death.  Because EVERY little league operation uses metal bats.  And I bet you that these parents would have let their child play baseball even if the bats had a warning printed on them.  Why?  Because like every parent out there, they would have thought “There’s no way my son can get hurt playing baseball.  The odds of soemthign bad happening are so small.  And all of his friends are playing.”   And if they say otherwise, then they are fat fucking liars.  No sane parent prevents their child from playing a sport because of the 1 in a million chance that they could die.  if that was the case, no parent would ever let their child drive.  This whole thing is a money grab, nothing more, nothing less.  It’s a freak accident, and the results would probably have been the same if the ball had been launched from a wooden bat.  Remember a couple of years ago when a minor league third base couch was hit in the neck by a ball off of a wooden bat and died?  Its a freak accident, and guess what?  There is no one to blame.  And the fact that not a single state or organization will ban aluminum bats is proof enough that they are not innately more dangerous.  If their was indisputable proof, wooden bats would be the norm.  Done.  Freak accidents happen.  Maybe these parents should sue God next, but that makes as much sense as suing the bat manufacturer.  And if these parents really, I mean really, blamed the bats, wouldn’t they have sued the township and the little league itself for allowing the kids to use metal bats?  That would have made sense.  But guess who has the most money here?  Yep, the guys who make the bats.  Fucking juries.  The lawyers must whittle down the pool so only the most inbred morons are left.  Metal bats need labels to warn the  batter that balls may go fast when hit.  How the fuck does that help the pitcher who gets beaned.  This is as stupid as the woman who won a lawsuit after placing hot coffee in her lap.  Some things just don’t need labels, because if you are too dumb to know the obvious, well then, maybe you should be pushed out of the gene pool.

• And finally, these dumb Brits who were captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia.  Are you kidding me?  This is as irresponsible as those three hippies captured at the Iranian border.  What the fuck is wrong with people?  Who the hell says: “Hey, beautiful days for sailing in pirate infested waters, isn’t it?”   What, was the Mediterranean Sea closed for the week?  or full?  Who the fuck takes their yacht of the coast of Somalia?  The British government shouldn’t lift a  finger or pay a dime to free these idiots.  Once again, a simple case of being in a place you full well know you shouldn’t be.  Are we supposed to feel bad for this couple?  Is Britain really expected to hand over millions of tax dollars to secure the release of people who decided it would be a jolly good time to take their boat of the East coast of Africa?  Let them rot.  They brought this on themselves.  They took the risk, and now they have to live with the consequences.  Personal responsibility. 

Accidents happen in this world.  That’s life.  And all we can do as human beings is try to limit the chances that something bad can and will happen to us.  That means not getting so drunk you tumble from a window.  This means learning of the dangers that should be evident before you enroll in a contest.  This means not being in a place that you know is dangerous.  Life is unpredictable, and it is the responsibility of every individual person to put themselves in a position to limit the chances that bad things happen.  Personal responsibility.  Learn it.  Love it.  Live it. 

And to every college student who may be reading this: You reap what you sow.  When you get drunk off your ass outside of your dorm room, the chances of bas things happen shoots up exponentially.  Be safe, be smart.  Because if you end up falling five stories onto a concrete patio,  your own blood pooling around your crushed skull, dying cold and alone… if you end up in the ER on death’s door because of blood alcohol poisoning… if you wrap your car around a telephone pole while having a blood aocohol level of .16… you have no one to blame but yourself.

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5.  Pest of the West-  This episode is just awful all around, and there is a reason why Atlantis Squarepantis and Dunces and Dragons and Where’s Gary are shown all the time while Pest of the West stays locked in the vault.  The story is awful and the dialogue is offensive.  I haven’t seen it in a while, but I remember being really turned off by the constant use of the word “stupid” and how SB constantly offended Patrick.  The lessons on how to treat friends in this episode are horrible, and thankly, second chances at viewing it are few and far between.  EVERYONE should avoid this episode, not just the 6-12 year old crowd

4.  Bubble Buddy-  This episode features Spongebob as a killer.  He buries some poor guy up to his neck in the sand during high tide, and at the end of the episode, we see the dead fish’s angel going up to Heaven.  I mean, this is just wrong

3.  Frankendoodle-  Just like cartoons and shows that show monsters lurking in the closet and under the bed, striking fear into the heart of young children, this episode is just plain scary.  And kids these days already don’t want to do  anything creative or artistic.  All they want to do is veg and play video games and watch TV.  So this episode, which features an innocent drawing turned into a blood thirsty monster look to erase Spongebob,  may be too much for children to handle.  The last thing we need is children afraid to even pick up a pencil

2.  #1 Fan- Mr Krabs digging up a corpse just to get a hat back.  Not only do we have grave robbing in this episode, we have zombie fish erupting from the ground and assaulting Mr Krabs.  As a child, there was nothing scarier that the walking dead.  After seeing the Thriller video, my insides knotted up every time we would pass a cemetery in the car, and I could just imagine the rotting corpses erupting from the dirt to hunt me down.  Now, this episode is not as bad as Thriller but still… grave robbing, zombie fish… not a good episode for children

1.  And finally, the most inappropriate SB episode for children… Nasty Patty.  Could there be any other?  I mean, Krabs and SB spend the entire episode trying to bury the health inspector, whom they think they killed.  Just awful.  Don’t get me wrong, its a good episode… if your fourteen or over.  But for the youngest viewers, it is nightmare inducing.

Let me know what you think below.  And don’t forget to check out my other Top 5 SB lists

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Star Wars: Legacy of the Force is a nine part series set several years after the last major trilogy, New Jedi Order.  It is written by three authors, each penning three of the novels.  The authors include, in no particular order, Aaron Allston, Karen Traviss and Troy Denning.  Denning is the most well known, having written many Forgotten Realms trilogies for TSR, now Wizards of the Coast.

This story line, to be blunt, shows the transformation of Jacen Solo from a mere foot soldier in the new Galactic Alliance, into a new Emperor.  This story can not be read in a vacuum; to fully understand the characters and their motives, you must be familiar with the events of both the New Jedi Order story as well as the Dark Nest trilogy.  Jacen’s actions and transformations are directly related to his experiences in these novels.

First off, it needs to be said, that this story was a little too long.  I think seven books would have been perfect (though, with three authors, each needed to be given an equal number of books, and six would have been too short, unless each was expanded 50 to 100 pages).  Anyway… I’m not going to judge whether the story was good or not.  This is not a stand alone story.  It exists within the framework of the expanded Star Wars Universe, and is an integral part of the mythology.  Its not a single, off-shoot story that can be easily judged based on its relevance and execution.  This story defines the characters and their futures, and as such, in my mind, simply exists.  now, their are elements to the story I liked, and others I loathed, but the series does follow the natural progression and evolution of the characters and the universe.

I’ll tell you one thing I really disliked and felt slowed the story to a crawl at some point: Boba Fett.  We all love the Fett from the movies.  But each of Karen Traviss’ novels dedicates half of the pages to Fett, his family, his home life, his home plant, and his status as the leader of the Mandalorean people.  It’s interesting, I guess, fleshing out the character from mere mercenary to an actual, dynamic character, but it was too much.  Now understand, Fett plays an integral role in the end game of the story, and his back story and the associated characters to play a major role, but i felt it was too much.  I felt that the same results could have been achieved through different means with a more satisfying experience.  Whether or not focusing on Fett was Traviss’ idea, or the idea of the braintrust behind the expanded universe, i don’t know.  But what I do know is that too much time was focused on Fett.  Don’t get me wrong, some people may like this.  or love this.  Because Fett is a beloved character in the Star Wars Universe.  But I felt that it lengthened the story too much, causing it bog down too much at times.

A second issue of mine was the villain in the books.  We have Alema Rar, a Twi’lik Jedi driven insane during the Dark Nest Trilogy, and Luminya, another Jedi from Luke’s past.  Both play integral roles in the story, but quite frankly, neither of them are that interesting or compelling  characters.  The only villain worth the ink is Jacen Skywalker.

What did I like?  We get to see the deaths of many major characters (I won’t ruin this for you), many Jedi battles, plot intrigues, and a lot of suspense.  We see the return of the Imperial Remnant and Admiral Daala.  And we get the slow, deliberate transformation of Jacen Solo into Darth Caedus.

The story of Jacen Solo is not original.  But what is these days?  We start with a man who wants to help the Alliance as it deals with the defection of Corellia and several other major planets.  We see a man who begins his quest with good intentions before being sucked into the Sith philosophy.  And like so many men in history and literature, the innocent desire to do good for the sake of all gets twisted into a philosophy of the means justifying the ends.  And over the course of the series, Jacen slowly grabs for power, doing horrible things in the same of the greater good.  He kills a terrorist during an interrogation.  He subverts Ben Skywalker.  He orders his parents killed.  He goes after Luke.  He kills a lot of innocent people.  He sacrifices his own fleet for nothing more than pride.  And, by the end, he is willing to do the same acts that Palpatine did, supposedly for the greater good. 

Watching Jacen’s fall from grace is a sobering peek into the minds of men who think they know better than everyone else what’s best for them.  At the beginning, you can sympathize with Jacen, with his actions, with his reasoning.  He is the most  tragic of figures, and the seeds of his rise and subsequent fall are evident early on.  The authors show us step-by-step how Jacen is drawn to the dark side and how he slowly becomes the monster he ends up being.  As a reader, its intriguing to look at the slippery slope Jacen finds himself on and wondering, on a personal level, how far we would go as individuals to achieve his goals.

This is a different type of series from New Jedi Order, in that NJO was several smaller, sometimes independent stories, woven together to form the larger tapestry of the Yuuzhan Vong War, and each individual trilogy or duology or stand alone book could be judged on how well it integrated with the larger story.  But this series is a single cohesive story and can’t be jugded by the same standards.  And again, that’s why I will not judge it on the merits of the meat of the story.  But in conclusion, I will say that I believe that same story could have been delivered in a shorter, more cohesive story where Fett, as well as other chaff, could have been minimized.  But in the end it was a good, thought sometimes very predictable and slow, expansion of the Star Wars Universe.  And like with any good story,  for every conflict that was solved another was created,  setting us up for the next intriguing chapter in the expanded Universe.

If you have any comments or more specific questions, feel free to comment.

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