robert.admin – Page 187 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

April 13, 2014

The Shame of Motley (Review)

Poor Lazzaro Biancomonte, recently dispossessed of his home in Biancomonte by stronger, sharkier nobles. And so, ever the hothead, the young fellow literally storms a count’s castle, demanding satisfaction. Of course, he is dragged before the count for a sobering talk, and suddenly Lazzaro realizes that (a) he’s about to get his ass killed and (b) this will kill his poor mother, reduced to peasantry by their downfall. But our count is a good fellow. He agrees to spare the young noble’s life… if…. he’ll dress in motley and literally play the fool for his count. The young man, now […]

April 10, 2014

Save early, save often (DOG EAR)

I‘m a coder from way, way back. Back in the days when home computer programs were saved on tape and memory was slotted into the machine and could crash if you hit the table hard enough, you saved early. And often. Even while working Fortran on a mainframe you habitually saved. I even always had a book with me back in my Navy Underwater Research days, given the usual outages we faced. Now, everything seems bulletproof. But I am reminded of the old adage: Never have an unsaved session larger than you’d be able to afford to lose (well, something […]

April 6, 2014

The Gun (Review)

Another short story from Planet Stories pulp magazine in 1952, pulled down off my favorite supplier of eBooks, Project Gutenberg. The Gun is a shorty by Philip K. Dick, one of the famous (and struggling, I’m led to believe) writers from the golden era. So astronomers on a planet pick up a fusion flash from a world not too far off, a big flash, an end-of-civilization full-stop flash. They send a space ship out that way to check on it. Of course, all they find is a dead world, fused and cold without a living thing in its ruins. But […]

April 3, 2014

Everything new is old again (DOG EAR)

I‘m a cranky cuss in a big box bookstore. And even though I hate them, there are fewer of them – they’re going out of business, so I hate that too. But when I’m in them, I walk around frowning. There in the new arrivals (in the front section, which the publishers of Fire and Bronze were too bankrupt to put me in), there are a bunch of self help book and glittery vamperilic trash. Walking along, I see “staff picks” that are bullshit, the usual NYT bestseller “finds” (no climbing out on limbs here). And over here, a leatherbound […]

March 30, 2014

A Doctor at Calvary (review)

I‘m not going to get into the Shroud of Turin controversy. If you want to see conflicting opinions, check out the wiki page. It’s like an article written by a split personality. No, I’m focused this week on a book Pierre Barbet wrote back in 1953, a look at just what happened to Jesus once the Romans (and Jews) decided to dispose of him. Barbet takes the shroud and examines its photographs minutely, determining the result of every injury suffered by the person pictured in the shroud, the lashings, the thorned forehead, the nail holes, the spear in the side. […]

March 27, 2014

Better than sex (DOG EAR)

I remember when I got really comfortable flying my old ultralight airplane. The perfect summer day, no wind, gathering hot, and I’d feel the wings bite into the air and lift me into that summer sky. Yeah, sorta like that. Or my new Mini Cooper. It feels perfect, a combination of sensible and sensual. It’s nimble and quick, good for precisely the sort of driving clod-hopper FUVs are incapable of. Yeah, it’s smooth and sexy, just like that. Spooning a lover. Standing before a crowd and bowing. The perfect off-the-cuff statement. The rainy weekend with nothing to do. All those […]

March 26, 2014

OpsLog – LM&O – 3/26/2014

I‘m riding the end of 298, grinding up the long grade to Harris Glen behind two gasping Geep-9s (if it wasn’t for the helpers, we’d still be back in Pittsburgh). My caboose is banging against a pair of fuel tankers and I’m thinking I’m one cigarette from going to the moon. This isn’t Yardmaster Frank’s fault – he’s only following my own generated switch lists. But really, the railroad is moving pretty well and the newbie dispatcher is moving us along pretty damn quick. My guest engineer Paul has everything down. We’re ordered to drop the helpers at Harris, just […]

March 23, 2014

Two-for (two Reviews)

Went on a little hunt over at Project Gutenberg, where you can get all the free out-of-copyright ebooks you could hope for. Found two scifi shorties (published in pulps) from the mid-fifties. Since neither of them was long enough for a full review, I decided to knock them both out today. And see if you can spot the irony in these two stories… The Odyssey of Sam Meecham Sam Meecham is a hen-pecked nine-to-five drone. His life at work is checking the two output wires on rocket engines to make sure their generated thrusts are within tolerances. At home, he […]

March 20, 2014

Do androids read the book? (DOG EAR)

More from my reading of the famous Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and one of the favorite topics of the twenty- and twenty-first century. Which is better? Book or movie? Well, in this case, both were good. Like my favorite, The Blue Max, the book and movie took different takes on the same subject, looking at the same coin from different faces. And I like that – perspectives are fun. But here’s where the book was better than the movie. In the book, we understand this world of Philip K. Dick’s to have survived (just barely) a nuclear war. […]

March 16, 2014

Bikes are now a private thing…

It’s not that I’m not riding the bike to work. I’m still keeping to my three times a week, showing the world (and America, specifically) that bikes are authentic and practical transportation. It’s just that I haven’t written about them for a while and the site is now focused on writing, book reviews and model train events (one of my other passions). To clear things up, I’ve dropped the bike blog. I’ll still mention interesting and death-defying events while riding, but it will be on my general blog. Been thinking about this for a while – I’m just so busy […]