Blog

July 29, 2012

Nausicaa (Review)

It happens sometimes, with work and class and trains and general malaise, that I don’t get a book read in a week (before I had a weekly column, I was even slower). I’m currently wending through the Odyssey, which is a pretty stiff read. However, I was interested to find a character in it with the unlikely name of Nausicaa, which was also the character of an amazing translated Japanese comic I’d read over the years. Turns out that’s where it’s author/artist, Miyazaki, got it from. It’s been a while since i read it (I’ve got them all here next […]
July 29, 2012

Dickheads

I can’t find it – I’d read somewhere that Orlando ranks worst in drivers’ skills and safety. I know we are solid-worst for pedestrian deaths, but I wanted to round it out with this statistic. Couldn’t find it. Tsk. I started to realize it as I chatted on the bike forums. Some riders would report going weeks if not months without a right-cross or left-hook. Me, I get them virtually every day. I watch motorists bolt in and out of traffic. I see them stop in travel lanes for the damnedest reasons (or no reason at all). And red lights? […]
August 2, 2012

You say Yamato (DOG EAR)

Retelling a story, especially a classic, is always dangerous business. Movies are generally updated (“reimagined” as Hollywood suits refer to it) to suit newer (i.e. duller) audiences. As for books, its generally not done. The major exception to this are those “zombies” and “robot” editions of classics, but that is, of course, simply a parody (and a rather stupid one at that). Normally I focus on written storytelling, but this weekend I had a curious episode of visual storytelling (i.e. a movie) that had been updated for a modern audience. It was none other than Space Battleship Yamato, based on […]
August 3, 2012

Another goof!

A thousand apologies to readers of my weekly Dog Ear blog. It’s pretty easy to speak your mind aout writing when you don’t allow your listeners to talk back, isn’t it? I’d added the Dog Ear section when I’d last cleaned up the site. Didn’t look back, and didn’t look too close, I suppose. Anyway, today I was just musing over the Yamato piece I’d posted and saw no comment info. Hmmmm. Maybe its something to do with having to be logged in. So I logged in. Still no comments. Hopped to another blog area and there were the comments. Something was wrong. […]
August 4, 2012

The ten worst inventions in the world

Below are what I consider to be (in no particular order) the ten worst inventions in the world. Following this are the dishonorable mentions – perhaps they’ll go into their own list soon. So here they are…. 1) Cellphones. Never has it been easier to convey imperial disdain, to marginalize and ignore another living human’s existence. Add to this the ability to ruin dinners, concerts, quiet time, and tender moments. And all this so you can answer ‘Sup?’ to someone who finds your social input the equivalent of a bag of Doritos. 2) Texting. Not only does this provide all […]
August 5, 2012

Perdido Street Station (Review)

So you’re sitting around one night, poised in that indecisiveness readers occasionally flounder into. What next? Science Fiction? Steam Punk? Magic? Fantasy? Why not all of them, wrapped together in a plot which chafes so delightfully? China Miéville is a London author – it shows. His city of New Crobuzon is a sprawling, dangerous, vibrant, cruel place, a fun-house mirror image of London. Steam-technologies work. Magic (in a limited yet practical form) works. The city is a melting pot of story types and urban fears. Presumably New Crobuzon has a positive side, a side of decent people, quiet suburbs, theaters […]
August 7, 2012

The Riddle of the Sands (Review)

I‘d always wanted to read this book, the 1903 grandfather of the espionage genre. Found it at Slightly Foxed on Gloucester Road. So excited. Saved it for the perfect time, cracked it open, read it slow to savor it. It was undercooked. Look, I’ve read all sorts of books out of history, books hundreds of years old. I absolutely love everything H.G. Wells ever wrote. And the book starts off well, with lonely Carruthers kicking about London during the summer vacation month. He gets a strange invitation to help pilot a small yacht around the Baltic from a one-time friend, […]
August 7, 2012

A copyright of passage (DOG EAR)

I told this story a while ago, but for those who came in late, here’s the short version. Was at a book club speaking about Early ReTyrement. The questions were fun; how come I was so clever? How come I was so smart? And then came the question: Isn’t Dion’s The Wanderer a copyrighted musical work? How my heart chilled at that. Was it? I didn’t know. You can see how I used it HERE – it’s rather a critical component of my first chapter, the moment that tells us that this is a time travel book and a humorous […]
August 9, 2012

The Odyssey (Review)

Odysseus’ household is in trouble, worse than an upside down mortgage. See, this King of Ithaca has been away in the Trojan war for nine years, then missing for another decade. Convinced that he is dead, a hundred suitors for his wife Penelope’s hand have flooded his hall, working through the larder like cockroaches, threatening his son Telemacus. They are insistent to wed Penelope (not for her beauty, which appears to have held up well into her mid-thirties (if not later), but for Odysseus’ riches). She’s already started one gambit, claiming that she needs to finish sewing a funeral pall […]
August 12, 2012

OpsLog – Longwood & Sweetwater – 8/12/2012

I was pretty beat – I’ve been going full bore all weekend. And now it was ops in a warn garage and I was waiting for my train to be built in Orlando Yard. The two kids running the yard (ordinarily competent on their own) were bickering and scuffling, both working counterpoint to each other. Three adults were waiting for trains to be built. I was out of patience. I walked in, tried to reason, got nowhere, and went edge-on – told them these trains and throttles weren’t their’s, that they needed to treat the layout with care and respect […]