Book Review: Catch-22 (Heller)
Have I read this before: No. I tried to read it once a long time ago, but I think I was overwhelmed by the rapid introduction of characters near the start of the book, so I stopped, haha.
Review: I love the repetition in this and how different events are described from different perspectives almost effortlessly. To me, it has the feeling of a scattered set of puzzle pieces that get haphazardly pushed and pieced together throughout the novel and then finally start to form a picture.
Favorite Part: When the woman Nately was with REPEATEDLY just like pops out of nowhere and tries to murder Yossarian. She just keeps appearing. It was freaking great.
Rating: 7/10
Oh my GOD, Todrick…
This is the catchiest freaking song, yo, holy hell.
Gray Child
So I have no issue with the eventuality of getting gray hairs. So many people freak out about the idea of aging, but I think it’s actually pretty cool. The older you are, the more things you’ve experienced and the more memories you’ve been able to accumulate. I think that’s kinda snazzy.
Thus, I have no issue with the fact that I have approximately 10 gray hairs.
The thing I do have an issue with, though, is the fact that these gray hairs are of a completely different texture than the rest of my hair. Like, the texture of my normal-colored hair is obnoxious on its own, but the gray hairs are like wiry and stick out whatever way they want to. That makes me want to pull them out when they get long enough, and I often do. Again, it’s not because they’re gray, but because they’re such a different texture than the regular hairs.
Is this happening to anyone else? Are your gray hairs a completely different texture than your “regular” hair? Because it’s driving me crazy.
AND IT BEGINS AGAIN
Winter Semester = over.
Spring Semester = beginning.
I’m still teaching from home, but I’m teaching a class I’ve never taught before (STAT 321), so that’ll be interesting.
Hopefully it will go well.
It’ll be nice to have the summer off, at least.
HAHAHA WHAT THE HELL
Whoever is doing that Pavarotti impersonation is pretty fantastic, not gonna lie.
Also, I can’t tell if this is nightmare fuel or fantastic. Or both.
Vitaly!
Do you want some cool jewelry that’s made from 100% recycled stainless steel? Check out vitalydesign.com!
They make super cool rings, chains, pendants, and bracelets. I’ve gotten some cool things from them and will probably get more.
Check it:
Machina (this can be worn anywhere on the ear because it screws on!)
Edit: got some chains, too!
Earthsearch
Remember that Klutz book, Earthsearch, that I mentioned a few months ago?
I bought a copy. I re-read this book many times; I remember a lot of the pages.
The start of an exercise to demonstrate just how much space is between the planets of the solar system.
A bag of rice used to demonstrate how much food some people get to live on per day.
A spinner for a game to demonstrate the distribution of wealth.
A spinner wheel you can use to determine what colors make up your skin tone.
This is such an interesting book; I really enjoyed it as a kid!
ARCHWAY
Dudes, check out this super sharp Chinook arch we’ve got going right now.
I’m surprised I don’t have a headache from it.
Yay!
Book Review: Brideshead Revisited (Waugh)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: This was an enjoyable book. Similar to Atonement, it didn’t go where I thought it would go. But unlike Atonement, I didn’t really mind that. I also really like books that revolve around a strong friendship between two people, and this book had that…even if it fell out of focus after a bit.
Favorite Part: When Sebastian contacts Charles to come see him immediately and Charles is sure that Sebastian is seriously ill or injured or even already dead.
The cornfields and heavy woodland sped past, deep in the golden evening, and the throb of the wheels repeated monotonously in my ears, “You’ve come too late. You’ve come too late. He’s dead. He’s dead.”
…
[Charles] “What’s happened to him?”
[Lady Julia] “Didn’t he say? I expect he thought you wouldn’t come if you knew. He’s cracked a bone in his ankle so small that it hasn’t a name.”
Rating: 6/10
150,000!
I hit 150,000 words in Ghost Town Realty today! It is now officially the longest single story I’ve ever written, beating out my shitty fan fic that I’ve been adding to on and off for the past like ten years.
Anyway, 150,000 is the word count at which I told myself I would stop writing (or pause writing, rather) and instead work on an actual outline. I want to get all the pieces in the right place before I start writing again (which will probably involve filling in all the gaps to get a “complete” first draft before I actually edit).
Unlike every other time I’ve done NaNo, though, I tried to keep the chunks of writing in a vague order, so hopefully outlining and re-ordering won’t be too painful. Let’s hope!
Edit from August: OH GOD I HATE IT
Kinvara Shoe Grave: Party Hard
Look at this madness.
LOOK AT IT.
I can’t remember when I got rid of all my older burned-through Kinvaras, but this is the newest graveyard. They fill up a whole recycling bin.
I have a problem.
Book Review: Atonement (McEwan)
Have I read this before: Nope. It’s one of the ones I just added to my list, actually.
Review: PUNCH ME IN THE FACE this book had so much potential and then dumped it down the toilet after Part One. Part One gets you all set up for this fantastic story of a wrongly-accused Robbie standing trial and trying to prove his innocence and you’re like YEAH LET’S GO but then suddenly you’re in WWII with Robbie and you’re like WHERE THE FUCK DID THE GOOD PART GO and then Briony is remorseful and everyone is angry and you’re like WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUT??
Seriously. Part One was so promising as the start of a very interesting and heartbreaking story. Then it just tanked.
(For me at least.)
Favorite Part: I loved how detailed Briony’s love of writing was detailed at the beginning. “It seemed so obvious now that it was too late: a story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thought sand feelings from her mind to her reader’s. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it.”
I also liked the way the supposed “incident” was described through Briony’s eyes:
“The word: she tried to prevent it sounding in her thoughts, and yet it danced through them obscenely…naturally, she had never heard the word spoken, or seen it in print, or come across it in asterisks. No one in her presence had ever referred to the word’s existence, and what was more, no one, not even her mother, had ever referred to the existence of that part of her to which – Briony was certain – the word referred. She had no doubt that that was what it was.”
Rating: 5/10
Future
I have a bad feeling about Jazzy. I think she’s not going to be with us much longer and I am NOT okay with that.
More Vaccine Humor
Because it’s fun.
I got Moderna and I haven’t been murdered…yet.
Maybe that comes with the second shot.
[Edit from the future: OH MY GOD IT DOES]
M&M’s THROWBACK!!!!!!!!1
I bought a baby pack of M&M’s today.
Why?
Because I was feeling nostalgic.
I used to have a very specific way of eating these packs of M&M’s for a good amount of my childhood/teenhood. This is how I would do it: I would dump the whole package out, sort the M&M’s by color, and then order each color’s candies by size from smallest to largest. I would then line up the ordered colors in the order yellow, orange, red, green, blue, brown. Finally, I would take the biggest candy from each color and order them from smallest to largest in a final row.
To eat them, I’d start with the smallest yellow M&M and just go up the lines.
I have no idea why I always used to do it this way, but I felt the urge to replicate this old ritual this afternoon.
So yeah. I know nobody cares, but it’s something I remember doing a lot when I was a kid/tween/teen.
TEST TIME
So for funsies, I decided to take a practice Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) to see how I’d do on it.
‘Cause that’s the kind of stuff I do in my free time.
Anyway, my results from the first practice test on this website:
Meh. Should have done better. This is good enough for all the military branches, though.
Take off Every Zigazig Ah
Holy crap, this is like next level internet meme madness mayhem and I love it.
“Superintendent! I was just, uh, stretching my zigs on the windowsill.”
Book Review: Winesburg, Ohio (Anderson)
Have I read this before: I did, but it was like back in junior high and I had no idea what the hell was going on.
Review: It was, y’know, okay. I like the unconventional style of it, I suppose. I’m always down with books that have a different style. I wasn’t too into the writing style, though; I understand it’s meant to be kind of gloomy and melancholy, but it didn’t quite do it for me. I can see how it’s been compared to Dreiser, though.
Favorite Part: I like how each story focuses in on one or two characters and we see the other characters (sometimes) in the “background” of these stories.
Rating: 5/10
Book Review: V. (Pynchon)
Have I read this before: Nopers.
Review: Holy crapspazzle balls, Thomas Pynchon. What a…unique style. To be honest, I really dug it at the start of the book, but about a third of the way into it there was, I dunno, a slight shift in it and it got a little bland for my taste. Not that Pynchon’s writing is bland in comparison to anyone else (‘cause it’s not), but bland compared to itself in the first third of the book.
I dunno.
I loved the character names. I loved the search for V. and what V. represented. It’s an interesting book. It makes me want to read Gravity’s Rainbow, which is a book I picked up in in an attempt to read several years ago, took a look at the first paragraph, and promptly put the book back on the shelf because I had NO IDEA how those words combined to make coherent sentences.
V. is supposedly Pynchon’s most approachable book, though, so…
Favorite Part: Benny hunting alligators in the sewers was pretty great.
Rating: 5/10
Without Music
This has the same energy of a marching band rehearsing the march while not playing.
(Confession: I’ve actually never seen “Grease” but the girls in my elementary school class would do a reenactment of the “Summer Nights” thing every year at the talent show at our end-of-year trip to Klemgard Park. Because why not.)
I want to re-read The Caine Mutiny
I ALWAYS want to re-read The Caine Mutiny. It is by far my favorite book and I’ll be shocked if it ever gets dethroned.
I should by a Kindle version so I can have it with me along with all my other books when I’m not at home.
Sorry, just needed to swoon over that book for a bit. Seriously, if you’ve never read it, GO AND READ IT NOW.
I Blog Too Much
Guess what, you nerds with turds? This is my 5,500th blog post!
Yes, I’ve been doing this vapid nonsense for 5,500 days. That’s 15.06 years.
That’s ridiculous.
Anyway, thanks to anyone who still reads this drivel. I don’t know why you do it, but thanks.
SHAZAM!
Eigenblogger 