Category — Uncategorized

Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Is it weird or creepy that I like the Dexter books? I’m glad I tried out the first one on a recommendation. I’m also glad that they differ enough from the TV show that I don’t know what’s going on and keep reading. I’m also glad that the stories are uniquely creepy to keep me engaged.

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The Road by Cormac McCarthy


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Not much to say about this book for now- very dark- I’ll have to chew on my thoughts for a while…

I am glad that my kindle has a dictionary built in… this short novel made me feel like my vocabulary needs a lot of work.

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would.
There’s another reviewer who summed up quite nicely what s/he was wary of that I had the same concerns about: multi-stickered recommended book that starts off about board-room accounting crime…. but I stuck with it and really enjoyed the book.

I also agreed that there were some seemingly out of place passages about legal status and stats in Sweden, but overall those didn’t detract too much from the story.

I recommend the book and look forward to reading this author’s other work.

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This was also the first book I read electronically. I’ll have a future post about that soon. I have a lot of thoughts about various e-readers now.

The night after writing that last post, I turned on the Palladia TV channel while I was eating. I caught the end of U2’s Rattle and Hum and then the start of a MTV Live: The Cure in Rome.

The Cure Live in Rome made Rattle and Hum look like Hitchcock’s Rope.

The Cure in Rome show came on, and in either the first or second song, just during the first line of singing they changed camera angles more than ten times! There are some funny examples on youtube.

By the way, did you know Rattle and Hum is over 20+ years old? Holy crap

Cup of Coffee? Check

Talking to the Ladeez? Check!

Me?

Madmenyourself.com (via Triston)

I’ve been mixing up my bus commute as far as reading material goes- well, that is to say, I’ve been reading a bit less. One of the reasons that happened is because I put a few seasons of The Venture Bros. on my iphone. I can usually squeak in one episode per trip to the office from my stop.

I just have to pimp out this cartoon though- it’s freaking brilliant. I got to be “that creepy guy” at the back of the bus because there were many times that I “lol’d”. So, do yourself a favor, and check out the show. If you don’t want to buy it from Amazon, it’s on Netflix.

Damn that Fitz. He knows me so well that he can push my buttons and send me to the “red zone” with only one link.

Check this crap out:

A councilwoman in SA wanted to rename Guenther St to Mango St.

Those of you not from SA will not realize that 1) this is a historic street and 2) The House on Mango St is a book from Sandra Cisneros. 3) Sandra Cisneros (no relation to the councilwoman) is from Chicago 4) The man who really revitalized that area doesn’t even have a street named after him, and if they were to rename something down there, they should start with him (Mathis) 5) there already is a Mango St in SA, it’s on the SW side.

Apparently she also suggested that SA sell off Market Square. Wow, what a strong of greatest hits.

I like the comments in the article too, although I suspect that a lot of them will get taken down soon. Like this one:

I propose we rename the street that Henry and Mary Alice Cisneros live on to Linda Medlar Lane!

Ouch.

But to dismiss the criticism, fta:

Councilwoman Cisneros seemed to recognize right away that was not feasible,. said Roselyn Cogburn, the association’s interim secretary.



Cisneros released a statement through her campaign manager that she was only looking for ways to honor the author, saying, “I did not make any specific recommendations for renaming any streets.”

wheeeeeeeeeeeee

I just thought I’d share a bit about an iPhone app I’ve been playing with a lot lately. I downloaded Bloom (it’s 3.99) from iTunes last week or so. It’s from Brian Eno & Peter Chilvers. It’s an “art project” app- but I like to think of it as an ambient music generator.

I know it doesn’t seem like I’d be in to Ambient music, but I always have some Eno on my iphone for turbulent flights or scary bus rides or stressed out days at work. Ya never know when you’ll need to calm the f*%k down right?

Here’s a video of someone else playing with the app. It’s obviously better to play with the app when you have your headphones on, but you can still hear some of the background music in the video below.

Bloom iPhone Application from Lawrence Brown on Vimeo.

And just for fun, some youtube user’s video for Brian Eno – An Ending (from the Apollo album)

A quick vid from the end of January when I went to Beard Papa. So friggin good.

The Gourds – Lower 48 live @ Threadgills in Austin, TX 7-12-08

tour info