After reading Reamde, I felt the need to re-read Legend, the First Chronicles of Druss the Legend, and the Waylander series. I’ll probably dive into The Swords of Night and Day and White Wolf as well because I adore the character of Skilgannon. There wasn’t anything that really connects Neal Stephenson’s writing to David Gemmell’s. I just simply had an overwhelming urge to revisit stories that have entertained me for years. Maybe I’ll even finally get around to reading the Rigante novels, but I’ve waited this long already. Continue reading
A Readable Door Stopper – Reamde
I’ve read several books by Neal Stephenson and I’ve enjoyed his “alternate reality” or “alternate history” pieces, despite the fact each of the books I’ve read would almost put the Bible to shame in terms of length. Reamde is certainly a door stopper in terms of size. It’s nearly a thousand pages long and can be somewhat intimidating because of its size for some. But it is very much worth the read.
Set all over the world, but largely in British Columbia (I may be a little biased toward it because of this), the Northwest USA, China, the UK, the Philippines, and various other places around the globe, Reamde is an extremely entertaining novel involving an unlikely cast of characters that somehow mesh really well together. Continue reading
Out With Drupal, In With WordPress
As I mentioned previously, I had the intent of switching blogging software from Drupal to WordPress. Several people informed me that Drupal is so much better than WordPress and, honestly, I would have stuck with it if I didn’t need any extra features that weren’t included with the base build. When I was researching blog software, I should have paid attention to the people who had issues migrating from other software to Drupal. Continue reading
NyQuil Induced Illusions of Grandeur
I have a cold, possibly bronchitis, and I’ve re-established my intense love affair with NyQuil to ensure I get enough rest so I get better faster. I could use cough drops, herbal remedies, whiskey, regular cough syrup, or a hundred other things to help with the congestion and stuffiness, but I find that NyQuil in a half dose does wonders for the symptoms for hours on end without having to re-administer while still remaining awake. My liver and kidneys are thankful for this discovery, but my sense of self is somewhat out of whack. Continue reading
Immigration Fun, Writing, and 2012 Blog Plans
Well, 2012 is here and I’d been meaning to try and keep up a little more with postings at least once a week, but it’s been difficult with all the other things going on. Finally my paperwork to become a Permanent Resident of the USA so that my husband and I can continue to live together has been submitted. This is some of the fun that’s been keeping me from writing more. Continue reading
The Emergence of Asshat
This is going to be a short blog post, but I’m watching Prime Suspect and one of the detectives used the word “asshat”. Now, we’ve been using the word asshat for years now online. I believe the first time I ever saw it in chat was back in 1999. I’d never heard anyone say it out loud. For at least five years now, the word has been commonly used in speech by a lot of people. It is clearly interchangeable with “asshole”. Continue reading
Ten Years in the Making: .XXX TLDs are Here
About a decade ago there was talk of protecting innocence and appearances by introducing a specific domain TLD (top level domain) for pornographic websites. A TLD is the series of letters that come last in a web address. They include .com, .net, .org, and many others. Most of these are government or organization exclusive (.gov and .museum) or country exclusive (.ca, .us, .uk). A full list of TLDs is available here at the IANA Root Zone Database. Continue reading
YOU Celebrate Christmas and other Rubbish
I was perusing Facebook this morning to see what I could see and I noticed that my niece and a few others posted the following. I also have received it in no less than a dozen emails over the last week and there was a straw and it broke the camel’s proverbial back, as it were: Continue reading
The Best Grocery Budgeting Strategy Ever
Several months ago, I decided that my husband and I were spending far too much money on food. Between eating out, quick meals, and groceries, the food bill was getting huge. We were spending between $120 – $200 every week to two weeks at the grocery store plus nearly $300 per month on eating out. A friend of mine, Annie, feeds herself, her husband, and their kids on a budget that is similar to what ours was each month. Continue reading
“Mad Men” on Hiatus until 2012 Might Not be So Bad
There are two new TV shows that started this fall that caught my eye. One is ABC’s “Pan Am” and the other is NBC’s “The Playboy Club.” My husband accuses me of watching period pieces because they are period pieces, but this isn’t necessarily the case. I do like a good deal of them. I enjoyed “The Tudors” and I like “Mad Men,” but despite my enjoyment of Jeremy Irons, I couldn’t bring myself to continue watching “The Borgias” after the 4th episode. Continue reading