Burrito Boy

So did I.

Degrees

"Absolute value? What's that?" he asked, destroying his geek cred.

I think that arguing about which one of two fictional characters would win a fight is the stupidest waste of time ever. There. That oughta obliterate my geek cred. And cheese off more than a few forum members. My work here is done.

There's a copy of the painting used on the cover for Aces & Eights hanging on the wall next to me.

It looks too dark to me. I hate shows that think shadows equal atmosphere. They're almost impossible for me to watch. And then there's what I feel is the overuse of special effects. It just looks cluttered. I'll pass on this one.

No, I didn't know about that. I know about the Ashton Ford series because I have four of them. Besides those and a ton of Executioner books, I don't have anything else that he wrote. I'll have to see if I can track it down. Thanks for the heads up.

The Executioner books that were actually written by Don Pendleton are great. It's when he left the series and they started using ghost writers that the quality suffered. Another great modern pulp series that suffered the same fate is The Destroyer. When Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy started the series, it was all about philosophy, political commentary, social satire, and of course plenty of violence. The later books usually try to emulate the formula but the writers usually only succeed with the violence part. Still, each series has a few good books by ghost writers and more than a few great books by the original writers. If you can get your hands on early Executioner and Destroyer, you won't be disappointed.

There was a good two part Simon & Simon/Magnum P.I. crossover that played out over one episode of each show.

Film festival

I just discovered something about the keypad on my phone. Now I can write Blue Öyster Cult complete with umlaut.

Yesterday I drove past the Lovelock Correctional Center on my way from Winnemucca to Lovelock, Nevada. Today O.J. Simpson was granted parole. Coincidence? I wonder.

I love the original trilogy. But I can't stand all the expanded universe stuff.

I've only seen a few minutes worth of the newer Dr. Who and it was so bad that I haven't bothered watching a full episode. As for the older Dr. Who, I used to love it but I couldn't get into it the last few times I watched it. I think I may have outgrown it.

Pickles

Why? I love living in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I don't have to fear any evil here.

The fire in the next valley has climbed one of the mountains and is now in my valley.

"No. No. That's not true. That's impossible!"

The funny thing is that I actually like The Hobbit. Aside from the part where Tolkien wimps out and knocks Bilbo unconscious so we don't actually get to see The Battle of Five Armies. That's one of my major complaints about The Lord of the Rings. There are so many epic scenes--like The Battle of Isengard--that we don't get to witness firsthand. We only see the aftermath. And as Led Zeppelin taught us, "The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath." (I think that was their way of saying they would like to have read descriptions of the actual battles and not just their results.) If Tolkien had actually written out those scenes in detail I might believe that The Lord of the Rings is the epic masterpiece so many people claim it to be. But then it would still be written in Tolkien's stodgy style so I doubt it.

I wish I could say that.

"You can tell ranchers aren't racist; they'll put a white bull on a black cow and a black bull on a white cow. They don't give a sh*t."

Sherman Alexie?

This is one of the few cases where I think the movie is better than the book. I loved the movie so I tried to read the book and gave up after a few pages. I might give it another try someday but the movie has Paul Giamatti and you can't beat that.

I worked today. And got paid for it!