Terrible Analogies

Playing Fallout 3 this afternoon I found myself knee deep in Super Mutants while trying to track down my scientist father who skipped out on me (thanks, dad) in his relentless pursuit of supplying the war torn landscape with clean drinking water.  Scanning through my Pip-Boy 3000 I noticed this odd contract in my inventory I picked up after being attacked by a band of renegades whilst wandering the vast wastelands:

For the uninitiated, Robert Paulson is the name of a character in Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club:

And so I, the protagonist of Fallout 3, am named after a charter whose nickname was “Bitch Tits”.  Fantastic.

I’m constantly amazed at how this book (and movie) has permeated into the consciousness of America.  It couldn’t have happened to a finer work of fiction (at this point I’d like to name drop Chuck’s best (IMHO) book, Survivor.  Go read it.  Now.)

If I didn’t take a moment to point out this Fight Club sighting, I’d forever regret it

Books, Unusual Sightings Books, Unusual Sightings

Looking back on a year filled with enough fear, uncertainty and doubt to last me multiple lifetimes, I’m amazed at what took place on the periphery when I wasn’t paying attention. Putting the housing crisis, political tensions, and financial hardships aside, 2009 (and the decade) shaped up to be a rather interesting time.

And with that mindset, let me introduce to you a collection of links highlighting the good, bad, and downright ugly of 2009 and beyond. If there are any that I missed, please let me know.

Top 10 Archaeology Finds of 2009
9 Astronomy Milestones Of 2009
Top Ten Space Pictures of 2009
Life’s 2009 Photos Of The Year
LA Times Best Photos Of 2009
Reuters Best Photos Of 2009
100 Best Sports Photos Of 2009
The Top Ten Google Earth Finds
The Decade In News Photographs
Top Scientific Breakthroughs Of 2009
Ten Gadgets That Defined The Decade
40 Things That Were Popular At The Beginning Of The Decade That Aren’t Anymore
50 Things We Know Now That We Didn’t Know This Time Last Year
Wired.com Readers’ Favorite iPhone Apps Of 2009
Sports Illustrated Notable Pop Culture Moments Of The Decade
Sports Illustrated Top Ten MLB Games Of The Decade
Top Ten Tech Failures Of 2009
Great And Disappointing Operating Systems Of The Decade
The 87 Lamest Moments In Tech 2000-2009
The Best Free Software Of 2009
The Best Free Fonts Of 2009
The Best Of CSS Design 2009
50 Best Websites Of 2009
Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies To Work For
Joystiq’s Top 20 Video Games Of 2009
Board Game Gift Guide Of 2009
NME’s 50 Best Albums Of 2009
Billboard’s One-Hit Wonders Of The Decade
50 Best Albums Of The Decade
Top 10 Vinyl Albums From The Past Decade
The Strokes’ ‘Is This It’ Top NME Albums Of The Decade List
Wired’s Favorite Sci-Fi Movies Of The Decade
New York Time’s 10 Best Books Of 2009
Amazon’s Best Books Of 2009
The Smoking Gun’s Mug Shots Of The Decade
11 Greatest Mug Shots Of The 2000s
‘You lie!’ On Yale List Of Year’s Memorable Quotes
Time’s The Top Ten Of Everything 2009
YouTube’s Viral Video Legends Of The Decade Compilation

Books, Computer, Movies, Music, Politics, Random, holiday Books, Computer, Movies, Politics, Random

With our baby due at the end of February, the wife and I have been busy getting things ready in preparation for the big day. We’ve been making up the baby’s room, putting together a solid clothing ensemble for the little guy, picking up the odd toy here and there, as well as perusing some prime reading material.

As luck would have it, Karin’s parents sent us a nice library of children’s books that were published in the 60’s. Flipping through this amazing stash from the past, more than a few of the illustrations stood out as being a bit…unusual:

And what was the secret ingredient that made the soup so tasty?  Children, apparently…

Not only was this enraged goose of gigantic proportions, it had the strength of ten monkeys and a hatred for mankind.  I wonder if he dangled the old man over the rail like Vanilla Ice in the hands of Suge Knight, feet in beak, before finally dropping him to a crushing end.

This is morbidly disturbing.  A baby tumbling from a tree, whose fall is going to be broken by a thin sheet of cotton held taught by two little girls?  Factoring in the weight of the baby and the basket, the inertia built up during free fall, and the tensile strength of the agreed upon arresting device, one question instantly pops into my mind….how the hell did that baby get up in the tree in the first place?

My God…look at the size of that spider! For the love that all is holy…run! What they heck were they feeding those things in Holland at the turn of the century?  Oh, I get it…babys!  The “Hush-a-bye, Baby” poem suddenly makes total sense to me now…

This is perhaps the most depressing poem I have ever read.  I sure hope she doesn’t break her legs upon impact.  Tuck and roll, Joan.  Tuck and roll…

Books, Unusual Sightings Books, Unusual Sightings

I like to consider myself fairly well read.  That doesn’t mean that I’m particularly voracious in my reading habits, but I think I’ve read my fair share of diverse authors covering many topics.  I have a feeling that I’ve read more books than most, but the one book that I never got into was The Lord Of The Rings.  I’ve had this particular tome sitting idle in my library for quite some time, and have stared at its alarmingly red spine as it jutted out from the upper bookshelf like a crooked tooth for many years.  Last week I finally decided to correct this textual shortcoming of mine and crack into this imposing novel, and now I find that I’m unable to put it down.  I’m but a mere 200 pages in, yet I’m amazed at how much of the book is missing from the Peter Jackson films (Frodo selling his home, less intimidating (and easily fooled) Black Riders, travel through the Old Forest, dinner with the elves, Tom Bombadil, talk with Farmer Maggot, etc).

Now, I fully understand the need to parse out the less important bits from the movies to make for a more digestible end product, but after reading what little I have so far, I feel I would have really loved to have seen some of these missing scenes on the big screen.  But then again, thinking about it, if the movies retained a painful loyalty to the book and included each and every scene from the novel, I could envision the movie easily having a runtime of 20+ hours.  As much as I love the extended versions of the movie trilogy as they now stand, I think I’d go insane if I had to absorb all of the original material in one theatrical sitting.  

It’s funny how a movie such as Where The Wild Things Are used as its springboard a children’s novel that’s composed of a scant ten sentences.  From that meager source material a two-hour movie was produced, with the holes in the story having to be filled in by an imaginative team of writers and producers.  There was so much that had to be (re)envisioned to make for a cohesive story simply for lack of original source material.  On the other end of the spectrum is a novel like The Lord Of The Rings, where the story is so far reaching and overflowing that there’s a need to have to ignore vast swaths of text and whittle down the over-arcing storyline to fit into a (still impressive) six hour movie. 

Ah, but there I go, rambling again.  I think I’ll activate that brain/fingers filter right now, power down the laptop, and pick up a good book.  ”Hey!  Come derry dol!  Hop along, my hearties!“…

Books, Movies Books, Movies

And so, as the eventual February delivery date looms ever larger in the distance, my parents are ramping up their excitement of the addition of a grand(whatever) to the family.  My mom has now gotten to the point of surreptitiously leaving behind choice reading material whenever she stops by for a visit.  At last count we’re been the lucky recipients of The Mayo Clinic Guide To A Healthy Pregnancy, Does This Baby Make Me Look Fat, The Complete Pregnancy, Your Pregnancy Week By Week, and these two well-preserved pamphlets from the 70’s:

Nothing like a little light reading, no?

Oddly enough, this is *exactly* how I got this third degree burn on my upper arm (sans the doll and ponytails).  I wonder if my mother ever read this darn thing…

BTW: Was there some sort of legal obligation for women in the early 70’s to wear their hair like this?

Just curious

Books, Kids Books, Kids