Terrible Analogies

The blur that is the weekend doesn’t linger around long enough to wipe away the stink of the work week, but doing what I could with those fleeting hours that bookmark the drudgery of Monday to Friday I managed to:

Go running at my favorite training trail.  Me and my mutated right foot had a great time running the Ellie Lane trail at Iron Mountain.

Cleaned up the house.  In this picture, Nemesis takes up a defensive position to guard herself against her sworn enemy…the vacuum cleaner.

Started and completed the collected series of Concrete.  If you haven’t read Concrete, I highly suggest that you take a peek.  It’s one of the finest examples of independent comics from back in the day when the word “independent” really meant something.

Started and am now halfway through Chuck Palahniuk’s newest novel, Tell-All.  Man, that Hazie Coogan sure is one possessive, controlling woman.  If you’re an aging movie star, for God’s sake steer clear of her.

Got in a few sessions of running through all of the Cubes.  I geeked out hard on this, but I find it relaxing.

Played a round of Arkham Horror.  My poor investigators never stood a chance againt the onslaught of ancient horrors that infested the good town.  Chalk one up for the bad guys…

Watched a few movies from the collection.  Managed to squeeze in Green Zone (Bourne IV it is not), The Book Of Eli (chock full of post-apocalyptic goodness), and Shutter Island (this movie requires multiple viewings).

And to top it all off…bath time!

And that, my friends, was my weekend.  Hope yours was just as relaxing and enjoyable!

I just finished one of the most amazing books that I’ve ever had the good fortune to read. “Taut”, “thrilling”, and “suspenseful” are descriptors that don’t quite do this book justice. After spending four intimate days with this prodigious and shockingly absorbing read, I felt a pang of remorse after turning the final page. I just didn’t want the book to end.

The novel I’m talking about is, of course, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.

The scene is simple enough: An evil darkness has enveloped the good town, and sleep comes to those at a terrible price. And in his bedroom, helpless and afraid, one little boy must fight alone against an ominous, malicious presence for posession of his very soul…

An ancient, wrathful force has laid claim on an innocent town, granting life to all inanimate objects whose vile, destructive, and deadly nature can only be tempered by wishing them a heartfelt “goodnight”:

Out of a gripping, paralyzing dread that he’s missed wishing “goodnight” to a possessed object secreted away in a neglected dark alcove, our reluctant hero attempts to appease this overwhelming wanton power with an incantation meant to calm and beset any overlooked possessed object silently stalking him in the very room he’s meant to sleep in:

But the loathsome evil will not be so easily defeated, and soon begins to manifest itself in forms and vestiges meant the drive the mind of men insane. The malicious force appears before our hero in the form of a giant, decrepit, elderly bunny, and hissing though sharp fangs and  yellow-stained incisors to stay quiet in an attempt to counter the sting of the soothing “goodnights” from our unsung hero:

But the “goodnight” plan seems to be taking its toll on the maligned presence…or so it seems.

Desperate to maintain its stranglehold on the good townsfolk, the diminishing dark affliction summons the last remaining remnants of its one glorious power , sacrificing the life force of all objects touched by its presence, focusing the escaping energy into an evil that might just be too powerful for the collective will of the townsfolk to conquer…The Nobody.

Lucky for the us, our hero doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quit”:

Shudder! Let me tell ya, this book put a chill up my spine. I could not put this pager turner down. This is one of those rare novels that demands…nay, screams for a movie adaptation.

Spielberg, are you listening?

I hear that there’s a follow-up to Goodnight Moon entitled The Runaway Bunny.  You can bet that I’ll be camping out at the bookstore bright and early tomorrow morning to pick it up!  Stephen King, you ain’t got nuthin’ on Margaret Wise Brown!

The wife and Tyler took off for Idylwild this morning for a three day mini-vacation.  I was looking forward to relaxing at the cabin, taking in a few trail runs, walking around the small town, and having a few beers but life, it seems, had other ideas for me.  Ya see, I was supposed to go, but alas it’s patch day this Saturday (guess who gets to patch the entire 1200+ servers farm?), and I’m on call.  I feel so lucky…

It’s only Thursday, the wife and baby have only been gone a few hours, and I find myself missing them both quite a bit.  It’s not the same here at home without ‘em.  I think I’ll try to console myself with an extended reading of The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes.

Happy Friday?

Poor guy.  I empathize.  I went looking for my H.P. Lovecraft book this afternoon because I wanted to read the short story “The Outsider“, but I couldn’t find it.  I’ve no idea where it could have gone, and fear that I’ll never see it again.  This guy looks the way I feel at the moment.  Heh…

Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to make a quick run to the bookstore.

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