With a last-second shot, my Eastern Kentucky University Colonels won the OVC Championship game, and advanced to their second NCAA Tournament in the past three years. Congratulations, Colonels, and good luck in the Big Dance!
That is what I feel every time I watch Adult Swim. Back from a long weekend in Vegas; once again, we had a fantastic time. Here's a video I shot of the view from our hotel room:
The food highlight was Mix, situated on the 64th floor of the Mandalay Bay. The food was great, but it was not the best meal I have ever had, and I am not sure it was worth the price. I think we were paying for the ambience more than the food. On the entertainment front, we saw The Producers, "starring" David Hasselhoff. I will give him credit; he went for it, and the show was more entertaining because of it. I took a small ironic pleasure in the idea that The Hoff may end up alienating some of his German fans by playing a gay Hitler. As far as gaming went, I managed to play hours of poker every day, and was pleased with how I did. I played in five tournaments; I made the final table in three of them, and won one of them. In addition to the money, they gave me a souvenir chip that says "First Place" on it; that may have to be my card protector at our next home game. In addition to the tournaments, I sat down at three different cash games and played for a couple hours each time. When you add up the money I won, minus all of the buy-ins, I ended up losing $30 over three days and probably 12+ hours of play. Not bad at all.
Our trip to Vegas inadvertently overlapped with the NBA All Star game; fortunately, we were not exposed to any of the ugliness that we heard about, both through the media and word-of-mouth from cabbies and hotel workers (apparently the casinos are still very good at suppressing news that may have a negative effect on tourism). The short version of what we heard seemed to go like this:
What I know is that there were an extra 300,000 people in the city over and above the normal amount of tourists (which, given that it was a holiday weekend and Chinese New Year...Gung Hay Fat Choy, by the way...is already a lot), so it was hard to get a hotel room, a cab, and dinner reservations. Good thing we planned ahead.
As usual, we had a great time, and as usual, it is good to get out of Vegas after a couple days. That way, in a couple months, I'll be ready to go back.
What a fantastic weekend for left-of-center entertainment! On Friday, I finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks. If you read this blog with any regularity (or if you just scroll down a little), you will see that I have been hitting the philosophy and heavy literature pretty hard of late, and I think when you add that in to my job stress, I was working my way into a pretty dark place. So to lighten the load a little, I read a book about a zombie war. The end result? This was, hands down, one of the most fun reads I have had in a long time. I tore through this book like Zack through the Army at Yonkers (inside [the book] joke), and I loved every minute of it. The oral history angle is a good one; a great way to make the book global, and yet personal, all at the same time. On top of that, add in the sci-fi zombie angle, as well as the alternate history what-would-the-world-look-like-afterwards angle, and you end up with an exciting, interesting, and (surprisingly) thoughtful book. If you like any of the above themes, I recommend this book highly. After I finished, I found a cheap copy on eBay and mailed it directly to my brother. Others must know. Solid A.
Then last night, we went to see Pan's Labyrinth, the latest film from Guillermo del Toro. I really liked this movie; it interweaves a fantastical fairy tale within a painfully realistic story of survival and hate. I thought the visuals were amazing, if often grotesque, and I was pleasantly surprised that I recognized more Spanish words than I thought I would. I would recommend seeing this movie on the big screen, for the imagery, the sound, and because it makes it easier to read the subtitles. See this film!
Finished The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, last week, and have to say that, overall, I was disappointed. I thought that he made some interesting points (given both my current and past careers, I found the discussion of religion as a form of child abuse very interesting), and additionally argued well for the acceptance of atheists as normal, healthy people, rather than wicked heathens who should be outcasts.
I finished The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers, and I think the nicest thing I can say about the book is that it was written very well. Did I care about any of the characters? Not really. Did I relate to any of them? Again, not especially. Did the plot explore any topics I find fascinating? Nope. So why keep going? Because the writing was that good. I think a good comparison would be this: imagine sitting at a dinner party, listening to a not-terribly interesting story, but the storyteller is James Earl Jones. With a voice like that, I would listen to a reading of the phone book for a little while.
Case in point: Snow, by Orhan Pamuk. I got about half way through this book, and I realized that I had been reading it for about two weeks. If you read this site, you know I have a lot of reading time on my commute, and usually finish a book in a week, sometimes faster. I realized part of the pacing problem: I just truly didn't care. The writing style was somewhat engaging, but the story just put me into a stupor, and I further realized that I had no interest in how the story continued, let alone ended.
Sunday, we tried a fun dim sum place for lunch before doing some shopping (they have fun pictures of some of their menu items here). We've heard really good things about this place, and it was good, but we've had better. The salty pepper fish was pretty amazing, but I am not sure I would go back (the wait was pretty long, although to be fair, we went at the height of the yum cha rush).
This morning, we woke up very early (esp. for a Saturday!) and drove to San Jose to take part in a Japanese new year custom called mochitsuki, which involves steaming rice, pounding into a paste, and then forming it into little disc-shaped rolls to be eaten on New Year's Day. It was a lot of fun to see everybody, share a traditional custom, and beat the hell out of some unsuspecting rice. Good times.
Finished American Psycho, and as weird as it sounds, I enjoyed this book. It is harrowing, disgusting, pornographically violent, and all the same, it was fun to read. Watching as Patrick slowly spirals into his personal hell, which may or may not exist outside of his own mind, you get a real snapshot of the superficial 80s in all their New Wave glamour. The details of the narrative, especially about the clothing, are meticulous, and one of the main reasons this book works so effectively as satire. The concept that the characters have everything going for them on the surface, but are so utterly empty and alone, is driven home perfectly.
Now, in a rare double bill, I have to share that after finishing Psycho, I thought I would give Ellis's first book, Less Than Zero, a try. It is such a fast read, I didn't even have time to put it in the sidebar. Maybe it was because I had just finished Psycho, and was expecting bigger things, but I really didn't care for this book. The other maybe? I think Zero was the author's warm up to Psycho, and the latter is in my opinion the vastly superior book. There are several shared themes: too much money, too many drugs, too much sex, and so much of everything that none of it means anything to anyone. All of the characters in Zero were bored, and I got very bored reading about their "poor little rich kids" lives. I will say I liked the book better than the movie, but that is (a) pretty normal, and (b) still not saying much. D.
Every time I log on to Gmail, I see this picture, advertising their new phone-compatible email program.
On the surface, this is a horror story, a pseudo-autobiographical account of events that the author claims happened in his life. If you choose to believe that these events actually happened, I am guessing you also loved that horrible Johnny Depp movie. If, like me, you choose to see the "events" of this book more as either drug/alcohol induced nightmares, and/or simple theatrical devices used by the author to show us his own inner deterioration as the rift between himself and his estranged father eats at him over the years, then I think this is an easier book to digest (pun somewhat intended), and is much more interesting.
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