Books

I read…a lot. Here’s where I ramble about books and printed media.

Books and movies

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Not much of an update today…things have been pretty slow this weekend. Spent just about all day Saturday at home, doing a lot of reading. Finished Snow Crash, burned right through Mindplayers, by Pat Cadigan, and just got started today on Sophie’s World, by Jostein Gaarder.

I did hit Blockbuster video and picked up three movies I hadn’t seen before. I went with Scary Movie (figured I might as well finally watch the thing — I think I was better off beforehand, though), Cherry Falls (about as entertaining as a silly little modern cheeseball teen-horror flick can get), and The Contender (by far the best of the three, a nice political drama). Of the three, the only one really worth watching was The Contender.

At the moment, I’m just pretty bored…looking forward to the day when I can get my ‘puters to my apartment. Ah, well. Tomorrow morning’s the second interview for the job I’m working on getting…hopefully all will go well.

Job details, more books, and monkeys

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First off — as far as I can tell, I think the interview this morning went great! :) Here’s the details I’ve got on the job I may be getting hired for.

Turns out that the place I interviewed at today was a temp staffing agency called Todays. I’d actually applied for a data entry position through Monster.com, but when they saw my resume, they felt I was better qualified for a posting that wasn’t quite official yet. Should I get this spot, I’ll be working (pay attention now, this gets slightly tricky) at a local firm who’s name I can’t remember for Xerox as an employee of Todays. Got that?

See, Xerox has a service where they send trained operators out to various firms to run their equipment — Xerox knows that people who know what they’re doing are touching their equipment, and the firm doesn’t have to spend its own personnel resources on keeping the copiers going — works well for all parties involved. I’d end up getting dropped in the middle of this — officially a Today’s employee, temping with Xerox, but working at this firm.

But, there’s even a little more to it than this. As it turns out, this firm had a special request with this posting. They have an employee working in this area with ‘special needs’ — exactly what that means hasn’t been specified — and they wanted to see if they could get someone with at least some management/leadership experience. They don’t need a manager, but they did want someone who would be more able to and comfortable with working with this employee; able to give help when needed, act as something of a liason between this employee and others, and the like. Given the supervisorial (is that a word?) experience I have on my resume, Today’s felt that I would be a good pick, and apparently that impression held true during the interview today, as they seemed highly confident that I’d be called in on this job posting. So…now I just cross my fingers, but at least from where I’m standing, things look really good. Woohoo!

In other news….

Yeah, I’m a voracious reader. I posted yesterday that I’d just started re-reading Cliff Stoll’s The Cuckoo’s Egg. Welp…that’s done with. Next up on the dock is Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, one of (if not the single) seminal works of “cyberpunk” fiction, and an acknowledged source of inspiration for many of today’s top computer/VR developers. Great stuff.

As for the monkeys. My parents were kind enough to drop me a bit of money to help me out until I start getting paychecks and get up and on my feet. So, me being the fine, upstanding, and responsible young man I am — I took the opportunity today after my job interview to go see a movie! Erm…hey, it was a whopping five bucks for the matinee, and I was in a good mood after the interview. So sue me. Anyway…went out to see Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, one of the big films I’d been waiting to see this summer. So how was it? Horrid — the end result was it’s a matinee at best…quite possibly only a rental. Much as it pains me to say that about a Tim Burton film, it’s true.

Cool people and new books

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First off — with as many complete momos as there are running around in the world today, it’s always nice to be reminded that there actually are some truly cool people out there, too. A couple days ago I posted a bit of a whine/moan/rant about how the combination of lack of response on the job front and lack of money was getting to me. Since then I’ve gotten a couple e-mails and a couple conversations over Yahoo! Messenger with some very kind words of support. Much as I try not to let things get to me, and keep a healthy and happy outlook on whatever’s going on in my life, sometimes it’s neccesary to let my frustrations fly — and when I do, it’s wonderful to get the occasional “buck up, kiddo” from people out there. Thanks to all of you — you rock.

Last night I managed to finish two projects I’d been working on. The first was a large puzzle of M. C. Escher’s work ‘High and Low’ — a real bear of a puzzle too, as the entire thing is black, white, and shades of grey. The second was the book I’d been reading, The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by his Fool, Will Somers: A Novel, by Margaret George. Very good historical fiction.

Having finished those, I’ve just started re-reading (as I don’t want to spend the money on something brand-new at the moment) a book that I was reminded of while reading The Jargon File — The Cuckoo’s Egg, by Cliff Stoll. This is a great little techno-spy thriller detailing the chase of a West-German hacker (this was written in the late 80’s) who was tunnelling through the then-new Internet, breaking into U.S. Military computers, and selling secrets to the Russians. The entire trail started from a 75-cent billing error in a Universities computer system, and the real kicker to the story — is that it’s all true. It’s been years since I’ve read it, though — I’ll babble more about it once I’m done.

Family, blondes, and jargon

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First off — hi dad! :) Got a call from dad yesterday — he and mom were off on a trip to England and Scotland (anywhere else?) with the Alaska Childrens Choir for the past few weeks, and just got home. Seems everything went well for them, and I’m now told that Edinburgh is a wonderful place to visit, should I ever get the opportunity. Hmmm…well, I’ll certainly be keeping that in mind….

I’ve been seeing ads for Legally Blonde for a while now, and I finally decided to break down and go see if it was as cute as it looked in the ads. It definitely was (something that’s always nice).

Lastly for today, as I was going through my boxes of stuff last night, I stumbled across a book I hadn’t read through in a while. The Jargon File is a compendium of slang and jargon from the hacker community that has been an ongoing project since roughly 1981 — a full 20 years now! While it would at first appear to be aimed solely at the hacker community (which, to be honest, I can’t exactly dispute), it also has a broad appeal to people outside of the community, especially those with a decently sharp sense of humor and a love of wordplay. I started re-reading it last night, and had forgotten just how entertaining it can be to read something that is, in some respects, a dictionary of technical terms and slang. In particular, I think my dad would really get a kick out of it, given what I know of his sense of humor and interest in words, wordplay, and etymology. The file can either be found online, or can be purchased in bookstores as The New Hacker’s Dictionary (though the online version is more current).

It is way too early

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On the one hand, I really hate the fact that my alarm is going off at 6 am every day so I can get myself moving in time to be at work at 8 am this week for training on the new job. On the other hand…hey, I’m doing it! Making it to work on time every day, and putting in a full 8 hours each day…would probably blow the doors off some of the people back at TimeFrame, where I was so burnt out on the place that I was averaging closer to 30 hours a week rather than the 40 I should have been.

Amazing the differences that can appear when you’ve got a job that you actually enjoy, huh?

And, as a major benefit — between the pay raise and getting my full 40 hours a week, I figure I should start taking home about an extra $600 a month or so!

Picked up what looks to be a fascinating little book yesterday — The Celluloid Closet, by Vito Russo. It’s an examination of the portrayal of homosexuality in movies throughout the history of Hollywood — looks to be fascinating stuff. I had seen the documentary that had been based on this work (the movie is also called The Celluloid Closet), and thought it was a hilarious and fascinating film, so finding the original literary work — on sale for a whopping $2.99, no less — was a nice little treat yesterday. Should be quite the interesting read.

In any case, it’s about time for me to be heading off into the wide wierd world….

I am Jack’s sense of apathy.

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…and you open the door and you step inside; we’re inside our hearts. Now imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light. That’s right — your pain, the pain itself, is a white ball of healing light.

I don’t think so.

This is your life. Good to the last drop. Doesn’t get any better than this.

This is your life — and it’s ending one minute at a time.

This isn’t a seminar, and this isn’t a weekend retreat. Where you are now, you can’t even imagine what the bottom will be like. Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Nothing is static; everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart.

This is your life. Doesn’t get any better than this. This is your life — and it’s ending one minute at a time.

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake! You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We are all part of the same compost heap. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

You are not your bank account. You are not the clothes you wear. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your bowel cancer. You are not your grande latte. You are not the car you drive. You are not your fucking khakis!

You have to give up. You have to realize that someday you will die. Until you know that, you are useless.

I say, let me never be complete. I say, may I never be content. I say, deliver me from swedish furniture. I say, deliver me from clever art. I say, deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth. I say, you have to give up. I say, evolve — and let the chips fall where they may.

This is your life. Doesn’t get any better than this. This is your life — and it’s ending one minute at a time.

You have to give up.

I want you to hit me as hard as you can!

Welcome to Fight Club. If this is your first night, you have to fight.

— Fight Club

[From Usenet: 1.23.97 0000]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.philosophy.taoism Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

Just tossing out a question into the void (this being my first foray into a.p.t)…

The only exposure I have had to taoism as of yet is through happening upon the book The Tao of Pooh a few years ago. I’m quite glad I found the book and the ideas presented in it when I did, as it did a lot to keep me from going over the deep end at that time in my life. I am curious, however, as to how well it presents the principles of taoism. What I read I liked, and have kept with me since then, and I’m becoming more interested in exploring this further. What may be some good books to start learning more about this with? Any help/ideas would be appreciated. (And it appears this turned into a few seperate questions…. Ah, well.)

[From Usenet: 1.6.96 0000]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.fan.eddings Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

Justin Hall wrote:

Is it possible that Beldaran was born with that name? Did Polgara formerly used to be known as Gara? I’m not sure about this, so any input is desired. The BEL’s on all the men seemed to be ‘tacked’ on at some later point. Did Beldaran, Poledra, and Polgara ever have previous names? I mean, is there really a law that prevents the use of Bel-something on anyone but Aldur’s disciples?

Okay…just read this last night, so dug up the passage, as I remembered this discussion while I was reading…. From the hardbound edition of the first three books of the Belgariad, pg. 514 (Magician’s Gambit, near the end of Chapter Ten).

The old sorcerer put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “I thought you might see things that way, Belgarion. You’re bound to this the same way we all are.”

The strange thrill he always felt at the sound of his other, secret name ran through Garion. “Why do you all insist on calling me that?” he asked.

“Belgarion?” Wolf said mildly. “Think, boy. Think what it means. I haven’t been talking to you and telling you stories all these years just because I like the sound of my own voice.”

Garion turned it over carefully in his mind. “You were Garath,” he mused thoughtfully, “but the God Aldur changed your name to Belgarath. Zedar was Zedar first and then Belzedar — and then he went back to being Zedar again.”

“And in my old tribe, Polgara would have just been Gara. Pol is like Bel. The only difference is that she’s a woman. Her name comes from mine — because she’s my daughter. Your name comes from mine, too.”

“Garion — Garath,” the boy said. “Belgarath — Belgarion. It all fits together, doesn’t it?”

“Naturally,” the old man replied. “I’m glad you noticed it.”

Now, this doesn’t really address Beldaran or Poledra, or many of the
others, but it does shed some light on Polgara’s name…

[From Usenet 12.7.93 2107]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.fan.douglas-adams Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

B.S.
If anyone knows from which book this is probably taken, please tell me.

I’m not sure if I remember all of them from this book, but I remember seeing some in a book I picked up in England years ago…something about Mistaikes (sic). Don’t know for sure, tho…