Book Report: The Making of a Hardrock Miner

My two current writing projects that I’ll never complete are: Writing the last great World War 2 novel. Writing the first great asteroid mining novel. I needed some vernacular to move ahead with #2, and I found this book (The Making of a Hardrock Miner by Stephen Voynick) on Amazon. It’s very good. It’s a first-person

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PNC Park: Pirates Win!

Went to PNC for a couple of Pirates games on their last homestand (they lost the second game — stupid Padres). Great park, great atmosphere, seems really well run and their aren’t any potholes in the concourses, which makes it feel like you’re not in Pittsburgh. Coming in from the east (or south), the recommended

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Movie Review: The Road

So I’m not doing the old version any more. It was too hard coming up with haikus for every movie I saw. Not that I see a lot of movies, but still — writing haiku for The Dark Knight et al gets irritating. The Road, then: I liked the book a lot better. I don’t

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Reading Angle of Repose While Moving Back East: The Sequel

Was reading Angle of Repose when I was in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago (the house-hunting trip) and realized where/when I’d last read it: when I was moving to NYC back in 2005. I remember sitting in the airport in Cincinnati (where I was making a connection on Delta) reading it and thinking it was

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Describing the Carl’s Jr.-Hardee’s Line

If you’re not aware, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are owned by the same company. As such, you don’t find both restaurants in the same market. It’s hard to say how they’ve determined who gets what market in some cases. Obviously there’s historical precedent (Carl’s originated in California and had mostly California stores until some time in the 90’s, frex), but in the areas where neither chain had much of a presence… yeah, it’s like they just drew a line.

Movie Review: District 9

Best Part: The first hour — nice occasional squickiness and the reveal of the backstory was, like, *interesting*. Biggest Question: Did the dude really think that he’d just fly up to the alien’s ship, get his hand fixed, then fly back home where everything would just be back to normal? Too Long By: 30 minutes.

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Movie Review: Up

Best Part: The dog society. Biggest Question: Which laws of nature actually applied to this movie? (It was hard to think any of the main characters were ever going to be in jeopardy when it was revealed two-thirds of the way through the movie that dogs could fly planes. Also sort of cheapened all the

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The Grapes of Wrath: Book Report

The *truly* impressive thing is that I finished it. Good: Steinbeck writes very cleanly. Probably a useful depiction of a slice of life during the Great Depression (although… well, see below). Makes me glad I wasn’t a destitute farmer in (fictionalized) California during the 30s. Bad: I swear there were blocking problems everywhere in this

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My Current Simulated Entertainment Bender

Over the past 10 days I’ve gotten hooked on two different multi-player Internet simulation games: AirwaySim — It’s an airline simulator. I have two airlines going. Just recently, SwampAir became the airline transporting the most passengers through its home base of Orlando and now has a daily nonstop to Manchester, UK. Dog Food Airlines, on

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Movie Review: Prince Caspian

Best Part: When the Lion-Christ jumped forty feet across a ravine in order to break the dude’s neck, then awakened His tree army to go out and kill millions of soldiers who, like all soldiers, weren’t fighting for “the cause”, but rather for the guy next to them. Biggest Question: When the pink minotaur was

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