mkfs > Recent Status Updates

Been reading up a bit on Sekigahara after playing through the excellent GMT game

Got some pretty good laughs out of the first story - some spot-on recreations of how people who spend too much time in online echo chambers talk and think. Unfortunately, instead of culminating in the grand Cosmic Joke, the story took the obvious route and became yet another cautionary tale, of which we have far too many already. Almost like it gave up on universal appeal and chose to pander to Atlantic readers.

Whoof, this one is bo-ring. Not sure I'll stick with it.

Stalled. Not for any particular reason. Was this the one with the oh-so-whimsical but oh-so-serious tone? Perhaps Cabell has ruined me for works like this, with his insistent dark jokes spicing up his morally-questionable fairy tales.

Stalled. Yet another novel about an expectation-subverting young woman that isn't as insightful or revealing as it seems to think. Reminds me of the 90s tattoo-and-piercing craze, everyone scrambling over themselves to prove their individuality by doing the same thing.

Stalled. Re-read "I have no mouth and I must scream" and found it to be a lot less interesting that when I was 20.

So far, this is mostly just about shock. Didion was present when her husband died, and a lot of the book so far is her coming to terms with that. Lost of denial and, as the title says, magical thinking.

Part I contains a happy marriage! A pleasant departure from the previous two novels.

might as well learn how to grieve

Decided to re-read this series after listening to Black Blade one too many times.

Some amusing phrases encountered:
"Make Melnibone great again"
"the plane of alternate truths"

sigh. another one that just doesn't grab me. the older stuff is definitely where it's at.

Surprisingly uninteresting, for a Westlake. Probably would make a fun movie, but as fiction goes there's just no reason yet to start the next chapter after one ends.

Really not grabbing me. The awkward "let me educate you on slasher films" scene around the burn-barrel early on makes it difficult to pick this book up again.

Came across this while doing a culling and couldn't remember a thing about it aside from I didn't care for it. Thought I'd give it another go-round and see what I didn't like. Had no idea it was part of a series.

So far: yawn.

"The imbecile show conceived by vulgarians, produced by vulgarians, and served up to mental dengerates of the same species - the average metropolitan audience."

"For ten minutes, a pair of comedians fell up and down a flight of steps, and the audience shrieked approval."

Yeah, I never found slapstick very appealing either.

b/w The Goon Omnibus: Volume 5

...a legion of Boners, who will rise upwards, forcing Mankind to do its bidding. Thrusting it deep into a titanic struggle for its own survival. Yes, soon my Boners will stand proud, hardened against all opposition...

"culture jamming". Wow, I don't think I've heard that term since the late-90s heyday of Adbusters.

A golem Quine! Well done, sir.

b/w Conan: The Marvel Years Omnibus Vol 10 and The ASM Metals Handbook Vol 6 : Welding, Brazing and Soldering

OK, admittedly not all 1300 pages of ASM Vol 6, just the chapters on MIG, TIG, and aluminum-alloy brazing.

Argh! Misuse of "begs the question"!

b/w "Sculpting the Blender Way" by Xury Greer

"It was not altogether pleasing, for it tended to confirm a sad suspicion that Moxon's devotion to study and work in his machine-shop had not been good for him."

*looks away guiltily*

A half of one of the more improbable pairings of books I find myself reading, the other half being The Handbook of Rigging, 5th ed, MacDonald/Rossnagel/Higgins. Some may derive a mild amusement from this.

What tf is a Chevy Datsun?

So far, everyone seems to live with their parents.

These all written by teenagers?