Wannabe Writer's Ink

Wannabe writer with hobby of art. Stay and you'll glimpse a small piece of my heart.

Recent Media Consumed

Books

  • Mort, Reaper Man, Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett. Still going through Discworld and so far this is my favorite character arc. Watching the “anthropomorphic personification” of Death... this character is brilliant. The idea of a being that has no concept of how to really be human but still tries from time to time because of how fascinating they are always has that perfect tragicomedy edge that grabs me. Soul Music was one long running gag about rock and roll band names that would probably would have real music buffs in stitches from page to page, but my favorite was Reaper Man (which for some reason was out of print? so I had to track down an old used copy among rather more expensive old copies). So far this is my favorite character and I think it will be hard to top, though I’m willing to be proven wrong. However, I also think I’ll take a break from Discworld books before picking up the next set of character arcs.
  • The Case for the Real Jesus by Lee Strobel. I needed this book. Years after writing The Case for Christ, there was a new wave of objections about Jesus and who he was. They shook many peoples’ faith as well as Lee Strobel’s. So he dove into another round of interviews to answer six of the biggest objections. A few of them were ones I had heard, or had rattled me in recent years. The chapter where he dealt with Bart Ehrman’s objections was particularly helpful to me, as I’d listened to a few of Bart Ehrman’s lectures and felt very destabilized by them. The reasoning seemed sound enough to me, and I picked up one title from one of the people that Strobel interviewed to keep my reading on this topic going. “The Case” books by Strobel are really helpful in that way, not only do they present an interesting interview, they always give you loads of other reference materials on each topic.
  • Giant Bones by Peter Beagle. I was excited. I’d read this from the library once, but Peter Beagle has several titles that have gone out of print and are rare enough that used copies are pretty expensive. This was one of them. I kept it on my wishlist as a reminder it exists, in case I ever found a reasonably priced copy, and I finally did. I jumped on a marked-up used copy for a good price and I finally own this little gem of a short story collection. It was wonderful to re-read this after many years. Each story had its own magic that drew me in. It’s set in the world of his novel The Innkeeper’s Song, but you don’t have to have read that novel to read this collection. My Beagle collection grows…
  • 10% Happier by Dan Harris. This guy is fascinating to listen to. After he broke down live on air, news anchor Dan Harris did a deep dive into the self-help field, looking for answers on how to get a grip on his inner negative voice. After a pretty long investigation and a monumental stack of books read, he found answers in meditation and mindfulness. I appreciate the concrete answers he dredged up. I appreciate that he came with skepticism and didn’t end up embracing everything about Buddhism that he learned, leaning more toward the practical applications of mindfulness, meditation, and practicing compassion. There are nuggets of useful information in here that I want to think about some more.
  • Triple Cross by James Patterson. I’ve never read a Patterson novel, but it was dropped on my doorstep by a neighbor so I gave it a chance. A murder mystery thriller, this was a fun page-turner. Easy to read, easy to digest. I was bothered a bit by the arbitrary chapter endings, as he would often end a chapter mid-conversation and simply pick it up in the next chapter (why not roll the two chapters together??) but nitpicks aside, it was a reasonably enjoyable read.
  • Desert Star by Michael Connelly. This was another novel left on my doorstep by the same neighbor, and I have to say, murder mystery thrillers are not a genre I lean toward but this guy might make me change my mind. Connelly’s story was truly compelling, even if I did have to do some context mining (clearly there have been other books he’s written with these characters). I'd pick him over Patterson. Excellent read.
  • Dropped titles: Forgiving what you Can’t Forget by Lysa Terkeurst (not the type of content I was looking for, it offered more emotional affirmation than concrete advice) and The Legend of Holly Claus by Brittany Ryan (really interesting mythological concepts, writing style gets under my skin). Also The Folk of the Air by Peter Beagle (WHY. You wrote The Last Unicorn, a definitive fantasy work, you don’t need to prove anything to overwrought descriptor fanatics…) and No They Can't by John Stossel (I got the gist fairly quickly and felt like I got a better overview of this concept from Thomas Sowell).

Movies

  • Hogfather. I watched this ages ago before I even knew about Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and I’m boggled how I ever made heads or tails of the story before. I remember liking it pretty well, however much of it I managed to understand after context mining the crap out of everything I saw. I like it a little less now that I’ve read the book, but it was still fun to go back over it.
  • Going Postal. I found out there was an adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal and I jumped on it. As an adaptation, it was pretty dang good. I felt like the female lead departed a bit from the character as written but overall this was so much fun to watch. And the score. THE SCORE. I can’t even. If I kept a running list of movies-that-adapted-the-source-material-without-butchering-it, this film would be included.
  • Little Pink House. Based on a true story, this movie follows the case of Kelo v. City of New London, a fight against eminent domain seizure of homes on land the city wanted to develop and turn over to Pfizer. Sergey and I wanted to see this movie especially because it was a case that the Institute for Justice took all the way to the supreme court, and IJ is an organization we fervently admire. The beginning was a little confusing, but after that it settled into a solid story with good acting and understandable characters. It's a sobering reminder that we in the US are not as free as we used to be.

Shows

  • Star Trek: Voyager. Basic premise: A federation starship and a rebel (Maquis) ship that it was chasing get stranded a distance that is roughly 70 years away from their home in completely unknown territory. This is the story of their ill-fated homeward bound journey. This is the third Star Trek series I’ve watched and by far the most frustrating. It’s a good story, don’t get me wrong, but I was ready to strangle Captain Kathryn Janeway half the time. If there was a single word to describe what drove each leader of the shows I’ve seen, it would be as follows: Captain Picard was driven by Idealism, Captain Sisko was driven by Pragmatism, and Captain Janeway was driven by Guilt. Pure and simple. And this is what makes her the worst Captain I’ve seen, as well as one of the best characters. She bothers me on a personal level so much because in spite of the fact that she has many advisors whom she supposedly trusts with her life, she gets this guilt-bound tunnel vision about what must be done and REFUSES to listen to anyone who might see the situation a little more clearly than her. This bothers me because I often can’t see reality for what it is, and I HAVE to rely on people around me to see for me, but she just won’t. Still, she’s a good character, and it’s an interesting show. Reaching the end leaves me, as always, a little sad to say goodbye to the cast.
  • Primal (Season 2). Primal is a rough show, a cartoon that aired on Adult Swim and is technically classified as "horror" though I wouldn't go that far. It is, however, incredibly gory. It is a show about humanity's primal days and features a caveman and a T-Rex who undergo losses that bind them together in a bid for survival against a world that wants to eat them. Season 1 was very enjoyable, and the creator's ingenuity shines through especially as there is no dialogue at all until the final episode in the season. Then there is season 2... which was good for three episodes. After that, it became... disjointed. Confusing. There's one episode that leaps into 1800's England for no apparent reason. After that, there are pacing issues, with far too much time spent on one story that dragged on, and a long-built climax that blinked by in five minutes in the last episode. I'll try not to spoil too much, but I share Sergey's assessment that "Spear (the caveman) deserved better." It was way too rushed.

Games

  • Dishonored 2. Every bit as good as the first one, and for some of the game levels, even better. In this story, you can play either as the new Empress or as the Lord Protector again (now knowing he is the father of the new Empress). Either way, you once again are torn from your position of power and framed for crimes you did not commit. You make contact with The Outsider, a cynical godlike figure who grants you powers in hopes of making an interesting show for himself, and begin working your way through your enemies one at a time. You can show mercy and leave them all alive, or you can kill every last person who betrayed you--and all the civilians too. How you play affects how grim the ending is. In a world as grim as this one is portrayed, I don't have it in me to play an assassination run. This is a very good game.
  • Dropped game: The Outer Worlds. This is a space gunslinger wild west type game mixed with corporate dystopia. It runs on sort of a D&D type numbers system for leveling and adding talents. It was interesting at first, but I’m losing interest and I don’t feel like finishing this one. I’d rather ranch slimes (2!) or play Dishonored 2.