Quotes - Part Twenty-Seven

 

501.                   Whining is anger through a small opening.

--Stuart Smalley

502.                   You know, there’s a million fine looking women in the world, dude.  But they don’t all bring you lasagna at work.  Most of ’em just cheat on you.

–Kevin Smith as Silent Bob in “Clerks”

503.                   If God wanted us to believe in him, then he’d exist.

--Linda Smith

504.                   It’s hard to take a villain seriously when he has “Moff” in his title.

--J. Loren Soderburgh, on “The Brunching Shuttlecocks”

505.                   I love that choosing where you want to live now is just deciding which natural disasters you could put up with.

--@Soeljchjillinger

506.                   Why is it called northern mythology when they talk about Thor and Odin, but when you come to God and Allah it’s suddenly called religion?  The difference is of course that most of us have realized that Thor and Odin don’t exist.  But only a few of us have realized that the others are just fantasy too.  I mean, historians are atheists when it comes to Thor and Odin.  It’s like saying, “I know Batman and Superman is just fantasy, but I have a close and personal relationship with Spider-man.”

--Dag Sørås

507.                   I like the concept of soulmates ­– not a “you’re destined to meet me, and love me” kind of soulmate, but a “I’d pick you, every time” kind of soulmate.  A “no matter what happens, and what has happened, I want to go through it with you” kind of soulmate.  An “I love you by choice, and you’re a blessing, and I’m going to continue thinking about you this way, not because I have to, but because I want to” kind of soulmate.  A “you help me rest easy when everything is difficult” kind of soulmate.  An “in every possible outcome, I want you there, to share it with me” kind of soulmate.

--@spectralsuggestions

508.                   Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die.

--Tim Steeves

509.                   No one is more carnal than a recent virgin.

--John Steinbeck

510.               Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not commit adultery. Don’t eat pork. I’m sorry, what was that last one? Don’t eat pork. God has spoken. Is that the word of God or is that pigs trying to outsmart everybody?

--Jon Stewart

511.               When I was six years old my father said to me… He said, “Son, stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse. People are no damn good, but they will always need land and they’ll pay through the nose to get it!”

--Lex Luthor in “Superman”

512.               It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

--Stewart’s Law of Retroaction

513.               Of course, sometimes I wonder how dangerous this whole high-voltage stuff really is. I mean, isn’t this how lots of super-villains get started?

--Stick Figure Warning-Man

514.               </mr nice guy>

--StickManStickMan

515.               The meaning of life is “things which are alive.”

--StickManStickMan

516.               Try our new online cheese, e-dam.

--StickManStickMan

517.               I had a linguistics professor who said that it’s man’s ability to use language that makes him the dominant species on the planet. That may be. But I think there’s one other thing that separates us from animals. We aren’t afraid of vacuum cleaners.

--Jeff Stilson

518.               Look forward to the day when you have cleansed the universe of your enemy and carved their bones into flutes for your children to play.

--J. Michael Straczinsky, G’Kar in “Babylon 5”

519.               You can get further with a kind word and a two by four, than you can with just a kind word.

--J. Michael Straczinsky, Marcus in “Babylon 5”

520.               I used to complain about life being unfair. Then I thought, if life were fair, then all the bad things that happen to us would be because I deserve it. So now I take great comfort at the injustice and unfairness of the universe.

--J. Michael Straczinsky, Marcus in “Babylon 5”

521.               Welcome to R’lyeh Spaceport. Please pick up your bags as they emerge from fifth-dimensional space. Please do not stand near any ninety-degree angles. Please avoid any sentient colours. Please do not make religious offerings until you have exited the premises. Thank you and ftagn.

--John Strobel

522.               If I say, “You’re welcome,” that’s not a binding contract involving my soul in any way, is it?

--said to John Strobel

523.               I have a computer science degree from 1991, which is a bit like having an aeronautical engineering degree from 1927.

--Charles M. Stross

524.               Leaving aside the idolatry implicit in taking a mere book as a more authoritative source of truth than divine revelation, there are damaging consequences when a belief system collides with reality. If the world was created in six days six-thousand-odd years ago, then a whole bunch if evidence relating to geology, biology, paleontology, genetics, and evolution had to be ignored - or, much harder, refuted. Which is easy enough if they don’t hold with schoolbook larnin’, but it’s difficult to practice general medicine if your religion says bacteria can’t evolve antibiotic resistance, and hard to be a geologist if your cosmology is incompatible with continental drift.

--Charles M. Stross

525.               Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren’t doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they’re sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head.

--Charles M. Stross

Stross! Stross! He's our man!

So, I just finished (literally) Charles Stross' latest additional to the Laundry Files The Nightmare Stacks.  And it is bunches of fun.

The Nightmare Stacks reminds me of a Tom Clancy novel.  I've only read two of those, but it has that feel.  A reluctant agent caught up in things, tactical maneuvers, and technical specifications.  And reading about a dragon's technical jargon just makes me smile.

The favorite characters aren't in this one aside from side mentions.  Dr. O'Brien is seen in passing, as is the BLUE HADES Representative on her way to the pool in a wheelchair.  Bob Howard is unfortunately in Japan.  So the main character is Alex Schwartz one of the Laundry's PHANG agents.

But it's not a vampire book.

I was reminded of two fictional invasions while reading this.  One was a GI Joe cartoon where they go up against a group that uses biological versions of all mechanical devices.  The other is Sliding Albion from The Authority comic books.

A recommendation before reading this are Stross' short story "Equoid".

It's been a while since I've this much fun reading.

Three Books Without Pratchett

So today at lunch, I completed my third non-Pratchett book since finishing the Discworld series.

The Annihilation Score is the latest "Laundry Files" from Charles Stross.  While, I admit it was not as amazing as the first three books of the Laundry Files, I can get an idea of where Stross is going, and I kind of liked the switch in perspective.  This book is the first where we are fully in Mo's head, and I liked the descriptions of what the evilly crafted violin she uses does to her head.  I look forward to future books.

Time Salvager by Wesley Chu was well written, but disappointing.  It is so full of tropes that I knew almost everything that was going to happen.  It brings to mind the movies "Dreamscape" and "Robocop" as well as other more generic tropes.  I will probably read the sequel when it comes out, and I will try more of Chu's books, but they won't be go-to stories if I've got other choices.

And I just finished Armada by Ernest Cline which is his second book.  His first book Ready Player One is already in pre-production for being made into a movie.  I can tell that Cline has a lot of popular culture in his head, and apparently the only way he can get it out is to write books.  Ready Player One was non-stop fun for me, but after reading Time Salvager and starting Armada, I became concerned that Armada was being too predictable.  It is as fun to read as his first, and I'll just say that the way that you think it's going to go is wrong.

I now return briefly to Terry Pratchett with an assist to Stephen Baxter for the conclusion to the Long Earth series The Long Utopia.

Non Sequitur

Two things.

First, I finished Charles Stross' latest book The Rhesus Chart yesterday on my way home.  I have to say that it was a fun read, but not up to the rest of the stories from the Laundry Files.  It feels a bit like Stross was lining things up for a future story.

It's kind of like the Bill Cosby album "When I Was a Kid" and he tells the story of him and Weird Harold coming home from the monster movies and trampling a wino in fear.  Then he says, "I told you that story to tell you this one." and goes on to tell about the time he got trampled by Fat Albert after trying to scare him with a Frankenstein's monster statue.

I still enjoyed the book, but I am really hoping for an amazing next one.

---

Second, have you heard about Endura Cool by Mission Athletecare?  Because this stuff is amazing.

Jennifer and I came across a commercial for the towel one day while watching non-network TV.  The Dish Hopper doesn't automatically skip on non-network, non-prime time shows, and we get complacent sometimes and forget.  So we catch the occasional commercial, and this one intrigued us.

I was done with the long project in Lodi, but I knew I'd be going back out into the field, and summer is here.  All I had to do was go to a Lowe's.

I happened to be going back to Lodi for a brief visit, and knew where a Lowe's was, so I stopped in.

I ended up buying two items: the towel and the multi-cool.  I use the multi-cool as a turtleneck every time I ride home now because of the whole 20 degree difference between Walnut Creek and Emeryville, and how hot the BART trains get in the sun.  I use the towel both when I first get into the office and home.  I wet it, wring it, and snap it, and then just drape it over my shoulders.

The multi-cool keeps me cooler while I'm riding, and the towel accelerates my cool down when I'm done riding.

Last week I was in San Rafael, and I used the multi-cool under on my head under my helmet with the tail hanging down my neck and tucked into my shirt.  It was a wonderful cooling feeling.

I cannot recommend this family of products enough.  I think they should be included in first aid kits for cooling heat stressed individuals.  I also wager that they would be great for helping cool someone with a fever.

But then remember, I'm a geologist, not a doctor... Jim.

A Return to Arkham

So yeah, it turns out, I wasn't really in the mood for James Watson recounting how he met Francis Crick, and how they came up with the double helix structure theory for DNA.

So I'm back to reading H.P. Lovecraft until I get a chance to run by the library and get a recent Charles Stross release.

Then once I"m done with those, we'll just see what books come next.

Recent Reading

Over the past few weeks, I've had quite a few books turn out disappointing. I worked at finishing them, but I didn't get very far before putting all three of them aside.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest just never went anywhere. I tried, but I could not remain interested enough in it to want to find out about the secrets the characters kept referring to.

Then I tried two books that were recommended by io9.

First I made an attempt at Charles Yu's short story collection Third Class Superhero. the first story, which was the title story, was all right, but none of the other stories captured my attention. I've reserved a full length book of his called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. I'm hoping it is better.

And finally today, I gave up on Ian McEwan's Solar. I wanted to like this one. It's gotten a lot of hype on io9, but it was so boring. I understand it needed to set up to protagonist (a +50 year old womanizing physicist on his fifth marriage, because those are so common), but get me to the science fiction. Get me to the action. Get me to the conflict other than his being secretly jealous of the up-and-coming doctoral student. And please get me beyond him dealing with the man his latest wife is sleeping around on him with (or may not be). I don't care.

These two books were ones I requested at the library. I've already devoured all of Charles Stross' sci-fi work. I need more to read.

So now I'm moving on to the other great resource for finding new authors: short story anthologies. The first is edited by Martin H. Greenberg, and so far he has always had good authors in his collections.

Speed Reading

One author I read once said in an interview or on his webpage to not read his newest book too quickly as it was an arc and that he was ending the series. That advice went away, and yet even if I had heeded it, I don't know if I would have read the book an slower.

There are certain books and sometimes authors whose books can only be devoured. You are absorbed into them, and you have to finish them just to make sure that the characters come out of everything all right.

... or don't.

One of these books is Charles Stross' latest: The Fuller Memorandum. I believe I started it Sunday night, and I finished it last night.

The Fuller Memorandum is the third novel in the Tales of the Laundry, and I could not get through it fast enough.

Like the other Laundry books, this one accelerates, and you worry about Bob Howard, and if he's going to make it out alive this time. Stross even teases the whole tale with a prologue by the protagonist telling you he's writing all this down after the fact, and yet you read the book and still wonder if he's going to make it.

I hope Stross can continue the Laundry series with such strength, and yet still write other fascinating hard science fiction stories. Like a sequel to Iron Sunrise.

Please.

***

And so now, I am on to Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. It was lent to me by a coworker and I am going to try to read it. It has two marks against it from me from the start. It's a steampunk tale, and apparently it's also about zombies.

Now, I knew it was steampunk because my coworker told me that, but I could also tell because the protagonist on the cover is wearing goggles that are a variation on acetylene goggles. I did not know about the zombies until I was a couple chapters in.

You see, I try to avoid reading the blurbs on the back (or inside flap) of a book I already know I am going to read. I've had too many experiences in the past where a turning point of the plot is revealed, and I spend the parts of the book leading up to it waiting for that event to happen.

To explain my demerits, first off, my aversion to steampunk. Maybe it's because I was never that much into history. Steampunk is just an alternate earth thing that I've never enjoyed.

Than there's zombies. I'm not a zombie fan. I've seen three zombie movies total: "Shaun of the Dead", "28 Days Later", and "Zombieland". I don't like horror movies, and so I won't be watching any of the George Romero films. So I am finding it hard to look forward to the inevitable outbreak in Boneshaker.

A boneshaker BTW is normally slang for the large front wheeled bicycles of the Victorian era. The book is about a boneshaker that is a coring vehicle like what Cave Carson drives.

I will give it a chance, but I've got a slew of books reserved at the library, and once they come in, I better be engrossed, or this book goes back on the shelf.

Reading Slow Down

So I'm having some issues with the Charles Stross book I'm reading.

It's a collection of short stories around one man or his daughter. The first story really bothered me because it was going along so well, and then ends with the man being drugged and raped by his ex-wife. I'd read this one before, and to have the book start with that story made it hard for me to continue.

I'm still persevering, but the ex-wife is so annoying and upsetting that anytime she's mentioned I shutdown.

So I'm not reading as fast as I'd like, but maybe I'll be able to pick-up the pace soon.

***

The excavation Oakland is now done. We're backfilled, and now we're taking care of the topsoil and the rest of the site4 restoration. Then we can try for closure in a year or so.

I'm a Geologist, not a Doctor (Nor am I a Bricklayer)

So I wrote about Charles Stross yesterday, but I didn't really recap the books.

Wireless and Toast are collections of short stories.

The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue are kind of supernatural spy stories. Magic and mathematics and Lovecraftian horrors all mixed together. The Jennifer Morgue especially is a tribute to Ian Fleming, but also contains nods to others as well. One of his stories (I forget the exact one, and it might be more than one) refers to those on the Other Side as being in the Dungeon Dimensions. It's a straight up connection to Terry Pratchett, which made me giggle.

Tonight I finished Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary Wolf. It was not what I expected, and I had had my expectations lowered after reading that the only line the movie has in common with the book is Baby Herman's reference to his lust level versus his equipment. It was also hard to make the transition from seeing the movie be about animated 'Toons, and the book being about funny pages 'Toons. I think it may have to do with not really liking murder mysteries in the first place, but this one seemed to be written with an extremely convoluted plot. I enjoyed for the contrast to the movie, but I definitely prefer the movie to the book.

Charles Stross

I've just finished my third book by Charles Stross straight after being introduced to him by a few short stories from Tor.

I find myself needing more.

Stross may be my new favorite science fiction author. I still enjoy Larry Niven, but his writing is graspable by my knowledge of astronomy and physics, or maybe its just that it has become comfortable after so many years of reading. Stross' work is just barely comprehensible with my knowledge of computers and what I've read of Lovecraft. It makes everything I read seem that much more fantastic.

I'm definitely going to read as much of his stuff that I can find.