Autumn Sunset

Last night before the sun got near the hills of the North Bay, Jennifer pointed out the clouds to me.  they were those amazing clouds you get when it's raining, but the water doesn't reach the ground.  I knew they would end up creating some amazing images once the sun was hidden.  I think I got some good shots.

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.

I Learned Something Today...

Unfortunately not in a "South Park" kind of way.

I'm at the Walnut Creek BART station, and I'm wheeling my bike to the gate to exit.  I'm seeing a bunch of guys in suits heading to come in, but they're swinging wide of the over-sized gate (for bikes and wheelchairs and people with large bags, and sometimes, just large people).

Except for this one guy.

The first mark against this guy is that he looks like Marco Rubio.  The second is that he's walking fast toward the large gate.  The third is that he's seen me, and is trying to beat me there.

You see, the over-sized gate is the only one that is the most fitting for the San Francisco Bay Area, because it goes both ways.  And whoever uses it first sets its direction for a few seconds and then it rests to accept riders from either direction.

And what happened was that both of us touched our Clipper cards to the sensor at the same time,  And that essentially shut the gate down for a few seconds.  I stood there until he moved on to another gate, then tried again, and it still wouldn't scan me.  So I moved on to another gate, lifted up mu bike and exited.

All because he couldn't be bothered to walk a couple more steps to a one way gate.

Lovecraft Movies

So, I was looking something up and mistyped "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and instead typed "The Girl With the Dagon Tattoo".  It got me thinking if there are other Lovecraft inspired titles I could make.  Granted most are difficult to mistype like that, but what about substitution?

The Girl With the Dagon Tattoo
Miskatonic, Inc.
Straight Outta Innsmouth
The Curious Case of Randolph Carter
The Colour Purple from Outer Space
The Shoggoth DA
Whateley and Me

Contributions from friends:

Herbert West-World
Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of Tintalos
Ghoulies
M. Nyalothotep Shayamalan's Elder Signs
Mi-Go Busters
The King in Yellow and I

If I come up with more, I'll post those.

Promises to Keep

So the Robin Williams' movie "Hook" is one of my favorites.  If you've read the original Peter Pan by Sir James Barrie, it's actually a really good sequel.  It stays true to the old tale.

One of the things that Peter says is that his word is his  I can remember learning the hard way that a promise is something you keep, and that breaking a promise is a terrible thing to do.

In Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, a promise made by a wizard is something that they can make be true by acting on it before they even make it.  Jennifer and I have enhanced promises by calling them "wizard's promises".  They are guaranteed in our minds.

I have a few other promises out there:

When we became roommates, John and I promised never to pull pranks on each other.  We also vowed never to talk politics in order to maintain our friendship.

To a girlfriend in college, I promised that if I ever got to Paris, I would contemplate Notre Dame and write a poem.

The hardest promise I have to keep is one to another girlfriend.  When I was told that my feelings were too much for her, I said I wouldn't contact her unless she contacted me first.

I hold to that that promise like I do all of the ones I have given.  All of them are important and I intend to keep my word no matter how difficult doing that may become.

Wizard's promise...

Music on My Mind

So, this morning I had a song come up that reminded me of someone I used to date.  I thought I'd do a search of videos and songs to see what I could come up with.

Most of these remind me of dances.

Discworld - The End

So when I started the Shepherd's Crown, I read the dedication:

For Esmerelda Weatherwax

-- mind how you go.

I swear that if I hadn't been on the BART platform, I would have started crying.  That's because of what Rhianna Pratchett reported her last words to her father were.  Then as I started reading the book, I started to wonder, and when I got to the office, I found a high resolution picture of the Paul Kidby cover.

Then, I did let go of a few tears.

That's a hi-res picture, so for those who read the Discworld, click on it and see why.

And of course there was my reaction to Chapter Two.

But I finished the book Sunday night.  It is obvious as the afterward states that Pratchett wasn't quite done with this.  But after enjoying Raising Steam so much more after rereading it, I'm sure that the next time I read this it will be a smoother read.

So that's my marathon/tribute read for Terry Pratchett.  I've got a few more of his books to read like The Long Utopia, and the four Science of the Discworld books that compare earth (Roundworld) to the Discworld alternating science chapters with story chapters as well as the Dodger and Raising Steam companion books.  But I'll scatter those in with all of the others in my now much more full reading queue.

------

Recurring characters and themes appearing in this book:

Agnes (Pedita) Nitt

Annagramma Hawkin

Awfully Wee Billy BigChin, gonnagle

Big Yan

Black Aliss

Boffo

Cabbage

Casanunda

Daft Wullie

Death

Dimity Hubub

Dr. Bustle

Dr. Lawn

Drumknott, secretary

Duchess Keepsake

Eskarina Smith

Events in Equal Rites

Events in Hat Full of Sky

Events in I Shall Wear Midnight

Events in Lords and Ladies

Events in Wee Free Men

Events in Wintersmith

Goldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos

Granny Aching

Granny Esmerelda Weatherwax

Hamish

Havelock Vetinari, patrician

Herne the Hunted

Hex

Hodgesaaegh

Horace the cheese

Ibid

Igor

Jason Ogg

Jeannie, kelda

Jolly Sailor Tobacco

Lancre

Leonard of Quirm

Letitia, baroness

Long Tall Short Fat Sally

Lucy Warbeck

Magrat Garlick, queen of lancre

Millie Chillum

Miss Perspicacia Tick

Mr. and Mrs. Aching

Mrs. Eunice Proust

Mrs. Lettice Earwig

Mustrum Ridcully, archchancellor UU

Nanny Gripes

Nanny Ogg

Offler, the crocodile-headed god

Om

Petulia Gristle

Ponder Stibbons

Preston

Rob Anybody

Roland, baron

Shawn Ogg

The Ankh-Morpork Times

The Clacks System

The Goode Childe’s Book of Faerie Tales

The High-Energy Magic Building

The History Monks

The Lady Sybil Free Hospital

The Low Queen (formerly king) of the Dwarves

The Nac Mac feegle

The Queen of the Elves

The Quirm College for Young Ladies

The Ramtops

The Stick and Bucket Dance

The toad

Tiffany Aching

Twoshirts

Uberwald

Verence II, king of lancre

Wee Mad Arthur

Wentworth Aching

Xeno

You, the cat

Young Esmerelda

Great Quotes from the Comics

So, I realize that most people aren't going to appreciate all of these, but maybe you'll get some of them.  I was inspired by watching Daredevil, but some of these others came to mind.

Daredevil on Netflix

DD: ...I want you to walk em through stabilizing him.
Claire: It's not as easy as it looks in the movies, you know.
DD: I don't really go to the movies.

Green Lantern animated movie

Arisa: How come I've never met Mogo?
Hal: Mogo doesn't socialize.

Superman/Batman comic

Crook gets punched by Batman.
Voice in the alley: Are you okay?
Crook: No, I'm not okay.  What planet are you from?
Voice/Superman: Krypton

The Pain of Chapter 2

I won't expound on the title beyond saying that if you have not yet read Terry Pratchett's The Shepherd's Crown, then make sure someone you love is in the room with you when you do.

I started reading this book this morning.  It's been difficult emotionally.  I read some more this evening, and it hasn't gotten much easier.

While I was laying in bed trying to sleep and the tears kept coming, a thought came to me that while many famous people, important people in my fandom, have died that it all means something more to me.

Robin Williams taking his own life was a life ending much too soon.  It was depriving me (and us) of someone who has been entertaining me since "Mork & Mindy".  He had made me laugh through multiple comedy albums and movies.  And now, he's gone.

Leonard Nimoy died, and while it hurt and I thought it was sad, I thought more of the people close to him who were hurting the most: his family and, of course, William Shatner, who had lost a very close friend.

And then Terry Pratchett died and I was without my favorite author.  He was an writer whose books I have been reading for almost 30 years.  He was sick at the end, fighting a disease with no cure.  And now I'm reading possibly the last work of his that the world will ever see.

And what else has happened in this last year?  

Friends have gotten divorces.  Other friendships that were so amazing and fulfilling have been cut off.

And then there's the big news that most of you already know.  A little less than a year ago, my mom was been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  She's beaten the odds so far and looks to break through the one year mark when she had been given only six months.  But we're still afraid, and we're still sad.

And so I come to this book, and this chapter, and I am devastated.  Because of all that has come before, and all that lays before me, and all that is happening now.

Auto-correct Slang

Okay, so I got this idea from having a chat conversation with a friend.  She's chatting to me on her phone and is trying to tell me how hot the food was at lunch.  Instead the word "hot" got auto-corrected to "fox".  We went on very briefly (nowhere near as long as someone would) with fox puns, and I began to wonder if a whole new slang could crop up.

There's a thing called Cockney Rhyming Slang that I learned about first from Terry Pratchett's Dodger.  I cannot do a description justice, so if you haven't heard about it before go to the link.

And then of course we have Leet-speak that is both a combination of substituting numbers and characters for letters as well as commonly mistyped words.

There's a bit of this out there already with people who actually say phrases like "BRB" and the like.

But this autocorrect thing.consider the most common and annoying correction to "duck".

I don't know if there are any other really common corrections, but it certainly got me thinking.

Discworld - Lipwig the Pawn

So, last night, I finished Raising Steam.

This year, I've been tracking my reading on goodreads.com.  I said I'd read 100 books in 2015.  And this was before Terry Pratchett died.  When I marked that I was reading Raising Steam, I saw that Patrick Rothfuss had reviewed the book.  I have to agree with him on what it was like the first time I read it.  The book seemed to jump around, and felt rushed.  He mentioned that he hopes that it will read better a second time after a year or two.

I have to say that it was.  This time, Raising Steam seems well paced, but still a headlong rush to the end.  It's a story about the rapid progress that can happen, but also a book of intrigue and adventure.

For anyone who read it once, and hasn't gone back to it yet, I strongly encourage  a re-read.

On a related note, this could have been Pratchett's last book in the Discworld series.  As you can see below, almost everyone and place is mentioned again.  The only thing missing is specific mentions of witches in Lancre.  One is mentioned who likes to take cookies to the clacks towers when young men are working there, so it's probably Nanny Ogg.  Otherwise it would have been a fine final chapter.

However, The Shepherd's Crown is now out, and is obviously the next book in my queue.

------

Recurring characters and themes appearing in this book:

“Eldritch means oblong”

Adora Belle “Spike” Dearheart

Albrecht Albrechtson

All Jolson

Angua von Uberwald, captain

Ankh-Morpork

Anoia, goddess of utensils stuck in drawers

Ardent

Bashfull Bashfullson

B'hrian Bloodaxe, low king of the dwarves

Billy Slick (Snuff)

Bluejohn, constable

Boffo

Burleigh & Stronginthearm

Cabbage

Charlie

Copperhead

Cunning Artificers

Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler

Death

Diamond, king of trolls

Dolly Sisters

Done-It Duncan

Dr. Lawn

Drumknott, secretary

Events in Small Gods

Events in The Last Hero

Events in Snuff

Events of The Fifth Elephant

Events of Thud

Feeney Upshot, chief constable

Fred Colon, sergeant

Goblin in the fairy book

Haddock, constable/acting captain

Harry King, sir

Havelock Vetinari, patrician

Hygiene

Igor

Igorina

Jimkin Bearhugger's

Koom Valley (Accord)

Lady Margolotta von Uberwald

Lancre

Leonard of Quirm

Leshp

Llamedos

Lu-Tze

Madame Sharn

McSweeney Dynasty

Micromail

Moist von Lipwig

Morris dancing

Mr. Bent

Mr. Fusspot, bank chaidog

Mr. Pony

Mr. Skiller

Mr. Slant, Lawyer’s Guild

Mr. Trooper

Mrs. Bradshaw

Mustrum Ridcully, archchancellor UU

Ned Simnel

Nobby Nobbs, corporal

Nugganites

Ohulan Cutash

Otto Chriek

Ponder Stibbons

Queen Keli

Queen Ynci

Reg Shoe

Rhys Rhysson, low king (queen) of the dwarves

Rincewind

Sacharissa Crisplock

Sally von Humpeding, captain

Sam Vimes, knight, duke, commander

Shatta

Shine of the Rainbow

Slake

Sto Lat

Sybil Ramkin-Vimes, ducchess

Tak

Tears of the Mushroom

The Alchemists' Guild

The Ankh-Morpork Royal Post Office

The Ankh-Morpork Times

The Assassins' Guild

The Chair of Indefinite Studies

The Clacks System

The Dark Clerks

The Fiddler's Riddle

The Forest of Skund

The Golem Trust

The High-Energy Magic Building

The Lawyers' Guild

The Lecturer in Recent Runes

The Librarian

The Pink Pussycat Club

The Quirm College for Young Ladies

The Royal Bank and Mint of Ankh-Morpork

The Senior Wrangler

The Summoning Dark

The Undertaking

Thomas Goatberger

Two Shirts

Überwald

Unggue

Verence II, king of Lancre

William de Worde

75 Years of Green Lantern

So, strangely enough, my first Green Lantern comic book was also my first Flash book.  You can see the cover in this post.

It was also where I learned a little bit about Aaron Burr and dueling.  I don't remember much else about the story; I'd have to dig it up to refresh my memory.

But it did bring a certain poignancy to this "Got Milk" commercial:

The Shepherd's Crown

So, I got this in the mail today...

I nearly made it to completing the Discworld saga before receiving the last book.  I am presently reading Raising Steam which is the fortieth book written; The Shepherd's Crown is the forty-first.

I've got it on my shelf now, waiting for me.

I'm almost as emotional as I was when I first heard the Sir Terry had died.