Author: Chuck
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Literacy 2008: Book 3: Jingo
Book Jingo by Terry Pratchett In a series 21st in the series of Discworld books. Synopsis The lost island of Leshp suddenly rises in the middle of the ocean, sparking a war between the nations of Ankh-Morpork and Klatch over ownership of the new land. Sam Vimes and the rest of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch…
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You have 21 years to comply
I couldn’t tell you exactly why I never got around to seeing RoboCop until tonight. I vaguely remember at the time being scared off by stories of how ultra-violent it was. Later, I just dismissed it as being another 80s action movie. After that, I put it in the same category as Total Recall —…
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Confirmed Awesome
Thursday’s episode of “Lost” was called “Confirmed Dead” and correct me if I’m wrong, but by my count it had (spoilers!): Four new characters with immediate flashbacks An irritable Asian ghostbuster who uses a dustbuster The sunken, decaying corpse of Greg Grunberg A through-the-body bullet wound with a tie-in to Locke’s continuity Three cases of…
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Auteurism
Or, “Gore Verbinski’s Going to Make You His Bitch.” If you want to see me start channeling my inner crotchety prospector hankerin’ for a feud, there’s no easier way than making the claim “videogames need to adapt the auteur model from movies!” It comes up fairly frequently on the internets, and I’m usually able to…
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Cease to resist going to Best Buy
I really had no interest in getting Rock Band (warning: site has noise, and changes your browser window size). I skipped the last two releases of Guitar Hero, since the songs past medium difficulty stopped being fun for me. With Rock Band, at the time all the cool kids were getting it, it was impossible…
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Unchained Malady
Seems like I can remember being laid low with the illness not so long ago — why, as a matter of fact, this very blog tells me it was just over a month ago. Seriously, what the Hell, cosmos? I thought we had an arrangement: in exchange for your staying out of my business for…
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Night of the Raving Dead
Nick, Jake, Jared, and the rest of the gang are cranking out Sam & Max episode trailers so quickly, it’s almost like there’s a new one every month. (Come on, give me a break. I’m home sick and pumped full of cold medication.) The next episode is “Night of the Raving Dead”, and so far…
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Literacy 2008: Book 2: Old Man’s War
Book Old Man’s War by John Scalzi Recommended by Wil Wheaton, plus dozens of commenters on half the blogs I read (including John Scalzi’s own blog). Disclaimer I have read very little science fiction (Douglas Adams and Star Wars novelizations don’t count). I’ve read none of Robert Heinlein, who is mentioned in almost every review…
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Earnest Goes to Dublin
The way I see it, there’s two different groups of people who wouldn’t be completely bowled over by the movie Once: Musicians living in Dublin, who wouldn’t see what the big deal is, and Unholy creatures cursed to walk the earth for eternity after having their souls ripped from their rotting corpses. I’d been hearing…
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Literacy 2008: Book 1: The Road
Book The Road by Cormac McCarthy Selling Points Oprah liked it! (And it won a Pulitzer Prize, too.) But look! Oprah! Disclaimer I tried to be open-minded and objective while I was reading this book, but I was definitely prejudiced against it from the start, because of all the hype and because of how much…
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Suspenders of the Lost Disbelief
Last night I went to see Cloverfield again. Surprisingly, it’s still as good the second time, and I highly recommend seeing it in Digital Projection if possible, because the clear picture and better sound system make it awesome. (Incidentally, if you’re interested in all the backstory and alternate-reality game stuff surrounding Cloverfield, there’s a wiki…