The Mysteries – Bill Watterson and John Kascht
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The Mysteries – Bill Watterson and John Kascht

So, like many people within a pretty large range of my age, I was, and am, a huge fan of Calvin and Hobbes. I am sure Peanuts and Garfield would try to make the claim, and there is a good argument to be made for The Far Side, but Calvin and Hobbes may be the best newspaper comic there ever was. And that's not really hyperbole. It perfectly road that line between, "appealing to younger folks" through Calvin's adventures with his imaginary friend Hobbes (a stuffed cat who comes to life for Calvin), and still appealing to adults, by using…
Linear Quotes: Aurora
Posted inBooks Music

Linear Quotes: Aurora

Linear Quotes: Aurora by Ketil Mosnes Just for establishment up front here, I am a big fan of the musician Aurora. If we're measuring by Last.fm scrobbles, which I like to do, she has very rapidly become my top scrobbled artist, of all time. But a pretty large margin. I saw this book posted by someone in a fan group on Facebook and it seemed like a pretty interesting, and probably less known bit of Aurora memorabilia, almost no one in the group was aware of it as far as I could tell. It's also tricky to find, I had…
Comics – Batman Hush, The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke
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Comics – Batman Hush, The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke

I am a fan of comics, I like the idea of comics, I like super heroes. I don’t actually read all that many comics.  The ongoing monthly cost is more than I care to bother with and I hate the whole multispan multi book story arch aspects (multibook Crossovers, not bultibook within a series).  It also feels like there is too much long tail and too much filler to really "get into" anything these days.  I really love collections and Graphic Novels.  They tend to highlight the best aspects and they tend to be self constrained consolidated stories.  The only…
Valve Presents: The Sacrifice and Other Steam Powered Stories
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Valve Presents: The Sacrifice and Other Steam Powered Stories

I  remember hearing about this book a while back.  I forget if it was on the Team Fortress blog or just somewhere in the Steam Forums.  I then promptly forgot about it.  As convenient as shopping online is, I like the serendipity of a store.  Unfortunately, there aren’t many book stores in the area and I tend to forget about books I wanted if I am not reminded of them. I was browsing through Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and found this and remembered about it.  I decided to wait on it though since I get coupons for…
Review – Change Agent by Daniel Suarez
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Review – Change Agent by Daniel Suarez

NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher for free to the reviewer in advance of release. I should probably start off by mentioning that I am a huge fan of Daniel Suarez.  I have read all of his previous books, a few of them more than once.  He definitely has a great "not too distant" future sort of style that comes off as very plausible in his Sci-Fi Techno-Thriller novels.  While I wouldn't rate Change Agent as his be best work yet, I still give that to Daemon, it's certainly not on the bottom of my list.  They all…
World of Warcraft – Books Edition
Posted inBooks World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft – Books Edition

So it’s been a pretty uneventful week in the game, just leveling up the Hunter mostly, and even that wasn’t super frequent.  I thought I’d take a minute to discuss some of the Lore related books I’ve read recently.  I think one of the aspects that really appeals to me with WoW is that the overall store, often called "Lore" is really tight.  Blizzard is pretty consistent on everything, more so the closer to present day you get.  There are other large universes but there are often contradictions.  Star Wars is all over the place, and chances are the Star…
Manga – FLCL Volume 1
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Manga – FLCL Volume 1

What am I supposed to be reading here? Seriously now, is there any plot even remotely to this book? I realize that FLCL is more or less about "random nothingness", but the manga seems to take it to an extreme case. I do not know which came first, but I do know that if I had not watched the show before reading the manga, I would have absolutely no concept of what is happening. The book feels like someone wrote a full manga, then ripped out ever other block of ten or so pages. There is an extreme lack of…