Monday, August 10, 2009

BOOKS

I love books, for several reasons.  1. They separate you from stupid people. 2. They are educational. 3. They are entertaining.  These are all good reasons to read a book.  If you are a slow reader they can be time consuming, and if you are busy (like me) you just don't have time for them.  So I am going to run through a series of mini-reviews on books and audiobooks that I have read and/or listened to.

1. The Accidental Billionaires - Read it!  
The book chronicles the rise of Facebook, the social network that took the world by storm.  This book moves and reads like a political thriller and is worth the time required to turn the pages.

2. Black: Book One, the Birth of Evil - Read it!
The inventive tale of a man who lives in two realities.  In the normal world he sleeps, in the fantasy world he wakes.  His attendance in both realities swap back and forth.  In the dream world he learns of a virus that wiped out most of mankind hundreds of years earlier.  In the real world he discovers that its about to happen.  Tick, tock, tick, tock.  This Stephen King style read will have you on the edge of your seat.

Stephen Hawking's: A Briefer History of Time - Listen to it.
The book chronicles the discovery of time and space and examines the theories involved.
This is an interesting but difficult read.  It's hard to keep your eyes on the pages when it starts explaining the quantum mechanics involved in gravity.  Just listen to it while you work.  It gives you interesting things to ponder on.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists - Skip it.
Basically the first half of this book teaches you how to become a douche bag and how to treat women like shit just so you can get a phone number or get laid.  I found myself disliking everyone and everything in this book.  I don't want to F*** every woman.  I want to be a decent person who is genuinely interesting and doesn't give women a laundry list of pick up lines to lure them into my bed.  

The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower 1 - Read it!
A gunslinger in a post apocalyptic land full of evil, possession, time travel, and magic, follows the man in black who laces the trail behind him with traps and magic for the gunslinger to fall into.  If you like Stephen King, you'll love this.  The book creates a fun mythology to follow, I have a feeling the game Fallout has been greatly influenced by this book.

Haunted - Skip it.
You have to be a huge Chuck Palahniuk fan to get through this bastard.  The book is a collection of weird and disturbing short stories that kind of come together to make a story-line.  I found myself wanting to set it down when a kid looses a stick of wax up his penis, or when another gets his intestine pulled from his anus while he was jerking off at the bottom of the pool and letting the pool pump suck his butthole.  Its a grizzly read with stories that are most of the time pointless.  

Kafka on the Shore - Listen to it!
The story follows a boy who runs away from home and a man who can talk to cats.  The plot unfolds like a season of Lost but leaves most of your questions unanswered.  The story is fun and keeps you involved but it definitely takes a weird route.  A 15 year old kid has sex with a 50 year old woman who he believes might be his long lost mother.  He also gets jerked by a hair stylist that he believes might be his long lost sister.  That and other parts are extremely weird but most of it goes unexplained which makes it okay... I guess.  The Audiobook is narrated by two British actors who do a great job of playing different peoples personalities.  If you don't like the idea of potential incest, then skip it, but I was entertained.

Me Talk Pretty One Day - Listen to it!
David Sedaris's self narrated memoirs are hilarious, sad, awkward, and brilliant.  He is a pathetic homosexual man in his 40's who can re-tell the fantastic tidbits of his own history without hesitation or shame.  His words read with familiarity and truth.  iTunes is selling it for just over $6.  It's more than worth it.

The Shack - Read It!
A man is invited to spend a week with god in a shack where his daughter was brutally murdered a year earlier.  This is a sad and moving FICTIONAL story that will get you thinking about god and your relationship with him/her... yeah it's one of those books.  I'm not one for religion but this was a well written tale.

The Strain - Listen to it!
Vampires, vampires, vampires.  Everyone is beating the vampire horse with a stick.  I've especially grown tired of this, but this scientific/mythological look at an interesting vampire outbreak will reignite your fascination.  Plus, a great bonus for the Audiobook, Hellboy himself narrates it.

World War Z - Listen to it!
Max Brooks takes you into a realistic look at a future zombie war.  Fantastic read, but the 15 narrators give the book a whole different experience.  Conducted like interviews, these narrators give their fraction of the tale making it feel authentic.  Definite WINNER.

Well thats it for books.  Working on a few others, keep reading kiddies.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Grandma Lee the 75 year old commedian

Commedians come in all shapes and sizes. If you haven't seen it, this is the clip from America's got talent with Grandma Lee the 75 year old commedian. She is hilarious!


Originally posted at renostandup.com