Boomcoach's Blab

Librivox needs your help

2010-02-26T07:19:00.004-05:00

For the first time, Librivox is asking for donations. It is a finite fundraiser, i.e. they wish to raise $20,000 for some specific upgrades. Information is below. If you are a fan of Librivox, please consider sending them something to let them know you support them. Here is the letter from Hugh, creator of Librivox.

Dearest LibriVox listeners, volunteers, & supporters:

For four-and-a-half years, LibriVox volunteers have been making audiobooks for the world to enjoy, and giving them away for free. We’ve made thousands of free audiobooks that have been downloaded by millions of people; our site gets 400,000 visitors every month. To date, all our costs have been borne by a few individuals, with some generous donations and support from partners. However, these costs have become too big.

For the first time (and hopefully for the last time for at least another four-and-a-half years) we're asking for your support, for a $20,000 fund-raising campaign.

Find out more about why we are raising money, and about how you can donate by following this link:
http://librivox.org/2010/02/24/librivox-needs-your-help/

Thanks for all your wonderful work over the years, and here's to many many more free public domain audio books.

best,
Hugh.

Destroyermen: Into the Storm - Review

2010-02-19T14:57:00.002-05:00

Audible.com had a $4.95 sale on the first book of several series, one of which was Into the Storm: Destroyermen, Book I by Taylor Anderson, an Alternative History novel in which a WWI vintage destroyer, out of date and running from the Japanese in the early days of the WWII Pacific theater, gets sucked into an alternative world which is physically the same as the one they left, but on which different life forms have evolved.

While interesting, what really caught my eye, from the publisher's description was that, on this version of earth, two different intelligences had evolved and are at war, the humans "have the means to turn a primitive war into a genocidal Armageddon, one thing becomes clear: They must decide whose side they're on. Because whoever they choose to side with is the winner."

The book is solidly, if unexceptionally, written. As the destroyer is part of a fleet that is trying to escape the Japanese, a chance is had for the ship to pick up some additional people, besides the crew. There are a couple of pilots (gotta be able to fly on the alternate world), some nurses (gotta have some women), and an Australian jack-of-all-trades scientist (who can be knowledgeable and/or ignorant, as needed.) They even rescue a Japanese sailor who got sucked through the squall into this world along with them. A Japanese sailor on a US Navy ship, now that's conflict! (Fortunately, he was educated in the US, speaks English, and wasn't too gung-ho about the Pearl Harbor attack. Wouldn't want to have to actually deal with conflicting viewpoints.) While these are fairly formulaic, they are not hard to swallow in the context of making the cast of characters more interesting, and creating some potential plot conflicts.

The battle descriptions are very good. The ship's abilities are discussed, and the battle tactics are described, well, but without so much jargon that it becomes incomprehensible. The captain, whose viewpoint rightly dominates the book, is a reasonably interesting character. Most of the other characters are right out of central casting.

My problems with the books start to appear as the crew meets the first alien (to them) race, one descended from lemurs. I was looking forward to the ethical dilemma of choosing sides, but this dilemma disappears almost immediately, as these nice furry people are under attack by a race descended from raptors, who have no redeeming social qualities, and also have big teeth. While a paragraph or two is spent on the captain hemming and hawing over stepping in, he quickly decides to help the beleaguered "cat-monkeys" and the dilemma is over before it has a chance to begin.

I was also annoyed by the fact that this alternate world was supposed to be as old as the earth, and yet the races on it are far behind humans in technology. No explanation is given as to why they are so far behind, it just makes for a better story.

The book moves along well enough that until it is an enjoyable read/listen, but afterward I realized that it was mostly a waste.

Possibly the best part of the new Holmes movie

2010-02-16T12:29:00.003-05:00

The kids and I the new Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie at Christmas, and it was fun. Not great, but a lot of fun. RDJ was quite unconvincing as Holmes, but Jude Law was an excellent Watson, the sets were wonderful, and the movie was a lot of fun. But this post isn't about the movie.

One of the side effects of the studio pumping millions into promoting "Sherlock Holmes" is that a number of other products piggybacked on that advertising.

The Sherlock Holmes Collection is a collection of episodes from a 60's series that I had not heard of before. It stars Peter Cushing, who was a very respectable Holmes in Hammer Films' Hound of the Baskervilles, and does a very good job here also. Nigel Stock is a bit old for Watson (the influence of the Nigel Bruce portrayal, one supposes) but handles the character well.

Another excellent BBC series that was released this fall was The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: Set 1 (Set 2 will be available in April). This early 70's series presents stories based on stories of other contemporary detectives, such as Martin Hewitt, Max Carrados and Dr. Thorndyke, and has a number of actors that we saw much more of later, such as Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Irons and John Neville. For a mystery fan like me, this is a gold mine!

For a nice range of Holmes movies at a reasonable price, The Sherlock Holmes Collection has three solid movies, the Hammer Hound of the Baskervilles, the excellent, Billy Wilder directed Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and the hilarious Without a Clue with Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley.

TCM showed the restored version of the 1922 silent Sherlock Holmes, based on the William Gillette play, and this version should be available soon for hardcore Sherlockians like me.

With the Holmes books in the public domain, Barnes & Noble and Amazon have new editions available for a reasonable price, including several versions for the Kindle. My favorite new edition of a Holmes book has to be Hard Case Crime's version of The Valley of Fear (cover shot below) which it lists as by "A. C. Doyle", and is "Based on a True Story", which is true, if a bit stretched. I am pretty sure that I don't remember "The Bodymaster" my previous readings of the novel. (You have to love the subtle placement of the "V"!)

Audiobook update

2010-02-13T18:35:00.002-05:00

Well, it has been a busy month for me, recording wise. I finished recording Jules Verne's Dr. Ox's Experiment, and I am about 2/3 of the way through with Fantomas. You can connect to these through my audiobook page.

I have uploaded a couple more chapter of Sweeney Todd to my Penny Dreadful podcast.

I wanted to make it easier for people to sort through the many excellent mystery audiobooks that Librivox has to offer, so I have created a Librivox Mystery Bookshelf. This site sorts the various books by their time period and/or style. It also shows books that are recommended reading according to a couple of excellent sources. It was a fun project to work on, but took some serious time to create the 400+ links.

In all a productive month.

The jolly old atheist

2009-12-03T09:54:00.004-05:00

I have to admit something...I love Christmas. According to the AFA, I am supposed to be making war on it, but I must be a backslider. I hear a lot about how hard the holidays are on some people, and I do not doubt that this is true. Having to get together with a dysfunctional extended family, or be alone cannot be fun. For some it is the oft-forced Christmas cheer, especially in some office settings, or the incessant playing of the same 20 Christmas songs. Happily, none of these is a problem for me.

I enjoy the pagan parts of the season, the secular parts, and even, to some extent, the spiritual parts. I don't handle the preaching well, but that can be avoided reasonably well. My workplace does not have any massive after hours Christmas party that anyone is forced to attend. My floor has a carry in (must remember to get the Andouille and the tasso out of the freezer this weekend, I am bringing jambalaya.) As I am a one man department, it is nice to be included in a larger group, as a one person carry-in is simply brown bagging. Last year, my boss took the three people under him out for dinner, but there wasn't any politicking, just good food and company.

My wife and I get along pretty well with both sides of our families. There are in-laws that I don't share a lot of interests with, but no-one particularly obnoxious (well, almost, but it is a relaxed season and I can generally just ignore him.) Certainly none of the cat-fighting and back-biting I hear about from others. This year the travel for the family get-togethers is pretty light and the timing for them is pretty good, so all is good on the family side.

I hear people complain about the crowds in the malls, and about how nasty people are when shopping, but I have experienced very little of this. I understand that lines will be longer, that at least one person in the line ahead of me will have completely forgotten how to exchange money for products, but I go in with that assumption and don't let it bother me. I find that if you go to the malls in a nasty mood, you will notice the others in the same mood. I tend to go in a good mood, and I usually meet other people who smile and joke about things. Sometimes I really believe that one can choose their mood, so I choose to have fun.

There is certainly some godawful Christmas music out there, and I was hearing in the first weekend of November, which was annoying. My advantage is that I don't listen to the radio, so I don't care if all the stations have switched to Christmas must a month ago. I play CDs, so I can choose what I listen to. When I do decide to listen to Christmas music, I pick the music I listen to. At work I have about 11 hours of seasonal music on my PC. I hit shuffle, and between answering calls, leaving the office to fix this or that, I can get through the month without hearing any song more than 3 or 4 times, unless I choose to (never get enough of Blues Traveler's Christmas, or No Doubt's Oi to the World. )

Now to the best parts of Christmas. I enjoy the music, and when we go to a larger event, I can even sing aloud without anyone throwing things or calling for the police. I enjoy the secular music, I enjoy the traditional music, I enjoy, in small doses, the novelty songs, I enjoy the edgy and/or slightly bitter songs. I have Celtic songs, blues songs, jazz songs. My mix includes the Chieftains, Nat King Cole, Dr. John, Jethro Tull. Good stuff all!

There are favorite Christmas movies. We only watch a few, so we don't get over-saturated with the various awful TV and movie presentations. (Always remember Sturgeon's Law: "90 percent of everything is crud.") We love to watch the Alistair Sims' version of A Christmas Carol, love to hear Boris Karloff in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, to see Edmund Gwynn in the original Miracle on 34th Street (admittedly, there are very few things I do not enjoy Gwynn in) and It's a Wonderful Life, while it got played to death when it was in the public domain for a while, is still a great movie, with a wonderful message, if a bit cloying. (OK, I realize that three of these are in black and white, but what's wrong with that, you $#@# whippersnappers! Get off my lawn!)

Food. A big word in just four letters. DeBrand's chocolates. Macadamia nuts. Pistachio nuts. Nuts. Attacking assorted nuts with nutcracker and picks, fun for both the nuts and the memories. Pies. Pumpkin. Blueberry. Mince meat. Rolls. Honey baked hams. Another turkey, just for the heck of it. Sweet potatoes. Some green beans, just to make Jill happy. Aaah. This year may even include some home brewed beer, which I haven't had for several years.

Memories. Listening to our kids going through their stockings, not realizing that we could hear them from our bedroom through the heating ducts. When your kids are about 3, and they get so excited by each present that they have to show everyone in the room and don't want to open the next present because this one is so cool. The few times when I actually got it right with one of Jill's presents. You know the times. When it isn't on her list, but is something truly special. OK, I didn't manage it often, that's why the memories of those times is so special. Coming back from Thanksgiving and putting in the Christmas music for the first time in the season and singing for hours on the way home...each in their own key.

So in the end, to reiterate, I love Christmas. I know that it was a pagan holiday that was converted to Christian holiday was transformed during the Victorian era into what we think of a traditional Christmas and has become a marketing tool. I know all that, but I still love it, so to steal from the lyrics of Jackson Browne's The Rebel Jesus:

So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

It seems to start earlier every year

2009-11-10T12:49:00.003-05:00

Halloween is over and it is now time for the festive season. You know what that means don't you? You are right, it is time for the 2009 War on Christmas to begin.

I have seen my first "Keep Christ in Christmas" Facebook group, and the AFA (I think I need to start a "Get Family out of AFA" group) has its brand spanking new Boycott GAP This Christmas site up, apparently because GAP doesn't do enough to commercialize Christmas. (I would link to the site, but why help boost its visibility?)

Christians have forgotten, of course, that there was no Christ in Christmas. They took a pagan holiday and in the 4th century they shoehorned their own religious symbol onto it. Of course, most Christians haven't forgotten this...they never knew it in the first place. Somehow they missed the fact that their celebration focuses around such pagan symbols as fir trees, holly and mistletoe.

Christians, of course, feel rightly persecuted. The courts keep bringing up that damned Constitution and Bill of Rights whenever Christians try to enforce Sharia, oops, I meant Christian law. Non-Christians might be a bit confused at where all of this Christian persecution is. They have not, of course, been reading the New Christian Dictionary. The NCD's definition of "persecution" is "anytime we don't get things exactly our way!"

Some pollyannas might suggest that we could just all celebrate the holidays in our own personal ways, respect each other's beliefs or lack thereof, but it is just that sort of backsliding, politically correct, liberal hogwash that will, to paraphrase the late great George Carlin, " infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war."

NO ONE is forgetting 9/11, you idiots!

2009-09-11T22:05:00.002-04:00

Now, I don't mean the readers of this blog are idiots. Let's get that settled right now.

I was in the car a fair bit today, and as about the only radio station I can get is the local talk radio station, I was lucky(?) enough to get to hear Glen Beck, El Rushbo, as well as our local host Pat White. All made a big point of "I have not forgotten 9/11 !!!" Guess what, no one has forgotten 9/11. It is not some sort of conservative only anti-holiday.

Of course I remember where I was on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember watching the second plane hit the tower; I remember seeing the towers fall. I remember the stunned daze that I was in all day.

What the various conservative radio heads fail to understand is that it is quite possible to remain angry about 9/11 without feeling that this required them to:

Have agreed with everything that President Bush did or said after 9/11/01.
Feel that torturing is acceptable for this country.
Feel that holding civilians in perpetuity, without charging them, or even letting them know why they are being held.
Think that this gave Bush an excuse to start a war that he had been planning for since well before the towers fell.

I love my country, I am a patriot; I don't think that requires that I also be a jingoist, or ignore the fact that Bush's "leadership" consisted of using 9/11 to further his own political agenda.

Conservatives, this is one American father that refuses to let you redefine "patriot" to mean "vote Republican or leave the country" any more than I will accept your redefining "family values" as "jingoism, sexism, racism".

For Conservatives, message more important than solution

2009-09-03T08:16:00.002-04:00

UNESCO is trying to reduce the number of abortions and the spread of HIV through new guidelines for sex education. But for US Conservatives and Evangelicals this is outrageous! Because the guidelines actually suggest teaching children about sex and contraception, in age appropriate ways, rather than simply screaming "S-s-s-s, well, you know, THAT STUFF, is nasty...nasty, nasty, nasty!! You shouldn't do it! And if you do, and something bad happens, remember that we told you so! Ha!", Conservative Christians are outraged.

For these Christians (not all, I realize, but a politically powerful group of them), stopping the killing of unborn babies is important enough to kill doctors for, to bomb abortion clinics for, and to vote for a Republican no matter what else he stands for, but it is not important enough to actually try to solve the problem. Maintaining their outrage is more important than solving the problem.

The US has one of the highest rates of abortion in the world. Conservatives would like us to believe that this is because of lenient laws on abortions. If you look at the numbers worldwide, however, you see that the rate of abortion is tied closely to the level of sex education, even in countries that have lenient abortion laws. The math is quite simple, comprehensive sex education does not increase the rate of teen sex, nor does it lower the average age at which teens become sexually active. It does, however, lower the rate of teen pregnancies and slow the spread of STDs. In other words, it works.

For many Christians, however, the fact that something works is meaningless. It is all about sending the right message. The message, for them, is more important then the problem, and far more important than the solution.

The Bush Theocracy

2009-05-18T09:22:00.005-04:00

If you are still unsure that we just spent eight years living in a theocracy, these briefing covers from Donald Rumsfeld to Bush and a few select others should leave no doubt. When Bush called his personal war a "crusade", it wasn't a misstatement, it was him speaking literally. These "Worldwide Intelligence Updates" are captioned with Bible quotes (despite being a Christian, Rumsfeld sticks mainly with the Old Testament for his quotes, see my last post.)

Among the quotes used are:

Isaiah 6:8 "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me." Of course, Ayatollah Bush did not send himself, except for photo ops, he sent American troops to die in his place.
Psalm 139:9-10 "If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. O LORD" This superimposed on an image of a plane launching from a carrier. (Apparently the actual quote wasn't good enough so Rummy had to patch on "O LORD".)
Ephesians 6:13 "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."

The capture, and eventual execution by a puppet government, of Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with "regime change", he was using the military for a hit. The cover from April of 2003 shows an image of Saddam Hussein with the quote from 1 Peter, "For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men." Notice that the quote doesn't say that you should send in the army to snuff the ignorant men, but that "by doing good" you will silence them, but hey, that part must have just been metaphorical (Christian-speak for "a verse I don't like" or "a verse that is obviously wrong".)

Notice how strict constructionists care much less about the sanctity of the constitution when they can use their power to try and silence the infidel.

Christians and torture

2009-05-01T16:09:00.003-04:00

"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." Mathew 5:39

This is certainly the first time I have posted a Bible verse on this venue, and I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the next one, but it seemed appropriate in light of the results of a recent Pew Survey.

You can read the full details on the site, but to sum it up, the more often a person attended church, the more likely that person was to support using torture against terror suspects. I cannot say that I am surprised by the results, as my own anecdotal experience would certainly say the same, but I like to think that the Midwest is an aberration. Apparently not.

Admittedly, this particular verse is ignored by Christians so much that they don't even try to create bizarre apologetic twists for it, they just pretend that it does not exist, like Matrix fans and the purported sequels.

I know that I haven't read the Bible as much as some, but my memories of Christ's teaching tend to revolve more around loving thy enemies and caring for the poor. How have Christians come to the point where they translate those teachings into "Torture the infidel" and "Unabated Capitalism uber alles" (with a soupçon of "Don't let gays marry" thrown in for good measure)?

Not WWJD, but WSJHD

2009-04-20T11:31:00.001-04:00

That is, What Should Jesus Have Done:

Another loss in the gaming community

2009-04-10T11:04:00.002-04:00

Just over a year after the death of Gary Gygax, we have now lost Dave Arneson as well. I never had the opportunity to meet Dave, as I did Gary, but it is sad to see that the two who created Dungeons & Dragons, and so revolutionized gaming, have both passed on, far too early.

Audiobook updates

2009-03-29T18:16:00.002-04:00

I have reformatted and updated my audiobook page. Numerous short stories, a completed book and several in progress works are listed.

I have also started a podcast of Victorian Penny Dreadfuls. It is starting with the orginial Sweeney Todd story, String of Pearls.

I welcome any comments on my readings, or on material.

A Bishop's Hypocrisy

2009-03-26T14:28:00.004-04:00

Bishop D'Arcy has chosen not to attend the University of Notre Dame’s graduation ceremony, where President Obama is scheduled to deliver the commencement speech and receive an honorary degree. “President Obama has recently reaffirmed, and has now placed in public policy, his long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred,” said D’Arcy, head of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, in a written statement.

"Hold human life as sacred"?? What a crock. Bishop D'Arcy feels that Obama is unworthy to share a stage with because Obama has not taken enough steps to oppose abortion and has removed the strictures and restrictions from government of funding stem cell research. Of course for the Catholic Church, unborn (or preborn as they now try to spin things) life is sacred, much more sacred, of course, than actual functioning human beings.

D'Arcy has no problem continuing to be a part, and an important part of a Church that protected and enabled child-molesting priests for who knows how long. A Church that is willing to publish and promote outright lies because they would rather have AIDS remain an epidemic in Africa than have someone break the Eleventh Commandment "Thou shalt not cover thy winky with a rubber thingie". A Church that will not sanction abortions in cases of ectopic pregnancy, when there is no chance of a viable fetus and every chance of serious, possibly fatal, complications to the woman. This is the Church that excommunicated the doctor and mother of an 80 pound nine-year-old child who aborted the twins she was carrying as a result of being raped by her stepfather. Obviously, for the Church, the lives of actual living breathing people, especially female people, are not worth much, but a fetus, not that is a life that must be held sacred!

D'Arcy has published no criticisms of the Pope re-instatement of a Holocaust denier as a Bishop. To be fair, once the criticism got loud enough, his Popeness did say that the guy should, eventually, maybe, renounce his claims. . . But no hurry!

This comes as no shock to many women, who realize that the Church has rarely considered them more than breeding sources for future Catholics and sources of evil temptation to us weak, weak men who fall for their wiles. After all, St. Paul warned us about them, and we all know that the Church, as well as their Ptotestant brethren, are followers of Paul's teachings far more than Jesus's. That Jesus guy had a bunch of crazy ideas about loving thy enemy and helping the poor, and where is the profit in that crap?

Halfway between star dust and worm food

2009-03-24T07:08:00.001-04:00

Turning forty made me feel old. I was not depressed about it or anything, but I wasn't "young" anymore and, with two kids not yet in their teens, having time of my own seemed amazingly far away. I would be fifty, five-o, before the rugrats would be out of the house. In my wallowing in self-pity moments, that seemed like Matlock watching and bland food time.

As I have approached, and finally caught, that previously bemoaned milepost, and I find myself almost gleeful. One kid is graduating from college in a few months, the other will start college a few months after that. My parenting duties have altered considerably. While they are not eliminated by any means, nor will they ever be, they no longer have to be the first thought on awakening and the last thought ion the evening.

I am healthy, if not in particularly good shape. My digestive system has not become a troublesome issue, it is still able to handle the most of the experiences that my taste buds decide to give it, whether it be spicy jambalaya or a pilgrimage to White Castle. I haven't tried to find out if it can still handle half a quart of scotch in a sitting, but I also haven't felt the desire to try it for a number of years. I am quite willing to attribute that to a modicum of wisdom gained, rather than of an ability lost.

Jill and I have, for a while now, had more time to spend together, just the two of us. I look forward to this excitedly, Jill with a bit more trepidation :) For the first time in over twenty years, our evenings and our weekends require us to fill rather than being a laundry list of "what is going on this weekend?" It will take us some practice to get the hang of this new found personal space. We are out of practice at this whole "free time" thing. But even if it is merely spending an evening together on the sofa watching someone murdered politely in some quaint English village, it is great to be able to do it.

I look forward to spending more time on hobbies, be it gaming, World of Warcraft or recording for Librivox (which I have started recently and am enjoying very much, but then I always liked the sound of my own voice!)

So today will be spent on black cakes and canes with turn signals but, for me, it is a day I have been looking forward to!

Happy Birthday, Poe

2009-01-19T10:01:00.007-05:00

Two hundred years ago today, a child was born who would, in the course of a too short and over troubled life, help spawn the detective story and the science fiction story. One of his stories would generate public interest in cryptography and cryptograms, another would inspire a sequel by Jules Verne. Amazingly enough, these are not what Edgar Allan Poe is best remembered for today.

The macabre was Poe's best remembered milieu. The Raven, an ode to a love lost to death, is Poe's best remembered work and has an football team named in its honor and has inspired a song:

a Simpson's episode:

via videosift.com

and innumerable readings.

His other macabre and Gothic stories have been made into films of varying quality, but largely entertaining. My favorite scene being from a portmanteau script of The Black Cat and the Cask of Amontillado in which Peter Lorre, drunken and shabby, has a wine tasting contest with the superbly coiffed and dressed Vincent Price.

To this day, the true cause of Poe's death is not known. His death, after being found collapsed in the streets of Baltimore, dressed in someone else's clothes, was enough to cause the staid citizens to shake their heads. Things were not helped when one of his literary enemies (Rufus Griswold, a name destined to be attached to a villain) managed to, under a pen name and using forged letters as evidence, ascribed his death to alcohol and opium. As Poe's literary executor, he included a libelous "Memoir of the Author" in future editions of Poe's works so that the lies continued to spread and became the accepted version of Poe's life.

Today, his stories can still give chills. Raise a toast (but not an opium pipe, we now know) to a great author, one whose books have long outlived the libels spread about him.

You were never a number

2009-01-14T14:35:00.008-05:00

It was sad to see that Patrick McGoohan had passed away. I realize that as I get older, the stars I enjoyed as a kid are getting MUCH OLDER, but logic cannot stop wistfulness. The Prisoner is still one of the most inventive and thought provoking TV series of which I know. Very 60's, very mod, with wry humor and seriously twisting plots, it starts as a spy series, and wanders into science fiction and surrealism.

It is too bad that he couldn't have lived to see the revisiting of his series on AMC (or maybe it is a blessing, remakes can be an iffy proposition.) Now I have to head over to Netflix and queue up the series. I would buy it, but last time I checked on it, it took 8 DVDs to show 17 episodes and it cost more than I was willing to pay. (Looking it up, I was wrong,it is 10 DVDs!)

Honey! Do you want to visit Portmeirion this summer?

Audio Gutenberg

2009-01-04T22:39:00.002-05:00

Something I found, while looking for the information in the last post, was LibriVox. This is a project that puts the same Public Domain texts that Gutenberg has worked to provide into Public Domain audiobooks, read by volunteers. The reading quality is good, if variable, and they also are looking for more readers, for short works, individual chapters or whole books.

I have heard several books and stories so far, from Arsene Lupin stories to the excellent Uller Uprising by the late H. Beam Piper. Many of my favorite older books, Burroughs, Sherlock Holmes, Jules Verne and Poe are already available. I am glad to see that they include some of the newer translations of Verne, which are superior to the old translations which have been recycled over and over because they are Public Domain.

For those of us who enjoy the sound of our own voice, this looks like a great opportunity! My kids no longer want me to read to them and grandkids are, with any luck, still a few years away. Now I can read to the whole world! Well, a few people in it anyway. Take a look at LibriVox if you like audio books.

Christmas Stories on the web

2008-12-17T11:01:00.005-05:00

While we are inundated with Christmas carols and Christmas movies are virtually unavoidable on TV, there are many excellent Christmas stories that we no longer take the time to read. One thing the internet has given us is free access to many of these classic stories.

In addition to text versions, many of these have free audio versions available. Most of these audio links are mp3 files, which can be downloaded to your iPod or burned onto a CD. It makes a change on those Christmas drives from the same carols that you have gotten tired of over the last month.

Here are some of my favorite Christmas stories. These stories and readings are all in the public domain, so you need not worry about being naughty when downloading.

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes is at his deductive best in a story that begins with a dropped Christmas goose. This story can be read online, or you can listen to it. There are also radio performances from 1948, with John Stanley as Holmes and from 1955 with Sir John Gielgud as Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Dr. Watson. If you use Netflix, there is also an excellent version of it on Disc 3 of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
I have always had a soft spot for O. Henry, and especially for Gift. While it has been made into a movie and various performances, I still think it is best in the short concise story that O. Henry wrote. Gift is a simple story about love and sacrifice, with a classic O. Henry twist at the end. Read it or listen to it.

The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson
This is the Christmas story Red Sovine would have written if he had been a Dutch author instead of a country writer/singer. In less than 1000 words a story is told that has inspired movies, an opera, and thousands of pages of interpretation. Simple and moving, you can read it online or listen to a reading.

Reginald’s Christmas Revel by Saki (H. H. Munro)
OK, enough sappy Christmas goodness. This is a wry, satirical story about having to spend Christmas with relatives you dislike (an experience that I am sure we are all at least a bit familiar with.) If you like dry British humor, this is the story for you. (Note to Katie, you will not like this, but Chris probably will.) I have a link to the text and to a reading. If you enjoy this, do yourself a favor and read more of Saki’s work. His stories are short, with twist endings like O. Henry, but with dry wit and a dose of the macabre.

Twas the Night Before Christmas (A Visit from St. Nicholas) by Clement C. Moore
OK, I cannot pretend that this story is little known, or forgotten. I would like, however, to give you a link to the version on Project Gutenberg. This version has the excellent 1912 illustrations by Jessie Wilcox Smith. Gutenberg also has several readings you can choose from.

I hope you enjoy some of these. Project Gutenberg, which is the source for most of these texts, even those on other sites, does a marvelous job of making public domain works actually available to the public and has, in recent years, also helped provide audio versions of many books, from Shakespeare to Jules Verne and Mark Twain.

Opie, Andy, Richie and the Fonz for Obama

2008-10-24T08:46:00.001-04:00

OK, this is just too cool not to pass on.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Pastor calls out God

2008-10-22T10:46:00.004-04:00

I have said for years that many theists have a lower opinion of their God than I, as an atheist, could ever have. Here is a case in point. The following clip is from the invocation at a McCain rally. I realize that the pastor in question was most likely provided by the local GOP, and his prayer was not vetted (that is assuming that the McCain campaign actually vets anyone (cough .. Sarah Palin .. cough)), but these are the people that McCain has chosen to pander to in his Faustian attempt at power.

I thought that baseball players doing a quick prayer (for a hit, presumably) before readjusting their cup was a bit silly. I mean I know he is omnipotent and all, but to throw a baseball game seems a bit, um, petty for God. This guy tops any of that. In a grown up version of the child's "God, I want a pony. If you don't give me a pony, then you don't exist", this pastor wants God to maintain his street cred by throwing an election. What the American people want is apparently less important than Allah thinking that the Christian god "ain't all that".

Never mind the fact that the pastor doesn't know enough about other religions to understand that Hindu and Buddha are not gods, or that a lot of American Christians want Obama to win, or even that Allah is just God in another language, and, in fact, is the same Abramaic God that he is calling out, just running under a newer patch. this guy thinks that the same God who told him to pray in private and render unto Caesar will change his omnipotent mind if called out by a local bible thumper. This guy's God may be omnipotent, but, in the pastor's mind at least, is a bit insecure about it, and can be coerced into throwing an election using tactics that most parents try to teach their children to resist. What's next? Will God be caught smoking behind Heaven's gym because "all the cool Gods are doing it!"?

For no particular reason

2008-10-10T09:55:00.002-04:00

Saw this clip posted on a thread about pop star cameos and had to share.

A few quick word about the debate

2008-10-08T15:19:00.003-04:00

First, check out MightyGodKing's LiveBlog on the debate. OK, the language is a bit adult, but it is pretty damn funny, so I don't care. Funny trumps most things.

I thought McCain looked much more comfortable in this format, which is why he preferred it so much that he says he wouldn't have had to lie about Obama so much if Obama had agreed to three Town Hall debates. He does well when he approaches individuals and speaks directly to them.

Two things that jumped into my head during the debate, one for each candidate.

Obama: "A year ago I went to Wall Street and said we have to regulate and nothing happened." Wall Street is a big place, not to mention it is more of a concept than a place. How do you go there and tell them something? I had this picture of Obama dressed as Martin Luther nailing a deregulation edict to the front door of AIG.

McCain: "Nuclear power.Senator Obama says it should be safe or disposable or something like that." Yeah, somthing like that would be good. Is McCain making fun of the idea of safety at nuclear plants? "Look, I--I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe." Maybe it is just me, but for a man who has Stage II melanoma to tout the safety of close proximity to nuclear power may not be the most convincing argument.

Best line of the debate:
Obama: "And you know Senator McCain, I think the Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one."

Most annoying thing about the debate:
McCain saying "I know how to" whether is was "fix the economy", "what the fixes are [for Social Security] and how to fix it", "how to get bin Laden". If you know how to do all these things, why have you been keeping it a secret? Let us in on this fix for SSN, where bin Laden is, etc.. We don't need "secret plans", we need actual policies, which you are short on.

GOP, following the party lie

2008-09-16T20:44:00.000-04:00

Is there anything currently more ludicrous than John McCain's slogan "the Straight Talk Express". Boy George in full regalia is ten times straighter than the McCain campaign these days. After being called on the various lies (Obama plans to raise taxes, Palin said "No" to the "Road to Nowhere", Palin never sought earmarks while governor), McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, came right out and said, ""This election is not about issues." Of course not, if Mc~~Bush~~Cain's campaign gets its way. It knows that on issues it will lose. They need to keep selling "Obama is going to raise taxes"; "Obama is a celebrity" and "Obama is an elitist" like there is no tomorrow, and hope that their unofficial compatriots will keep selling the "Obama is a secret Muslim" meme for them. Not only does McCain lie about Obama, he even distorts non-partisan comments about Obama. It has gotten to the point that even Karl Rove is complaining about McCain's lies.

As if simple lies are not enough, McCain's campaign is now trying to make it harder for eligible voters to vote and trying to trick people who think they are applying for absentee ballots into applying incorrectly. In Florida, McCain's campaign handed out instructions on how to apply for an absentee ballot with the incorrect address. In Ohio, he added an extra question, not required for the application, that, if not answered will cause the request to be rejected. Even the Ohio Attorney General was angry about this one. McCain once said that he was not willing to "lose a war to win an election." In yet another about face on his positions, we know that he is now willing to sell his soul, and the American people down the river to win one. I don't care what political party you favor, how can anyone with any morals at all stomach what the GOP has become? Oh yeah, I forgot, as long as he want to stop those nasty gay people from marrying and will toss out insincere promises to do something about "Roe vs Wade", "value voters" will stomach anything.

P.S. Recently the story broke that while Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, her new sheriff, with her approval, began charging rape victims for the rape kits used in the investigation. The McCain-Palin campaign has vigorously denied it, but documents bear out the original story.

OK, we already knew this in our hearts

2008-09-15T19:50:00.000-04:00

Disney Lab Unveils Its Latest Line Of Genetically Engineered Child Stars

Something a little lighter

2008-09-05T09:28:00.001-04:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Quit picking on our VP!

2008-09-04T21:03:00.000-04:00

The GOP is outraged that the mean old press is doing stories on Sarah Palin. They are looking into her record as mayor and governor, and reporting things that are not always positive.

At the same time, tasteless and cruel stories and rumors have sprung up about her family, mostly on the blogosphere. There is no question that this should be out of bounds, although it is amusing, for all politicians, not just Palin, that they are quite willing to use their families to make political hay, but they get uniformly outraged when anything negative is mentioned about those same families.

There is no question that Palin is under immediate and heavy scrutiny. I'm just guessing here, but it could be because she is now the candidate for vice president of the United States! I don't want to try to read the minds of the press, but I think that the motivation may be found there. Of course, none of the other candidate's have been under this sort of scrutiny.

No one has made a big deal about what Obama's pastor said, or what lapel pin he does or doesn't wear. Noooo, no one would do that. No one would write a book accusing Hillary Clinton of murdering someone. They are only picking on Palin.

Of course, even if the press has been unfair and low class about things, no one in the GOP would accidentally, and repeatedly, call Obama, "Osama", well except for when they are on the air and being recorded in the Congressional Record. No one in the GOP would hand out three dollar bill with Obama dressed as a muslim, well except when they do!

It is particularly funny to hear the GOP complain about sexism, after the abuse they have heaped on Hillary Clinton for years.

But we always need to remember, the GOP is the "values" party.

GOP panic? More on Obama acceptance

2008-08-29T13:49:00.000-04:00

I planned to make more comments about Barack Obama's acceptance speech last night, but I just read the news about McCain's selection of Gov. Palin as his running mate, and was stunned.

Palin's name had been bandied about a month or so back, but had slacked off when word came out that she had used her position as governor to push for the firing of her ex-brother-in-law who was a state trooper, and then firing the head of the State Police when he wouldn't do it.

While she has conservative credentials, her almost total lack of experience makes it hard for the GOP to keep pushing the "too inexperienced, too lightweight" meme about Obama. Her selection, along with her speech mentioning Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton, seems like a desperate attempt to get the votes of disgruntled Clinton supporters. From a practical aspect, with a 72 year old presidential candidate, we have to take a hard look at whether Palin would have any business being the president, if worse comes to worse.

Back to Obama's speech. While it was a fantastic speech overall, here are the points that I especially liked.

Obama's review of his antecedents. Many Americans know little about Barack Obama than the crap that GOP emailers have been spewing out. The "elitist" claim is particularly absurd, when we look at the two candidates. Obama was a mixed-race child raised by a single mother, who qualified for food stamps for part of his childhood. McCain is the son and grandson of admirals, who was able to get a command despite coming almost dead last in his class, and is now married to a nine figure heiress. And we are supposed to believe that McCain is "just one of us?"

"Eight is enough". No, not the TV show. Obama made the point very well that electing McCain is just four more years of George Bush. McCain believes (well, currently believes. He has changed positions on almost every position in the last eight years, from being an actual "maverick" in 2000, to falling in line with every one of Bush's positions now) that we need to keep cutting taxes on the wealthy (and help those poor downtrodden heirs and heiresses keep more of daddy and mommy's money.) He believes that bin Laden is apparently hiding in Iraq (which brings me to another great line "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.")

"It's because John McCain doesn't get it." That is it in a nutshell.

Obama's listing of specific changes to be made to help our economy. While Obama has had much more detailed plans than McCain, those have not always been made clear. Soundbites and stump speeches are not the place to detail specifics, but people need to be made aware that the specifics are there.

"And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons." Clearly a point made to help pull in the female vote, it is also an important truth. As the father of an beautiful, intelligent daughter, I want her available choices to be determined by her intelligence and work ethic, not her chromosomes.

"And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America's promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us" - It was important for Obama to push the point that he is not simply talking about so-called "entitlements", but for ways to help us help ourselves.

I loved the strength and confidence that Obama showed while making his challenges to McCain, including his line about "temperament" for the position of commander in chief. McCain is often likable, but from all reports he also has a hair trigger temper and makes spur of the moment decisions that he changes the next day. These are not the characteristics that I want a C-in-C to have.

"So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first." - I am sick of conservatives pretending, and often claiming outright, that they are the only ones who love their country. I am a patriot, but that doesn't make me a a narrow-minded jingoist. I have, for years, used the example that we should love our country like it is our child (correct its mistakes and direct it where we feel it should go) instead of like we are the children(my mommy's always right...my daddy can beat up your daddy)

"Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things." - This attacks the classic GOP "wedge issue" strategy. The GOP has, ever since Reagan, focused on narrow divisive issues to scare social and religious conservatives into electing them. These same people haven't figured out that the GOP doesn't really care about abortion, gay marriage or prayer in school. It cares about helping the wealthy get more and more. They pay lip service to the scare issues, but use their actual political clout to help cut taxes on the wealthy and protect the Haliburton's of the world.

These are a few of the thoughts I had last night. I look forward to this election with hope and trepidation. I realize that electing Obama will not create Xanadu, but the only way we can make actual changes is by trying, and it seems that for too long we have stopped trying. We owe our children and grandchildren the effort.

Obama shows he is ready

2008-08-29T06:27:00.000-04:00

Last night Barack Obama had the opportunity to show America that he is ready to be their president, and he gave one of the best speeches I have ever heard. On the 45th anniversary of "I have a dream", and on a day that included a speech by one of the Freedom Riders who was bloodied in Alabama in 1961, Barack Obama showed that he is the embodiment of MLK's dream, a candidate who happens to be black, rather than a black candidate.

(BTW, for those Focus on the Family people praying for rain in Denver, if God always answers prayers, last night he didn't just say "No", he said, "Hell NO, and, BTW, stop invoking my name in the cause of hatred and bigotry".)

(BTW II, to those Repuglican talking heads who were calling the stage a "Greek Temple" do all of us a favor. Take a few days (or weeks, or months) off, take a visit to Washington. Ask for directions to a place called the "Lincoln Memorial", you can't miss it. You might also look for the footage of Reverend King's speech in front of said memorial. then try and buy a ^%$%$^ clue.)

Barack took his challenge straight at John McBush, er McCain. He showed a solidity that belies the celebrity label that the GOP has tried to attach to him. He gave a speech full of hope, with a wealth of detailed plans, and some excellent sound bites.

Will he be able to put all his plans into place? Almost certainly not. Does this speech give us hope that he will try to work in the right direction? It does to me.

A good weekend on the stove

2008-08-10T23:41:00.000-04:00

Well, my experiments went well over the weekend. Made an ad-libbed scrambled eggs with chorizo on Saturday that came out great. I tried a pizza that night, it was so-so, but I know what mistakes I made, and the sauce was excellent.

Tonight I tried a simplified jambalaya: andouille, tasso and shrimp. It came out well, although I cheated and used Zataran's jambalaya rice for extra flavor. It was very tasty, but it could have been better. I have more andouille and tasso, so I will be planning on a rematch soon.

Let's eliminate "take responsibility" from political language

2008-08-10T10:24:00.001-04:00

John Edwards fessed up and said that he was "taking responsibility" for his affair, after hiding in hotel to avoid reporters. While I understand the importance of taking responsibility for things in real life, taking that responsibility includes consequences. In political speech, it means, "I got caught and can't get out of it."

George Bush "took responsibility" for mistakes in the Iraq debacle, for the despicable push-polling against McCain in 2000 and if the illegal partisan hiring in the Justice Department is proved, I am sure he will square his shoulders and "take ...", well you know, for that also because it is a completely meaningless phrase in politics.

Conservatives decry the fact that homosexuals have suborned the word "gay", liberals don't like the fact that that Fundamentalists are trying to redefine "family" to mean "narrow-minded, hate-filled bigotry", but the political abuse of that phrase beloved by stern fathers everywhere is truly a bipartisan effort.

Colbert defends the Ignorants

2008-08-09T09:53:00.000-04:00

The Colbert Report had a nice segment on Obama's dastardly suggestion, as part of an overall energy plan, that we could cut consumption by 3% by properly inflating our tires. How dare he propose somthing that won't require funding and that will help immediately. Everyone knows we should simply allow more drilling, that way we will see an effect by 2030!

Two from Black Coat Press

2008-08-09T01:55:00.000-04:00

I have recently finished two books from Black Coat Press. BCP is a small publishing company that "is primarily devoted to publishing English-language translations of classics of French popular literature, as well as comics and stage plays." These classics are primarily pulp and science-fiction, both of which I am a fan. As soon as I saw the title Edgar Allan Poe on Mars I knew I would have to check out their offerings.

One down side of a small publishing company like BCP is price. They cannot publish in the quantity that the large companies can, so their prices tend to be high, $20+ for most offerings (in a large paperback format, not truly trade paperbacks.)

Tales of the Shadowmen
I began with Tales of the Shadowmen 1: The Modern Babylon. This book is a collection of short stories, pastiches of French pulp characters by modern authors. I thought that this book would give me a quick feel for characters I was not familiar with, alongside some I was familiar with already (Maigret, Lord Dunsany, Frankenstein's monster).

I expected mixed results from an anthology like this, but the results were more mixed than I could be happy with. There were some good stories, but about half seemed more like exercises in name dropping, with little story or characterization. What frustrated me the most about the book was the story The Werewolf of Rutherford Grange. This is one of the best stories, and the longest, in the book. The problem is, the story is continued in the second volume of this series. I understand a serial in a magazine, but when I pay $20 for book, I don't expect to find "to be continued".

The Hollow Needle
As a long-time Sherlockian, and a recent discoverer of Arsene Lupin, Arsene Lupin Vs. Sherlock Holmes: The Hollow Needle was a natural for me. I had read some Arsene Lupin from Project Gutenberg and listened to the very good public domain audiobook. Buying this books was a tough decision, as most of the material is available at Gutenberg.

I was very happy that I did buy the book, in the end. The early translations are not always good reads. They are fairly perfunctory translations. The translations by the Lofficiers show that these are done by good writers in their own right. The book also includes a good forward and afterword, a short story, a novel, and a closing story written by the Lofficiers. The only down side of these books, for a Holmes fan, is that Holmes barely appears. He is a foil in the first story, and appears late in the novel. This fact does not take away from the stories themselves.

Take the time to taste LeBlanc at Gutenberg, but if you like him there, you will LOVE him here!

Now, if we could just get BCP to give us good translations of Jules Verne. Unfortunately, there are bad public domain editions of Verne available that publishers can print for little cost, so that is what the stores are flooded with.

Let's try this again

2008-08-09T01:24:00.000-04:00

I started the blog a while bag, but didn't get going. I think it is time to see if I actually have anything to say on a semi-daily basis. I talk all the time, so you think I could come up with something to say!

I have never been one to cook much. I love food, and I have been lucky enough to have a wife who is a great cook. I have started to cook more lately (I blame Rachel Ray and the Iron Chef.) There were some things I thought sounded good, but my wife, Jill, wasn't that interested in making. I decided that I should be able to cook these things (OK, stop laughing, I actually thought that).

Results have been mixed so far (although I also provide a bit of a floor show for the rest of the family.) I have made a very decent tuna noodle casserole, a quite good black bean side dish, baked beans (from scratch), and very tasty, and spicy, mini meatloaves.

On the other side of things, I have made textureless turkey burgers, and burned some fruit trying to grill it (see comment about floor show above). Living in a small town in Indiana (deep in the heart of darkest America...home of the Brave) limits the food choices somewhat. Slaloming between the food preferences of the family is also fun. I don't care for most cheeses, wife and daughter don't care for seafood or mushrooms, wife doesn't like onions that she can see, son isn't thrilled with veggies. OK, I know, Jill has been navigating these treacherous waters for years, but I am new to it.

I have discovered Balsamic vinegar, and found good places to order chorizo and andouille, which is unavailable locally. We will see what other things I learn along the way!

On the near horizon are: jambalaya, homemade pizza, scrambled eggs with chorizo,

Dune: House Atreides

2008-04-15T10:28:00.000-04:00

The first book in the first series of prequels to the Dune universe is House Atreides by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Brian Herbert is Frank Herbert's son and these books are based off of the outline that his father had established for the Dune universe.

If you are a fan of the Dune world, this book is well worth your time. While Brian is unable to elicit the grandeur of his father's writing, he is a talented writer. In a book set a generation earlier than Dune, we get to see the seminal stories of the characters and situations that will drive the story of Paul Maud'Dib.

In addition to the characters from Dune, we are introduced to a set of new characters who will help form the Dune universe. There is a good balance. Enough new characters are added to give the story life, but not so many as to drag the book into tedium. We get to see the worlds of Ix and Caladan, although neither gets fleshed out much.

On the critical side of things, the book is solidly written, but does not transport one as the great books do. It suffers from some of the issues that plague any prequel (Star Wars, I mean you).

Situations often do not have real drama, because we already know how they will end. (A great counterpoint to this was the movie Apollo 13. I found myself holding my breath as they reentered the atmosphere, although I remember when it happened in real life and know they would make it. Not an easy accomplishment.) We lose one of the greatest joys of fantasy and science fiction, the discovery of a new world/universe. Part of the amazement of reading Dune for the first time was that joy of dicovery, as we learned of this amazing world for the first time. God Emperor was able to recapture this, to some extent, by being changed enough from the first three books to be almost a new world.

In the end, if you have already read Frank Herbert's Dune books, and need another fix, House Atreides may fit the bill nicely. If you are new to the Dune Universe, do not make the mistake of starting here because it is set before Dune, run, don't walk to get your own copy of Dune.