Back Again...

It never rains but it pours eh?

So, it's (basically) Memorial Day Weekend already. One of the ladies I work with asked me on Monday what I had planns for this weekend, and - not realizing we were up to Memorial Day already - I said "not really", which is so far from the truth as to require a press release from the White House clarifying what I really meant to say, with supporting bullshit to "prove" that what I said was kinda sorta true, in spite of everyone knowing that it is actually false.

For instance even tonight, Thursday, not even Memorial Day Weekend quite yet, I went out to Arlington to the Capitol City Brewery to celebrate the end of Joe's Army Reserve Commitment. No more one weekends a month for him! If the invasion of Iran is postponed another 10 days or so, Joe won't have to participate! Exciting! Especially for the Iranians. Joe is crazy.

Then tomorrow I'm going to try to juggle my schedule around enough to allow me to see Pirates of the Carribean 3 and also attend Jon Lim's Battle of the Bands. Well, it's not HIS Battle of the Bands, but his band is in it. Saturday Matt is having a Memorial Day Barbecue complete with special guests here all the way from Finnland. I'm planning on making Chicken Enchilada Soup, but we'll see whether I can actually put it together. Then hopefully Sunday and Monday I'll get a chance to relax. Whew. I'm already exhausted and all I've really done is enjoy a Fish and Chips dinner and berate Joe and Mike Reid for their cynical views on foreign policy. Cynical but common, I'm afraid.

Anyway, I guess now I just have to bring this more or less up to date with the big events of the past few months. Well, from my perspective, I'm sure I'm going to forget something super important that happened to someone else.

Bold headline, big type - I managed to track down a Nintendo Wii! The thing is freakin' awesome! Just playing the pack in sports sim is fun! But the Legend of Zelda is probably the coolest thing I've ever played. Swinging the controller to swing your sword... it shouldn't make such a big difference, but it does. I can't really express it. Then Pokemon Diamond came out. Actually I think that happened first... but anyway Pokemon Diamond is out and it's really good. The pokemon games are similar enought that if you like one you'll like all of them. Silver and Gold are still my favorite, but this one is very good too.

In job related news, I've been switched from the busiest section in the office to the least busy. It's technically a promotion I suppose, as I'm essentially running the section myself, since I'm the only one in it. But when the section gets three cases on a busy day... it doesn't leave much to do. And no one's mentioned a raise... or a company car. Haha.

Well, I guess I need to get some sleep, I've got another busy day tomorrow, waiting to see if tomorrow is the first day that I get no cases at all to work on.


Big Aristotle Don't Stop, Because Big Aristotle Can't Stop

Quick Literary Note

Well, there's a lot that I SHOULD cover, but what finally motivated me to end my long blog silence was some books that I read this week. They're by John C. Wright and I've noticed them in the book store several times. You could say I've been circling them for awhile. Anyway, I finally bought them when Laurie and I went to the used book store and there they were.

The titles are thus:

The Golden Age

The Phoenix Exultant

The Golden Transcendence

So, they're set in the far future and the blurbs in the front compare them to Gene Wolfe, which is fair, but misleading as Gene Wolfe packs so much into every line that you really have to reread them mulitiple times to figure out the full meaning and these books are simpler and more straightforward. At least in so far as the author essentially tells you what's going on without you having to work out much on your own, which Gene Wolfe doesn't always do. Side note to Alex, they're also compared to Neuromancer.

The first book opens during the Masquerade, which the book explains is a year-long celebration leading up to the Transcendence, a once-a-millennium event that will greatly influence what the next thousand years will be until the next Transcendence. The main character slips away from a dull party he's supposed to be hosting and has an encounter that begins a cascade effect. Basically he begins to realize that many of his memories are missing and he begins a quest to discover the meaning of his life that someone (or multiple someones) don't want him to know. And things go from there. I really, really recommend these books. Definitely check them out if you're at all partial to sci-fi in general, and future history in particular.
Okay, hopefully more to follow in days to come.

Big Aristotle, out.