Archive for the 'personal' Category

American Idol

I have to admit I am an American Idol fan.  When given the chance I will watch the show, but only after the finally 24 have been named.  I don’t like the audition part of the show or Hollywood week.  Some of the singers in the top 24 are usually pretty good.  This year it sounds like they have a strong group of guys.  The girls don’t seem to be as strong.  It is the opposite of last year.  I hope a rocker wins this year.

By the way, one of the guys sang Jailhouse Rock.  Does anyone else detect a note of homosexual innuendo in the song.  Check out this lyric:

“Number forty-seven said to number three
You’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see
I sure would be delighted with your company
Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me”.
I just point this out because it is unusual for a song written in the 50’s.

Well Hello There.

Again it has been awhile.  Life has been busy.  We shall see if it slows down any soon.

It Has Been A While

Sorry, it has been a while since I posted.  My wife has been sick, I have been sick, I lost my part-time job, etc…  So far 08 has been a bummer.  Things are looking up though.  We seem to be coming out of the worst of it and hopefully things will start looking up soon.

A lot has happened since I last posted a topic.  John McCain is now the Republican nominee for president.  It looks like he may chose Mike Huckabee as running mate though names, such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have also been floated as possible VP candidates.  I know McCain is not the staunch conservative many in the party want as their candidate but he strikes me as a practical man who looks at problems and tries to solve them based on reality not ideology.  An example, the reality of illegal immigration is there is no good way to stop it short of militarizing the border.  There are ways to staunch the flow.  But there are by some estimates 20-30 million illegal immigrants in the country now.  There is no viable way to remove them.  There needs to be a way to absorb them into the populace.  McCain realizes this.  He is in favor of tightening the border but also wants to find a way to bring the rest into the fold, as it were.  On other issues he seems to bring the same practicality to the table.  I can support a man who is willing to look at the reality of the situation and move to fix it in practical ways instead of someone who has an ideological vision whose actions would end up harming the system more than helping it.  The government needs healing and I don’t believe that will happen with any other candidate.

R.A. Salvatore

One set of books I have enjoyed over the years are the Drizzt novels by R.A. Salvatore.  He is good at description of battles but he also brings into it a psychological aspect as he delves into the minds of his characters, particularly Drizzt.  I highly recommend the read there are a lot of books though as he has been writing them for twenty years and has published one every year or so.  here is a guide

The Dark Elf Trilogy Homeland, Exile and Sojourn are the story of Drizzt early life in his world of the dark elves.  They are probably the best of all he has written, though they are the second trilogy he wrote.  He wrote these partly to explain Drizzt’s heritage but also to introduce the dark elves that would cause so much trouble in later novels.

The first trilogy The Icewind Dale trilogy includes The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver and The Halfling’s Gem.  This trilogy establishes Drizzt and his companions for many novels to come Bruenor Battlehammer, the king of the Icewind Dale dwarfs and later Mithril Hall, Cattie-Brie, Bruenor’s adopted human daughter, Wulfgar, the barbarian that becomes Bruenor’s adopted son, and Regis, the half-ling thief.  These also introduce Drizzt’s nemesis Artemis Entereri and Jaraxle, two characters that later get their own trilogy (See currently reading Road of the Patriarch)

Next comes The Legacy of the Drow series The Legacy, Starless Night, Siege of Darkness, and Passage to Dawn.  The Drow come to to the surface and Drizzt and company must stop them.

The fourth series The Paths of Darkness includes The Silent Blade, The Spine of the World, Servant of the Shard and Sea of Swords.  The companions, for various reasons detailed in the previous books, make their way in the world alone and must find themselves to be able to come back together as a group.  He spun off a series with Artemis and Jaraxle from Servant of the Shard, these don’t include Drizzt and his friends directly.  Servant is considered the first in the Sellswords series.  The next two are Promis of the Witch-King and Road of the Patriarch.

The last full trilogy was The Hunter’s Blade Trilogy of The Thousand Orcs, The Lone Drow and The Two Swords.  A war has come between Mithril Hall and the orcs of the Spine of the World Mountains.  It nearly destroys the dwarfs sending the region into darkness.

The next trilogy has begun in the new book The Orc King.  This is a continuation of the fall-out from the war just ended.

Things in General

Well, I had a good Christmas.  I was able to see all my friends and family.  It was a lot of fun.  My wife and I were finally able to do something we have been looking forward to for sometime, buying a new mattress and box spring.  We went to the Original Mattress Factory and so far we are happy about the purchase.  It has been unusual having so much free time.  I have been trying to blog but have been having trouble with my wireless Internet connection.  Right now it is working.  It may not work tomorrow.  Needless to say I have been frustrated with it and feel like dynamiting it.  This has made me want to get Time Warner Internet just for the stability.  We may do that and bundle the package, but that may cost us about $40-$50 dollars more a month.  As I told someone about our connection, when it works it works beautifully, when it doesn’t it fails spectacularly.  We shall see.

ps. check this out.  It is a group called Straight No Chaser doing the 12 days of Christmas in a very unique way.

cash advance 

Mental floss had a link to a website that would determine the reading level of a blog.  This is mine.  I guess I could be worse.

New to this thingy

I am not a person who likes to follow trends.  I have resisted the move to blogs because everyone has one.  But I have found myself frustrated lately with lots of things to say and no way to express it.  So I have decided to be a follower.

I want to thank Jeremy for helping get this thing started.  He is the computer guru.  I bow to his knowledge.  We shall see what this site brings down the road.




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