E-Book Revolution

The digital reader scene first hit my radar back in December '07 when Sony partnered up with Borders to sell their brand new Reader Digital Book--don't look at me, I think it's a terrible name too--soon after I heard about the Kindle made by Amazon (this one is of the Kindle 2 since they took down the link to the first edition). I'm not going to lie, I've been avoiding the whole idea of e-books since I first heard about them. Usually I'm pretty open to new technologies, I had one of the original iPods, got the Nintendo Game Cube, Wii, and DS all when they first came out, not to mention the first Google phone, but electronic books? It just doesn't sit well with me.

As you all should know by now, I'm probably one of the biggest bookworms out there. So intuitively I should be excited for such a revolution to take place, I mean come on, combine technology and books, it should be heaven! At the same time, though, I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to certain things in my life, not many mind you, but a few. One of them, the biggest I'd say, is books. I love, love, love opening a new book, turning the pages, really experiencing the book. Where is that with one of these e-readers? Sure you can hold 20+ books at once all in the palm of your hand, but where's the actual interaction between you and the book? It's not even just new books I love, I absolutely adore the worn down, well read half falling apart of really old books. Some of my favorite novels I have are from before I was born! Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master by Raymond E. Feist are pretty much falling apart on me. Master's back cover has come off completely--this does make me quite dismayed to be honest--and both of the spines are so worn from handling that you can hardly read the spine. And the smell, ah the smell. It might be weird to you guys, but working at Borders combines two of my absolute favorite smells, coffee and new books. When I buy a brand new book I usually open it up, close my eyes, and just run my thumb over the pages so they fan right into my nose!

My weird fetishes aside, I feel that by making books completely digital we're going to lose something humans have had for hundreds of years! Now I can't really bag on the whole thing either. I like to think that I try to be environmentally friendly, but lets face it, I probably have trees worth of paper just sitting on my shelves. Not to mention, as much as I love seeing my books on display, they take up loads of room. Also, from what research I've done, digital books are cheaper than their paper brethren, this makes sense since, after all, there aren't really any materials being used, and with the amount of memory we now have on computers, even a 500 page novel doesn't take much space. Of course, if you know where to look, you can get e-books for free. This is where it gets kind of iffy for me; ethically speaking I have no problem downloading music and even the occasional movie or two, but I don't know how I'd feel downloading books. It might be hypocritical on my end, so sue me I think writing a book takes much more time, effort and passion than that of a pop song or movie. And, unlike movie stars or rock stars, authors don't make nearly as much money, nor does the majority of their profits go to greedy labels. The publishers do get a cut, it's true, but it's not rape like the music industry. And, as a matter of opinion, but authors are much more humble than their media cousins, there are of course exceptions--J.K. Rowling--but the majority I can think of that aren't Opera whores or publishing whores, are pretty cool. I'll be honest, I've downloaded two books in my life time, one was Snow Crash because I was reading it at work and could not wait to find out what happened, the other was Twilight. In my defense, after I finished Snow Crash I bought it, and honestly I couldn't get through 100 pages of Twilight. Besides Stephanie Meyer is now way richer than she should be so one fluke download probably didn't hurt her much.

Ha I just thought of something, with my wide reader base, I'm sure I'll somehow get screwed and have the bored FBI agent browse my blog. If you guys don't here from me in over a month you'll know what happened!

The other downside that I've seen from these digital readers is that they're becoming more than just readers. Okay, so we live in a digital age, and most people can't live without their email or internet connection, but reading is the last refuge against the technological onslaught! People are suppose to curl up in bed or by the fire with their book and just relax, take a break from the almost overly connected world, escape! Alas both the Kindle and the Sony Reader are connected synced to the net, which is okay if all it is is to buy books, but they also have browsers. This isn't so bad for those people out there that go and read blogs and such for their news, but I dunno it just feels.. wrong. Not to mention both readers come equipped with a whole host of other features, such as mp3 capabilities, image storage, even access to radio, and I'm sure it won't be long til both are sporting a camera. When I sit down to read I want to sit down and read, not listen to music, look at pictures, or browse the internet I mean come on! Because of all this extra baggage both the Kindle and the Sony Reader fucking expensive! The Kindle rings in at a whopping $359 and the Sony Reader at a cool $399! Fuck you guys, Ipods are cheaper than that AND have more storage good lord. Everyone says that they pay for themselves quickly, this may be true after a while. I have a hard time justifying burying a $25 brand new hardcover, this is just ridiculous since you'll be at $400 BEFORE you get any books. The other problem with the pricing is that the books really aren't that great of a deal.

Lets take a look, a new mass market paperback book--that's the small ones for all you non-booknerds--is $7.99 in the store. On the Kindle you can get the same book, for $6.19 if its new, if it's somewhat older, but not too old mind you, you can go down to around $3.15. Sounds like a good deal, but consider a used book. Shit you can get most new, bestsellers at a used book store for around $2-$3 easy.. with the advent of these e-books there will never be that cheap a book again! I guess the real savings come in for hardcovers, a brand new hardcover in store will run you anywhere from $20-$35 depending on the content, a fiction usually averages out at $25.99, young adult at $19.99, and non-fiction upwards of $30. On the Kindle, brand spanking new "hardcovers" are only $9.99 from what I can tell, going up or down from there depending on the price. Once again this seems like an amazing deal, but the reason you spend that extra $15-$20 bucks on a hardcover is because you're getting a hardcover, as an e-book there's no difference between a book that's 5 years old and a book that came out this week. It's all text! So what exactly are you paying for? The fact that it's new? Brand new music on iTunes costs the same as music from the 80's and they take up more space. So really are you saving money by buying e-books? Seems more like saving space, and even then, I don't know anyone who hates the way books look on shelves, it's just one of those things everyone inherently likes. It reminds us of old times, of piece and quite, of dare I say sophistication! Granted I think it would be damn cool to have all your books in a neat little folder on your computer, saves space, saves hassle, but wtf are you suppose to do when your computer crashes. I will bet money that neither Amazon nor Sony will let you re-download the book, there'd be way too much fraud. "Oh hey, I uh, my uh computer crashed, I had like, 1000 books, can you give them back to me?" No way pal. If you think about it, books are really hard to get rid of, they're hard to move around, take up a whole hell of a lot of space, and they're heavy, it's really unlikely that you'll lose your entire library.

Now one thing I do support is what Google is doing. They're scanning in, or at least trying to, every single book ever made. It'll take ages and ages, but they have the resources and the security to back up these books that are deteriorating. Whats more is that they're letting people have these books for free. A lot of them aren't the most brand new, or best sellers right now, but you can go to books.google.com and search for books and then download them. They even have a mobile site for you psychopaths that think reading a novel on a cell phone is a good idea: books.google.com/m.

So really I don't know what to think. I love to read, and I think it's a really cool idea to have multiple books on an e-reader or computer, but I don't think it's worth the price. On the one hand you don't have the hassle of carrying books onto planes or having them take up a bunch of space in your house, but on the other they're easily lost and the reader itself is damn expensive. Not to mention all the bells and whistles that are attached to these readers, a book is a book.. not an mp3 player or photo gallery.

For now, I think it's safe to say that I won't be investing in either the Kindle or the Sony Reader, maybe if something comes out that's cheaper and really basic I'll consider it. Even then, though, I don't know how into it I will be, it's always been my dream to have a whole room that's just a library in my house.. but if there really is an e-book revolution, print books may go extinct. We'll see what the future holds I suppose.

Linguistic Autobiography

This was an assignment for my Linguistics 101 class that I found particularly enjoyable. Basically what we were suppose to do was map out our linguistic experience explaining the different languages we've been exposed to over the years. We were given a few areas that we had to address in the essay, but there are others I would like to add here so this will be a bit longer than the original.

Growing up here in New Mexico I was lucky enough to have more than my fair share of exposure to language. I experienced several different languages growing up including English, Spanish, and even bits of Polish. My experience with language further developed in high school when I first took my trip abroad, followed by a trip to Mexico, and most recently a around the world journey taking me from Europe to Asia. Language has always been fascinating to me, more so now as a Psychology major, the parts of the brain used, and even the function of language are all amazing to me, and hopefully someday I will learn another language fluently.

As far back as I can remember I was always somewhat exposed to Spanish, though not directly at home. I grew up here in Albuquerque, but my mom and I made weekend trips up to Las Vegas, New Mexico to visit my grandmother who could speak English well, spoke primarily Spanish. With that kind of exposure I did not so much learn Spanish, but more recognized the language itself. I was young enough that I started using words here and there that were Spanish, and indeed my whole family uses certain Spanish words for everyday items, including myself. As I grew older I realized that when asked if I knew Spanish I could not really say yes, but at the same time I could generally understand what my grandmother was saying to me and for the most part what my mother and grandmother were saying to each other. With this sort of naturally education I learned Spanish primarily as a spoken language, and yet not quite, I have always had difficulty speaking it, but understanding it comes much easier to me than either writing or speaking. The other part of growing up that I remember, though my memory is somewhat limited by how young I was, is my grandpa using some Polish phrases. This was not nearly as much as Spanish, seeing as he and my grandma spoke in Spanish, but it was enough that I recognize Polish over the other similar languages—like Russian or Czech. Now that I am older I learned that most of the phrases and words my grandfather used were curse words, but I suppose that’s better than using English curse words.

I have another very distinct memory of Spanish from my childhood, this one coming from a friend. When I was in second grade Cuban family moved in next door to me, amazingly they had a boy the same age as me. His name was Javier and we became fast friends. Him and his family fled Cuba, the year before landing in Florida, before moving to New Mexico, and to my knowledge his family was the first non-American family I had ever met. Earlier I said I could understand Spanish fairly well as a child, but I learned very quickly that the Spanish my family spoke was, though fundamentally the same, completely different from that of Cuban Spanish. Here my memory fails me, but I am told by family that for a large period of time I was using Cuban slang and developed a slight Cuban accent when speaking Spanish. I do not remember any of it now—the only thing I do remember is the absolutely amazing food Javier’s mother made for us—but I am sure if I heard Cuban Spanish again I would recognize it.

As far as my legitimate foreign language experience—meaning taught structurally in a classroom—I am sadly limited. I remember in fourth grade we were required to take Spanish at the magnet school I attended, but after moving to the North East Heights I did not take any language classes again until freshmen year of high school. As most students know, freshmen year is a joke, there are good students of course, but I was not one of them. I was still making the transition from being the “top dog” eighth grader to the bottom of the food chain freshmen and academics were not the top of my list. After that one year of Spanish 1 I did not take it again until I found out, a semester too late, that I needed another credit in language to attend UNM. So four years after my last language class, and frequently less visits with my grandma, I was in Spanish 101 at CNM. Now I plan on pursuing Spanish further here at UNM and hopefully do a semester abroad in Spain. The only immersion I have had in Spanish was a week in Mexico, though by the end of it I was using rediscovered phrases from my childhood again. The other language I would like to pursue in college is Italian, mainly because I have been to Italy twice.

When it comes to reading, writing, and, quite honestly, speaking I am most comfortable in English. That being said, after my limited experience with academic Spanish I am starting to grasp the sentence structure better, but still no match for even a first grade Spanish speaker. One of my goals language wise is to learn how to at least read Spanish fluently because I am an avid reader in English. From what I have heard, if you read a book in the language it was written in you will gain a whole lot more from it than a translation, so that would be amazing.

As far as my feelings for languages my thoughts are more conceptual than practical since I only speak English. I can say, though, that when it I have to speak Spanish I am always horribly embarrassed because despite my past Cuban accent, I now have a thoroughly white accent and completely fail at rolling my ‘r’s. One thing I am proud of, if one can truly be proud of such a thing, is my ability to recognize certain words in Italian and Spanish, though even this is very, very limited. Another, more silly thing I am proud of is that I know the word for ‘cat’ in 5 languages, certainly not going to get me far, but neat none-the-less. Language is truly an amazing thing, and hopefully someday I will learn multiple languages and have my kids learn foreign languages from a very young age.


On a side note I DESPISE Word, or maybe Blogger, one of the two. Pretty much if you write in the new word and cp over here the html fucks up. God damn it google fix this shit, or Microsoft stop making such shitty programs that are ONLY compatible with what you want them to be compatible with. Gah.

Primal Fear

Usually I don't remember my dreams very much, maybe bits and pieces, but today was an amazingly vivid dream. Even when I do dream "vividly" I don't tend to really care much about them or even think about them all that much, today was different.

This was the last dream in a sequence, I'm not too sure what the previous ones were, you know how dreams are they flow and mesh and change rapidly. So in this particular dream I was out with my old best friend Richard and some other person I don't quite remember even now. We were on the road leading to my grandmas house in Las Vegas, New Mexico--this road is super hilly and very curvy-- and we were riding bikes and just talking. For some reason we spot a snow leopard attacking a big creature of some sort, it was either a cow or maybe a buffalo, across the barbed wire fence. Then a pair of cheetahs show up, and a couple lions (one was a juvenile male with a short mane, the other two were full grown female lionesses) and they all join in the action. For some reason Donita--Richards mother--shows up and is with a friend sitting right by the fence in gaudy pink lawn chairs watching all this.

Something else happens, I'm afraid I don't remember exactly what, but a group of people on a safari, hunters I'm guessing drives by in one of those safari jeeps and gets attacked. They drop a shot gun and a rifle and rush to town I think after being attacked. So then Richard, myself, and the other guy see the snow leopard and one of the cheetahs coming under the fence near us, but before we can do anything they trot over to where Donita and the other woman are. Donita is true to her personality in my dream, that being loud, obnoxious, angry, and super drunk, and starts screaming at the leopard to get away kicking the fence and her friend goes so far as to swing one of the chairs at it. Badddd move, the cheetah and the leopard both attack and shit.. It was scary. Every one has seen those discovery or animal planet shows where the big cats attack, it's vicarious! It's just tearing this woman apart and finally the three of us run over and start shooting trying to scare off the beasts, at this point they kinda run back but not too far and circle around. Richard is blubbering like a baby--his mom booked it the opposite way-- and me with the shotgun climb under the fence and drag this lady back to the road, while the third person is shooting and yelling keeping all the cats away. I accomplish this and lay the person over the basket attached to the front of my bike, I know weird right? And take off.

This is where it becomes even more weird. The lions and the other cats chase me parallel to the road roaring and calling, which is scary enough as it is, but then one of the cheetahs gets on Richards bike and comes after me on the road. I'm going as fast as I can up and down these hills and I guess in my dream cheetahs can go just as fast on a bike as they could running so I'm almost paralyzed with fear. Next thing I know I'm going as fast as I can toward the side of the road where there's a little ramp like ditch and launch myself over the fence and land still riding. And I do it two more times but on the last time I land wrong, on the side with the lions and leopards, and then I wake up in a cold sweat.

I honestly woke up with my whole body sore from being tense, my back and legs soaked with sweat, and my heart beating fast. I'm a horrible, horrible story teller so it probably doesn't seem too scary to anyone who reads this, but it was. After I had looked around and calmed down a bit I came to the realization that humans are weak weak creatures. If any of the carnivores in our world become self aware, we're screwed! Sure we're on top of the food chain now, but it's not because we're particularly strong, heck a two year old chimp can break us, nor are we particularly well adapted to our world. I mean we are, but hell if power went out half the human population would die from cold, hunger, all sorts of things these 'lesser creatures' fight off every day. Nor do we have any sort of defense or offensive skills, if a man doesn't have a gun or even a pointy stick, that bear or cat is gonna kill him. We don't have claws, or teeth suited to attack or even defend ourselves.. it's a scary thought. On the flip side, though, we have brains. That's about all we have actually, sure we now have our technology and our guns, but without the brain we'd be screwed. I guarantee that homo-sapians would have become extinct if we hadn't developed so quickly, but we all still have that deep down fear. I call it a primal fear, but I'm sure there's new and better terms for it now, but every one of us, I believe, has these ingrained very human fears. Falling, the dark, predators, probably many many more, but from time to time they show themselves in a dream or a hallucination and we realize just how worthless we are and how lucky we are.

It's interesting to look at these primal fears from a psychological point of view. First, though, I think it's worth pointing out just how much of an affect these fears have on us especially technologically. Take, for example, the human fear of the dark. The first thing that cavemen accomplished was how to control fire, thus banishing the darkest places. Perhaps this isn't so much a fear of the dark, but a fear of the unknown. Even now, with all the light we can handle, we're still afraid. Maybe this fear of the unknown can be combined with that of our fear of predators and again reduced, except this time to a much simpler fear of death. After all why do we fear beasts or even the dark? Dying is the ultimate unknown, and as such we're afraid of it, a cheetah or lion charging at you roaring and growling is terrifying perhaps not only for the pain, but the ultimate ending of death. I think that there is a degree of fear of death in all of us, but when you approach an individual I think you have to look at other factors.

Since this is my dream, trying to understand it I need to look at other things that may cause this terror in me. Even though I believe everyone is afraid of death, I think it might be lesser in some people, or maybe not even lesser, but just transferred away from death and onto another fear. For me, I'm not particularly afraid of dying, in fact I'm rather excited and curious about the whole ordeal. What's next? What exactly happens when you die? Is there a life beyond? Can you hang out here on earth or is there just oblivion? Before you go calling the cops I'm not suicidal, I realize how young I am and how much there is out there left to experience no matter how intriguing the idea of death is. So then why exactly was I so afraid? Looking at the contents of my dream maybe I can find an answer. The inclusion of Donita and Richard, both of whom I haven't seen in years now, says a lot. It was with them that I first broke my arm, which was terribly, terribly, traumatic for me. I never really considered it actually, but I think after I broke my arm I transferred my fear of death to the more specific fear of pain. In fact after my arm healed I stopped doing many things I once loved to do. Skating, climbing trees, and I even began limiting new experiences for fear of getting hurt. Sure my fracture wasn't terribly bad, I'm completely healed after all, but it was enough that I still hesitate, and even refuse to do certain things because of it. When I broke my arm that first time I was running in the middle of the street with Richard and fell--yeah it was really that simple I tripped over my own god damn legs--and landed on my left arm to a sickening CRACK. There wasn't any blood, but my arm was snapped down at like a 90 degree angle and hurt like all hell! He dragged me outta the street, screaming and crying and we both went the short distance back to his house where his mom piled us in the car--me still crying--and drove like a mad woman to the ER. Though I don't quite remember in detail the ER part because of the drugs they pumped into me, but I do know they set my arm and from eye witness testimony (haha I couldn't resist) that I screamed and thrashed around because of the pain. Maybe I projected this pain onto the image of Richard and Donita and now, almost ten years later, they reappear in my dream with the idea of getting torn open by wild animals thus causing the terror in my dream. I did see Donitas friend get torn apart and she didn't die so maybe it was the very idea of that amount of pain that scared me? The fact that the terror set in when I was on the road could also point to fact that I first broke my arm in the middle of the road.

I'm no psychiatrist so I'm probably missing a lot. I really don't know what the significance of my location was, nor the role of the other people aside from Donita and Richard, but it certainly seems like a reasonable explanation to me. I also think it's rather interesting that the beasts that showed up in my dream weren't things that I actually am afraid of. Big cats are actually my favorite wild animals out there, I'm much more afraid of wolves and bears for example than I am of a cheetah or a leopard. Actually the cheetah is my favorite animal followed closely by the snow leopard, both of which were in my dream. I'm not sure why I wrote this all up, but I will say that after writing up the dream and then "analyzing" it, the fear seems less intense and less troublesome. Maybe my subconscious wanted to give me a reminder for some reason, or it was particularly active and unable to be repressed.

Gah I sound like a dumb Psychoanalyst, then again what I just did was exactly that. I analyzed a dream I had, found a childhood root, and "confronted" it. I just read a book called The Denial of Death so maybe that whole schpeel is probably part of that, I mean the idea is really, really interesting to me and I'd like to look into this sort of thing more. Maybe now that I'm learning more about psychology and more about the world I can come up with some original ideas or even theorize in a less juvenile way. Any thoughts or comments or anything feel free.

Ry Recommends

As per my beautiful girlfriend's suggestion in my post, A Year of Reading, I've decided to review, well more recommend, ten of my favorite books. So quite honestly the Dune series is probably one of the favorite things I read this past year, in my entire life actually, but seeing as I already wrote about back in July , I'll refrain from putting it in my list. I've also decided to only put them in alphabetical order because I can't put one over the other, it's too hard!

• Anthem by Ayn Rand ~ This is a must read for anyone even slightly interested in dystopian fiction. It totally compares to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley's Brave New World, and actually does something different with the genre. I'm not sure when or even how it happened, but I became utterly enthralled with the whole dystopian scene, I re-read Orwell and Huxley, picked up the "grandfather of dystopian novels" We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Atwood, and this literary crack eventually led me to which I talk about later on here. One of the great things about Anthem is the fact Rand hadn't yet fully developed her philosophy, which she stuffs into her later novels. The other fantastic aspect to her novel here is the style. Rand writes a book in essentially first person, but in a world where first person doesn't exist. It's crazy intense and honestly must have been amazingly difficult to accomplish, yet she does it with ease. I'm not going to try and summarize Anthem because it would be far too easy to spoil various aspects, I'll just say that if you liked Orwell and Huxley read Rand!
  
  
• Choke by Chuck Palahniuk ~ Vile, wretched, disgusting, disturbing, classic Chuck! I picked up Choke I was still in a way a Palahniuk virgin -I had only read Fight Club at the time- which, as anyone who's read Palahniuk knows, is considerably "lighter" compared to his usual style. Chuck breaks all the rules on what "fiction" should be, this isn't Jane Austin or Steinbeck, he crosses every line there is, sex, morals, God, suicide, abortion, you name it and Chuck will open your eyes. This being said, he does it with a certain taste, as much taste as you can have, anyway, when your main character is a sociopathic con artist who just happens to be addicted to sex. Definitely a fun read, though, and especially refreshing for anyone who's used to the main stream book scene. Not for the squeamish, religious, morally sound, easily offended person. Once you go Chuck, you never go back.
  
  
• Elantris by Brandon Sanderson ~ This was Sanderson's debut novel and also the novel that won over Robert Jordan's widow enough to choose him to write the final book in the Wheel of Time series. I've always been surprised when an author can actually pull off writing a fantasy book in only one book, but Sanderson does just that, and he does it well. was a very well written book and definitely gave a unique view on fantasy, one which, I for one, enjoyed immensely. Though, since it was Sandersons first book, it is a bit unpolished, which doesn't really take away from the story much, just something to note if you're a neurotic reader and can't stand even minor mistakes. Sanderson has an acclaimed series out now which I'll probably pick up when I have more time, but if you're looking for a nice light fantasy check out Elantris.
  
  
• The J-Curve by Ian Bremmer ~ This was the first political science book I've ever read, and although there were several non-fiction books I enjoyed more--such as by MalcolmGladwell-- but Bremmers book was by far the most insightful. As I've said here, I have this weird obsession with dystopian societies and while reading The J-Curve I realized a few things. First of which is that North Korea is just a stones throw away from being a classic Orwellian society, the reason it isn't, though, is the very premise of Bremmers book. The more closed a society is, the harder it is for said society to stay stable, so the only way for closed societies to stay stable is to become more and more closed. This is exactly why the U.S. foreign policy is so wrong, by putting these sanctions on countries like Cuba and North Korea, we enable them to stay even more authoritarian and keep these dictators in power. We need to help these countries move to global openness, democracy will by its nature throw these dictators out of power. If only the people running our foreign policy would read this book, but maybe someone who goes into foreign policy will read this and keep it in mind and someday change the world! (Ha as if I'm that influential)
  
  
• Lamb by Christopher Moore ~ Generally I haven't read a whole lot of comedy books, but Lamb was recommended to me by a friend so I thought I'd give it a shot. Strictly speaking, I suppose, it isn't really a comedy book, it's really a fiction with a good flare of comedy and satire. That being said, Moore is a fantastic author, his style is clean and strong, his descriptions are amazing, and he can write satire with the best of them. Basically Lamb is about Christs childhood all the way up to his crucifixion, and even though I'm not the most religiously educated person, this was hilarious! It's written by Christ's best friend Biff, who is resurrected by a ditsy angel to tell his story. Whether you're religious or not Lamb is a lighthearted good read, and will give anyone a good laugh. The hardcover is even printed as a Bible look-alike, all the way down to the little strip of ribbon used to mark your page!
  
  
• Next by Michael Crichton ~ First let me start out by saying that Crichton was by far one of the best authors of our generation, and when he died on November 5h, 2008 we were all deeply dismayed. He will be missed. Next is a techno-thriller set in what could be the very near future--as the majority of his novels are--and follows several bioengineering plot lines. At first they all seem to be independent, but Crichton, as usual, ties up all the strings in the end magnificently. Though this isn't quite the genius that was Jurassic Park it is a fantastic look at the future of bioengineering and the possible ramifications of messing around with DNA. Anyone interested in science with a flair of mystery/thriller should check out Next, especially those interested in biology.
  
  
• Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks ~ After you've read 6+ fantasy books you began to see a pattern. Indeed many themes reoccur in fantasy, young innocent character has secret power, found by a 'mentor' type and told to save the world from certain doom, goes on hero's quest to save world, gains companions to help share the load, fights evil with newly discovered powers, saves the day. It's actually really disappointing after awhile, you end up looking for books that do this the best. I picked up Brent Weeks first book on a whim, and too my delight, he did something I've never seen with a fantasy. That being he made it super dark, the main character not only in conflict with "evil" but part of the evil. This is one of my favorite new authors, he did something new and refreshing, and dark with a now overpopulated genre. Not only that he made a character you love to hate, as well as a whole cast of unique companions. This is by far a must read for anyone looking for something new in the fantasy world.
  
  
• Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. ~ I had seen the movie with Jared Leto a couple times before I read the book, but nothing could prepare me for just how intense the book was. I know better than anyone that books are far better than the movies based off them, but holy hell. This was like the difference between an amoeba and a human brain! Selby goes into some of the darkest aspects of humans nature; from addiction to obsession, and he does it in such a way you feel the characters pain. It's brilliant, but terribly depressing. By far one of the most depressing books I've ever read, up there with A Child Called It--which more than anything is depressing because it's a true story-- yet the same can probably be said about Requiem. Sure not the same characters or the exact same experiences but the human tragedy is all too real. Dark, depressing, morbid, graphic, but something I think that everyone should read if for nothing more to open their eyes to what can happen and most likely does happen in our country.
  
  
• Revelation Space Trilogy by Alastair Reynolds ~Let me be clear here, the books I'm talking about are indeed Reynolds Trilogy (Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap), but also Chasm City which is part of the same universe. In any case, I picked up the first book just out of curiosity because I didn't really know what a Space Opera was. I was seriously glad I did. The crazy part is the fact that this is Reynolds first set of books! I have recently become fairly obsessive about colonization recently, and this trilogy is what colonization could do for the human race some day! Granted it's rather far fetched, but oh man how amazing would something like this be? Reynolds isn't the run of the mill sci-fi author, he writes what is called hard sci-fi, which basically everything in his books is possible. Indeed, Reynolds has a PhD in Astronomy and worked for the European Space Agency through last year, so it's certainly closer to being real than, say, The Matrix. Reynolds also writes in a fairly dark manner, especially when you think that his scenarios could very well be true.
  

• Snow Crash by Neal Stevenson ~ This was the first cyberpunk I've ever read and good god it was amazing! Cyberpunk is a branch of Sci-Fi that combines "high tech with low life", (thanks wiki), which means hackers in almost dystopian futures. The story follows a hacker named Hiro Protagonist, I know real clever Stevenson, who is also a Japanese martial arts enthusiast. This is probably one of the other reasons I enjoyed Snow Crash so much, I have a strange obsession with Japanese history especially martial arts if you don't know me, Stevenson combines a fantastic dark, humorous, fun future with great fight scenes. Much of the book takes place in something called The Metaverse , which is essentially the Internet at it's most intense; think Matrix minus the killer machines. I really can't do Stevenson justice in his plotting because he masterfully combines several stories, that in the end somehow all wrap up in the end. Basically Hiro and his street punk friend Y.T. discover a drug called Snow Crash that not only kills your computer, but completely screws up hackers minds. That's the other thing I loved about this book, Stevenson is one of those authors that knows what he's talking about and does his research if he doesn't. Even though Snow Crash came out in '92 many of the psychological, anthropological, linguistical, and even technological ideas are still relevant and insightful today. I'd recommend Snow Crash to anyone interested in technology, sci-fi, even dystopian-esque books, really I think everyone should read it or at least give it a shot!
  

Wow I totally got carried away with this. I first intended this to be a couple sentences, maybe a couple days worth of work, but no.. I started this on the 6th! Okay part of the slowness is the fact that I'm lazy and wasn't doing many a day. Either way, I hope that someone finds joy in one of the books I've suggested. Maybe I'll do this again soon, well not soon, but at some point haha.

Some Art

So I'm rather bored and I figured I'd share some of my art. It isn't too good, nor is it very recent, but feel free to comment and criticize if you wish. I'm not gonna post all of it just cause I have a lot but I'll certainly post some of my favorites.



I don't even remember how I made this, but it's one of my favorites.



I made this one in CG class back in high school about primary colors.



I took this in Paris, obviously. Click for full size!







There's tons more, but these were the ones on my deviantART. I especially like Eye of the Tiger, Eye of Agony, Handy, Ice Steps, and The Tower. Well I like a lot of my silly "art", in any case I hope you like it too! Stupid photobucket screwed the size of the picture sizes up, click on 'em for the full view.