On Books.....

I have found myself reading a lot more lately, mostly on my break at work, so I thought I should give my views on the last few books I have read, just something else to write about I guess...LOL

Halo: Ghosts of Onyx by Eric Nylund
The fourth in the Halo series. This one is focused on the stranded surviving Spartans who are not Master Chief. The story is very compelling as the trapped Spartans and their human allies, struggle to survive in an unknown area against an unknown enemy. This might just be my favorite of all the books as the story is compelling and its nice to read about people other than the Chief. If you are a Sci-fi or a Halo fan definitely give this one a read through.


Halo: Contact Harvest by Joseph Staten
The fifth in the ever popular Halo series. This time we get to learn the story of Sargent Johnson. Outside of Chief and maybe Cortana, Johnson is one of the favorite characters in the Halo world. His lines in the games are classic and this book tells his story and the story of the humans first contact with the Covenant. The story is compelling with Johnson first suffering a fall from grace of sorts when he is unable to save a group of civilians from a suicide bombing. Then he is thrust into the roll of a drill Sargent training a group of militia fighters. The story is told from Johnson's view as well as the view of one of the aliens, a Grunt named Dadap. I truly enjoyed this one and put it right up there with Ghosts as my favorites in the series, Johnson was a character that needed some fleshing out an he gets it in this book. Again if you are a Halo fan definitely give this one a read.


Its Good To Be The King....Sometimes by Jerry "The King" Lawler
A memoir from one of the great personalities in wrestling. Much like Mick Foleys Have a Nice Day its nice to learn about the early days of someone like Lawler. And learning the inside stories of how he got into wrestling, his artistic skills, and the Andy Kaufman saga is very intersting. Also you learn that behind all the glitz and glamour of wrestling the guys on camera are very real off of it and go through the real trials of life such as divorce. If you are a wrestling give this one a read, if you are not most of the story's wont hold the same significance.


Hate Mail From Cheerleaders by Rick Reilly
Reilly is best known for writing the back page of Sports Illustrated, And this is his second collection of those stories. Reilly has an amazing knack for writing about sports while at the same time writing about so much more than sports. From the story of the Jake Porter a kid with fragile X syndrome who finally got to play high school football (he was supposed to just take a knee but the opposing coach wanted him to score a touchdown) to the story of the Hughs' a father and his son (who has a rare genetic condition that bounds him to a wheelchair) who play in the Louisville marching band. The stories are amazing, sad and funny even if your not a sports fan this one is worth a read.


Im currently reading Kevin Smith's My Boring-Ass Life which chronicles a year in the life of one of my favorite film makers Kevin Smith. Kevin truly gives you an inside look at his life and its probably more than you want to know but it definitely is interesting and its neat to learn some of the ins and outs of what goes into making films. Ill write a full review once i finish it,

Jobs, Barbers and Camera's....

I know I have been slacking on ye olde blog lately but not much excitement in my life or Sam's for that matter. Things seem to be going good at the new store I think I am making a strong impression with my new managers and they don't seem to have any problems with me which is always a good thing. Sam has been hating her job and I cant say that I blame her they keep expecting more out of them and giving them less to work with. I think it may be time for a change for her whether its just to a new company in the insurance industry or another career altogether. On other news we finally had a day off together which hasn't happened since New Years, so our original plan was to go see Juno which has been getting tremendous buzz and both of us really want to see it unfortunately its not playing at our AMC or any AMC except b.f.e. cobb county (and we hate every other theater 'cept AMC, gotta get those movie watcher points) so we decided to see Sweeny Todd instead. I wasn't sure what I expected from Sweeny Todd, I knew it was a musical and that doesn't bother me (hell I used to play in the pit orchestra for our high school musical productions) but I had never actually seen nor knew the whole story of Sweeny Todd. I will say this much I enjoyed some aspects of it but did not enjoy others. First the good...Johnny Depp, Depp has quickly become one of my favorite actors lately he has shown that he can play a multitude of rolls and he shines in just about every film he has been in and who knew he could sing. One of the oddest moments in the movie (and I think one of my favorites) is Depp as Sweeny Todd singing to his barbers knifes as his friends after they are unearthed and returned to him. It is so creepy the way he sings as though they are people but he pulls it off with out a hitch. Kevin Smith loves to say that he recommends Ben Afleck for any roll because he thinks Afleck could play any roll, I think Depp has become my Afleck....I think his next roll will be as the shark in Jaws.(lol....I think only one person is going to get that joke....oh well). The cinematography is also very good and the technical aspects of the film are very well done. The story is somewhat hit and miss I love the revenge aspect, while Todd has every reason to kill the Judge who ruined his life, he seems miss guided and goes on an unjust killing spree when he misses the chance to get the judge right off the bat. The story takes a brutal turn at the end (which I wont ruin here) and really falls off at the end. The bad boils down to the gore, now I love a good slasher horror movie as much as the next guy, but the obscene about of blood in some of the killing scenes just seems overdone and unnecessary. I guess its to accentuate the darkness of Todd and the level to which he has sunk to get his revenge but I just thought it seemed out of place. All in all the movie was good and I would definitely recommend going and checking it out if you can put up with singing and blood all at the same time.
The last bit of news is that we purchased a new Digital Camera. Our old camera finally bit the dust (it wont even turn on anymore) and it really was time to upgrade anyway heck the cameras on our phones are almost as many megapixels as that old thing was. We had been looking at a Sony Cybershot that retails for $299, but we were waiting it out to try and get it on sale, while perusing the ads for the Sunday paper late Saturday night (always buy the early edition paper) Sam noticed a Canon in the Staples ad that was on sale for 199 and was very similar to the Sony, I did some research and found that the Canon was actually rated a little better than the Sony by a lot of places so we decided to go ahead and get it after the movie on Sunday. So after the movie we bombed down to the Staples only to discover it sold out at our local store so we had the guy call a couple other locations to see if anyone had one, he found one in Cumming which isn't to far out of our way so the held it, and we bounced up 400 and got it. After getting it home and unboxing it I immediately started taking pictures of anything and everything in the apartment just to test it out. It takes very sharp pictures and I am very impressed so far, one really cool feature it has is that it will auto detect faces and if there are multiple in a shot you can pick one to focus on, this would come in really handy if you had a group shot but wanted the focus to be on a particular person ( such as a wedding shot where the focus would want to be on the bride). The camera is not quite a D-SLR (which is what i want someday if they ever become cheap enough) but not quite a standard point and shoot, it does give some manual options to tweak things like ISO, Aperture and other things. I think I may go to park or something on my day off Thursday and try to mess with it a little. If any one is interested it is the Canon PowerShot SX 100 is, and so far I highly recommend it.

Outdoor Hockey

Ok so I know I am a bit late with this but I have been so busy, I havn't found much time to write. I wanted to give my two cents on the Winter Classic (wich for those who dont know was a Nhl hockey game played new years day in the Buffalo Bills stadium) It was such an awesome sight to see the players playing hockey outdoors in the snow, the way most of them probably grew up playing. It featured two good teams Buffalo and Pittsburgh, and probably the games most recognizable star in Sidney Crosby. The NHL did an amazing job in keeping the game as fair as possiable, because it was outdoors in the elements they didnt want anyone to have an unfair advantage so the switched sides like normal after the first two periods then in the third halfway through they switched again so both teams got equall time going in both directions. They also stopped the game a couple times during the periods to Zamboni the ice again just to keep it as playable as possiable. The game was an amazing game going into overtime and then a shootout with Sid the Kid scoring the game winner in the shootout. Honestly the NHL couldnt have scripted it any better. What was truly amazing was the day after watching shows like First Take and PTI actually talk about hockey. Ever since the strike year the NHL has been like the bastard child of sports barley getting any coverage at all on the national shows it was nice to see people finally taking note of the NHL and talking about. Come to find out people actually watched the game to the game scored the highest rating of any NHL broadcast in ten years (that includes Stanley Cup Finals games) I think the NHL must do this again but despite what some national broadcasters are saying I dont want them to over due it because then it will lose its magic, I think once maybe twice a year is perfect. As a hockey fan its nice to see the sport actually getting some love for a change.

On another note, I mentioned earlier that Nebraska needed to hire Bo Pellini and Tom Osborne must have read my blog because he went out and imediatley got the job done and got Pellini hired, I can only hope that Bo restores the tradition of Nebraska....especially the Blackshirts wich last year played more like the Pinkshirts.

GO BIG RED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!