Erryday is Friday

(Note: I totally started writing this on Friday, so I'm still allowed to make it a multimedia review day. So there.)

My head feels like it is fourteen times its usual size. And since I have quite possibly one of the largest heads in the known world, you can understand why this is a bad thing.

The drugs, they do nothing. I'm thinking today might need to become a real-live sick day. I haven't had one of those in over 2 years. I'm pretty sure my available balance of sick hours at work stands somewhere around 160. I could contract the Ebola and have enough paid time off work to wait it out.

Anyways, before it comes to that, various bits of reviews, notes of interest, and other things to keep my mind away from thoughts of my brain exploding directly out of my ears.


Books

Accelerando, by Charles Stross - Quick! Take every single idea you have ever thought of about technology in the future, be it good, bad, or indifferent, and write them all down in a list on a single sheet of paper. No time for punctuation! Okay done? Congratulations, you have now written one page of Accelerando. Please now repeat step one approximately 400 times, never re-using the same idea twice, add in an occasional poorly-drawn character and/or bit of plot (oh, you know readers, they just love plot) and then stir until you can't remember why you started the book in the first place. And, bam, you're done!

Yeah, we're done.

Admirable book, with admirable intentions, but reading this book was like hacking away at a redwood tree with a plastic butter knife - you might eventually finish the job, but by the end will you really care?

Book of the Dead, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child - I know I must have said this several times before, but I love me some really cheesy suspense/horror. And nothing comes as close to perfection in that genre as these two authors. As a stand-alone book, this novel will not make a single lick of sense, as it is basically the second half of the already bloated Dance of Death, which was itself actually the second half of another book that I can't even remember the name of. The sum total of the trilogy is great, though. They use established characters (from a half-dozen other great genre books) so you don't have to worry about characterization because it's already built in, and instead get to work rocking out with a ridiculous series of exploits.

Yeah, the "shocking museum exhibit gala goes horribly wrong" bit is overwrought, but I got over it pretty quick. That said - Seriously, how many museum galas in this universe have ended in complete tragedy and multiple deaths? I count at least 3 or 4. And every single time the heroes warn everyone to stop, and every time the bureaucracy pushes the event through anyways. Is there no pattern recognition, people? Whatever, it was entertaining, that's all that matters.

JPod, Douglas Coupland - Several disclosures to start things off: I hated Microserfs for no real reason. Hey Nostradamus! was weird and really compelling, but still put me off. And I really hate when authors get all pretentious and do things like insert themselves into the story (see: King, Stephen) or mess around with fonts and word placement without any real reason (see: Danielewski, Mark - Only Revolutions).

Now that those are out of the way, I really dig this book. A lot. In fact, I read the entire 500 pages or so in a single day. Sometimes you just want to sit down with an incredibly quirky, completely unrealistic and improbable story and just ride it to the end. It's a really sweet (and gory) little book that just keeps ratcheting up the coincidences and jokes until it seems like the author got tired of typing. It was just fun and mindless and forgettable, and geeky enough to suck me in completely. Plus, I really tend to love books that randomly have strange lists for no other reason than the fact that lists are cool.

Movies

Breach - 1) Laura Linney is awesome and will always be awesome. 2) Chris Cooper is a really good and really underrated actor. 3) Ryan Philllllipe has got a giant knot on his forehead that might be the most distracting onscreen feature since Tom Cruise got that weird middle tooth thing corrected.

4) This movie was great, even though there was a very decided lack of action and a plethora of weird Catholic guilt all over the place. Might be a little too measured for my tastes, but in general I am way more of a fan of the thoughtful movie than the mindless one. A-.

Zodiac - And here we are again. Another really great (almost amazing) movie that pulls back from the action so hard that you're constantly left wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. I mean it's a serial killer movie and the guy directing it is the same dude who made Fight Club and Panic Room. In which several people were beaten with sledgehammers and Jared Leto was set on fire in one and had his face basically bashed in in the other. I was expecting more gore. But it is more thoughtful, more focused on how the killer affects those who are chasing him rather than his victims.

The ending really is something of a letdown, if only because the bottom just drops out of the movie. It fits well with the overall scheme - you're just waiting for a payoff that is never going to happen. Which, I guess, is what the whole movie was about, so bravo.

Whatever, Jake Gyllenhaal is so pretty and awkward and swoon.

--------------------------

So yeah, that was my Spring Break week, lots of books and a couple of movies. I blew my entire monthly entertainment budget in abotu 5 days, so look for way more discussions about household events in the coming weeks, while I store up money like a squirrel with his nuts, for the long winter that will be my house moving experience.

Wow, that was a tortured metaphor. I better get out while I still can.