Tuesday, November 8th, 2005
Daily Archive
Apart from a thirsty desire for fame and fortune (why else does anyone blog???)
· Is it a technology blog? (That’ll bring the girls in won’t it..)
· Is it a confessional blog? (I never wanted to do this, I always wanted to be a lumberjack…)
· Is it a travel blog? (Well, I am on the train at the moment…)
· Is it a soon to be abandoned blog (This is my third or forth attempt at writing a regular blog)
Chances are, its going to be all of that, especially point 4, but who knows, I might surprise myself.
There is an element of public masturbation about blogging, you get a tingling sensation and enjoy yourself, but everybody else is embarrassed to find out your doing it.
Of course, I’m not speaking from experience. That incident in the library was entirely overblown.
for the humor impaired, that was a joke, we all know masturbation is a sin (but if it is, where does that leave blogging?)
Well, I just finished Peter F Hamiltons latest book: ‘Judas Unchained’
I first found Peter with ‘The Reality Dysfunction’, what I enjoyed about it was its combination of a complex universe and it’s space opera.
He’s tried this again with ‘The Commonwealth Saga’, but I really don’t think he’s been anywhere near as successful.
Firsly, its LONG, at 2400 pages over both books, it tends to ramble and ramble, you can’t go anywhere in the book without having to sit through pages and pages of background material about the planet and its settlement history, every object needs a background.
Apart from that there’s the usual Peter Hamilton features: Beautiful People, Casual Sex, Wealth and Technology; This time however, it comes across as a strange mixture of E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith and Jackie Collins.
Nothing terribly awful happens to anyone, there is always a worm hole or a regeneration tank or a ‘re-life’procedure to rescue anyone who dies or is injured. Fantastic new technologies are whipped up in weeks/days/hours - and invaribly countered on the next page by an equally fantastic opposing technology.
In the end, it felt like ‘The Matrix Reloaded’, if nothing truly bad can happen to anyone, why should I care…. they don’t seem to!
The other problem: I accidently destroyed my copy of the book - left it under a dripping tap sigh, don’t ask.
Well, at this very moment I’m listening to James Blunt’s ‘Back to Bedlam’.
It’s quite good, the two singles I think are ‘High’ and ‘Beautiful’, but I quite like Wisemen, Tears & Rain, Out of my Mind, and No Bravery as well. This puts it into the rare an unusualy ‘great album’ category in my life, at the moment the only other member is Missy Higgins ‘Sound of White’.
Okay, okay, I’m an easy listening freak, but it goes with my slippers.