I have no idea why, but I decided to throw a shitload of money at Amazon, and snagged the following books (even though I still have about five left to read from Xmas):

-Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden
-The Tailor Of Panama by John Le Carre
-Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
-Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
-Shadow & Claw: The 1st Half Of The Book Of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe
-Keeper by Greg Rucka

Some stuff I'm thinking about ordering this week (again, I really have no idea why I'm in such a book-buying mood):

-Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
-A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
-Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
-Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty

Some of this stuff is things I've been wanting to read for a while, others were recommendations I picked up from the boards.

Oh, and to "talk shop", er, well, all that really stuck out in my mind during the recent threads is Tom's inconsistency when it comes to online handles, and I'll say that I'm guilty of that too. In the space of a week, in various Internet matches, I've played as "UnScoot", "CScoot", "ScootArena", "Scoototron", "Scooterion", and "Scootarina". If you're bored enough to try to figure out which game is which, I guess I'll give you a prize of some sort. Whee.

-Thierry

Wha, Scooter?? No CS???

BTW, do you play any of the UT mods?

(No, wumpus, no!!! Put the keyboard down!)

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-Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson

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Can anyone vouch for whether Palahniuk is worth reading? I've been told that Fight Club is pretty pedestrian.

I picked up Denis Johnson's latest book on Bauman's recommendation. Also Heartbreaking Work.

I went on an amazon spree recently myself, Thierry. I love that feeling of being stocked up with a half dozen books you can't wait to read!

-Tom

I've heard that Fight Club is worth the read. Of course, an actor told me this, so take it with a grain of salt.

My fiancee read Keeper (Greg Rucka) and was underwhelmed. I considered it for a few minutes until I found out the name of the protagonist. I just don't think I can take a guy named "Atticus Kodiak" seriously. I mean, come on. Did you ask a market research team to come up with that or what? "Let's see, 'Atticus' is a beloved character in literature. So that scores high. And 'Kodiak'...well, come on, I mean that's real strong sounding. Bears are very cool. Another high score. Let's go for it!"

"How's about "Ishmael Grizzly"?

"Hmmmm....let's send it to the focus group."

Atticus Kodiak, really.

Amanpour

>>Can anyone vouch for whether Palahniuk is worth reading? I've been told that Fight Club is pretty pedestrian.

It's not bad. I haven't read any other stuff by him, though.

>>I picked up Denis Johnson's latest book on Bauman's recommendation. Also Heartbreaking Work.

Have you checked them out yet? Egger's book is probably a love/hate thing.

>>I went on an amazon spree recently myself,

Amazon is the bane of my existence.

I just read Tolstoy...or some such 19th century Russian novelists, can never go wrong with them classics!

Contemporary literature...I'm too lazy and uninformed I guess. The closest I'll read to contemporary is Don Delillo and Gabriel Marquez...and theyre pretty old.

etc

"Wha, Scooter?? No CS???"

I do wish CScooty would have chimed in on the FPS thread. I'm interested to hear his opinion, since I get the distinct impression he's more in tune with FPS players than Tom is.

For one thing, he has a handle. ;)

Now back to your regularly scheduled bat-topic!

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

What I want to know is where the hell Scooter gets the time to read all these books AND write for CGW AND attend UC Berkeley full time. Sheeesh. I can't read one dumb fantasy novel and write one dumb column a month without it overtaxing my brain. Maybe I should have smoked less marijuana in my youth. Maybe I should only drop acid *once* a day now. Food for thought.

As far as game handles go, I too tend to switch around. I play online all the time, but I just get bored with having the same name, and I like to frequent all different kinds of servers, rather than the same one, just to see what different players are like. I don't like people to know who I am online, but that's maybe just cuz it's my "job".

My defaults tend to be variations on "Doofus"--and yeah, I know, Steve Bauman, you call yourself that too, but don't forget I'm older than you so I have first dibs. Let's see, there's been Doofaeus, LordDoofaeus, Doofaegala, The Doofster, Sir Doofalot, and so on. Other times I've just logged in as whatever idiotic thing I can think of at that moment, like Janet_Reno or Mike_Oxbig.
And if I know I'm playing particularly poorly on any one day, I always use the same handle: Tom_Chick.

Oh, and can anyone confirm whether that Eggers book is actually good? A friend of mine whose taste I trust said it was one of the worst books she ever read. Kinda surprised me based on all the buzz I've heard.

>>Oh, and can anyone confirm whether that Eggers book is actually good?

I thought it was great, but I can see how others might not dig it. If you can't look past some of the "hipper then thou" stuff (much of which is contained in the foreward, which I found hysterically funny... he tells you to skip certain pages, discusses major images and themes and ends with a picture of a stapler), it's really a touching story of a 20-something guy who's parents die and is forced to take in his younger brother and basically grow up and be a dad.

I've not read BlackHawk Down, so I'm not familiar with the story... other than it being a telling of a military mission in Kosovo or whatever. I don't watch TV, so I miss that sort of important stuff.

Anyway, I recently read that the military was training actors for a week, for their roles in the upcomming production of the movie based on this work. Too bad they can't just use real Rangers as extras or whatever, because it's tough to make a veteran suspend disbelief when actors are doing "dumb shitz" on camera. A weekend of "Ranger Club" does NOT qualify one to look the part, IMO. But, it's interesting nonetheless to note that they're doing a movie.

Tom, maybe you could jump on this one and rejuvenate your acting career?

Aszurom, you of all people would *really* dig Blackhawk Down. I think it's in paperback now, so do yourself a favor and pick it up this weekend. Trust me on this one.

Unfortunately, the movie is being directed by Ridley Scott, the World's Worst Working Director. Great cast, but I have low hopes that it will do justice to the horrors of modern combat. Instead, we'll get film shot at high speed, clipped frame staccato effects, and jump cuts.

-Tom

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Unfortunately, the movie is being directed by Ridley Scott, the World's Worst Working Director.

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So, it'll be sorta like "Army of Darkness - Kosovo Edition" then?

Reading?
I just finished reading "The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon, at Erik Wolpaw's hearty recommendation. I enjoyed almost exactly 60% of it.

Other than that I'm reading a couple home improvement manuals and the US Tax Code and re-reading Dracula for kicks.

I'm also watching a lot of Sesame Street.

--Andrew

PS: I think Shumacher and Harlin are worse than Scott.

Currently reading King Rat (not the semi-historical drama by James Clavell, but the dark neo-fantasy novel by China Mieville). It's quite good, if you like that sort of thing. Her writing is a little bit like Neil Gaiman's.

Also working on finishing Robert Jordan's Winter's Heart (when will it end?), and re-read Miyazaki's manga Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.

On my "to read" pile is Prospero's Children by Jan Siegel.

Felderin said:

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re-read Miyazaki's manga Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.

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Just finished a science fact rather than fiction double: The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes. The first book easily deserves all the praise that has been heaped on it--a work of literature as much as of science history. The second book pales in comparison to the first. It's more an espionage story than anything else, but the description of the Russian bomb program is fascinating. We worry about whose hands the Bomb might fall into today, but it's sobering to think that it once was in the hands of someone as paranoid as Lavrenti Beria.

Making of the A-Bomb is indeed a classic. If you're interested in more A-bomb history, I'd recommend Thomas Powers' "Heisenberg's War," which takes a good look at the German bomb effort and its central question: did the scientists delay the project because of moral concerns (as Heisenberg later claimed) or was Heisenberg just not as smart as the American physicists? Some speculation on the Bohr/Heisenberg break as well.

The Farm Hall "Uranium Club" transcripts have also been published. Some fascinating stuff there, although as with all primary documents they're sometimes slow going.

If you're looking for even more science history, I can't recommend James Gleick's biography of Richard Feynman, "Genius," enough. Absolutely superb. Some good A-bomb history there as well.

"Maybe I should have smoked less marijuana in my youth. Maybe I should only drop acid *once* a day now. Food for thought."

Mentioning food and weed toking in the same paragraph automatically disqualifies you from any chance that we might think you are kidding. Now, what did I do with those munchies...Damn!

"So, it'll be sorta like "Army of Darkness - Kosovo Edition" then?"

Wasn't AOD Sam Raimi? So far as Ridley Scott...I hated Hannibal, but liked Gladiator. Scott seems horribly inconsistent to me.

"Maybe I should have smoked less marijuana in my youth. Maybe I should only drop acid *once* a day now. Food for thought."

Well, if I had smoked less pot at UC Berkeley, I would have gotten better grades, so I would have been able to go to Law School, so I wouldn't have gone into journalism, so I wouldn't have ended up at CGW, so I wouldn't be here now.

So I don't regret a single toke. :)

"So I don't regret a single toke. :) "

Okay, ya got me! I've been missing being in the gaming industry ever since my Online Service went under and we all got laid off a few years back. I make more money now, but man, those were fun times. There isn't a week gone past that I don't think fondly of them.