The New Musings of a Quiet Geek

The other night we, and another friend, watched a movie we had wanted to go see this summer mainly because everyone was in this movie. Rendition investigates a bombing in Northern Africa. Part of the investigation by the CIA uses a practice called rendition to basically kidnap a suspect and take him off to get tortured. Reese Witherspoon plays the wife of just such a "suspect." She has a friend (Peter Sarsgaard) who works for a senator (Alan Arkin). He tries to help her find her husband but there's only so much he can do. Meryl Streep plays either the head of the CIA or at least someone very high up and does such a good job being a bitch. Yes, the evil senator she played in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate was similar but she wasn't evil here. She was just good at her job. In other news, I have a cold or I guess you could say that I have "flu-like symptoms" as they say in baseball. I haven't worked at the library for the past two mornings but I a...

My roommate's college friend was up again so we got some more good food, including an awesome chocolate cake, and watch four movies. First up was Gameplan with The Rock as a quarterback for the fictional team "Boston Rebels," a name I'm sure they put a lot of thought into, whose hereto unknown daughter shows up at his door. Disney hilarity and drama ensues. The movie didn't suck but let's just say it won't be going in my collection... The second film was another Disney film: Meet the Robinsons . This film was very good if predictable. One more comment: Nicole Sullivan and Tom Selleck voice this couple. If the two of them were really married, I think one of them would die and Tom's the NRA member so "choo choo on this!" (Best line of the movie...) Film number 3 was No Reservations with Catherine Zeta Jones, Aaron Eckhart and Abigail Breslin. Jones plays a executive chef who feels her employment is threatened by Eckhart and whose sister dies ...

Today, I received in the mail from the publisher a cash advance. Sure, it's only a dollar but it's symbolism anyway. The book is already written. At the moment, I'm in the midst of editing the final draft. I don't have an official release date as of yet but it won't be very long now. I'm very excited. More and more people have told me that they want to read it so it will sell at least a couple dozen copies. Hey! you have to start somewhere... This past weekend, I went up to see my parents and, yes, get a better author photo. I bought a new CD, which was selling for a good price at that: Instant Karma: Save Darfur which is a compilation of John Lennon covers to benefit Amnesty International's efforts in that area of the globe. My parents and I were quite impressed by this double album. I question why there are two cover each of "Imagine" and "Give Me Some Truth" when there are at least three or four songs not included at all, most notably...

Last night while we were watching TV, there was an ad on the SciFi Channel advertising this week's Saturday night movie. The title of this is called Bone Eater . Even if this movie was on Spike, the genre of this movie would not be horror. Bone Crusher. Bone Breaker. Even Shattered Bone wold have been fine but Bone Eater? ::Shakes Head:: Anyone who's been around the two of us knows how immature we are when we're together, and living together could possibly have made it worse, so this was a total laugh riot for us. "Is this Hall and Oates comeback single?" Material, including book description and author photo as well as the actual manuscript, has been submitted. I'm getting very excited now. I'm not expecting the book to win any awards or make me rich over night but this has been a dream of mine for years. I hoped 30 would be a good year but I never expected anything like this. What will I dream about now?

Two seperate trips to the mall garnered me a new book and two new CDS. I'll discuss the book when I actually get around to reading it but the first CD is Magic which is the latest from Bruce Springsteen reunited once again with the E-Street Band. It's no contest that the music is better with the band as oppose to without but I've come to the conclusion that, despite great tunes Bruce did by himself or with other musicians, his writing seems better with the band for whatever reason. Devils and Dust , his previous album didn't suck but the lyrics don't grab me the way the lyrics of these songs do. If you like classic Springsteen, I highly recommend this album. Ringo Starr gets a bad rap. He's the most underappreciated Beatle and yet Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo is an awesome compilation. Yes, one may argue that's because George Harrison appears on a large portion of the tracks found here and John Lennon appears on two, I beleive, but that in no way bel...

The last several weeks at the library, maybe even for more than a month, I've been working on a project. To determine which books belong in our library and which books belong up in Bangor, there is a colored stripe on the spine. We found a ton of books with no stripe at all so it was placed upon me to first make sure the books do indeed belong down here and then place a blue stripe on them. This morning while I was working on this project, checking in a book to see if it was ours brought up an ILL hold alert. We're not sure if this was a new request placed after we checked that morning on an old request kicking around the system for awhile. My boss told me to just prepare it for shipment as even if it's not a current request, they'll just send it back. It was very weird. And yes, I did stripe it! Last evening, I finished the second book in the new Genesis of Shannara trilogy by Terry Brooks: The Elves of the Cintra . I've read some really good books lately, and s...

In case you all were wondering, I finally have found a dentist but that's just the end of the story. Tuesday, I call another dentist. They inform me that they haven't taken new patients in five years. I call the next on the list and they enthusiastically tell me they do. I then tell them about my spinal rod and that I have to take a pre-cleaning antibiotic so the rod doesn't get infected. I went without it once but why chance it? This is where the story turns fun. They tell me that the first time the previous dentist calls it in and then they take over. I call my old dentist in CT and the secretary gets all huffy about it says she wants to talk to this other office because of how irregular it is. She calls back about five hours later for the number of the pharmacy near me. She didn't sound happy. An hour later, I walk over to the pharmacy to pick up the meds. Hadn't been called in. I call them the next morning and am told they recieved the prescription but need mor...

I don't think either women read this any more but, if you do, I apologize for this in advance. Awhile back I discovered that a woman I attempted a relationship with was getting married. I was a little bummed for awhile that not only was I not The One, I was seemingly The One Just Before The One. Recently, I discovered, basically the same way, that this "phenomenon" for lack of a better word has happened again. Do I give women greater insight into what they want? I can be cosmically pessimistic and interpret this as a reward for attempting a relationship with me but even I'm not that bad. (Well, not any more anyway...) I suppose in reality it's just some rather cruel coincidence. Please don't get me wrong. I'm very happy for both of them/you but I needed to get that off my chest. Some clarification wouldn't go amiss either... In less, well, just lesser, news, I've decided to join Technorati. Will it give me more readers? Probably not but really why...

Since I've been living up here for about a year, I figured it was about time to set up a doctor and dentist up here. My planned first step was to find a dentist as I'm due for a cleaning. I found a dentist within walking distance but I called them and they apparently aren't taking any new patients. I go online and find the name of another dentist who's not within walking distance (Well, not safely anyway.) but on the busline. I call them but they're closed. The secretary calls me the next day and informs me that they only do extractions not cleanings. There are a few more dentists within city limits including one slightly closer than the extractionists. The search continues. I began my search for a doctor at the same time. Mapquest's listings are apparently not updated often as the first name I found was apparently now in another town which is not on busline. I found a practice on the other end of the main street here but I was really hoping for someone closer. ...

What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Moved out of my parent's house, to a different state at the time, to an apartment. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I doubt I made any and I'll probably hold that trend. Did anyone close to you give birth? Not really but one of my good friends from kindergarten's sister apparently had baby... Did anyone close to you die? Nobody comes to mind for this question at all. What countries did you visit? Other than go to CT a couple times and Springfield, MA once, I didn't even leave the state. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? A paying job and an SO wouldn't go amiss... What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Forever? I don't think there is one. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Getting a huge Christmas bonus from my volunteer job. What was your biggest failure? Thinking that temping would pan out up here...

Remember how I said I really liked the soundtrack to Love Actually ? Yeah, well, I bought it off eBay and received it in the mail yesterday. The problem with soundtracks more often than not is that the really good music you liked from the movie is never on the soundtrack. The disc is compiled of music playing during the closing credits that you didn't hear because you already had left the theater. This soundtrack doesn't belong in that category. It belongs with the great soundtracks of Forrest Gump or Boys on the Side . There's maybe four or five songs I don't remember but even the Wyclef John song ("Take Me As I Am") is very catchy. Eva Cassidy's cover of Christine McVie's "Songbird" is indistinguishable from the original so that's very cool. (I'm sure I've said this before, but, McVie was the best songwriter of Fleetwood Mac.) I also love the piece of Craig Armstrong's score included here. I can actually picture the scene. ...

The good news was I got listen to my Ringo Starr Christmas album. I was worried it was too badly scratched but it just needed a massive cleaning. Yay! I received a lot of CDs this year. From my parents, I received Kelly Clarkson's new album, My December . She's at the same place with her third album that Sheryl Crow was with her first. What I mean is Kelly wrote all the songs with the help of one to three other people. (Read the liner notes of Tuesday Night Music Club .) If this holds true, Kelly's sixth album should be pre-ordered now... Clive Davis didn't want this album to see the light of day. Why? While I don't like it as much as "Breakaway," it's very good indeed. I've only listened to it a couple times which is not enough time really like anything (Of course, there are exceptions in either direction.) so this may change. From my aunt and uncle I received Raising Sand from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. When I had heard of this album, I was...

I'm glad Joe Biden especially dropped out of the race because, from the very beginning, he had about as much chance of winning as John Kerry would if he ran again meaning slim to less than none. I mean he called Obama "clean and articulate." Chris Dodd dropping out is a bit less, um, pleasant for me because I liked him to a certain degree. He didn't have a shot to win either, though, so it was the right move. And, briefly, what is up with Dennis Kucinich reporting ABC to the FCC for dumping him from the debates? Did anyone else get to go on The Colbert Report and empty their pockets? No. Dodd dropping out leads me to what I really wanted to discuss. Joe Lieberman first endorsing Susan Collins for Maine's junior senator then John McCain for president. I have no problem with cross-party endorsements in the name of friendship but I really can't buy that from a guy whose response to losing his party's nomination was to run as an independent. It's all abou...

Maybe this topic is a stretch to be added to my series but I finished two books a couple days ago that I was reading over vacation so I think it counts. First, I finished Star Trek: Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. Written between Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact , it tels the story of warp drive developer, Zephram Cochrane filling in the blanks between when he broke the warp barrier, him disappearing in space, and then being discovered on a distant planet by Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy. It further allows him to encounter Picard's crew as well. I realize how complicated this may sound but it ties together well. Because it was written before First Contact came out some of the events taking place in Cochrane's own time contradict what is now cannon such as how he developed the drive but that's a very small portion of the book so it really can be overlooked. I was thinking that Generations would be the movie that would really screw things ...

My roommate had a friend from his first college days come to visit starting New Year's Eve and she loves to watch movies so we watched a bunch. She brought Hairspray with her so we started with that. That movie was not as sophisticated as Once but was definitely F-U-N fun. At first, I wondered why Travolta was putting on a Philadelphia accent if they were in Baltimore but maybe it's a Mid-Atlantic accent? Hmmm. I didn't know Amanda Bynes, Michelle Pfeiffer or Christopher Walken was in this movie so that was a cool surpise. Rent it today. We next flipped around the channels and found American Pie Presents: Band Camp so we watched that. As with Girl Interrupted, but perhaps more so with this movie, I was amazed what made it on the air. At the moment, I don't feel the need to rent the full version but, overall, I liked it. As their was nothing on TV, we raided our stash of recorded Christmas movies beginning with Christmas Caper with Shannen Doherty which may have been ...

The night after I arrived home we rented a couple movies. The one we watched as a family was called Once . Some may call it a chick flick. There are two kinds of chick flicks: Comedies which I generally enjoy if Whitney Houston isn't starring in them and Dramas which I generally do not. This probably falls into the latter category but, you know what? I liked this movie very much. Part of the reason is that generally enjoy music movies, like School of Rock and Sister Act if not musical theater. The stars of this movie actually wrote the music they're singing and it's good! The next day, I finally got to see Eragaon . This was about a year in the making as I was scheduled to see this movie with JRRyan in the theater when my father broke his wrist ice skating that very night. Anyway, overall, this was a fun time waster of a movie. What I found fascinating, though, was 16 year old Christopher Paolini didn't get all his inspiration from fantasy novels. He got it from Star...

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Cleric (5th Level) Ability Scores: Strength- 11 Dexterity- 8 Constitution- 13 Intelligence- 15 Wisdom- 12 Charisma- 11 Alignment: Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable. Race: Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like. Class: Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need,...

Two more Christmas movies to discuss. During the snow storm on Thursday, my aunt stayed over and brought a DVD with her: A Christmas Miracle at Sage Creek . I don't want to ruin the whole movie but it has David Carradine as a "Scroogian" rancher who has this beef with this Native American family (Wes Studi and Irene Bedard) living on his land. Technodude went back to painting but I enjoyed it and I think my aunt did as well... My cousin and I later watched Little House on the Prairie: Bless All the Dear Children . Laura and her husband along with Issac go in search of their daughter who was kidnapped by a psychotic frontierswoman. Meanwhile, back in Walnut Grove, we have the hilarious hi jinks of Jason and Nancy, who really is more of a bitch than her older sister, Nellie. What these two storylines had to do with eachother, I have no idea... Of the non-Christmas variety, we also finished the miniseries, Tin Man which is a re-telling of The Wizard of Oz . (Or is it a sequ...

During my dance class reading on Wednesday, I finished another Star Trek book. The Buried Age by Christopher L. Bennett, whose Orion's Hounds was the first Titan book I truly enjoyed, was another Lost Era novel; this one filling in the gap of Picard's life in between the so-called "Battle of Maxia" where the Stargazer was lost and his taking command of the Enterprise-D prior to "Encounter at Farpoint." As with most of the "Lost Era" books, my interest in the actual plot of the book, in this case finding a member of a extremely ancient race and falling in love with her, paled in comparison to the geeky references found within. For instance, you know exactly why Picard gets so irritated with Phillipa Louvois in "Measure of a Man." Another small reference I enjoyed was that the Galaxy -class was supposed to launch on 2361, the bicentennial of the Federation but of course was delayed until 2363-4. Was that Bennett's doing or the Oku...

Just Like Likestrek Used To Make. Enter a word for your own slogan: Generated by the Advertising Slogan Generator , for all your slogan needs. Get more Likestrek slogans . I am a Daisy What Flower Are You? 1. Go to the Wikipedia home page and click random article. That is your band's name. 2. Click random article again; that is your album name. 3. Click random article 15 more times; those are the tracks on your album. Band Name: Effie Waller Smith Album Name: Alberta General Election, 2001 1. List of Archbishops of Tours 2. Fibre Multi Object Spectrograph 3. Ranunculus Acris 4. Barbara (village) 5. ITRANS 6. The Scornful Lady 7. Golden Bagel Award 8. Leicester Central Railway Station 9. Fenton Dock 10. Tomorrow's Brightest Minds 11. Binary Form 12. La Plata Lake 13. List of United States Supreme Court Cases, volume 137 14. Carisopodal 15. Zambian Presidential Election, 1991 I would have to say only 6 or 7 song titles make any sense...