Been some time since I have done any geocaching because of the snow. Since things have melted, I decided today was a great day to grab a cache. (just realized I never posted about our whole day of caching) On the way home I stopped at a park that I had no idea was there. It is a equestrian park in the middle of a well to do area. You would never know you were in the middle of suburbia.
Found the cache pretty easily. Had to do a little creek jumping to get there, but all in the fun of the hunt. The view from the top of the small hill while the sun was setting was awesome.
Only problem was that the cache was in need of serious maintenance. A lot of water has gotten into the container and everything was unusable. Log was ruined, “treasures” were water logged junk now. Too bad. Hopefully the cache hider will come and improve it. I left him a note that it was in need of some TLC.
Tagged: geocache
- Published:
- Monday March 8, 2010 7:52 pm – 7:52 pm
- Author:
- By David
- Categories:
-
- Comments:
So I have a program on my iPhone called Stanza that I installed sometime ago. Basic ebook reader. Nice clean interface etc. It allows you to get books through the interface. I am not a fan of reading a book on ebook readers. A combination of backlighting and really liking paper works against it.
But I have decided to jump in a try it. And I am doing it in the way I think ebooks are smart for: promotion. I have started reading “Caught Stealing” by Charlie Huston. Why read that? Well it is the first book of a trilogy. It was also free. It is a short hard-boiled mystery, being at the wrong place at the wrong time story. Fast and easy to read. I have read the first 20 pages so far. Nice and easy.
Why is it a good idea to give this away for free? Two reasons. I would never have looked at this book otherwise. Heck, I never even heard of it. But I have now. And if it is good, heck even just enjoyable, I will be getting other books. See, it worked!
I’ll see if this works out. I mean the book is gonna have to be fun for me to keep reading it as an ebook. If it is really good, I’ll end up buying the paper copy.
A lot of this falls in line with Cory Doctorow and his thoughts on the ebooks of all his books he always has available.
Tagged: could be bullshit, Ebooks
- Published:
- Saturday March 6, 2010 10:59 am – 10:59 am
- Author:
- By David
- Categories:
-
- Comments:
The MacHeist people have done it again. This is the first in what will be this year’s macheist.
SO the nanobundle is 7 apps for $19.95. Some of them not so crazy about , but for the price it is a steal (heck for Monkey Island!!).
Plus – it comes with MacJournal – which is what I wrote this in.
You can check it out at the usual place – http://www.macheist.com
UPDATE: 3 more apps added. YOu have to tweet to get them but now a cool little itunes app called Tracks and two games, AirBurst and Burning Monkey Solitaire (which sounds dirty but isn’t) http://www.macheist.com/tweetblast
- Published:
- Thursday March 4, 2010 8:54 pm – 8:54 pm
- Author:
- By David
- Categories:
-
- Comments:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
3.5 stars
I had set myself up to read this with expectations set firmly low. The book had so much hype that I did not want to be cynical, but I did want to be realistic. It was a good page turner that I felt ended about sixty pages before the book did.
This has some spoilers so click the Read More to finish this review
Read More »
Tagged: book review
- Published:
- Thursday February 25, 2010 11:24 am – 11:24 am
- Author:
- By David
- Categories:
-
- Comments:
The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Rise of Endymion
The fourth and final book of the Hyperion Cantos was more epic and more information latent than any of the first three books. It does bring many story lines to a close and the scale and scope of the story is huge.
The four books of this series are a thick, rich world and I find the beginning and ending volumes the most satisfying. I still think Hyperion stands head and shoulders above the others, but this is a very satisfying read. The story of Aenea and Raul comes to a full conclusion and begins to bring in some fantasy elements that enrich this literary science fiction tale.
The scope of this volume is huge but I think Dan Simmons does a better job in this work dealing with it than he did in Fall of Hyperion. I felt Fall of Hyperion became quality space opera but lost the uniqueness of Hyperion. I fell the opposite way about Rise of Endymion. The focus is really kept much tighter even though grand things are happening all around. I found that much more satisfying. Basically the characters caused the plot, the plot did not happen to the characters. I really feel like the plot is what overwhelmed books 2 and 3, but in books 1 and 4 the characters were the highlight. Their story was the plot.
Dan Simmons
There are a few times when there are massive “information dumps” that are done as dialogs that go on and on. Is the information all necessary or is it author-with-awesome-research powers showing off? Not sure I can answer that as thoroughly as I want. But I wish there were a few of these that were better integrated.
The performance by Victor Bevine was excellent – again. Really a treat to get the same actor to do the recording for all 4 volumes. I know they had to be good – I listened to all 4 of them in a row!
View all my reviews >>
Tagged: audiobook, book review, Hyperion
- Published:
- Wednesday February 17, 2010 3:47 pm – 3:47 pm
- Author:
- By David
- Categories:
-
- Comments:
