Random Round-Up

Pitchers and catchers are in camp, baseball starts soon, and I’ve got to finalize the four players I will be holding over from last season Fantasy Baseball League. I finished in probably the worst position possible last season – 4th place. Fourth is just shy of winning money and results in picking 7th overall the following season. Granted, first place picks last, but the way we rotate the draft the first and last pick get back-to-back picks as the draft proceeds. I would have rather finished in last place, which of course is out of the pot, but at least last place guarantees first pick in the following year’s draft. As it is, I’ve got a few decent players to keep in Ichiro, Brad Lidge, and Mark Buerhle, I just need to figure out the final holdover. Of course the men are separated from the boys in the middle rounds when the rankings don’t mean is much and you’ve got to build the heart of your pitching rotation and outfield.

Random thought – I’ve been trying to weigh the benefits of LiveJournal vs Blogger. It seems most of the kewl kids and writers are on LiveJournal and lord knows I want to be one of the kewl kids. I’ve seen some of the WordPress journals and they seem entirely too restrictive for my tastes. Regardless, I may just register with LJ anyway.

On to the geekery – In watching my Farscape season 2 DVD set, the ninth episode, Out of their Minds, was on deck. During the course of the episode, a very familiar-looking bird-like creature appeared on the screen. Being the Henson fans that we are, Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff and I remarked simultaneously, how much the aliens on this episode (referred to as Halosians) resembled the Skeksis, the giant bird creatures from Henson’s epic fantasy The Dark Crystal. After watching the episode, I did the geeky thing and searched the Web to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, the FX people behind the show created the Halosians in homage to the Skeksis (scroll down about 1/3 of the page).

I am still churning through both Judas Unchained and The Amber Wizard, and I’m still enjoying both books.

One of the many things that makes Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff the greatest is how she indulges my love for beer. For Valentine's Day she gave me some cool Guinness swag and whenever she stops at Wegmans, which has a very impressive beer selection, she always picks up some random beer for me. The most recent gem of a beer she picked up for me was Yard's Washington Porter. This had to be one of the better bottled porters I've had since Samuel Adams sadly stopped producing their Honey Porter a few years ago. Good, good stuff. She said she picked it up for me in honor of President's Day holiday.

Last, but not least, great news for Mr. Lynch; as if I needed another compelling reason to read this book as soon as it publishes.

Meme and Moya

Happy Belated 100th Birthday to Robert E. Howard!

I've been tagged by Mahesh Raj Mohan for the "Five Weird Habits" meme.

The Rules: The first player of this game starts with the topic "five weird habits" and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don't forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says "You have been tagged" (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.

1) I will eat, or try, almost any food. Just ask my family and friends, I’m a voracious eater. However, two foods make me want to vomit – grapefruits and Swiss cheese.

2) I’ve been going to the gym, working out a few times a week for about 8 or 9 years now. In that time, I’ve gone to 3 of the gyms on the Rutgers campuses, and I’ve had three gym memberships. One thing has annoyed me to no end at all of these gyms – when people pick up the dumbbells and do their sets right in front of the whole rack of weights, blocking that section of weights from anybody else who wants to use them. It is rude and inconsiderate, and I always secretly wish those people would drop the dumbbells on their toes.

3) Whenever I’m drinking a bottle of beer, I almost always peel off the label. I give myself extra points for peeling it off in one piece.

4) I never use the urinal in the men’s bathroom, unless it is an absolutely painful bladder emergency. I’ll go in the toilet stall and close the door. Color me crazy for not wanting to stand less than a foot away from a wall of pee.

5) I often use the cap of a pen to clean the wax out of my ears. Q-tips just don’t cut it.

I’m tagging Nate, Nimea, Joe, Pat, and Tom.

And remember, GO JOIN/VOTE at SFFWORLD for your favorite FSF book of 2005!

You scored as Moya (from Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes. Coming on December 1, 2005: Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? The Sequel Moya (from Farscape) 94% SG-1 (from Stargate) 88% Serenity (from Firefly) 81% Nebuchadnezzar (from The Matrix) 69% Millennium Falcon (from Star Wars) 56% Galactica (from Battlestar: Galactica) 56% Enterprise D (from Star Trek) 31% Bebop (from Cowboy Bebop) 31% Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? v1.0 created with QuizFarm.com

That works, I guess. I loved FarScape and I'm having a lot of fun re-watching the show on DVD with Mrs. Blog o' Stuff, you can't go wrong with the Henson Creature Shop. Stargate SG-1? Eh, I watch it now and again, it's OK, though I'd rather be on Serenity, especially with Inarra.

Signings, leavings, startings, endings

Karen Traviss just signed with HarperCollins/Eos for three more books in the sequence that began with City of Pearl one of the best novels I read last year. This is great news, Traviss is writing some really exceptional novels and getting the deserved acclaim (Finalist for Locus Best First Novel and the Philip K. Dick Award). I still need to get my hands on her Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact novel though.

Alan Moore has severed ties with DC Comics and is getting married - a very interesting article by Rich Johnston at Comic Book Resources.

Gabe has started up another forum.

Lastly, tonight is the 2-hour season finale of Lost, just about the best show on TV right now. The last show I was this excited to watch every week was FarScape.

DC FarScape

As a blogger who occasionally blogs about comics, I would be somewhat remiss if I didn't mention that DC Comics recently let us know what they will be publishing in June.

Aside from what I'd normally pick up from the Bat-Books, the ongoing 7 Soldiers, Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, the other standouts, for me are probably: Albion by Alan Moore, and Astro City: The Dark Age by Kurt Busiek. I still need to pick up Astro City: Local Heroes, but I don't think it's been released in softcover yet, though I do have two of the other volumes in HC. I've also bee thinking of picking trying Books of Magick: Life During Wartime, with the first collection selling for a nice $9.95.

I may jump back into JSA with issue #73, which is being billed as a follow-up to last years fun Black Reign saga, now being released as a TPB. Right after Black Reign, though, it seems as if Johns lost some steam so I dropped the title.

I've been getting a chance to watch my DVDs of FarScape Season 1. I started watching in the middle of the first season, so I didn't realize how many 1st season episodes I missed, and a couple of really important ones. Each episode reinforces to me how great the writing was on this show and how much planning the creators did from the very beginning. A lot of stuff that happened and seemed somewhat tangential at the time, was followed up on in the later seasons and episodes. I also forgot what a dick D'Argo was that first season, up until the middle of the season, he was pretty harsh on John. The chemistry between John and Aeryn was there from the start, Rygel was ascerbic and cranky from the beginning, too. John has yet to meet Scorpius, though.

Mysteries...

Posted a review of Lisa Tuttle's The Mysteries today. I really enjoyed this novel, it wasn't too wordy (ahem), and I think I now have read the novel she wrote with George R. R. Martin - Windhaven. Up next is Mike Stackpole's A Secret Atlas. I've read a couple of his Star Wars novels and I really enjoyed Talion: Revenat. About 100 pages in and I like it so far, interesting world and good characters.

I liked Battlestar Galactica for the first couple of episodes, but after a while, the slow moving storytelling began to literally put me sleep. It's a shame because the actors for the most part are doing pretty well, the look of the show is good, too. I also missed it the past two weeks so my care for the show and what happens continues to slip. Maybe part of me is comparing it too much to FarScape, a show few, if any Science Fiction shows will measure against greatly.

Shinedown The Wizard

Mrs. Blog O’ Stuff picked up Shinedown’s debut CD for us the other day, Leave a Whisper. I’d been hearing Shinedown on the local rock station WDHA for over a year now and was really impressed with what I heard: the powerful ballad showcasing lead singer Brent Smith’s stunning voice: .45, both the original and the acoustic, the faster Fly from the Inside and their acoustic cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man. This is an extremely impressive debut album, Smith’s vocals are an amazing compliment to guitarist Jasin Todd, bassist Brent Smith and Barry Kirch’s singular musical sound. I’d probably classify the group as hard rock and call them simply great. Leave a Whisper is a polished, great sounding album, not by just debut standards, but by hard rock standards overall. I am looking forward to more of their albums and hope to see them in concert, though now I am kicking myself for not going to see them at the Starland Ballroom over the holidays in 2004. Methinks they’d be a great opening act for Godsmack if and when Godsmack tours later this year.

Also finished up The Wizard by Gene Wolfe over the weekend. Even though this was really the second part of a novel, it started off a bit more weakly than The Knight. I think that is because Wolfe switched from Able’s first person narrative to Able referring the story of his companions after they separated. Once Able came onto the stage, though, the book returned to the level of excellence Wolfe accomplished with The Knight. This isn’t to say that the early portion of The Wizard was bad, just that by comparison, not as strong as the other portions of the story. And let's face it, those who have read Wolfe will agree that reading Wolfe when he is a notch below his strongest efforts is far superior to 99% of most writers at their absolute best.

The last 100 or so pages of the novel were absolutely wonderful. Packed with emotion, thought, choices and introspection, I think it will be difficult for anything I read for the remainder of this year to move me emotionally and entertain me as much as did Wolfe’s Wizard Knight. I don’t know if Mr. Wolfe plans on penning more stories of Sir Able or any of the characters from this rich novel, but the door is open. While any of Gene Wolfe’s work is worthy of excitement, more tales of these characters would be most welcome.

Mrs. Blog o' Stuff and I went to the Rutgers vs. Georgetown Basketball game on Saturday and both teams didn’t look good. Rutgers was sloppy at the end of the first half arrived, but did make a nice little comeback towards the end of the game, which was too late. Rutgers basketball does look to be getting a better profile now that Gary Waters is doing such a fine job. It would be real nice to see them in the NIT again this year, though I highly doubt they will be invited.

Good Superbowl last night, I was really hoping the Eagles would pull it off, and at the end of the game, they came pretty close, too.

A new Batman Begins trailer was shown during the game and the Web site for the movie has been pretty substantially updated. Interviews, Wallpapers & other downloads, (one of which is now on my computer). Have I geeked-out enough for this film on my blog yet? I think I'm looking forward to this even more than Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith even though super-cool writer Matthew Woodring Stover has written the Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith novelization. Though I think am more looking forward to the novlization than the movie, I think.

Lastly, less than two weeks until Pitchers and Catchers!