Reading for November, 2005
I read most of James Agee’s A Death in the Family, but skipped the last forty pages or so. There is some criticism that the book was assembled by editors and did not appear in a form Agee would have approved of.
The Architects of Doom
These four dolls are up for bid on eBay
I refer to them as the Architects of Doom, because, well, they continue to spread their campaign of destruction regardless of what a majority of Americans or the rest of the world thinks.
I don’t really care if I make money off of these dolls. If you really want one, send me an email.
Podcast Title Generator
Need a title for your new Podcast? Just click on the Podcast Title Generator for a suggestion (or twenty).
Civilization IV: I can’t play
I picked up a copy of Civ IV for a good price last week. I can’t play it on my system until they release a patch. I’ve got the “bread only” problem, where the map only shows slices of bread (representing food) and no production or coins.
Moving around the map is also extremely laggy.
Reading for October, 2005
William Faulkner, Light in August. Number 54 on the Modern Library list.
James T. Farrell, Young Lonigan. I think the Studs Lonigan Trilogy is only sold as a single volume these days, but I found a library copy of the first book. It is full of outdated references and deals with fairly dark subject matter, like “gangshags” and a plethora of prejudice.
The Neverhood
I saw The Curse of the Were-Rabbit last night, and afterwards we were talking about claymation. I was reminded of The Neverhood, a little known PC adventure game that came out in 1996, just before the Nintendo 64 hit US shelves.
So I dug out my copy of the game and tried to install it.
The Neverhood requires: Pentium 75 mhz 8 Mg RAM (16 recommended) 1 Mg VRAM SVGA monitor Quad speed CD ROM 8-bit sound card & speakers (16-bit recommended) 10 Mg available hard disk space for Installation Mxcrosoft Wxndows 95.
Unfortunately I’m running 2000, and the installer insists on 95 (though I bet 98 would also work).
About Me
If you look to the left on the main page you’ll see a little box titled “About Me”. If you click the link you can read my short biography.
To go with the new bio, I am planning on changing the name of this blog to “Polymath”. It is a more positive term, and more descriptive.
weblog usability
I thought I would do a self-evaluation of my blog, as per Jakob Nielsen’s Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes, or as I like to call it: “blusability” (pron. blue-za-bill-it-ee)
1. Author biography: Hm, nope, don’t have one. This is pretty much a personal blog, though I do use it for self-promotion. I probably should provide some kind of bio.
2. Author photo: Don’t have one of those either. My bad.
Art Attack
A fantastic new poster by Robbie Conal has started to appear in the city — George W. Bush’s skeletonized body floating in the sepulchral floodwaters of New Orleans.
Conel’s website: www.RobbieConal.com
influence
I recently came across the Internet Book List, a community driven book database which aspires to be as comprehensive for books as IMDB is for movies.
Picking a book at random, I did not find Dickey’s Deliverance in the database. I was hoping for a useful research tool for my 20th Century handicapping project, but it is not quite there yet.