I stopped by Waldenbooks this morning and bought a copy of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I had some Preferred Reader coupons to use and I was curious. It’s received glowing reviews–Neil Gaiman’s pull-quote on the back cover calls it “unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventyContinue reading “New Reading Material”
Author Archives: Allyn
On the Road
In an hour I’ll be on my way to Richmond. Fable, the long-awaited role-playing game for XBox, comes out tomorrow everywhere, but rather than have it shipped to stores I’ll be picking up copies for the local stores at the Richmond airport, so it can go on sale today, a day ahead of schedule. IContinue reading “On the Road”
First Invasion: The War of 1812
The History Channel showed tonight a documentary entitled First Invasion: The War of 1812. Being something of an enthusiast on the subject of America’s forgotten war, I tuned in, curious how they would distill the war, its causes and its effects, into two hours. I needn’t have bothered. The cause of the war? Impressment. WhatContinue reading “First Invasion: The War of 1812”
Wisdom from the Elizabethean Age
Let us today recall the famous pronouncement of Queen Elizabeth I’s religious advisor, Lord Melchett–“As private parts to the gods are we! They play with us for their sport!” Fitting, really. Sums up life nicely.
LateLine
I stopped by Best Buy this afternoon before work to see what new DVDs had come out, and saw on the shelf the DVD collection of LateLine, Al Franken’s sitcom about a late night television news program. Like most viewers, I saw not a single episode of the show when it was originally broadcast. IContinue reading “LateLine”
Work, Work, and More Work
This week I’ve been working on an OSR for work. It’s internal parlance for Overstock Recall, where the store receives an e-mail detailing what products to return to the warehouse for reclamation (in other words, boxing game cartridges or resurfacing game discs if scratched) and reprocessing for shipment to other stores. Generally stores receive theseContinue reading “Work, Work, and More Work”
Should the Torch Be Passed?
In a posting on TrekBBS’s Science Fiction forum V’Ger asked (with spelling and punctuation corrected), “[U]nless the [new Doctor Who] series plans to do a flashback with McGann regenerating down the line [into the Christopher Eccleston Doctor] (Perhaps a Doctor team-up?), how should the eighth Doctor bow out, say, in a novel or audio drama?”Continue reading “Should the Torch Be Passed?”
Testing Mood Icons
I’ve seen these on other webpages. I want to see if they work here.
An Invitation
The invitation came in the mail last week, for the dedication of the Clinton Presidential Library. A few years ago I received a letter asking for donations, and having some extra money at the time I sent a check, and since then I’ve received more fundraising letters, but not having much money the one IContinue reading “An Invitation”
Movie Night!
We may do a Movie Night at work in the next few weeks. I wouldn’t call Movie Night a tradition. More like an occasional happening, getting together as much of the staff as wants to go after work and going to see a film. We’ve done it twice. The last time it came off wellContinue reading “Movie Night!”