LBY3
The continuing adventures of Beau Yarbrough

Books read, 2018

Tuesday, January 1, 2019, 15:46
Section: Arts & Entertainment
I got fewer books read this year than I’d like. That’s partly because things got busy at times, but also because the final two Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser books — Swords & Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords — are real slogs. Like Heinlein, toward the end of his life, Leiber was probably over-sharing about his sexual proclivities, making for dissatisfying adventure stories that are also impressively anti-erotic. I’m glad that I read them, but I’d never recommend the last two or three of those books to others.

The book club with my son included The One and Only Ivan, which is set to be a Disney movie in the coming years, I believe, and was a really great book assigned at school. We also read Traveler: The Spiral Path, the illustrated version of the first Harry Potter novel, the House with a Clock in Its Walls, and Squirm all of which we enjoyed.

My goal for 2019 is 19 books, which makes it easy to remember.

  1. Jan. 22: The Big Sleep
  2. Feb. 16: Swords and Ice Magic
  3. March 15: The One and Only Ivan
  4. April 9: The Hobbit
  5. April 10: Traveler: The Spiral Path
  6. May 18: Mort
  7. June 24: The Adventure Time Encyclopedia
  8. June 24: Empire of Blue Water
  9. July 23: A Closed and Common Orbit
  10. Aug. 15: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (illustrated edition)
  11. Sept. 1: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen
  12. Sept. 22: The House with a Clock in its Walls
  13. Sept. 30: It Devours!
  14. Nov. 27: Squirm
  15. Dec. 27: Record of a Spaceborn Few
  16. Dec. 28: World of Warcraft: Chronicle 3
  17. Dec. 31: The Knight and Knave of Swords


Blast from the past: SpyroHints.com

Sunday, November 11, 2018, 20:14
Section: Geek

SpyroHints.com screenshot

With the release of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy on Tuesday, I went and dusted off a website I first created in 1998 and haven’t updated since 2003: SpyroHints.com.

The site has the same hints from 1998 through 2003 about Spyro the Dragon, Spyro: Enter the Dragon and Spyro: Year of the Dragon, although I updated the web page background (it turns out most users have a screen width larger than 1300 characters wide now) and updated the Amazon links on the store. (Fifteen years is along time to expect those links to remain viable on Amazon.)

One person counseled me to fully update the site to modern standards, but there’s something fun to me about the 1998 Web aesthetic, the animated Harry Potter knock-off logo, etc. Hopefully others feel the same way and, more importantly, still find it useful in 2018 and beyond.



The media does not like mass shootings

Thursday, February 22, 2018, 9:11
Section: Journalism



iPod Top 100: 2017

Monday, January 1, 2018, 11:59
Section: Arts & Entertainment

Because the unexamined musical taste is not worth indulging.

And yes, a lot of stuff off of soundtracks this year, along with stuff I was listening to on KROQ when I moved to Los Angeles 20 years ago this past August. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

I hope there will be more looking forward musically in 2018, rather than looking back.

1. “Love Is” – Dude York
2. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – Dropkick Murphys
3. “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” – Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
4. “Talk to Me” – Run the Jewels
5. “I Love Seattle” – Tacocat
6. “Nowhere to Run” – Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
7. “Big Time” – Peter Gabriel
8. “Fight the Power” – Public Enemy
9. “The Power” – Sweet Spirit
10. “Love” – Lana Del Rey
11. “Add It Up” – Violent Femmes
12. “Little Blue World” – Jeremy Messersmith
13. “Morning Glory (iTunes Live: London Festival)” – Oasis
14. “Everywhere” – Ex Hex
15. “Gamma Knife” – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
16. “Cigarettes & Alcohol” – Oasis
17. “Fox on the Run” – The Sweet
18. “Blister in the Sun” – Violent Femmes
19. “Der Kommissar” – After the Fire
20. “Immigrant Song” – Led Zeppelin
21. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” – Oasis
22. “Baby Driver” – Simon & Garfunkel
23. “Hazy Shade of Winter” – The Bangles
24. “The End of Things” – Bob Mould
25. “Nightmare” – Bruise Violet

(more…)



Books read, 2017

Monday, January 1, 2018, 9:00
Section: Arts & Entertainment

In 2017, I did something I haven’t done since 2013, which was abandon an unreadable book. Despite that, I easily beat my goal of reading 17 books over the course of the year, in part because my fifth grader and I started our own book club, to help him reach his reading goals in school.

Ironically, A Wrinkle in Time is an easier read, according to the Accelerated Reader website than the Warcraft and Minecraft novels we read, despite being much meatier in all the most important ways. And yes, he and I will be there opening weekend for the movie this spring, so we can play compare and contrast with the book.

This year’s goal is 18 books. I had never intended to have these synch up with the calendar year, but that’s an easy way to remember the goal, I suppose. (It’s going to be grim in 2100, though.)

  1. Jan 20: World of Warcraft: The Official Cookbook
  2. Jan 23: Razor Girl
  3. Feb. 13: The Color of Magic
  4. Feb. 17: The Pirate Planet
  5. March 1: Devil in a Blue Dress
  6. March 27: The Light Fantastic
  7. May 2: World of Warcraft: Chronicle 1
  8. May 27: Norse Mythology
  9. June 29: The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump
  10. July 9: Glory Road
  11. July 21: World of Warcraft: Chronicle 2
  12. July 25: Keep Mars Weird (abandoned)
  13. Sept. 4: Treasure Island
  14. Oct. 16: The Swords of Lankhmar
  15. Oct. 30: World of Warcraft: Traveler
  16. Oct. 31: Disney Pirates: The Definitive Collector’s Anthology
  17. Nov. 6: Equal Rites
  18. Dec. 3: Minecraft: The Island
  19. Dec. 14: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
  20. Dec. 14: A Wrinkle in Time

 








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