“The Zombie Survival Guide” by Max Brooks.
Posted 23:13 CET Friday August 13th, 2010 (21 days ago). 120 views. No comments. Tagged with Books, Reviews.
I accidentally noticed that August 13 has been a particularly productive day for me over the years, with a new entry posted every year from 2002 to 2007. 2008 and 2009 didn’t see any activity, probably caused by my general lack of commitment to force my ramblings on a limited, but surprisingly faithful audience. Since my goal is to write at least 100 entires this year, I’ll try to reboot the an-entry-every-August-13 this year with a short book review.
I came across Max Brook’s “The Zombie Survival Guide” book while surfing reddit where I read that Bras Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment had secured the rights to another of Brooks’ books; “World War Z”. Actually, this happened all the way back in 2007, but sometimes news travels slow – at least it often takes a while before I notice things. I like Brad Pitt, at least as an actor, I have to admit that I don’t know him personally. But he is probably a likable fellow. I also enjoy zombies, but not the fast moving ones you find in Left 4 Dead, I prefer the slow ghouls you can see in movies like the excellent Shaun of the Dead*. Why? Because it’s possible to outrun, or maybe even outwalk them quit easily. The fast ones tend to kill you.
Max Brooks’ zombies are like that: Outwalkable. And when I imagined Brad Pitt in an action movie with outwalkable ghouls, I decided that I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie for once. Even though there is no actual movie being made right now, and there might very well never be, the book could to our to be entertaining. Brooks wrote “The Zombie Survival Guide” before “World War Z”, and even though the books are not directly linked with each other, the guide contains very detailed information about the zombies in “World War Z”. Because of that, I decided to read the guide first. Continue reading "“The Zombie Survival Guide” by Max Brooks." →
“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy.
Posted 16:27 CET Sunday July 25th, 2010 (40 days ago). 208 views. 3 comments. Tagged with Books, Reviews.
In addition to playing a lot of computer games*, I also read a book now and then. Recently I finished the sixth book in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. Despite it only being a mere 400 pages, I used at least half a year to get through it. Sometimes, I’m just a very slow reader. I’m wondering how long the last book in the series will be on my night stand; it weights in at almost 850 pages. By the way, if you like Stephen King or just fantasy fiction in general, then the books about The Dark Tower are certainly something you should read.
After I finished “Song of Susannah”, I moved from fictions to facts for a while. Diversity is good for you. I read through the second edition of “Effective Java” and right now I’m half way through “The Pragmatic Programmer”, a book that should be mandatory reading for everyone involved in software development. The Pragmatic Programmer was written 10 years ago, but most of what the book covers still apply today.
To spice things up a little, Hallvard recommended that I read “The Road”. You’ve probably heard of or even seen the big screen adaption featuring Viggo Mortensen. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where we follow two unnamed characters, the Man and the Boy. An unexplained catastrophe has destroyed civilization and killed off almost all life on Earth. The days are gray as the sky is covered with ashes while the nights are pitch black. The two move south on The Road, with a vague hope of finding warmth and other people. Continue reading "“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy." →
Review: District 9.
Posted 18:59 CET Tuesday September 22nd, 2009 (346 days ago). 357 views. 4 comments. Tagged with Movies, Reviews.
It’s been a while since I last posted a review. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I haven’t seen a single movie or read any books, it’s just that I’ve not written any reviews. These days I’m reading the fifth book in Stephen King’s epic The Dark Tower series. Great stuff.
But something even better than reading a Stephen King book is to watch Neill Blomkamp’s movie District 9. I’m pretty sure this is the best movie I’ve seen so far this year, and I won’t be surprised if no one will make a better before the year ends. Unless that movie 9 or maybe even Up can match it, that is. They’re very different movies, though.
Anyway, let’s get back to District 9. It all started with a short movie called “Alive in Joburg”, directed by South Africans Blomkamp and his friend Sharlto Copley. Because of Alive in Joburg, together with other work by Blomkamp, he was offered to work with the movie adaption of the Halo video game together with Peter Jackson. Unfortunately, the Halo movie was put on hold because of lack of funding. But this got Jackson and Blomkamp talking about other projects and result of that discussion is District 9. Here’s Alive in Joburg from YouTube: Continue reading "Review: District 9." →
Asus Eee PC 1000HE.
Posted 21:33 CET Monday May 11th, 2009 (1 year, 115 days ago). 381 views. No comments. Tagged with Hardware, Reviews, Technology.
For a while now I’ve been rambling on about netbooks and on Saturday I finally received my Asus Eee PC 1000HE, meaning that I’ll shut up about the netbook thing soon. But I thought I’d share my initial impressions of the computer first.
The 1000HE is a 10″ netbook with the latest Intel Atom N280 processor, 1GB (can be replaced with 2GB if necessary) of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and all the other bells and whistles you’d expect from a computer these days.
The netbook comes with Windows XP Home Edition installed and that works well. The N280 isn’t a power horse, though, and it will start to struggle a little when you open Flash-intensive sites, like online newspapers tend to be. I didn’t test video, but some reviews I’ve read say that most video formats should work OK, except for 1080p HD video where it’s likely that you will experience some frame dropping. Continue reading "Asus Eee PC 1000HE." →
Review: Spore.
Posted 22:02 CET Tuesday September 16th, 2008 (1 year, 352 days ago). 234 views. 2 comments. Tagged with Computer Games, Reviews.
Few games have seen more hype than Spore this year. It’s designed by Will Wright, the brain behind titles like SimCity and The Sims. I played the first The Sims game for a while when it was released, and I’ve spent hours and hours as a virtual mayor in different SimCity games. I never really got the hang of it, and most games ended in a devastating earthquake unleashed by your truly. Still it was great fun.
A few days before Spore was released, Wright gave an interview where he said that he was afraid all the hype was bad for the game because people’s expectations would be too high. He might have been right, but with the previous hugely successful titles, it’s no wonder his releases are anticipated.
Spore tries to be a lot of things at the same time. Wright had originally wanted to call the game SimEverything, but changed it because he wanted to release something without “Sim” in the title for once. The main theme of the game is evolution, and I find it strange that it’s not being sold with a warning sticker in some parts of the U.S. since the theory of Evolution is just the ramblings of a mad man and all that. Continue reading "Review: Spore." →
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