LiquidBen News

In 2008, I re-discovered something wonderful: the library. My reading had fallen off due to the lack of free funds and the difficulty with finding things to read. Every time I bought a disappointing book, it made me less likely to buy another. With the library, I can grab whatever I want and feel no obligation to finish. Oddly enough, the result is that I derive more satisfaction from reading now. With interlibrary loan, it's almost as easy as Netflix to order books online, except that you have to pick them up and drop them off yourself. The downtown library is a short walk over my lunch break, and therefore an incredible convenience. I highly recommend you take advantage of the system and consider donating to fund the service.

2009 has been the first full year of my renewed reading efforts, so I thought I would attempt to compile a list of the books that I have read this year. The list is comprised mainly from my 'rental' history from the library, a function that is disabled by default. Unfortunately I was unaware of this privacy protection until March, so the months before that are composed from guesswork and email history. I also read a few books that didn't come from the library, which meant that they generally weren't written down anywhere, so I have only my own faulty memory to rely on.

Preamble over, here's the list:

Almost every book in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

This first entry in the list is a bit of a cheat, as it really consists of at least 28 different books, if not more. I'm not sure of exactly when I started reading the Discworld books, so I don't know for certain which books were read during this year. Of the 38 novels, I skipped the 5 young adult novels, the graphic novel and Mort as I'd read it several times already. I'm still reading the last book, and the remaining few may have been read last year. Accounting issues aside, I highly recommend the series. Pratchett does for fantasy what Douglas Adams did for science fiction, but with 10 times the output and therefore 10 times the refinement. This is not a snub about Mr. Adams by any means, but high praise for his potential.

The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood, Margaret

This was a good read. It's unfortunate that some readers react negatively to the novel, but it's not really something you can debate about. Those who disapprove are either incapable of reading thoroughly and/or disinclined to debate dispassionately.

Jennifer Government : a novel by Barry, Max

Jennifer Government opens a bit rough, and quite frankly, its first impression is that of a second-rate William Gibson knockoff, but stick with it, because it gets better. Where Gibson writes a serious sci-fi rollercoaster ride, Barry's novel relies on a semi-satirical story featuring an intricate interplay of characters.

A Clockwork Orange by Burgess, Anthony

A classic, and quite readable.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Clarke, Susanna

I enjoyed this book, but I have mixed feelings. The world Clarke constructed is deep and interesting. Too bad the characters feel a bit flat. I'm left wondering whether this is an intentional nod to the Victorian era and its writing, or authorial shortcoming.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Dick, Philip K.

Well, thus ends my belief that I can pick up any Philip K. Dick book and automatically enjoy it. This one felt to be highly influenced by recreational drugs, due to unreliable reality of the novel.

The Black Dahlia by Ellroy, James

This was an alright read, but it felt like a bit of a beach novel.

Magician, Apprentice by Feist, Raymond E.

Good solid fantasy fiction. Not incredible, but his willingness to kill characters was something of which to be proud.

Magician, Master by Feist, Raymond E.

Another good novel. Characters again go through a lot of growth. They're not paper-thin, but they feel a bit like they're... cardboard? Sorry Mr. Feist, I can't offer quality criticism on this.

A Feast for Crows by Martin, George R. R.

I enjoyed it and have nothing to add to what has already been said about this book.

Little Nemo in Slumberland by McCay, Winsor

Fantastic surreal visions by a turn of the century author. Unfortunately plot progression is non-existent. Characters repeat themselves and the type is uncomfortably small. Worth reviewing for the visuals alone. It's amazing to see what turn of the century comic strips were like, back when syndicates weren't aiming for the safe middle-of-the-road options. WARNING: This also contains turn-of-the-century racial insensitivity.

Persepolis & Persepolis 2 by Satrapi, Marjane

Beautiful incredible graphic novel that I recommend to anyone. It's heartfelt and highly interesting to almost anyone.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Thompson, Hunter S.

Great book, very depraved, great book. (Fun movie too)

The Great Los Angeles Swindle: Oil, Stocks, and Scandal During the Roaring Twenties by Tygiel, Jules

Picked this up on the advice of Bill Harris at Dubious Quality. This non-fiction record of the boom times in LA was interesting, but a bit ponderous of a read. That said, I really enjoyed reading about C.C. Julian and the goings-on of his era.

Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut, Kurt

Vonnegut is great, but this book is a downer. The concepts of Bokononism, like granfalloons, appealed to me. The narrator and narrative were not so intriguing. Vonnegut is a hella writer, though.

The Gone-Away World by Harkaway, Nick

This was a fun romp with clever twists. I'm disappointed that Mr. Harkaway hasn't produced anything else yet.

Well, I haven't much time left before I need to get rolling, so I'll wrap this up quickly by saying that the books I didn't finish this year were Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. The first two are critically acclaimed, but tough reads. I actually rather enjoyed Invisible Man, but it's a tough read and on top of that it's depressing. I think I quit that more out of the emotional difficulty. Pynchon on the other hand is up his own ass and impossible to appreciate without a stack of Cliff's Notes. Bite me, Pynchon. As for American Psycho... well, I liked the movie, which carefully cut away from the violence and gore. The book instead offers meticulous detail of each and every act of violence. I quit right at the point where he was describing a corpse that had been abused with a car battery. Disgusting.

And on that note, have a happy new year!

I just noticed that I haven't updated the frontpage in over a year now. How embarrassing! This isn't a bad thing though, I simply have had a year busy with things that didn't involve generating site content. I got married, moved into a new apartment, got a new job, bought a house, and had a lot of fun too.

I have also been busy coding too. I've taught myself C# and XNA (not to say that I'm not still learning) and I've been trying to bring a project to fruition. It's gone through several stops and starts, but I'm really looking forward to how it turns out. It's entered a really promising phase lately, as I finally grasped some significant points of object-oriented entity management. I won't bore you with details, but hopefully I'll have something respectable enough to post up as an alpha soon. (If I don't play too much GTA)

Thanks for visiting!

If you check out my Firefox page in my portfolio, you'll see some cool new stuff is here. Not only has iCloak has been completely revamped into a much more robust script, but I've also introduced SurfBlinders - a more intelligent way to deal with useful, but distracting websites.

I'll confess: I'm easily distracted by Wikipedia. It's so easy to wind up many pages away from your original interest, and sooooo many minutes lost later. I've been using development versions of Surfblinders for a while now, helping me concentrate to get the necessary work done. It's an extremely useful tool, and I'm glad that I can share it.

-- Ben

Hey there again,

I've posted up a long and in-depth article I've written about how to set up a private MediaWiki installation with the ability to publish articles publicly via the usage of a custom namespace. In plain English, you can get all of the ease of editing that you're accustomed to from Wikipedia with the comfort of knowing that your articles will be completely private until you explicitly publish them.

Curious? Then read it here! Any questions?

-- Ben

Yup, I'm totally guilty of producing the following (with assistance from David Fincher and Tiny Tim)

Hey folks!

Good news, namespace security is now working for LiquidWiki. I've started by moving two articles into the public section: my MediaWiki CSS reference and my Blogger template tag reference.

If you're technically minded, please read and enjoy!

- Ben

I've posted up my iCloak script for the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox.