More Stuff I Like

I've been tearing through the leisurely pursuits lately. As soon as I finished Solomon Kane I started American Shaolin. I haven't polished books off like this since I got into a British crime noir kick a few years ago. American Shaolin is a page turner. It's like Matthew Polly went inside my head and took my dream. He took a year off from Princeton to go to China and learn kung fu from the legendary Shaolin monks. It sounds just like what my mind's eye envisioned it as. So far it's one of the best fish-out-of-water books I've read, funny and incisive. If I have one problem with it, it's that it's almost too perfect. I can't believe life could be that fun and I wonder if there's not a little creative license. In the end it doesn't matter though, it's still entertaining.

I also watched The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters the other night. Chances are you haven't heard of it but you should see it if you get the chance. It's a documentary about Billy Mitchell, the holder of the world record score in Donkey Kong and the contender for the crown, Steve Weibe. It's incredible and there were actual moments when my pulse raced. Like American Shaolin seems to good to be true, I wonder how much creative license (and creative editing) went in to making Billy Mitchell look like a giant tool.

Some Things I've Been Enjoying Lately

I've just had a two week "vacation" loosely speaking. Lisa had to have knee surgery so I took time off to help. I caught a bad case of the flu and turns out about all I helped her with was keeping her company in misery. We both laid around in pain the first week, although we were able to make it to a movie. We saw Fool's Gold. It was a cute, funny movie. The following week picked up some, saw a few more movies and watched a lot of videos.

My hit list right now consists of 3:10 to Yuma. A trend I'm glad to see coming back is the western. Lisa and I loved The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford from earlier this year. 3:10 is just a good old solid western, nothing fancy but pretty suspenseful. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are awesome. The supporting actors are wonderfully colorful, especially Ben Foster and Peter Fonda. The end was a little far fetched but didn't ruin anything.

I also got to watch Mad Max again. I used to watch this movie once a week on the old VHS copy. It's even better with Mel Gibson's Australian accent. It was originally dubbed for the US. This is the GREATEST MOVIE from Australia EVER! Perhaps the greatest movie period!

I'm also reading The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane by Robert E. Howard. Man they don't write action adventure like this anymore, partly due to the insane racism. If you over-look that though it's just a good time. Pirates, hidden cities in Africa, an honest to God ju ju witch doctor and a musket packing Puritan with a bowl haircut, what the hell more can you ask?

Finally, I've got Train Kept A Rollin' by the Yardbirds and Joe Satriani, Rooster by Alice In Chains, Melissa from the Allman Brothers and Like a Stone by Audioslave in the heavy rotation category on the iPod. And how's this for eclectic tastes, Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfeild and Mother by Danzig? I love my iPod, especially the shuffle feature.