Quel idiot!

“In terms of the detainees, we’ve had thousands of people detained. We’ve investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of — and the allegations — by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemblethat means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is. And, you know — yes, sir.” – George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States. (emphasis mine)

Reading for May, 2005

In the past month, I read:
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1995. I think Larry’s Party is an even better novel, which was the first book I read by Shields. She had a gift for cosmic comedy. In case you don’t know, she died of cancer in 2003 at the age of 68.
Thinks Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I picked this one off of the “popular library” shelf at the central library, the shelf where they have multiple copies of books which are commonly assigned to students. I see that there are some sequels.
The Old Wives Tale by Arnold Bennett, number 87 on the Modern Library list. The main characters, Constance and Sophia, are wholly dull. One thing I will say for Bennett: he doesn’t disappoint your expectations because he never raises your expectations. And with this novel, I am at the 50/100 mark on the Modern Library list.
Abandoned novels:
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize with her most recent novel. That book has a long hold queue at the library, so I picked this one up first. Full of sleepy prose, there is no real direction to the story, as far as I can tell after skimming through the second half. The story is set in a town on the edge of a glacial lake, and consequently fails to be relevant to the world of 1980, when it was written. Maybe, just maybe, there is a quirky arthouse screenplay in there, but who cares?

Read more

Vectorpark / levers

I came across the levers game at vectorpark this afternoon. There are no credits on the page, but the internet suggests that it was created by Patrick Smith, and it has been around since at least May of 2001.
Spoilers below, so go play with it for a bit before you continue reading.

Read more

Prison Tycoon a real game?

If you do a Google search for “Prison Tycoon”, this site comes up as the second link. The first link goes to a page at Amazon that suggests that Prison Tycoon is a soon-to-be-released title from ValuSoft. I don’t see any information about the forthcoming game at the ValuSoft site.
UPDATE: comments for this entry are closed. Please see Prison Tycoon sneak peak and More Prison Tycoon notes for more information about this game.

Read more

Reading for April, 2005

On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Number 55 on the Modern Library list.
Golden Fool by Robin Hobb. The second book in the Tawny Man trilogy. I was glad to have this book with me at the MySQL conference.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Current reading: The Old Wives Tale by Arnold Bennett. Number 87 on the Modern Library list. Once I’ve finished this one I’ll be at the halfway mark. Then I think I’ll take a break from the Modern Library.