conquering the world one oxymoron at a time
Archive for hobbies
June 4, 2007 at 11:12 am · Filed under hobbies
I always knew the Harry Potter books were getting longer and longer with each one that she writes, but it never sunk in as much as when I saw this picture of the boxset while browsing through Amazon:
For serious, check out the difference in thickness between the first book (reasonable) and the 4th, 5th, 6th, and now 7th (ridiculous). Maybe she figures that the 10-year-olds who first started reading the first book in 1999 were 14/15 by the time the 4th book came out, and are now 18, and so would have no problem handling 500-page books. My question is just how necessary was it to have a 500-page book?
Her first book wasn’t 500 pages, no doubt, because her publisher/editor/common sense told her that she can’t sell a book 500 pages long for 10-year-olds. So edit she did, but somehow as the books got more popular, the editing became superfluous because she knew the books would fly off the bookstore shelves no matter what. Granted, the last one (Half-blooded Prince) was quite good and moved along at a good pace, so I didn’t so mind the length. But I remember reading the 4th one (Goblet of Fire) and getting so frustrated with page after page of descriptions of the Gryffindor common room. Was that really necessary? Just get on with the story!
So I’m curious as to just how successful she will be in “getting on with the story” in this 7th, and last installment (Deathly Hollows). I’m sure I’ll feel differently when I get to the last page and realize that I really do want to know more, but for now, I’m glad that this whole Harry Potter thing will soon be over.
May 1, 2007 at 2:09 am · Filed under hobbies
The local burrito shop puts their burritos in these brown paper bags for take-out. Recently, the bags started touting an advertisement for Tri State Trek, a 270-mile bike ride from Boston to New York (through three states). When I saw this for the first time earlier today, I thought “wow, cool. I’m looking for something to train for this summer, why not a bike ride?”
So I went to the website and checked it out. That’s when I found out that it’s a fundraising event, which then immediately turned me off to the race. Registration for this event is $135, and each rider must raise a minimum of $1650. The cause is a good one, Lou Gehrig’s Disease … but I just don’t do well with fundraisers.
This makes me think about recent solicitations I have gotten from friends in the past doing raises for a cause, asking for donations. If I remember (and I try to remember), I do almost always go and contribute some small amount. So why am I so skittish about doing one of these things myself? I’m not sure. I guess I’m afraid of bugging people; I don’t want to make people feel obligated.
So I think, did I feel obligated to give to my friends in the past? To be fair, I think I did feel a certain level of obligation; I probably wouldn’t have ever contributed to these charities otherwise. This latter point is probably why these races happen: the charities really can raise money from it, and from people who otherwise wouldn’t have given anything but do because their friends and family are bugging them.
I don’t know … maybe one of these days, I’ll get over whatever complex I have against these things. In the meantime, I’ll just continue my small donations to friends undertaking ginormous tasks of raising money for charity through completion of feats of endurance and strength.
March 30, 2007 at 3:52 pm · Filed under hobbies
Last weekend, I met up with Liang for some midday bloody marys, with brunch on the side. He must have been drunk because he let me test ride his sweet sweet fixie afterwards, and I kinda got hooked. So I think I’m in the market now for a fixie. If/when I get one, I will have 4 bikes (#1, #2, #3), but I’m trying to sell #1. Maybe I’ll have better luck than the first time around. So if anyone’s in the market for a 2002 Gary Fisher Wahoo, let me know :)
I began my search for a fixie today on Craigslist. There really aren’t so many options, or maybe I just don’t know how to look. Additionally, I got really upset seeing Walmart bikes being sold for $150 with the caption “full suspension! Only $150!” Yeah right; the bike is maybe worth ~$80 completely new from Walmart. Why are people so dis-integritous? On craigslist no less! Isn’t craigslist supposed to be some kind of honor system cult?
Yes, I know dis-integritous is not a word.
Additional note: I just read this craigslist ad. WTF?? Kmart doesn’t even sell $300 bikes new. Is this person out of his mind???
January 14, 2007 at 1:16 am · Filed under grad life/MIT, hobbies
As luck would have it, the winter I decide to get a season pass is the winter that New England gets no snow. It’s the middle of January, and Killington reported lows in the upper-20s today. The summit was toasty and balmy, and my helmet made me roast, but the important thing is that I wore a helmet. I didn’t wear a helmet last weekend, and I hit my head twice. You would think that me of all people would know the importance of wearing a helmet… But then again, you would think I’d never go near a slope again, but there I was.
This weekend, I wore my helmet, and I didn’t hit my head once. Such is Murphy’s Law. I did drop my helmet in the parking lot before we ever took off in the car, resulting in some fresh scratches on the top. Speaking of the car, I drove the whole way to and from Killington, and the drive reminded me of how much I actually love to drive. The serenity of the roads, the smoothness of the banked turns on the highways, the shifting left and then right, the finding of kindred spirits who join in the rhythm with you … such are the joys of highway driving.
July 24, 2006 at 12:38 am · Filed under hobbies
I’ve been away this weekend. Even in the rain with overcast skies, Acadia was breathtaking. Will write more later.
January 6, 2006 at 8:21 pm · Filed under hobbies
What I read over Christmas break (in chronological order):
1. Freakonomics
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
3. Angels and Demons
4. The Broker
5. Me Talk Pretty One Day
6. The Tipping Point
7. The Five People You Meet in Heaven
These, along with the hours I spent reading book-jackets in Barnes and Noble, have led me to the following conclusions:
- I really don’t care for Dan Brown. DaVinci Code was, eh, okay. Deception Point … not too great, but entertaining enough for the train ride from Berlin to Munich. Angels and Demons, not so much. So no more Dan Brown.
- John Grisham sold out to the bestseller list. The Broker was 419 pages of bland non-substance. I will give up my whole closet (shoes and all) if the John Grisham of A Time to Kill and The Pelican Brief lore would only return.
- I am rather sick of fiction. I think this stems from my current thoughts on life: a big pot of nothin’. Maybe it would be more satisfying to embark on journeys in search of fake treasures in fake places with fake people if I even had a flicker of an idea about what is up with my real life.
- Maybe I’m only sick of bland bestseller fiction, the ones whose back covers are decorated with “Thoroughly thrilling! A joy-ride!”, but end up being empty sell-outs with plots that appeal to housewives with too much time on their hands (not that there is anything wrong with being a housewife).
- Barnes and Noble and airport newstands are huge ripoffs. Buy your books on Amazon; everything I’ve searched for so far has had discounts of 20-25%.
And the obsession continues …
–My current read: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.
–On the deck: When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night. (The second one is bestseller fiction, but there was a semblance of nerdy-cool to the title that drew me in).
–In transit, from Amazon.com: Bringing Down the House (I’ve never read it), He’s Just Not That Into You (because I need some self-help, and this book was so raved about), and What Should I Do With My Life? (by Po Bronson, recommended by a friend who is ditching science for teaching, and maybe, just maybe, this book will help me to learn to enjoy fiction again).
August 18, 2004 at 12:13 pm · Filed under life thoughts, hobbies
Perhaps it’s fate that the Ender/Ender related books were brought to my attention by a friend this summer, and no other summer, or any other time at all. It fits that I’m reading these now, thinking about the future of my own world, but perhaps more so, the future of me and those immediately around me.
And of course, leave it up to me to realize only that somehow these books are important to my life at this point, but be so bogged down by the junk running through my mind that I can’t sort out any coherent thoughts as to why. If nothing else I suppose, Shadow of the Hegemon made me think of my own ambitions, their worth, their likelihoods, and their motivators. And of course the ultimate questions surrounding love, the perfect love, the motherly (fatherly) love, the companion love, the love love, and ultimately I suppose, hope.
Reading these books makes me almost proud that we still have living among us people like Orson Scott Card. It makes me want to meet him, talk to him over dinner, pick his mind. But for what purpose? Only to stupidly say “gosh, love the ideas you got across in those books”? I would have nothing of value to contribute to him, nothing to throw across his path that will stop to make him think. All I can offer him is the undying respect and awe that no doubt countless other mindless readers, overwhelmed by the feelings conjured by his words, have already offered.
I’ve never read the forewords, afterwords, prefaces of any book as carefully, if at all, as I’ve read the ones accompanied by Card’s works. Likewise, I’ve never been motivated to read any, let alone several, non-fiction works until now. Perhaps I’m jumping on to the elusive bandwagon that I’m constantly trying to avoid, jumping on to fit in, to declare that yes! I’m a true Orson Scott Card fan! But I can only hope that I know myself well enough to truly believe that I’m doing it to edify, and to achieve some of my own ambitions for the right reasons.
July 28, 2004 at 2:23 pm · Filed under hobbies
There was a time when the words “summer readings” came with much dread, a time years ago of required readings, and reading responses, and various preparation for the next level of English class. Now, while I should be somehow prepping for school (well, tell me how?), I’m spending my time reading fiction. Even while in Europe, riding on the train, in a particularly mellow mood, I would say to Ryan … “I just can’t wait to go home and have nothing else to do except go to the library and get books to read.” Ryan prefers nonfiction to fiction, so he could only share in my joy of having nothing to do but read, but not necessarily share in my choices of books … but that’s topic for another day.
So I’ve decided finally to tackle the Harry Potter books. It’s sufficiently out of the media enough now (the first book at least) that I don’t feel like I’m jumping onto some pop culture bandwagon, well at least I find some solace in knowing that I’m 4 years late in joining the parade. Haven’t started the Sorcerer’s Stone yet, because I spent all of yesterday reading Ender’s Game, another book that I’ve been meaning to read for years now.
Ender’s Game is one of those books that had I not known teachers/professors assigned it for class, I would have just read it, declared it a good book, and moved on to Harry Potter. But knowing that so many engineers speak so highly of it, I had to start thinking about what the heck those people found so capturing with this book. One of the first reasons engineering schools make their students read fiction (or anything other than a textbook) is in order to discuss engineering ethics. So without fail, I thought first of how engineering ethics could be debated with Ender’s Game.
It’s undoubtedly an excellent book. So how about a government that breeds children for their own military purposes to discover a commander worthy of leading a war 70 light years away? And what of a government that fights a war, leads an initiative without truly knowing the enemy’s intentions, assuming that they are for the evil? Sounds gloomily familiar to a war closer to home, a war that countless non-fiction books have already been written about, and countless more doubtless to come, a war that we’re just now finding out may just have been for the wrong reasons, no thanks to a certain junior in the White House.
I guess what bothers me about the book has nothing to do with the themes and plots of the book at all. It bothers me that I never would have even stopped to think about this book and its many implications had I not known that there exists debatable themes within its covers. Too often, I read just to read. I read for the story. I don’t stop often enough and think about just what am I reading, what does it really mean? Maybe that’s why Ryan likes non-fiction more. He’s more likely to be provoked into thought by those topics than seemingly meaningless ones in fiction.
I hope I don’t over analyze Harry Potter.
