Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Tell All by Chck Palahnuik

I recently read Tell All by Chck Palahnuik. It was pretty good. A compelling read, it was a book where you always want to find out what's next.

The book is the story of the aging movie star Katherine Kenton. Kenton is from the old Grace Kelly/Joan Crawford Hollywood era. It's told from the perspective of her long time live-in companion Hazie Coogan. Hazie has made it her life's work to guide Katherine to success and avoid career, financial and relationship disasters along the way for Katherine as best she can.

Per the title, it's a book about "tell all" books. Using Crawford and Mommie Dearest as the posthumous pitfall that Hazie is trying to avoid. The catch about these tell all revelation books is that the subject must be dead for the tell all to be published. That creates some pressure on Katherine as she meets a charming young gold digger named Webster Carlton Westward III. The book itself is laid out as a kind of screenplay/script with chapter titles like "ACT I, SCENE EIGHT"

Typical of Palahnuik there are crazy twists. Also as in Survivor, the author explores celebrity and some of the manufactured steps taken to maintain a certain public look and image. There's the same kind of cynicism in parts of the arbitrariness and managed element of fame.

It's a good book. A fast read. I still have a few Palahniuk to read and I will continue reading them.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Plague of the Undead by Joe McKinney

I finished another zombie book. It was Plague of the Undead by Joe McKinney.

In this book McKinney takes a different line about the origin of the zombie apocalypse. It's no longer Houston in the aftermath of a slew of hurricanes. This time it's a chemical food additive CDHL. It was realized too late that massive CDHL exposure causes the zombie state, and that everyone reanimates after they die.

The book is set in a town on the Mississippi river called Arbella. It's set 30 years into the ruined future. The residents of Arbella have survived and set up an agrarian pre-industrial society. The community has done well. The population has increased to 10,000 and is looking to expand beyond its walls.

An expedition team is assembled to venture out, see what's out there, and determine potential sites to expand Arbella. The book is about the expedition team and their encounters out in the wilds.

It was a good book. It felt a bit derivative of the later Walking Dead in that the zombie problem is largely under control, and a lot of the dangers are in the people they meet along the way. It's not McKinney's best zombie work. The Houston series is better, especially Apocalypse of the Dead. The book isn't really long and he ends it with a collection of zombie apocalypse short stories tacked on at the end. Some of those stories are strange, world war Z style, but a good read.

Maybe the zombie thing has run its course and I'm ready to move on. Still this was a good book. If I happen to see any more McKinney at the library I would grab it.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

+1 for the Halifax Gecko Bus

I'll use this space to put in a good word for the Gecko Bus. I've gone there a couple of times now. The food is tasty. The people are friendly it has a nice vibe there. Prices are good. They seem to be doing well there's always others coming or going when I've been in there.

I've had tacos and a burrito bowl when I've been there. They are usually up by the Kent in Bayers Lake. They have an app, and their website it's good to check. Once we just went up and they were somewhere else that day.

I'd been meaning to go for a while and now I'm glad that I've gone. I will plan to go back.

Tuesday, July 07, 2015

ATV 6 o clock news sucks

I frequently have the occasion to watch the ATV 6 o clock news aka CTV News at Six. That program is painful to watch. It's so boring. I don't control the controller so I'm stuck with it which sucks.

The basic problem is that it's too long and they struggle to come up with an hour of content. I don't even watch live at 5, and the 6 o clock is mind numbing. How can people sit through 2 hours of that every day?

The ATV 6 o clock news is filled with junk and filler. It would be so much better if they just deleted so much of the crud

  • lifeline (please end this terrible segment)
  • webpoll (put this out of its misery)
  • second weather forecast
  • just for last
  • weather could easily be made shorter and more to the point. grandma says has run its course
  • interview segment could be made shorter easily with no loss in value
  • financial markets
  • filler fluff pieces
It would be so much better if the 6 o clock cut out the junk. If that makes it a 30, 40 or 45 minute show then great. Live at 5 could be left pretty much as is and just go with a 90 minute segment with far more value to the audience for time spent and a much more useful and entertaining news product.

Monday, July 06, 2015

my will be done

I have now done the long neglected task of getting a will done. I used the employee assistance from work to recommend a lawyer. They referred me to Teryl Scott. The law office was nice. The lawyer Shawn Scott and the paralegal were easy to work with. It all got done start to finish in one day.

There was no special reason to get it done. As far as I know at the time of this writing the end isn't near and there is nothing unusual or different. It's just something that should be done by my age and in general you just don't know when your last day is.

Since it was from eap referral there was a discount so that was good. Well I'm glad to have this done now. It's an important step along the way. There are still let's say some other matters to sort out. This gives me some momentum and I plan to continue to get these affairs in order.