Plenty of Fish in the Sea...

I'm sure that seemed like a good idea way down at the bottom of the lift... can't tell if he has a parachute on his back or not. Crazy. I've felt like that before, in a sense... 20+ years into my marriage... "OK, I got this, no problem... one foot in front of the other... don't look down... I got this..."

Summer has officially begun. Yay! I guess. Wifey + kids all get to enjoy a couple months off. Hey, let them have fun, I say. Enjoy life, I say. Make some good memories, I say. Don't mind me, I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other... don't look down, Davey boy...

So, here are some things I'm looking forward to, in no particular order: Torchlight 2, Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit, and Dark Country by Joe Abercrombie. A game, two movies and a book. Story of my life.

Currently, I have 54 book samples on my Kindle App, waiting for me. That's why my "Books I've Read" list for 2012 is rather short (considering the year is half over)... I'm reading too many samples! I don't put those on any list -- well, any list that you see, anyway. I do have a list of 28 "Books To Buy", assembled from samples that I enjoyed enough to want the full version of, but not at the current price... the ones I read and don't enjoy, I just delete and forget.  So I'm not a slow reader, and I haven't lost the love! I still read every day.

I also have 18 full books waiting for me to read as well, including such titles as:

• The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi
• The Winds of Khalakovo by Bradley Beaulieu
• Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
• The Ten Thousand, by Paul Kearney
• Inside Straight, by GRRM
• I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
• As well as many other small-time and established authors.

So my plate is full! My Kindle runneth over!

The latest book I finished was Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick. I'd write a review of it, but I'm feeling lazy. I'll usually write a review if I'm impressed enough... in this case, I don't know... it had good elements, but it kind of left me underwhelmed. I know from the author's afterword that the book was a decade in the writing - I know how that is! Sheesh! So I don't want to be too hard on the guy... and really, other than a really lame story aspect where the main character makes a nonsensical Oath to his best friend for ridiculous reasons, there wasn't much about the story or the writing that bothered me. It was a good tale.. But honestly, I really didn't care about the story, or the criminal underworld, or the Kin War or any of the repercussions of the struggle between the various baddies (including the main character).

There were some interesting magical elements, and the action was good enough -- though I've found that trying to describe a sword fight is a futile proposition... the more you try to describe every slash and jab, the slower the pace, and the more confusing it gets. Oh, the ending was a bit of an eye-roller as well, but I certainly won't spoil it.

This is by no means a review - if you'd like to get a good idea of the book, here is a link to the review over at the Speculative Scotsman. He pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter.

Who's lonely? Not me! Why, I'm not lonely or anything! Nope!

So I've been reading books to my 6 year old daughter every night before she goes to bed. It's actually a lot of fun, and she loves loves loves it. It makes me feel guilty, of course, since I didn't do it with my other daughters when they were little. I just didn't realize what it would have meant to them. Gads, I knew so little about parenting when my Eldest and Middle were younger. I'm having so much fun with my Youngest. I wish I could take what I know now and go back and take a mulligan.

Anyway, so I'm reading books to my Youngest every night, and we have a system. Sunday and Monday are both "One Day"... meaning, we read one book on those nights. Tuesday is "Two's Day" so we read two. Wednesday is Mystery Night, so she rolls a die to see how many books we read. Thursday is "Three's Day", Friday is "Five Day" and Saturday is "Sa-Two-Day", so we read two. It's a lot of fun. The books are short. Some are about animals. We read Dr. Seuss's ABC book just about every night. Some are traditional kids' books. I do different voices, add lines, purposely mispronounce words, sing some of the lines, or hold the book upside-down and read it normal... in fact, she's taken to trying to read books upside-down as well, which is fun, since she's surprisingly good at it.

It makes me want to create a kids book just for us to read... yeah, another project I'll never finish. Great.

How cool is that? A rug design that looks like descending stairs. My sister will get a kick out of that pic...

Random Observations That No One Else Will Find Interesting: I like Battlefield 2 better than Battlefield 3. Punkbuster (an anti-cheating piece of software for online gaming) causes more problems than it solves. Cheese popcorn (from the Doc Popcorn stand at the mall) is my newest addiction. Batman Begins is a better movie than Dark Knight. Going to bed before midnight is impossible. Diablo 3 is a bit over-rated. The new album by Linkin Park is really weak. I've decided to be a political pollyanna, and just hope that the economy and the political nonsense in DC will simply work itself out for the best.

And that, my friends, is that. If I think of anything else to say, I'll either edit it in here, or save it for the next meandering post.

Have a good weekend!

Dave the Aging