BotD.2 "The Stand"

Book of the Day:

The Stand

by Stephen King

Another post-apocalyptic book.  Sorry guys, but its also pretty good, give it a chance.

First of all, if you have any inhibitions about reading Stephen King, lose them.  Some people can't stand his books, although when I ask why, they always reply "he is just so twisted."  Why is that a reason not to read his work?  If you don't like horror novels, fine.  However, when you read some "teen fiction" crud and come running to me saying "Omg it was so freaky I was up all night reading and then I couldn't sleep.  Jacob is sooooo dreamy!!!" I really want to smack you.  Read some actual literature.  Stuff with meaning, stuff without vampires.  PLEASE.

My rant aside, "The Stand" is currently my favorite Stephen King novel. There are just so dang many that I can't say its the best (and I haven't read them all).  So "my current favorite" will have to do.

Anyways, it starts with some sort of modified super-flu escaping from a secret army base.  The disease is referred to in the book as "Captain Trips" which I think is a pretty awesome name for a disease.  Anyways, the disease spreads across the US, and one assumes through the rest of the world.  It kills off something like 99.6% of everyone.  I don't want to give much more away, lets just say it ends up with a pretty sick showdown between good and evil.  Although the beginning is a little bit dry, stick with it, you won't be disappointed.  If you don't have the patience for that kind of thing, I suggest you go back to "teen fiction", some author out there will pander to your tastes.

Best part of the novel?  Well for me that would be when the Trashcan Man walks through an empty city.  He is a schizophrenic pyromaniac.  And he finds some huge propane storage pressure vessels.  And they are full.  :D  Later he comes across some of those massive round oil and gas storage tanks.  Setting some timed fuses on them, he walks out of the city as they explode, pretty much covering everything with fire. Lotsa fire.  King's description of his madness puts you right into his head, and thats pretty exciting.  For me at least.

Further Reading:

"The Tommyknockers" (also by King) is another good one.  Just FYI, don't watch the movie of the TV miniseries for "The Stand", its not worth it at all.  Bleh.  I think that is the last post-apocalyptic book I have to recommend, so I'm sure a few of you will be a little relieved.  Then again, if you have a good one, feel free to recommend it.  I'll probably end up reading it (unless it has vampires).

-Torwch

BotD.1 "Dies the Fire"

Book of the Day:

Dies the Fire

by S. M. Stirling

Ah, post-apocalyptic books.  There is nothing better.

And this is one of the best.  Like most p-a books, it is set in the modern day.  However, as pretty much all modern devices stop working, the stuff that happens starts to turn downright medieval.  The premise is that everything electronic or high energy chemicals (like gasoline or gunpowder) become useless.  Everywhere around the world, planes fall from the sky and cities go black.

It has heroes, machete wielding cannibals, and horseback archers.  Fiefdoms ruled by ruthless "kings", a constant fear of starvation, and like better post-apocalyptic books: no clear picture of what happened to cause all this.

Review:

What I enjoyed the most about the book was how much it made you put yourself into the story.  I was always questioning "What would I have done there?" or "Would I have been able to survive that?"  If anything is going to make you take up bow-making and fencing, this would be it.  Besides the well detailed  fights and conflicts, Stirling wrote quite a bit about how the non-combatants manage to survive.  Defense against the threat of pillaging "bicycle gangs" is key.

The medieval-esque "tech" is described well and is very believable.  As one would expect, archery and equestrianism (riding horses) are what really makes the difference between living and becoming some crazy guy's dinner.  It has a nice message of "lazy people will pay" although looking back that probably includes me.

A bit of warning, if you are kinda paranoid, reading this book could cause you to keep a backpack of food by your bedside at all times now.  Oh, and there is a bit of gore.

Further Reading:

Luckily there several sequels, all following the same groups of survivers.  I believe the next one is called The Protector's War.  Some other good post-apocalyptic books include Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, or The Mortal Engines series by Philip Reeve.

There are plenty of post-apocalyptic video games and movies, so I'm sure most of you know a few good ones.

Feel free to comment with some other favorites of yours sorta follow the same there or a book you are DYING to get people to read.

And more Books of the Day will be coming.  Look out.

Cheers.

Je le veux.

No adoo, not even going there.  Just watch.



918 Spyder?   Niiiiiiiice.
This is why we all want to be rich.
-Torwch

An Old-Fashioned Post

Oh the times, they are a changin'. I thought I'd never see the day where I could irritate people in Europe without a plane ticket and a holiday weekend, but just look. We are a civilization built on progress and innovation. But sometimes, innovation is not really so. If someone invented a toaster that also has mp-3 capabilities, would it really be all that great? Probably not, eh?

So, with this being said and acknowledged, could you apply this to the real world? The changes we make to our system may be fixing what ain't broke. Use whatever examples you want, (I'm not getting called homophobic/racist/sexist/dead right for the sake of a blog post.) and I'll use mine. The Scythian people of Ukraine developed a nomadic society built on horse archery and conquest that started in the 5th century BC and lasted until the late 1400's AD. Did they ever change what they did because it was unfair to the conquered people? Heck no! They dd what they did because it worked, and made everyone pretty well better than they started.

As a modern society, we love ourselves for righting the wrongs of our "primitive" forfathers. We love how we can make everything right by adapting to the wills of any group who has been wronged in the past. But take heed. What you seek to destroy may be there for a reason.

But, at the same time, you must be aware of the consequences of ignoring practices that should be removed. Im the American South (not to be confused with South America), African peoples were kept as slaves to sustain a feudal society. Besides the fact that owning and abusing human beings in the way that they did was appalling, this sort of agrarian culture was ill-equipped economically speaking for the coming industrialization. So removing this practice was not only beneficial in the sense that people were being freed from tyranny and abuse, it also helped the South advance into a position of wealth and comparative prosperity. People at the time could have argued that owning slaves was the way it always was and it was done for a reason, but this sort of arguement will get quickly shut down in modern academia, and for good reason.

So here, changing the traditions was overdue and neccessary. "But Claymore!" you say. "You've contradicted yourself". No I have not. I am simply reminding you to not view this sort of history-changing philosophy in terms of black and white, but rather to view everything carefully. Tradition is good, it helps keep us grounded, but beware of bad habits.

So what say the omnipotent followers? If you think differently, or have an issue that could be analysed in the above fashion, leave a comment. Or don't, but then this last sentence makes me seem kind of pathetic, doesn't it? (wink, wink.) Until then, keep your history and politics seperate.

My Recent Thoughts - April '10

There has been a lot in the news lately.
None of what follows is news.
But it is informative. (-ish)

Item One:
Amanda Lang's stunning checkmate of Ann Coulter who was speaking as a guest on the CBC's Lang-O'Leary Debate.  Near the end of the interview Lang asked Coulter "Do you think people would listen to you at all if your weren't pretty?"  And BAM!  Only crickets from Coulter's side.  Then Amanda Lang, as the good newscaster she is, allowed herself only a small smile.
I am proud of the students who protested Coulter's speeches at the canadian universities last month.  I am all for complete freedom of speech and the voicing of opinions, but Hate is Hate.  If it can't be spoken without scaring and humiliating entire cultures, then it is better left unspoken and unthought.  Ann Coulter, peddle that crap somewhere else.

Item Two:

A little more satirical this time.  Look carefully at the picture of the pope on the left.  Notice the symbols on the cloth around his neck?  Scary stuff eh?  Because this means that the POPE IS PART OF THE UMBRELLA CORPORATION!  Now for those who don't know what the Umbrella Corporation is, go immediately and watch Resident Evil.  All of them.  Just so you know, this picture was not doctored at all, and it even appears in the most recent issue of Macleans magazine.  That is where I noticed it.

Item 3:
Not really newsworthy, but I'd recommend all of you check out this site: wikileaks.org/.  They allow people to post otherwise classified and secret material online for all to see while completely hiding their identity and stopping any efforts to remove said material.  Big businesses with secrets and shady government dealings beware:  WikiLeaks is the future of investigative journalism.

Get Out of My Head, Witch!

"I think, therefore I am"
-Rene Descarte

As humans, we think a lot. We think about dinner, relations with friends, family, and/or/at same time as work. But lately, I've found myself in a particular pattern of thinking that you may have in fact found yourself. I have been thinking for other people. That's right! I can tell myself what you think about crap before you do!

Now, before I proceed, I must say that my powers are not unique and I never said anything about being correct. For example I think that certain personages might not appreciate certain content, and a thusly throw these ideas in my mental garbage bin. Have any evidence been put into consideration for this? No, but that is not the point.

We have created a society that is self-censoring. Any current students of English may find this to be a tired and overused thesis, but the fact that your favorite (ahem) blogger has experienced it may bring the point home that much more. We decide what others expect of us and act accordingly. The person in question may be dying for you to do... whatever it was you were thinking about, but this point is moot. This does not mean you should shout profanitites at the top of your lungs in public, (but if you happen to do so, make sure someone films it, 'kay?) but you should still free yourself to be a little bolder.

This post, unlike every single other post I've stained the internet with, is a work with a group in mind. This post is for all the people who have ever told themselves "Naw, no one wants to hear that". Be not afraid. Contempt for the bold is worth more than ingorance of the timid.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy

The empowerment that one gains from blogging is amazing.  I don't like something I see or hear about, and I go blog about it.  And then, and this is the best part, all the people who agree with me read it and agree more.  The people who often don't agree with me don't read it, and I never hear their opinions.  Its win-win!

Now here's to hoping that that little spiel didn't drive you away, because I have here now the point I would like to make.  As I was watching them award Kathryn Bigelow (congrats on the 2 gold "no longer only" men) the oscar for Best Picture (the only part of the Academy Awards I watch), I was suddenly struck by a rather unusual thought.

It went something like this:  Imagine if no one watched the Oscars...  If they still took place, but no one lined up outside to see the "stars" and no one watched them on TV.  If the only people who knew anything about it, the only people who decided who won what, the only people who's lives it actually touched; were the celebs...  and the producers, and the directors, and the few unknowns.  Now as I was turning this scenario around in my mind, the proverbial "it" put out its shoulder and knocked me to the pavement.  Truth be told, what I just described there is pretty much how the Oscars work:

The award recipients are chosen by AMPAS, of which the largest voting bloc is actors themselves.  As the Oscars are voted on by members of the entertainment industry, usually the largest films that touch (read pay) the most people do the best.  Not surprisingly, the Oscars have been sometimes boycotted.  The most notable of these is probably Marlon Brando who turned down his Oscar for Best Actor in The Godfather.  George C. Scott called the Academy Awards "a goddamn meat parade" and refused his award for Best Actor in 1970.


As a huge movie fan (the Apple page with all the upcoming movie trailers is my homepage) I respect all film-makers, actors, and the incredible gifts of entertainment that they are able to create.  However, the outdated and rather exclusive club that has become the Academy Awards has to go.  Look past the glitter and lace.  Is it really about the film-making or just about who dropped the most cash?
*Cough-cough-avatar-cough*


I'd like to thank my producers, my family, and most of all my fans...  Without the ten of you I'd be nothing!
-Torwch

SCIENCE and Science

There is a very large and very important difference between science and SCIENCE.  As of late, I have become very worried with the general public's lack of knowledge concerning this.  Here are a few examples to refresh your memory:

Science:  Improving the efficiency and "intelligence" of the robots that work inside car factories.
SCIENCE:  Building a two-story tall mecha in your backyard [source].

Science:  Testing drugs on animals before humans.
SCIENCE:  Testing the RAGE virus on animals before it escapes and kills off most of the humans.

Science:  Building the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) which is 6.9 km long.
SCIENCE:  Building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is 27 km long.
SCIENCE!!! :  Building a collider that can probe beneath the planck length.  Required circumference: Neptune's orbit.

Science:  Studying the patterns of bee movement in their hives in an attempt to learn the "language."
SCIENCE:  Glueing microchips to the bee's backs that can control their behavior and releasing them into the wild [source].

Science:  iPod Touch
SCIENCE:  iPad

Science:  The government
SCIENCE:  The Pentagon


Obama Axes Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon

It is my life goal to become a SCIENTIST.  What about you?

Post other examples of SCIENCE and Science that you guys come up with...
Cheers, Torwch.

A New Face

After the Great Success that was Canada's medal counter as an HTML experiment, I have decided to forge ahead with my plans with a custom design for Instant Martians.  In order to facilitate this change (and make myself accountable to you, the readers, about it) I have created another blog to serve as a test for whatever changes to the HTML we will be making.  That test page can be found here:

http://instantmartianstest.blogspot.com/

Feel free to follow if you want to keep abreast of any changes, and don't be afraid to critique what goes up there.  Also, very important, please report any problems with how the site displays on your browser by commenting on one of the posts over there, or by emailing the admins here.
Again, critique is a MUST!
Thanks.

What Are They Protesting Anyways?

Yes! The Olympics are here. And I really mean here.

As I was born in Vancouver and currently live in the suburb of North Vancouver, I found it pretty hard to keep my composure while watching the opening ceremony. My heart kinda ballooned up and I felt prouder than I ever have to be Canadian.

Some people do not seem to share this pride though: the protestors.

There have been a lot of protesters at the Games. While this casts a pall over the Games, some of they do provide some comedic relief: On the second day of the olympics, police and some protesters clashed in downtown Vancouver. Some store windows got smashed (oh no!), some people got slugged with riot shields (noobed), and a few dozen were arrested. The best part about it (besides the live news coverage) was the protester's attire. Calling themselves "Anarchists", they dressed in all black sweatshirts, jeans and ski masks. Unfortunately for their credibility as anarchists, most of their sweaters had logos on them.

I could not stop laughing when an out of breath protestor (dressed all in black) starts blabbing on about anarchy and "The Corporations" while WEARING A SWEATER WITH A NIKE SWISH ON IT. Even now I am grinning.

Anyways, I wish everyone (and all countries) a very excellent Games.
Canada for the Gold!