Bookmac

It’s recently dawned on me that over the course of the last year I’ve actually read quite a fair number of books. I started thinking about this as I was having a clear out last night in preparation for my exodus back north (which should be in the next couple of weeks, hopefully), and found a load of books in a box on top of my wardrobe. I say ‘my’ wardrobe – it isn’t really. It belongs to the landlord, as does the bed, the dresser and the bedside unit. And the carpet, curtains, walls and ceiling. I don’t actually own any furniture and after last night’s ultimate cleanse of all unnecessary items, it became apparent that I can squeeze all of my worldly possessions (excluding the Suzuki and my knackered pushbike, but including clothes) into 2 suitcases, a hold-all and three boxes. Seeing it all there in a pile is quite comforting, especially when you take into account my complete repulsion when it comes to clutter: useless ornaments, bags of stuff for ‘what if’ occasions...I hate it all, so in those bags and boxes (one of which is full of smaller boxes for my myriad gadgets) are only meaningful, useful items. But anyway, back to the books.

My most recent books I’m still not done with – Beyond the Shadows (book 3 of the Night Angel trilogy) I really only read on my Kindle when I’m on the cross trainer in the gym, and House of Leaves only gets a look-in when I’ve got a spare 3 hours to sit there and try to decipher what each individual page is trying to tell me. I did get a good chunk of it read last week during my well-documented National Express journey to Manchester and I’m really enjoying it...but the constant footnote references and the way paragraphs continue on previous pages and written backwards (yep, you read that right) does get a little annoying at times. I can see what the author was trying to do (after all, the book is meant to be made up of scraps of documents found in a big bundle so I’m guessing the odd layout is a way of conveying that (?)), but it doesn’t half grate after a few chapters. The different monoluges and fonts used to depict these I can deal with, but when you’ve got different chapters running backwards next to each other on the same page...well, it becomes more of a chore than a pleasure. Still, I’m sticking with House of Leaves because a) it's fantastic, and b) there are things alluded to in the story that are really intriguing and haven’t yet been fully explained. I just need to find a few spare hours. 

I briefly mentioned the Night Angel trilogy and I just want to reiterate how fucking cool the whole saga is. I’m about half way through the final book now and even though some of the story gets a bit muddy and confusing (and downright eh?!) in places, it’s still a cracking read. I feel like I’ve been watching an epic Game of Thrones/Lord of the Rings-style story unfold over the course of the three books – massive battles, genocide, betrayals, romance, rape, alcoholism, prostitution, suicide, magic, love, friendship...it’s all in there. I can’t really praise the trilogy enough, and (as I’ve said in the past) that it was the first published work by Brent Weeks is testimony to the guy’s talent. Not sure if I’ll seek any of his other books out any time soon, but I’ll definitely remember the Night Angel books, and the characters therein for a long time to come. 

Other shit I’ve read this year: Robopocalypse. Set in a world where the machines have become self aware and waged war against the human race (sound familiar?), Robopocalypse is an account of the origins of the machines’ rise to power as depicted in CCTV recordings and diary excerpts etc. If you’re thinking Terminator rip-off, I’m not going to argue...although the way the tale is told through the recordings and written accounts of human battles with errant machines is totally unique. Well, unless you compare it with World War Z...but lets not go there. For now, anyway. Interestingly, Steven Spielberg (so I hear) is working on the film adaptation. Wonder if he’ll do it justice. And speaking of movie/book crossovers, I also finished I Am Legend this year too. I saw the Will Smith adaptaion before I’d even heard of either the book or the original Omega Man film, so all I had to go off when I started the book was the image of a sweaty, shirtless Will Smith doing pull ups in a dilapidated apartment block. The book, however, is umpteen times better than the film ever was, simply because the guy in the book isn’t some super-human beefcake like the guy Will Smith portrays. He’s just an average Joe who is scared shitless by all the zombies knocking about the neighbourhood, and who discovers through lots of trial and error and experimentation how he can fend them off. He also battles with boredom (I know how he feels) and alcoholism and loss. It’s a fantastic book – much bette than the (Will Smith) film. Still not seen The Omega Man though, so I’ll pass judgement on that. 

A further adaptation (well, a character from a book that recently got turned into a TV series, anyway) that I got through was the Dirk Gently novel The Long Dark Teatime of The Soul. It was pretty good and is a strange tale about ancient Gods and the bumbling holistic detective Dirk Gently somehow (apparently at random) managing to solve all sorts of crimes by taking a holistic approach – that is, all things are connected...or something. It was in January that I read this book so it’s kind of faded from my memory somewhat...but I still recall it being entertaining. One book that I read that wasn’t fiction (possibly) was Tales From Development Hell – The Greatest Movies Never Made (updated edition), a book about films that were green lit by Hollywood bigwigs, in some cases had stars attached to them, and then for whatever reason failed to see the light of day. Really insightful and well worth tracking down if you’re a fan of movies (or movies that never came out, more appropriately).The first book in the series, The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made, featured a chapter on a novel called The Stars My Destination which I went on to purchase and read. I still think that book is the best science-fiction novel I've ever read.

Then there was The Strain, a modern vampire novel written in part by the director Guillermo del Toro, which again was pretty damn good (and nothing like that Twilight shit, before you start thinking I’m into vampires that glow in sunlight. Urgh.), but just got a bit boring towards the end. The Strain is the first book in a trilogy but I started reading the second book almost immediately and didn’t feel as if anything new was happening...so I let it go. I’m not one of these people who feels that if they start a book they have to finish it – if I get bored, I will literally just stop reading it. That’s not to say I won’t give it a chance to stop being dull...you get the idea (I hope). There were also a few HP Lovecraft short stories (The Horror at Red Hook, Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Colour out of Space) and a few random Sci-Fi shorts too. I hope this has enlightened you. If not, then please feel free to go and do something interesting for the next half an hour to restore the equilibrium in your life.

On a different note, last night I stripped the Macbook down and emptied a whole hoover-bag’s worth of dust and shit out of its innards. The result? A machine that now runs almost silently. Now, if Bristol Apple Store can sort out the broken keyboard thing...well, it’ll be awesome. I’ll find out soon enough.

Amazing Effects

As I documented in the last post (just down there), my new (well, old) computer is an Apple Macbook. Due to this, I have recently discovered the awesomeness of the Apple App Store. Having a Playbook means I also get to peruse the Blackberry Appworld...but to be honest it isn't really a patch on the App Store. That's not to say that Appworld isn't cool - it really is...but it doesn't have anywhere near the number of apps on it. Saying that, as I'm on Snow Leopard and unable to upgrade any further, I'm guessing that my ability to use many of the newer ones on the Macbook will gradually diminish with time. Just gives me an excuse to get a proper new Mac though, eh? Anyway, I've been dabbling in the App Store and I've found a really cool little thing called Amazing Effects...and it's a little tool that, well, adds amazing effects to your photos. Want proof? Here:

The original

With a nice soft glow added

Slightly cartoon-ised

And with a colour filter

I took this photo hanging out of the window with the HS30 in the rain. I hope the drama comes across in it. Also - Amazing Effects is completely free so well worth the money in my opinion. Speaking of opinions, mine of the Macbook have improved considerably after discovering how freaking cool the little remote control thingy is - you just press the 'menu' button and the mac goes into a sort of 'Windows Media Centre' mode where you can scroll through your iTunes tracks and play them from across the room. Oh, and the speakers are belting for their diminutive size. I'm taking it down to the Apple Store in Bristol at the weekend to see if they can do anything about the broken palm rest (they said they could on the phone...) and will report here if they make good on their word.

Le Big Mac

Ok, this is going to make me look like the world's biggest hypocrite...but yesterday evening I spotted an advert on Gumtree for something I've been thinking about getting for a while; even more so since I started with the whole photography thing. I rang the number, chatted with the seller for a bit and then agreed to go and have a look. I was impressed with what I saw at first and was maybe slightly blinded by the whole 'image' thing associated with the object...and with hindsight I'm not sure that I did the right thing by purchasing it. Sure, it's pimped out with extra technical gubbins that clearly aren't standard...but upon getting it home and inspecting it closer I've discovered that it's actually a little tatty and the 'L' key requires slightly more attention than the other keys when typing.

What am I on about? Well...I went and bought a used Macbook. It's a few years old and suffers from 'light wear and tear': namely the palm rest has the usual 'broken off' edges around the bottom and sides and the case itself has a few cracks and scuffs here and there...oh, and the fan gets a bit tasty when there are more than a few applications running at once. Overall I'm quite impressed by it, but still I'm not overly convinced that I should have just spent a bit more on a brand new one. Only time will tell I guess.

Having dabbled with macs extensively over the years (going back to the old LC III I convinced my mum to buy way back in the mid nineties), I'm pretty au fay with the various iterations of Mac OS X and this one came with Snow Leopard already installed so I've been having a bit of a play around. I'm liking the App Store and the new updated iTunes layout, and I've found it relatively easy to set up new user accounts etc...I just can't help but feel a little let down by the condition of the casing. I didn't really know anything about the whole 'brittle body' Macbook thing until I bought this one (I'm writing this on it now), but it seems to be a common fault having looked around the various forums. Weird. But anyway, it doesn't affect the running of the Macbook itself, so I guess I should just stop wingeing. 

So – the specs. Well, it's a white Macbook from around 2008 I'd say. It has 4GB of ram and a 500GB (not standard) hard disk. As I said earlier, it's got Snow Leopard on it and all of the applications and free software (GIMP, Chrome, OpenOffice etc) seem to run just fine, as does the bluetooth, wifi etc. I paid £340 for it, which is a damned sight cheaper than pretty much every other Macbook I've seen either on eBay or Gumtree and the guy who sold it to me seemed fairly genuine and happy to show me all the features and let me have a play around before I handed over any cash. Like I said, I'm still undecided as to whether I actually got a bargain yet (what with the cosmetic issues, and the inability to upgrade to Mountain Lion), but again I got it for a relative steal compared to what many other used Macbooks go for. Ultimately, it will replace my HP Pavilion laptop which my brother has expressed an interest in...I just hope I haven't just wasted a fuck load of cash. On the plus side, it does look fucking cool and it has a remote control to switch music tracks and movies and shit in Front Row. Now all that I need to do is sit in the window of a Starbucks and look like an absolute twat while using it.