It looks like I've been designated to collect and write the "what happened with perl 6 and parrot in 2001" report. Look for it soon on a perl6 mailing list near you.
We're getting ready to book tickets to New Zealand for early February through early April. I can't bloody wait to be out of this cold gloomy hellhole and on a beach. Aevil said to me today "after seeing New Zealand in Lord of the Rings, you must be nuts to live in the US".
William and his grandpa spent fifteen minutes last night pretending to shoot Santa off the top of the Christmas tree. If Grandpa has his way, William'll be in a gillie suit taking pot-shots at the neighbours with a .22 as soon as he learns to read a range-finding scope.
--Nat
--Nat
Re:Gillie Suit
autarch on 2002-01-02T20:32:59
I learned about them from reading Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons. No shame there. Definitely recommended over anything by Clancy (ick, pseudo-literature propoganda crap).
-daveRe:Gillie Suit
gnat on 2002-01-02T22:31:29
Hell yes! Read anything you can by Dan Simmons--he's written in almost every subgenre of sf, but the first two of the Hyperion books are modern-day classics. I read a lot more thrillers than I do sf these days, so I was glad to see him move into that space with Darwin's Blade. I haven't read Hardcase yet, but it looks like another good one. The editor's intro to that review, "Dan Simmons is not an author who writes the same book twice," is so true. As much as I'd have liked another Phases of Gravity or Children of the Night from him, he's stubbornly produced equally brilliant yet completely different books. He's in my top 5 authors list for sure.Clancy is not. About 30% of "Rainbow Six" is more cock-stroking repetition of "he felt close to the team, responsible for them, they were like a family to him" over and over again. Yes, Tom, they're good guys. We get it. That's why they're the Good Guys. Just get on with the shooting already!
--Nat
Re:Gillie Suit
autarch on 2002-01-03T18:46:50
Yeah, Simmons is one of my all-time favorites. The Hyperion books just blew me away, and I enjoyed the Endymion sequels as well.
I didn't read the one set in Cuba with Ernest Hemingway cause I just couldn't get excited about the idea of reading something with Hemingway as a main character.
I haven't read much of his horror stuff either because I like to sleep at night and I'm a big wuss.
I think Hardcase is still in hardcover. I have enough pending books to read at the moment to wait til paperback, I think.
-daveRe:Gillie Suit
gnat on 2002-01-03T21:41:51
If I can ever get my damn credit card to stop bouncing (it may have been a slow season for retailers, but the money flew away from us with amazing speed) I'm going to order his latest books from half.com. I hadn't realized there was a book after Darwin's Blade, let alone two!I went through a Clive Cussler phase in December. Cussler's serial hero, Dirk Pitt, is a shipwreck salvage person for the National Underwater and Marine Agency. They're "action adventure" novels--Cussler himself says that he started off modelling himself on Alistair MacLean--so they might not sit well with you. I enjoyed the first few I read, but after reading four or five, I could spot the patterns. I was particularly nauseated by the way he makes "cameos" in his books--an restauranteur in one, fixing up an abandoned arctic snowtruck in another. They're written with a wink to the reader, but come off as just an ego-wank. I started reading Cussler because almost every "how to write thrillers" book I've read has mentioned him, and I figured I needed to know what the hell they were talking about.
I think I've discovered Clancy's secret: take a 200 page thriller, add 200 more pages of weaponry catalog copy ("His 7.5 inch combat-ready Milken `Moxie' 9mm held 14 gleaming brass shells in the clip and one in the spout. He always kept one in the spout. And the safety off. He was just that kind of guy") and another 200 pages of "military guys are the noblest and most honorable people in the world!". Don't edit, just send your first stream -of-consciousness draft to the printer.
Not that I'm cynical
:-) --Nat
--Nat
Re:Gillie Suit
gnat on 2002-01-02T19:56:19
The shame of admitting that you read Clancy is nothing compared to the shame of double-clicking:-)
--Nat
