Neuropath
by Scott Bakker
2008.
306 pages (with afterword).
Orion TPB.
“Only a small fraction of your brain is involved in conscious experience, which is why so much of what we do is unconscious. The bulk of your brain’s processing falls outside what you can experience; it simply doesn’t exist for your consciousness, not even as an absence. That’s why [...]
Posts filed in Paranoia
Maybe admitting it makes me a hypochondriac, but that doesn’t matter: I’m bloody paranoid. In small ways mostly. This isn’t very funny; I think I’d perfer imagining that the government was out to get me, than imagining that each and every person I meet wants to visit harm upon me.
Because seriously, that just ain’t funny…. :P
Neuropath by Scott Bakker
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
2008.
536 pages (Gollancz Fantasy trade paperback).
“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.”
— Paul Gaugin.
This being the opening quote of Last Argument of Kings, the concluding volume in Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law series, one can perhaps perceive that this is a bleak affair. As I remarked in my reviews of the first [...]
A Plague! A Plague on Our Houses!
In my Last.fm shoutbox, I was recently asked by one of my readers to post more frequently in my blog, and seeing as your whim is my law, I bring you this: an essay of sorts about the last topic you’d expected me to write about!
One of the things you might not know [...]
Lord of War
It’s been nearly two weeks since I watched Lord of War, so this’ll be a brief review, but better late than never, eh?
First off, what struck me during this second watching of Lord of War was how similar, in many ways, it was to Charlie Wilson’s War. They both dealt with serious subjects, and they [...]
Some things I suspect I believe to be true
About eighteen months ago now, I realised I’m a materialist; I believe that everything in this world is matter, that there is no such thing as spirit, that what others might perceive as “spirit” can be explained materially. And for some thirteen, fourteen months, my Christian flatmate Håvard has challenged me on this.
To him there [...]
Superhero Movie
Rather out of the blue, I ended up seeing Superhero Movie with a friend last night. And man, am I sorry. But I’ll get back to that. First, a plot synopsis.
Rick Riker is Peter Parker, only more (exaggeratedly) so and with more unmotivated and unfun slapstick accidents happening to him. He is in love with [...]
Curses! Or constructing next term’s schedule
I checked my course registration page at NTNU (ooh!) about an hour ago, and much to my delight I discovered that I’ve been registered for not two but three courses this spring, and that these three combined fill my required term quota of 30 study points.
English Linguistics gives me 7,5 points if I pass it; [...]
I’m concerned for my university
I had my fifth and final exam for the term today, and unfortunately, I thought it was just like the four previous ones.
You see, based on the curriculi and the lectures in the courses I’ve been taking this fall, I’ve been expecting to be satisfied with a straight Cs. Global English had a lot of [...]
“Global English” is rubbish
“Given the stress that is laid on spelling by prescriptivists, and the existence of so many dictionaries which provide standard spellings for English words, it is perhaps surprising that there should be any variation in spelling within standard varieties. But there is. Some of this variation is variation between varieties. More often, though, there us [...]
Security precautions
“We stood in the center of a football field-size dome that the Consu had constructed not an hour before. Of course, we humans could not be allowed to touch Consu ground, or be anywhere a Consu might tread; upon our arrival, automated machines created the dome in a region of Consu space long quarantined to [...]
Oh, the shame! The shame!
During my medieval history exam on Monday, I managed to confuse the Battle of Poitiers with the ditto of Agincourt.
I feel like I’m going to melt; at least that would allow me to forget that a professor of history will read my mistake and shake his head in disappointment and disbelief at my folly…
Slaughterhouse-5, by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaugtherhouse-5, or the Children’s Crusade. A Duty-Dance with Death.
By Kurt Vonnegut.
156 pages, Torstein Bugge Høverstad’s Norwegian translation from 1970.
First published in English in 1969.
How to describe Slaughterhouse-5? Some other random site that had a review of it simply raved on about it being the brilliant ramblings of a madman on LSD, but I feel that [...]
Scrubs, season 5
Yeah, yeah, I know: they’re occasionally repeating the same jokes, and the whole concept might be getting a tad tired.
But I still love it. I still think it’s fun to watch the Janitor torment JD, I still laugh when Turk tries to stand up to Carla, I still pity JD one moment only to hate [...]
Movies Galore: A Summary
It’s nearly two months since my last movie review — a review, I might add, where I was unreasonably hard on the reviewed movie, as the fact that I’m in a foul mood shouldn’t really count against it. Anyway, since then I’ve watched a lot of movies: excellent movies, great movies, good movies, mediocre movies, [...]
A silent prayer of thanks to the patriarchate and all male chauvinists
Oh, patriarchal social structure!
Oh, male chauvinists of the past!
I praise thee!
While thy general wisdom might leave something to be desired, and while I dislike thee quite strongly, thee have done me — and in fact the whole nation — a great service!
And while thy rancid ignorance and silly prejudices have also done us all great [...]
A Clockwork Orange
I know I’ve often asked for more resistance in movies, for less comfort, and more challenges. But this is too bleedin’ much. It’s a fucking nightmare, is what it is.
Still, though, a fascinating nightmare. Kinda like a train wreck. 8.5/10.
And to think I was 11 or 12 the first time I watched it…
It’s here!
I just picked Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows out of my post box, and because I am terrified of spoilers and want this to be an unblemished reading experience, I will now commence “radio silence” until the deed is done. No Internet, no newspapers, no TV, no radio — none of anything in which [...]
2007-07-17 — Quote of the Day
“I always expect trouble.”
- Verin,
“The Dragon Reborn”.
Hume
I was reading Oxford University Press’ ”A very short introduction to Philosophy” just the other day, and in that book I came across something that has bothered me for a day or two now.
This is a book in which the English (I presume) professor of philosophy Edward Craig attempts to present examples of philosophy and [...]
“Gaid”
I’ve finally taken my language-related snobbishness out into the open, primarily because the local newspaper recently titled me as “gaid” — a horrendous norwegianification of the English word “guide”, and an unnecessary one too, as we have the perfectly servicable synonym “omviser”.
So, it might be that the Norwegian Council of Language has given the go-ahead [...]
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