I’ve turned 19, people. Stop the presses.

My friends took me out for a wonderful dinner at Chili’s, and I was able to relax and enjoy the day off from school on my birthday. Couldn’t ask for anything better.

I’ve started reading Spin. It’s an altogether enticing read: basically, one day, three young teens are stargazing when they notice that all of a sudden, the stars have disappeared, along with the moon. Although the sun rises, people realize that something is encompassing Earth that is only simulating the sun, and no stars or the moon are visible. Satellite reception is cut off, and it’s a miracle that the world doesn’t destroy itself from talks of a coming apocalypse or anything of that nature. Where I’m at in the story, which is relatively early on, people are returning to their normal lives after the initial shock of being encompassed by what comes to be known as The Spin. I won’t spoil it all right now, so I’ll stop here, but it’s incredibly well-written, as far as I’ve read, anyway.

It’s raining cats and dogs and other small household creatures as well. It has been raining since Monday night, and the forecast doesn’t show it letting up until possibly next Sunday. It’s quite dismal. I trudged through a foot and a half-deep puddle on my way home from campus the other day. Now imagine if this were all snow…

School life is pretty much the same. German is really an interesting language; surprisingly, while languages were never really my thing, it’s quickly becoming my favorite class. Physics is also a lot of fun too, as I’m understanding a lot more of it now (rather than being hopelessly confused, as happened on certain occasions last quarter), and math and even chem are pretty good. Midterms are coming up, and I need to get some studying in for next Wednesday’s chem quiz, but it’s a pretty care-free existence beyond that.

I’m downloading the History Channel’s “Life After People” documentary from iTunes at the moment. It showcases what the Earth would be like if humans were to leave the planet all at once, say, tomorrow. I envision it being similar to the world depicted in I Am Legend; I’ll be back with a thumbs up or down in my next update.

I’m out.

Later.

The title of this post is, of course, meant in the most figurative sense. Unless it’s The Jungle by Upton Sinclair; I’ll literally rip through that book.

I don’t know what’s possessed me recently, but I have been flying through books. Since my last update, I finished I Am Legend, started and finished Bladerunner (better known as Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”), and am currently about a third of the way through Ender’s Game. After that, I’ve got Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson, and The Penultimate Truth, also by Philip K. Dick.

I mentioned last time the correlation (or lack thereof) between I Am Legend’s book and movie counterparts. I went and watched the movie after I finished the book, and while the movie isn’t actually too bad by itself, as a counterpart to the book it falls pretty short. I was disappointed by a few main things [WARNING: spoilers]:

1) The monsters in the movie aren’t vampires, they’re your sort of run-of-the-mill, no-sunlight monsters with a loud obnoxious scream and a thirst for blood. This wouldn’t have been such a let-down if the book hadn’t made the scientific side of the vampires so darn cool; Richard Matheson did a brilliant job in the novel of thinking up a logical reason for why the vampires acted in the traditional way that they did (afraid of crosses, not cool with garlic, killed by stakes [a thought occurred to me here, wouldn't it be amusing if they were killed by steaks?], etc.).

2) The ending was very much a Hollywood ending. By that, I mean perhaps the morose ending of the book was simply deemed too much for the general public. Granted, Robert Neville died in both the book and the movie, but in the book he died as the last human ever to live (hence the title, I Am Legend, as he, as the last human, falls into legend), while in the movie he dies sacrificing himself so his human counterparts can make it to the human colony in Vermont with the cure.

3) I wasn’t happy with the choice to have Robert Neville have a dog from the start. In the book, Neville’s isolation was a very strong theme, only twice (that I can call) interrupted by the discovery of a living creature. In the movie, he was isolated, but having a companion from the beginning didn’t do much to reinforce how his world has changed.

4) Lastly, I thought that having Neville coincidentally be a brilliant scientist in the movie was a little much. In the book, he did a lot of research to eat up the lonely hours of the days to see if he could find a cure, much of it to no avail, while in the movie he descends a staircase from the main floor of his more or less normal house to an elaborate laboratory, complete with a bullet-proof glass shell in which he stores captured infected people

Anyway, that aside, both the movie and book were good by themselves. Bladerunner was just awesome, and imagining Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard just added to the awesomeness. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a really far-out read; Philip K. Dick was definitely an imaginative individual, although interestingly enough his ideas, while not playing themselves out in the time line Dick envisioned, are becoming closer and closer to reality.

School’s still good, for those of you reading this for the California part. Classes so far have been entertaining; my new professor actually teaches things in Chemistry. The seminar I’m taking, called The Elegant Universe and discussing the book of the same name, is actually taught by one of the guys thanked in the preface of the book. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of the (admittedly more basic) concepts in the beginning few chapters are being lost on a number of people in the seminar, so most of last Tuesday’s class was spent trying to answer the same question. However, I’m sure I’ll end up learning a lot from the class.

On a closing note, I recommend all of you read this article, it’s interesting stuff: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/01/darpa-develops.html

I’m out.

Later.

Oh alright, I’ll write something. Something short.

Winter break is over. It was fun, being back in the cold with all of my family and friends, even if it was only for a few weeks. I already miss it. Not that I don’t enjoy being at school, but, well, it’s school. Christmas was great - got a pea coat and a camera, the two things I wanted most, so I was happy - and bringing in the New Year with my friends was a great time. I went to New York City for a day with a couple of my cousins and my friend Alex, and although it was raining for the better part of the morning, it was still a lot of fun.

On the comic front, here’s as much as I know: we don’t know exactly what it’s going to be about yet, and chances are it won’t have any sort of running story, but it will have regular characters, and be based largely on the events going on in our lives, both on a large and small scale. We were sitting around last night and talking about a lot of random things, and Jared broke the silence at one point by saying, “We really are a knockoff generation.” I enjoyed the ring to that term, ‘knockoff generation,’ and I’ve since thought about having that as the title of the comic. Thoughts?

I’m reading the I Am Legend novel. Suffice to say, even having not seen the movie, I know it’s a lot different than its Hollywood counterpart. It’s quite an enjoyable book, despite its many differences and its length (it weighs in at a paltry 160 pages), and after its done I expect I’ll see the movie just for the heck of it. I’ve got Ender’s Game and Bladerunner (better known as “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”) waiting for me in my book queue.

There. That’s enough for today, I think. Sorry for the long break in updates. Thanks to “Scott” for reminding me that the point of blogging is to, well, blog.

I’m out.

Later.

-Sam

Yes, I’m still alive. I had a 3-week break during which I wasn’t on the computer very much, hence the lack of blog entries. New Year’s resolution is set, though: write more. Look for more coming very soon.

-Sam