One less blog in my RSS reader

I am spending too much time reading all those 180+ posts every day in my RSS reader anyway (Honestly, why do some blogs think it is a good idea to churn out up to 5 posts a day?), so I have become pretty ruthless in trimming the list of blogs I am subscribed to. Sometimes one post can be all it takes to make me say good-bye for good.

This is one of those. Irritating beyond belief (no pun intended).

Which is a shame, because back when I subscribed to it I actually liked to read this blog. But that was back when it was still about stuff, not about this bullshit religion. Ah well, I’m sure the guy won’t miss one measly reader, and a proudly atheist one at that. After all, according to his (faulty) “logic” I must be dishonest and self-delusional, because even though I am not really a scientist I still do “believe confidently that believing in God is foolish” beyond hope.

My time is just too limited to waste it reading and getting worked up about obviously wrong stuff like this:

There is plenty of good scientific evidence to support belief in God.

*sigh* Religious people keep saying that over and over, but I have seen NOT ONE piece of evidence for this opinion. I guess, one reason for this is that those people just don’t know the proper definition of “scientific evidence”. (Hint: just because it is written in your book of fairytales isn’t enough to call it evidence).

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Usually I love to read the postcards over at Postsecret, but sometimes there’s one in between that just makes me sick. Honestly: serial killer would have been a better career choice for this person.

Maybe some things should better stay a secret.

Just found a new meme over at A Gentleman’s Domain. Nick took the first 100 of the Top 250 films list from imdb.com and bolded the ones he has seen.
I was surprised at how many movies Nick hasn’t seen yet, so I decided to find out how many of them I have seen already. Although having seen them in many cases doesn’t necessarily mean having liked them.
This list does definitely not resemble my own Top 100, but I agree with it insofar as there are a lot of well-known movies on it that were a part of pop-culture in their time.

1. The Godfather (1972)
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966)
5. Pulp Fiction (1994)
6. Schindler’s List (1993)
7. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
8. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
9. Casablanca (1942)
10. Shichinin no samurai (1954)
11. Star Wars (1977)
12. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
13. 12 Angry Men (1957)
14. Rear Window (1954)
15. Goodfellas (1990)
16. Cidade de Deus (2002)
17. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
18. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
19. C’era una volta il West (1968)
20. The Usual Suspects (1995)
21. Psycho (1960)
22. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
23. Fight Club (1999)
24. Citizen Kane (1941)
25. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
26. North by Northwest (1959)
27. Memento (2000)
28. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
29. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
30. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
31. The Matrix (1999)
32. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
33. There Will Be Blood (2007)
34. Se7en (1995)
35. Apocalypse Now (1979)
36. Taxi Driver (1976)
37. American Beauty (1999)
38. Léon (1994)
39. Vertigo (1958)
40. Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, Le (2001)
41. American History X (1998)
42. The Departed (2006)
43. No Country for Old Men (2007)
44. Paths of Glory (1957)
45. M (1931)
46. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
47. Chinatown (1974)
48. The Third Man (1949)
49. Leben der Anderen, Das (2006)
50. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
51. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
52. Alien (1979)
53. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
54. Laberinto del fauno, El (2006)
55. The Shining (1980)
56. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
57. The Pianist (2002)
58. Double Indemnity (1944)
59. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
60. Forrest Gump (1994)
61. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
62. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
63. L.A. Confidential (1997)
64. Das Boot (1981)
65. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
66. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
67. Untergang, Der (2004)
68. Aliens (1986)
69. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
70. Raging Bull (1980)
71. Metropolis (1927)
72. Rashômon (1950)
73. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
74. Modern Times (1936)
75. Hotel Rwanda (2004)
76. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
77. Sin City (2005)
78. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
79. Rebecca (1940)
80. Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957)
81. All About Eve (1950)
82. Some Like It Hot (1959)
83. City Lights (1931)
84. Amadeus (1984)
85. On the Waterfront (1954)
86. Vita è bella, La (1997)
87. The Great Escape (1963)
88. Touch of Evil (1958)
89. The Prestige (2006)
90. The Elephant Man (1980)
91. Jaws (1975)
92. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
93. The Sting (1973)
94. Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988)
95. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
96. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
97. The Apartment (1960)
98. Braveheart (1995)
99. The Great Dictator (1940)
100. Blade Runner (1982)

If I haven’t miscounted that makes 66 out of 100. But I noticed that most of the ones I haven’t seen were made long before I was even born, or were so new that they haven’t been shown on tv yet (since I don’t go to the cinema very often, tv or DVDs are my only chances to get to see most films eventually).

That just goes to show that I watch way too much tv. Especially when I should be doing other stuff that’s more important in the so-called “real world”. But then I always thought reality is overrated.

But now I am wondering if the percentage of movies I have seen would be the same for the whole Top 250 List, because scrolling down past #100 I noticed a lot more contemporary films…

Once again I picked up a YA book and once again I didn’t get disappointed.

Imagine a world where your fourteenth birthday is your last. In a futuristic urban wasteland, evil Overlords have decreed that no child shall live past the age of fourteen. On that Sad Birthday, every child is the object of an obscene harvest - his brains and muscles are used to construct machine-like creatures whose sole purpose is to kill.

Although the book is at times quite brutal, the story is nevertheless a real page-turner from start to finish. I know I would have loved this book if I would have read it as a teenager. Being over 30 now, I still enjoyed it. Not only was it a nice, quick read in between more demanding books. It only fits well into my obsession with dystopian fiction. I’ll definitely look up Garth Nix’ other books as well.

I don’t even remember why I picked this book up in the first place. I think I must have heard some good things about the author somewhere. Also, I kind of liked the blurb and this pretzel-like dead lizard on the cover must have been the last thing needed to hook me. (Yes, the dead lizard does play an important, though short, role in the story!)

Whatever it was, I am very glad I did give the book a try, because it was an absolutely delightful read. Normally I am not much of a fan of crime fiction. Following clues and trying to find out who is the killer just doesn’t interest me at all. Normally.

But, just reading the title should give you an inclination that this is not exactly a ‘normal’ crime story. Yes, there is a murder, there are clues, there is a journalist trying to solve the case (to redeem himself with a big story that will alow him to get out of writing obituaries for the rest of his life) and all that.

But besides that stuff this is just a damn funny story. Jack Tagger is not exactly your usual hero-type of guy and to follow him on his bumbling way to the solution of the case is great fun.
It doesn’t take long to become clear who actually committed the murder, but just as Jack himself, the reader takes a while to puzzle out the why - which is much more interesting, at least for me. And Jack’s obsession with dead people - or rather with the age at which famous people dropped dead - is just hilarious.

In the end, our unlikely hero solves the case, gets the girl (oh, I didn’t mention her, but she’s quite funny as well), could get his job back, but doesn’t want it anymore and overall everything is fine. And I had a couple of very entertaining days reading this. What more can you ask from a book?

So, whoever it was that said something nice about Carl Hiaasen’s books and made me pick this one up in the first place: I thank you very much. It seems I have found a new author to look out for. And I just love to find someone new to read when they have already written several books, because that means I have a lot of catching up to do.

photo by mtsofan

I have just seen a scary thing. To understand why I find it scary you have to know one thing about me: I am not a pack rat.

Indeed, I am probably a little too good at throwing things away, because I have often found myself needing something I threw away 2 weeks ago and having to buy it again. But generally you could say that I just like my life to stay unencumbered by too many possessions.

Lately I have been on an uncluttering mission again. I go through not only my own room, but through the whole house and look for things nobody really uses anymore. And then I either throw them away, donate them or try to sell them on ebay (usually not for much money, but just to get rid of them). I just feel better when I look around my room and only see things I really use and need. Luckily my mom is with me on this, but my dad has a bit of a problem with letting things go.

But as annoying as this “we better keep this as we might need it one day”-habit of my dad is (often he is actually right about the “need it one day” part), it is NOTHING compared to other people’s problems.

I have just watched a short film by Martin Hampton about hoarders. The film is called “Possessed” (found the link via Get Rich Slowly) and it is really - and I mean REALLY - scary. I have been watching it with mounting horror and a dropped jaw.

It portrays 4 different people with huge hoarding problems.

I can kind of understand the first one (he’s hoarding mainly books and videos) and even the second one (he buys lots and lots of stuff, sometimes several times over, without actually using any of it as far as I could see). Their flats looked awful and I wouldn’t have wanted to live there, but mainly they’re suffering from weak impulse control, so I can in a way relate.

The third person was a woman and there is no other way to describe her than: seriously disturbed. She’s keeping everything. Every. Single. Thing. Empty bottles, used tissues, every trash imaginable. *shudder* You couldn’t pay me enough to step inside that appartment. How can anybody become so disturbed? It really boggles the mind.

Compared to that the fourth guy was almost a relief, because it apprears to me that he is mainly just a slob, too lazy to throw anything away and get his stuff in order.

Suddenly even my annoying flatmate in Leipzig, who clearly has the beginnings of a hoarding problem, seems like a well-adjusted person. Yes, he does keep a lot of useless stuff, but at least he keeps it only in his own room (which I have never entered) and in the big closet in the kitchen. As long as I do not have to deal with it, he can go on doing that for all I care. I hope to be out of his life quite soon so I won’t have to watch his descent into a real hoarder existence…

But watching that film made me itching to embark on another uncluttering round of the house tomorrow morning. And I definitely have to show the film to my parents. Even though they won’t be able to understand what’s being said I know they will feel just as shocked as I was by this.

I have never actually read one of Elizabeth George’s novels, because as I mentioned before, I am not much of a crime story fan. But this book is subtitled “One Novelist’s Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life”, and there are two things I just can not resist: books about books and books about writing. And even though I am not a fan of her books myself, I gather that she is a very successful writer who sells millions of books, so I figured she might have actually something worthwhile to say about the writing process.

After reading the book I am still not a fan of her writing (I know that because she uses excerpts from her books extensively as examples), but I have the feeling I might get along with her personally. She certainly has a very sensible attitude towards writing and has a few interesting, if not actually new to me, things to say concerning the craft.

It was very interesting to compare her approach to writing a novel to, for instance, Stephen King’s. While King seems to be a very intuitive writer, who always says that the story basically writes itself and he is just there to take it down, Mrs. George seems to be quite the opposite, taking planning and plotting to extremes and needing a very detailed outline and kind of flowchart for the whole thing before she even begins the actual writing.

I am neither the one nor the other extreme, but there are certainly things to be learned from both methods.

Elizabeth George’s process in a nutshell, as given by her in the final chapter, consists of roughly 13 steps:

1. the idea, the expanded idea, the primary event
2. people the world of the expanded idea and the primary event, list characters generically, list characters specifically
3. research
4. create characters
5. create settings
6. step outline till there’s nothing more to say
7. plot outline
8. write the rough draft
9. the fast reading
10. the editorial letter
11. the second draft
12. the cold reader
13. the third draft, if necessary

She goes into much detail about each step in the different chapters. I especially liked the way she really takes her time to get to know her characters intimately before she begins the writing. Also, what she had to say about dialogue and how to turn an idea into an actual plot.

All in all it was a very nice book, which I am glad to have read, but probably won’t pick up again. While I agree with her on many points, I think her writing style is so different from mine that I won’t feel compelled to return to this book again and again as I do with other books.