"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy (2006)

The sky is blackened, ashes are spinning in the breeze, and civilization has disappeared. Your Uncle Bob's last barbecue? No. The remnants of Iraq in a couple of years? No. Where the world will be in several decades? Maybe. In his bestselling novel "The Road", Cormac McCarthy shows us a post-apocalyptic future so bleak that it makes the "Mad Max" trilogy look like "The Sound of Music". The survival tale follows a father and son, known only as "the man" and "the boy", across the burnt landscape in a quest for the coast and a warmer climate. Along the way, they have to deal with bone-chilling cold, bands of highway marauders with no shame, constant shortages of food, and little hope. However, the duo somehow manages to carry on through the power of love. From time to time, the father flashes back to the burning end of civilization which brought his Hell on earth to be and to the woman he loved who is no more. One would think you'd give your main characters names, but perhaps McCarthy made them anonymous to remind us that in another world this could be any father and any son. This novel didn't for the most part send chills down my spine or wrench my heart, and the fact that the author uses no quotation marks got kind of annoying, but it was an interesting read nonetheless. I never thought that I'd like anything which was, as it turns out, named an Oprah's Book Club pick, but my math teacher made a good suggestion with this piece.

wallpapers, etc.

Q: What do you get when you combine a snow day with internet access? A: Me wasting time on the computer. Through snow days off of school, rainy days stuck inside, and afternoons with nothing to do, I eventually discovered that I could create image files using Microsoft PowerPoint slides (yeah, I know, mild to moderate computer-nerdism), which led to the fruit of my trivial labors, these wallpapers. I hate to let them collect e-dust, so maybe someone will use them. Enjoy!

The Batmobile Wallpapers

Over the course of digging myself into a wiki-hole one day, I stumbled upon the article on that legendary pimp mobile, the Batmobile. The article included a link to this fan site which included a history of the car in its many incarnations. Upon going through the main chronology, the idea to compile the many Batmobiles into a black wallpaper struck me, leading to these three.

Batmobiles 1
Batmobiles 2
Batmobiles 3

The Sports Wallpapers

Sadly, the only pro sports I watch on a regular basis are football and hockey, but putting logos together into a league wallpaper seemed like an amusing idea, so I took it and ran with it. Rather than leave you wondering "Why is there no NFL wallpaper", I'll explain. I did in fact create a wallpaper of NFL helmets, but I'm saving this for a football season mega-post.

NHL hockey
NBA basketball
MLB baseball

Wait, one more thing!

Windows solitaire is so addictive, it's like a drug. I started opening windows of solitaire while I waited for websites to load, but I get sucked in every time. Know the facts because knowledge is power!

Don't worry readers, it's not abandoned...

Wow, I've just realized it's been 19 days since my last post. However, this doesn't mean that I'm quitting or even that I have nothing to blog about. I'm a procrastinator, plain and simple. I'm kind of like the Radiohead of bloggers: my releases are spread out far apart but when they do come out, they're really good. It feels like the computer is rotting my brain from sheer overuse (of the computer, not my brain), so goodbye for now!

DO NOT OPEN THIS POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, too late! Your computer has now been infected with a debilitating virus which will eat up your files, burn your hard drive up, steal your identity, report your digital piracy to the FBI, give you erectile dysfunction, and decrease the market value of your home. Thank you, that is all.

The Curse of the Bambino, revisited

Now, I've never been much of a baseball fan, and I doubt that anyone who likes NASCAR will ever see this post, but bear with me because I have a few interesting theories.

The Curse flipped?

I don't know if I'm the first one to suggest this, but based on recent developments I'm starting to think that the legendary Curse of the Bambino has not only been reversed, but "flipped" so that the Red Sox will be the new team to beat for decades to come while the Yankees will struggle for another World Series championship. Think about it: Although the Yankees were like Dallas Cowboys or Minneapolis/L.A. Lakers of baseball from the time Babe Ruth was traded until the Curse was broken, but the Red Sox have now won two World Series titles in less than 5 years while the Yankees haven't made it to the biggest event in baseball since then. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

NASCAR's Curse of the Bambino?

While the Hendrick Motorsports stable has been one of the most dominant teams in NASCAR with three of it's drivers winning a total of 7 championships ever since Jeff Gordon rose to fame in the early 90s, they may have started what one might call "The Curse of the Busch-bino". With Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving his stepmother's race team at the end of 2007, Hendrick Motorsports elected to drop then-lackluster performer Kyle Busch in order to make room for Dale Jr. However, Kyle Busch then signed with the Joe Gibbs Racing team and has been on fire as a breakout star from the beginning of 2008, currently leading the Sprint Cup points standings 5 races into the season. Meanwhile, Dale Jr. is the only Hendrick driver currently in a Chase advancement position at 6th, with 4-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon and defending champ Jimmie Johnson struggling to perform after a dominant 2007 season. A coffee table book about the golden age of Trans-Am calls 1968 "Camaro and Porsche - The Mark and Tony Show"; Perhaps 2008 will go down in NASCAR lore as "Hendrick and Toyota - The Dale and Kyle Show". [Joe Gibbs Racing currently runs Toyotas.] Or maybe Hendrick Motorsports will become to NASCAR in the 21st century what the Red Sox were to baseball in the 20th century. Only time will tell.

Predestination and you, pt. II

I hate to beat a dead horse here, but if you were intrigued by my previous post on predestination and you missed the Futurama movie on Comedy Central last night, then I urge you to see it next time it comes on. I don't even know where to begin describing it without giving spoilers, but the possibilities presented on time travel paradoxes are pretty mind-blowing.

Oh yeah, and birds evolved from a group of feathered dinosaurs, so the egg did in fact come before the chicken.