Driving at night.
Creative impulses.
Cloves. (preferably Sampoerna Extras.)
A good Merlot.
A good, long book.
Movies, with a girl.
Days off.
Sleeping in on my days off.
A good, mellow club (trees!)
Laughing so hard I 'urt myself.
Really old Doctor Who episodes.
Snow
Sand, and sculptures thereof
My music
My dog Hugh
Road trips
Doing crazy stuff
Dean Koontz, R.L. Stine (by reputation),
#30sfun.
Country/western, and R&B/rap music (with a passion unequalled.)
Marlboros.
Waking up late for work.
Waking up early for work.
Computers that crash.
People that suck.
Dogs that bark
People who pay more for the wheels on the car, than the car itself cost.
People who think that the same car is entitled to the freeway.
The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester.
Looking at it now, this has to be one of the most depressing books, ever.
But the thrill of the sea and the fact that Krause is after all, living
as he wants to live, more or less, make up for it.
1984
"Some say 1984 failed as a prophecy because it succeeded as
a warning. Well, that kind of self-congratulation is, to say the least,
premature.......there's always 1985."
The Lord of the Rings
Yeah, I know, everyone's read this book, and every likes it, but where else
have you seen a whole land, language, and mythology encompassed in thre
volumes of fiction? Often imitated, never duplicated.
Stephen King
I like a lot of King's books, although he seems to have fallen off in recent
years. But in the early-to-mid Eighty's, he wrote It, The Stand, Rita Hayworth
and Shawshank Redemption, and sometime later, The Dark Half. It is worth
noting that all of these have been made into "major motion pictures"
and they all generally sucked. Most of his other stuff is all right, but
doesn't approach the rarified heights of storytelling as these four.
Shogun by James Clavell.
Forget the TV movie and read the book.
Bodyguard of Lies by Anthony Cave Brown.
Ever read histories of World War II and wonder why things happened the way
they did? This book contains some surprising and long-secret revelations.
Incredible Victory and Day of Infamy by Walter Lord.
Excellent histories of the battle of Miday, and the attack on Pearl Harbor,
respectively.
A Bridge Too Far and The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan.
More history, of Operation Market-Garden and the invasion of Normandy. (it's
a lot better than it sounds, trust me. Sometimes truth is more exciting
than fiction, and you learn something besides.)
Henry V, directed by Kenneth Branagh.
This is a excellent production, with one of my favorite actors directing
and playing the title role. It was made on a rather short budget, and sometimes
it shows, but all in all, a triumphantly good movie. Romeo and Juliet, the
new one by that Australian guy, can't remember his name.
A little cartoonish, but quite good otherwise.
Richard III---absolute power corrupts, and this is the most badass corrupted
Shakespeare I've ever seen.
The Crow
Sometimes the wrong things must be set right.
Pulp Fiction-yeah...me and everyone else.
Get Shorty--ditto. Star Wars--can you imagine the impact these had on American
Culture?
Dune--Long, odd, but strangely enthralling.
Blade Runner--the original sci-fi film noir.
The Longest DayThe ultimate war movie. See John Wayne, Bogie, and lots of
other famous actors invade Normandy! And the Germans really speak German.
more to come....
