Over the weekend, I went to see Ready Player One in the theatre. It’s a movie I’ve been thinking about, and the opportunity to see it in a nearly-empty theatre was too good to pass up (even though I’m not a huge fan of theatres, in this case I got to go with someone). Generally, I thought it was a reasonable adaptation of the book, but it was missing something critical that I’m surprised that I missed… Continue reading Ready Player One: The Movie
All posts by The Plaid Mentat
April Apocalypse 2018
What? An April Apocalypse? Yep, after Thanksgiving last year, we decided to go ahead and do an apocalypse game again this spring so that we could do a test run of the 8th edition rules, and make time for Uncle Barry and the Orks to play. This time around, it was Ian (Custodes), Uncle Clayton (Necrons), and I (Space Wolves and Knights) vs. Cody (Chaos), Keagan (More Chaos), and Uncle Barry (Orks). Continue reading April Apocalypse 2018
Vacation
I’ve been on vacation, which means I’m not on my regular writing schedule. Instead, this is the most 80s vacation song I can think of:
101 Short Stories in 101 Days – Part 2
This is part two of my top ten short stories that I’ve read over the last few months. As I’m not a big fan of ordered lists of things, these are in no particular order, but I still recommend you check out my prior post (though whether you do it before or after this one shouldn’t make that big of a difference. Continue reading 101 Short Stories in 101 Days – Part 2
Ye Olde Pick of the Day: Choices
As I was driving down the highway to Grand Junction the other day, this song came across my car stereo (don’t worry, it wasn’t playing on the radio, it was on my USB stick). It is, hands down, one of my favorite songs, and the only reason that it didn’t make it to my “Monday’s Child and Other Poems” collection was because Robert Foreman also did a song about Wednesday, which fit the theme a bit better. Here’s the lyrics, as Ye Olde Pick of the Day: Continue reading Ye Olde Pick of the Day: Choices
101 Short Stories in 101 Days – Part 1
If you’ve been paying attention to the goals on the right sidebar, you may have noticed I’ve reached my first – I’ve read (mostly listened to) 101 short stories. What I’m particularly proud of, in this case, is that I’ve read 101 short stories in 101 days, which was something of a sub-goal that I really hoped to reach as part of this one. It feels good to have listened to and rated all these stories, and I can definitely say I’ve enjoyed getting back into science fiction short stories.
Of the ones that I’ve listened to or read this year, the next couple of posts will be short reviews and recommendations (in no particular order). I’ve provided links to the ones at Escape Artists, so hopefully, if one sounds interesting, you can listen to it for yourself. Continue reading 101 Short Stories in 101 Days – Part 1
Dedication to the Job
Alasdair Stuart said something quite poignant at the end of Escape Pod 391 (that I just listened to the other day), and it really resonated with me. It made me think about my job, and why I show up every morning at 7:00 and leave at 4:30, or 5:00, or 6:00 without a single word that my job is draining the life from me… …Because it’s not.
Here’s Alasdair’s snippet: Continue reading Dedication to the Job
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator – Part 2
After re-acquainting myself with Jung Typology again, I spent a bit of time taking a few more inventories, and looking over a few more resources for what the typology community thinks of INTJs. I was surprised to find that there are a lot of good free resources out there, so reading material was not in short supply.
What was interesting to me, however, is that even with that breadth of reading material, the results often didn’t feel like much more than the kinds of answers a con-man might provide. Continue reading Myers-Briggs Type Indicator – Part 2
Dream: A Star Trek Thanksgiving
I dreamt it was Thanksgiving and I was watching my favorite Thanksgiving movie, called “Freyja”. It was the story of a pair of brothers (neither of who’s name I remember): The younger one (played by Jonathan Frakes) had grown up pampered by his parents, but was outgoing. He waged war to put food on his parent’s table, and it was plentiful. He wore a black star-trek uniform, but a red cape. The older one (Patrick Stewart) was wise but reserved. He had been a diplomat that had brokered peace between the two warring factions, and, in doing so, had put his brother out of work. Continue reading Dream: A Star Trek Thanksgiving
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
I recently took an online Myers-Briggs Personality Types assessment, and it came back with my type being INTJ – Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging – aka, The Mastermind (by David Keirsey’s temperaments) or The Architect (if you’re using the NERIS type explorer). This wasn’t too surprising to me, I’ve taken the assessment at various points in my life and gotten the same thing, but, what was surprising to me this time, is where I fit on the more fine-grained scale, as this has shifted dramatically over the last 13 years… Continue reading Myers-Briggs Type Indicator