Prey

First off, I just want to say, Wow. I did not expect that book to end like it did. I won't spoil it for you, but the ending definitely gives a nice feeling of closure while raising some interesting questions about the overall themes of the book.

Oh, yeah, did I mention this book is about a flock of predatory nanites that are smaller several times smaller than a red blood cell? There are trillions of them in a "swarm" and they all act together using a limited but efficient intelligence; a hive mind. It truly makes for a creepy and gripping thriller. I've read Michael Crichton's most famous work, Jurassic Park, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and the ideas it presented on chaos and genetics. I do not think that Prey was darker or more chilling, I just believe it had more of a technological bent to it, a different kind of scariness if you will.

Crichton certainly knows how to write them though. I hope he is one of those writers that gets remembered favorably by academia studying American literature of the late twentieth century. You never know who is going to be remembered by scholars. I'm sure there are several people out there right now who I know nothing about who are going to be incredibly famous in retrospect in the future.

Prey was intelligent and gripping, but it is time for me to move on to Joel Garreau's Radical Evolution. I hope that it has some of the grip that Prey did, because I am going to need it to make it before the big back-to-school rush.

Cataan

Pronounced (unfortunately in my belief): Cu (as in cuff) - tan (as in unnaturally orange).

In my world, it would be pronounced more like the first part of the word katana, because I think that is more distinguished and cool-sounding.

Cataan is an imaginary island that is the setting for a board game I've become addicted to over the summer. In this game, you (and two or three others) play a group of settlers who have just come to the island and are trying to take advantage of all of the opportunity in this resource-rich land. You compete against your fellow man to try and earn ten "victory points" by using the resources you are harvesting to build additional settlements, cities, and roads. Doing this allows you to harvest different types of resources and more of them and contributes to a snowball effect which will hopefully carry you to victory. The game is astutely titled, "Settlers of Cataan."

There are five different resources, wood, brick, wheat, sheep, and ore, and they are used in various combinations to build or buy different things. One of the hallmarks of this game (and why it is so awesome) is that the game board itself is different every time. Not only are resources in different locations, but they also have different values. This means that there are no hard-and-fast strategies or methods of play, because what works great one time may not work so great the next.

The other hallmark of this game, and probably its greatest feature, is the trading element. You can always trade with the bank (for a very bad deal), but you can also trade with your fellow players, which is much more interesting. Bartering can get pretty fierce and the judicious application of politics can edge you that much closer to victory.

All of these things serve to disguise the true nature of the game: math. It is fundamentally built on the principles of probability and ratio. It is very deceitful like that, and I find it utterly fascinating.

Victory can be achieved through strategy, luck, or politics, but it is usually the combination of all three that carries someone past the ten point marker. It's an easy game to pick up, and is completable in one to two hours, so it is a perfect balance between the casual players and the more hardcore ones.

In non-Cataan thoughts, I'm almost done with Prey. I would have been done last night had exhaustion not caught up with me. Probably a post forthcoming about it. Suffice to say, it is quite good.

Dickey-Stephens Park

Good ole Dickey-Stephens. You have so many promotions and give away so much free stuff. That's really what minor league baseball is all about: rowdy fans getting to cheer and boo players and officials, and lots of silly promotional games between innings where free crap you never needed is given away. These two forces are what bring people to games and keep their butts in their seats long enough to buy overpriced food. I always have my fill before I go because I can't stand to drink a $3 coke.

The Springfield Cardinals rallied five runs in the first two innings to none put up by the Travelers. It was pretty disheartening because there was one dropped fly ball and one foul ball called fair that let in a few of those runs. The fans got rowdy and started booing players and officials. It seemed like the first of our two forces was going to dominate the game. True story: I was once at a Travs game where it was going so badly that they decided to sing the Seventh Inning Stretch in the middle of the fifth. But then, in the bottom of the second, the second of our two forces came into play. It was announced that this was the Shorty Smalls home run inning and that if a Travelers player hit a home run, we would all get coupons for free appetizers from Shorty Smalls. Right after the announcement was made, the first pitch was thrown, and Travs Shortstop, Sean Rodriguez, cranked it over the left field wall. Fans got on their feet and cheered and applauded his efforts in winning them free stuff, and abruptly the momentum took a swing for the Travelers. They wound up blowing the Springfield Cardinals out, 13-8.

As if not content with handing us multiple free appetizer coupons at the gate, we were also given complimentary loaves of bread. Even after sleeping on it, I still have no clue why.

Prey is getting harder and harder to put down. I can't wait to finish this book!

Ask-A-Ninja

Not feeling sufficient to just get caught up on my Onion podcast today, I also finished up my archival viewing of the brilliant podcast, Ask-A-Ninja. Ask-A-Ninja continues to be my favorite podcast of the video variety because of its lightning-quick sense of humor that mixes a healthy amount of pop (and not so pop) culture references with a light amount of the absurd. It's unique in that the only visible feature of our protagonist, the ninja, is his eyes, but he manages to convey lots of emotion through the combination of his speaking pattern and his wild hand gestures.

The comedic duo behind it have a very sweet setup, and their sharp wits and subtle-yet-effective editing skills make the ninja an internet force with which to be reckoned. He is a front-runner in defining ninja culture on the internet and a big talking point in the ongoing ninjas vs. pirates vs. robot dinosaurs with flamethrowers on their heads debate.

My big secret about Ask-A-Ninja? They make me want to become a professional movie editor. I like editing.

You can tell I stay quite busy at work. Prey is still very good. Going to the Travs game tonight.

The Onion

This morning, I finished listening to my archive of Onion Radio News podcasts. I had about 100 of them backed up on my iPod from the last few months, and it felt good to finally be caught up on them. The Onion has such an incredible satire and wit about it, I must share some of the headlines by which I was just entertained.

"Army Of Dead has no Problem Meeting Recruitment Goals"

"Civil War Enthusiasts Burn Atlanta To Ground"

"GEICO Saves Fifteen Percent Or More By Discontinuing Advertising"

"Area Mom Freaking Out For No Reason"

"John Glenn Installed In Smithsonian"

"Google Steps In To Help U.S. With Google Navy"

The Onion usually contends with the Weekly World News for being my favorite publication to read idly. The entertainment value in each is beyond reproach with the Onion claiming to be "America's Finest News Source" and Weekly World News claiming to be "The World's Only Reliable Newspaper." Together, they represent my two favorite forms of humor: satire and the absurd.

Prey is very good. The introduction and first chapter alone kept me up a half hour longer than I thought I would be. I have a feeling I won't be able to put it down later today.

Technopoly

I just finished reading Neil Postman's Technopoly today. It was a very interesting read. It was also required read for Human Situations II with Dr. Garner this fall. Mr. Postman had a unique way of writing circles around what he wanted to say without actually saying it. What his message basically boils down to is that we are living in a society where unchecked technological progress has destroyed the moderating forces of religion and politics, replacing it instead with the worship and proliferation of unfiltered information.

If you combine this book's message with George Orwell's message in 1984, you have a very scary situation on your hands. A situation where information is the god that man worships, and whichever man has the greatest ability to manipulate information has the greatest potential to wield an authoritarian control over people's lives. Postman shares a lot of his ideas over the technical control of language with Orwell, such as its ability to limit the realm of people's thoughts. They both believe that a word like truth becomes warped in its meaning with the progress of society and that information glut has the power to change people's concepts of truth and by consequence, reality.

I still have to read Michael Crichton's Prey and Joel Garreau's Radical Evolution for this class. I have the feeling it will be one of the highlights of my next semester. I begin Prey tonight.