A Wizard of Earthsea

Posted: October 20, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Book of Sand | 1 Comment

by Ursula LeGuin

This appears on most lists of “Fantasy Novels You Have to Read Sometime,” which meant it was another book for the train ride. Short, quick, and it had a map in the front.

Strangely disappointing, though.

I thought the story would be more intricate and the world much more interesting, since I’d heard it compared to a cross between Middle-Earth and Narnia. Not even close. And there were several long-ish passages of the main character analyzing himself, or being lost in his own thoughts, which usually spanned a page or two of excessively long paragraphs. I hate (for the most part) long paragraphs in fiction, and I hate (for the most part) having to read a lot of the main character’s inner thoughts and reflections (Crime & Punishment is an exception).

At the beginning, the book seemed to have a lot of potential. I was enjoying it. Then I somehow lost my interest and kept reading only because…what else was I going to do on the train? Take another LSAT practice test?

In all fairness, though, I will probably give LeGuin’s other Earthsea novels a try. (Her books being so much shorter, I’m willing to do for her what I refuse to do for Robert Jordan.)

The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place

Posted: October 20, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Book of Sand | Leave a comment

by E.L. Konigsburg

You’re probably familiar with author Konigsburg from her Newbery award-winning book From the Mixed-Up Filed of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which is an excellent book about a brother and sister who live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a while. I’ve had The Outcasts of… on my reading list for a while, and decided it might be nice to read on the train.

And it was nice, although very short (which, for a children’s book, isn’t necessarily a bad thing). I loved that it referenced “Bartleby the Scrivener,” a great short story by Herman Melville (loads better than Moby Dick – you really should read the story). The characters were interesting, but you know what? I felt like it would have made a much better movie than book. Isn’t that odd? Usually you read a good book and think, Wow, wouldn’t that be a fun movie, but here I almost felt like someone had written a book after hearing someone describe a movie. Hm.

It wasn’t as good as From the Mixed-Up…, understandably, but it definitely wasn’t bad. It at least helped take up some time on the train. I had to listen to really loud music on the Zune while I read because I was sitting right by a girl who seemed to have a combination of whooping cough, pneumonia, and emphysema (is that even possible?). Yup.

Totally Worth It

Posted: October 19, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Bed-Knob and Broomstick | 7 Comments

At the end of the sales year, the company I work at throws a big banquet where the top sales representatives are acknowledged, and rewarded. I’m not really sure why people from the office are invited. It might be because they feel guilty having a big party and not inviting us, but regardless the reason, we were invited.

With the lure of free dinner, and the promise of door prizes, Roni and I showed up for what would become the longest evening ever. The setup looked quite nice, and as we entered, we got our ticket for the door prize raffle. The prizes included a range of items, from a camera to a plasma TV.
We were sitting close to where the food was being served, so our table naturally figured that we were going to be among the first to be served. However, we were not. In fact, I think that we were the last table to get our food for every course of the meal. It wasn’t because the servers were trained to go to the farthest table first, because there were tables that were even closer than we were who got their food first. It was like the servers just forgot about us until somebody thought, “I wonder why we have an entire table’s worth of extra food?”
Rotten luck, right? Well, Even at our table, I was consistently the last person to get my food. I kept telling myself (and everybody else) that I was just saving up my luck for winning one of the door prizes.

After dinner, the official End of the Year event started. Basically, this consisted of people going up the mic and saying “I just want to say a couple of things about (insert person’s name here).” And then they would talk for 20 minutes. In order to make sure that nobody left early, they didn’t hold the raffle for all of the door prizes at once. Instead, they spread it out over the course of the whole evening.
Around 10:30, Roni and I thought we were going to die. DIE. I am pretty sure the event was schedule to run until 9:30. The food (whic

h was actually quite good) had stopped coming out around 9:00. We were bored; we were hungry. The final speaker had given her “closing remarks” and was on her way back to her table, when another person stood up and said, “I would just like to say a few words more about (insert name of person that he ALREADY SPENT 20 MINUTES TALKING ABOUT).

All of the raffles had been drawn at this point, and Roni and I were about to make a break for the exit. We would have gone kicking and screaming if necessary. All of the raffles except for one. There was a 42 inch plasma TV that they had not raffled, and the slim hope that we might win it was all that kept us at our table.

Finally, the speaker stopped, and announced that it was time for the final raffle. They drew the number, and slowly read it. All the numbers matched! We won! We are now the proud owners of a $800 TV that we paid exactly nothing for! Needless to say, having to stay the whole time didn’t feel quite so bad after that :). We also got a $50 gift certificate to PF Chang’s and a free sweatshirt.

The moral of the story? I guess you could say it is just like that old man who lost his horse!

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