The Tentacled Monkey

So with new baby Addison in house and doing well, I don’t think that I have read more than 40 pages of The Burrowers Beneath. Nothing against the book at all, I rather like it, but I might have to change titles to get my reading steady again, well novels at least.

The funny thing is that I have read no fewer than eight short stories over the last week and a half. I have found that I really don’t have the time to put in to reading a continued story line, but a story that is short and can be killed in a single sitting or two is prime. This is especially true with a newborn in house and a rather unexpected feeding schedule.

I will have to ponder which book to replace Titus Crowe with and possibly finish it later in the year.

On a separate note, I have been trying out Google Buzz and am actually liking it. It allows me to easily let friends know what is happening, ala Twitter,  from GMail, which is perpetually open anyway. It also lacks a lot of the other ridiculous features found in Facebook that do nothing more than annoy me to no ends.

Anyway, More later…

MurfMan Books, Personal 45 Books, Baby, Books, Short Story

This speaks for itself really. A pretty neat video from Runner’s World on tying your shoelaces correctly.

MurfMan Humor, News, Personal

So at the end of 2009 I scoured through my Goodreads and Shelfari profiles to determine to number of books that I read last year. And to my surprise I didn’t even break through to the 30’s. This really surprised me at first but then the more I thought about it I realized that I had indeed gone weeks without touching a book and even more weeks reading the same damn thing.

It turns out that having a pregnant wife can really zap your time and energy when it comes to allotting the needed time for reading, well that and Wire in the Blood on Netflix. So this year around, I am challenging myself to read a novel a week for the rest of the year minus two proscribed 2 week breaks. Since it is already the  third week of the year and accounting for the 4 weeks off, that leaves me with 45 novels until victory.

Lending even more difficulty to this is the realization that I will have a newborn in the house here with me at any time now. Hopefully the odd feeding hours and early risings will give me the right amount of time to finish what I plan.

To be honest 45 novels in a year is not an unheard of proposition, but I am almost certain I can’t do it.  But on the other hand, it would be nice to read that much again in a year.

So for fuck’s sake if you see me watching too much Robson Green or Top Gear on the tellie please kick me in the ass and through me a Warhammer novel so I can get back on track.

MurfMan Books, Personal Books, Goodreads, Netflix, Personal, Shelfari, Top Gear, Wire in the Blood

So Sunday morning I finally finished Charles Stross’s Singularity Sky, a science fiction novel centered around the event and aftermath of a “type 3 singularity,” a technological singularity, occurring on a distant planet under a feudal government. The premise is that a backwater feudal government and pre-industrial society under heavy censorship and an informational chokehold is thrust into an open information galactic network hub, essentially becoming the equivalent of a giant PBX switch in space. The flood of information to and from the purported attackers, known as The Festival, exchanges local information for basically anything the person wants.

This book took me a long time to get through, from no fault of its own, and honestly the first half is somewhat slow. But the second half is excellent. and while this is not my favorite book as a whole, that still belongs to the excellent Culture series, this is still a brilliant piece on a subject with which Mr. Stross is always good at, a singularity. The premise is very interesting but the story doesn’t really grab you and hold you until the later half when things turn more exciting. All in all it is a good sci-fi novel and worth reading, and it’s evident sequel Iron Sunrise will definitely be on the list of to- read items very soon.

So next on my to-read list is the humorous Pride Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and  Seth Grahame-Smith. So far I’m about a third of the way through its campy humor and zombie vanquishing Victorian ladies.

On a personal note my wife is ready to pop with my second child, her third, and therefore posting, and reading have been slow. I will post pics as soon as it happens.

MurfMan Books, Personal Charles Stross, Eschaton, review, SciFi, singularity

What started out as a joke has turned into a full blown website for all of those people who think they are Vikings at heart. The deal is that during a dream I found Odin still hanging fro Yggdrasil and asked what gives? he explained that some strange Flying Spaghetti Monster hung him there as a joke and now he can’t get down. This evidently led to the eventually decline and scattering of Norsemen worldwide. Odin wants down and we can help buy simply commenting at The Church of the Misplaced Norsemen and lending our prayers for his release.

So go help out, or join our Facebook page.

MurfMan Geek, Humor, Personal, Site News, Web CotMN, Humor, Norse

So I brought the stray that has been living in my garage to the vet yesterday shelling out enough money for me to say that this dog is mine and mine alone. Molly, as she was named on the way to the vet yesterday, is a nine to ten month old Black Mouth Cur. For those of you not in the know, BMCs are very intelligent and fiercely loyal all around good dogs, that is actually a hybrid breed that the vet says, “suffers from hybrid vigor.” In other words, she is loving, sweet, kind, protective, brave, and not scared of shit (as further evidenced from the many scars she has from being a former hog dog).

Molly was breed by a hunting dog breeder down the road and was sold as a pup to a man about 5 miles away some 6 months ago. She wandered back into our neck of the woods about 4 weeks ago flea ridden and on the brink of starvation. I took to feeding her after the kids started playing with her and Maggie, our 10 month old beagle, took a liking to her. Since then she has put on about 3 or four inches around the neck and you can’t see her hip bones anymore. She weighed in yesterday at 56.2 lbs. and has a lot of room to grow.

The wife, kids, and I all agree that she is a wonderful dog and just couldn’t stand to see her suffer any longer. So without further ado here is Molly.

MurfMan News, Personal Dogs

My Savinelli Luca smooth billiard broke a few days before the move. It mysteriously fell and the briar snapped in half. I was more than a little upset about the situation. That had left me with a really over-used Kaywoodie Deluxe bent apple, which I love, and a churchwarden prince. So obviously I needed another pipe. Now I had planned on buying a heavily bent Petersen with a foot, but I saw the Savinelli 320 Ball shape and had to have it. The Petersen will likely come next time around.

So here it is in all of it’s wondrous glory, the Savinelli Trevi 320 Ball Smooth. Notice the sterling filigreed band on the stem and the nice burl. I am heartily in love with it already.

I know, gorgeous isn’t it. I also picked up a few tins of tobacco to go along with it, some Samuel Gawaith 1792 Flake, some good old Prince Albert, Eric Nording’s Foxhound blend (a favorite of mine), and a tin of Samuel Gawaith Nasal Snuff (I figured what the fuck, you only live once).

I will let everyone, whether you care or not, how it smokes.

MurfMan Personal, Smoking Pipes, Smoking

So I’m sure no one is wondering why the sudden drop off in posts in the last few months, but I will go ahead and lay it out for you anyway. My wife is currently pregnant. That alone meant the initial drop off of posts is justified, but then to complicate matters, she decided that we had to buy a house. Immediately.

So, for future reference, purchasing a house with a pregnant wife, using a loan broker that is not local, and an internet lender equals months of stressed induced insomnia, weight gain, and depression. And thus leading to a lack of motivation large enough to deny any hope of doing virtually anything, much less blog.

Thankfully, we finished the purchase of our first house on September 2nd and moved over the Labor Day weekend. This past Tuesday we went to the doctor and saw the first ultrasound of the new little one on the way. And a week ago today I started taking happy pills. So all in all, things are looking up much more than it had even a week ago.

For those of you that know me well let me give you an example: for the seven weeks it took us to purchase our new home I was only able to finish two books! That alone was almost more tragic to me than virtually anything else.

The book that I picked at through the majority of the process was Larry Niven’s Ringworld. For some reason I had never read this series, and I’m not certain as to why. Ringworld was a great read, a little slow at times possibly but still an awesome science fiction story.

The other book that I finished was the amazing start of the Marla Mason series  Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt. This was a real surprise read for me and provided a necessary escape when I needed it most. For that reason I killed it in just over a day. And it is worthy of the read too. Fans of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series will love it. It’s violent and gritty and just damn good storytelling. A must read for any fan of the urban fantasy genre. I feel I should go ahead break bad news here though as I learned that Mr. Pratt’s publisher has opted to not pick up the fifth novel, ending the series unexpectedly on a cliffhanger.

I also finished reading my first Terry Brooks novel, I know don’t laugh. Magic Kingdom for Sale-Sold was a surprising little twist of fantasy that I read more because it was free on the Sony EBook store than for any other reason. It was a delightful little story, and although I am not certain that I will ever read the others in the series, this book was a good read. Brook’s tends to be long winded in the narratives but other than that this would make a nice introduction into the fantasy genre for young newcomers.

So next on the reading list will likely be Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself, book one of the  First Law Trilogy. I have heard a lot about this series and his new book from the same world, Best Served Cold, and thought I should give it a shot.

MurfMan Books, Personal House, Joe Abercrombie, Kid, Larry Niven, TA Pratt, Terry Brooks

TobaccoReviews.com – The largest collection of pipe tobacco reviews on the internet.

I realize that this is not for everyone out there, but I smoke a pipe and there is a stupefying number of choices out there when it comes time to choose a blend of tobacco.

This website thankfully has gone through the arduous trouble of listing it all and allows reviews on it as well. It is a lifesaver for ordering blends that you are unsure of, or if you are looking for a particular taste.

Reviews are done by members only and can be sorted accordingly. All in all, it is a great site to use in the choosing a blend.

On a completely different note I got in a new pipe yesterday, a prince churchwarden, and a tin of the Samuel Gaiwaith Balkan Flake. Both of which smoked very nicely last night.

MurfMan Personal, Smoking, Web Smoking, Tobacco. Pipes

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have not been around much lately for a couple of different reasons. Mainly due to a health issue that demanded to take center stage, but also due to my wife’s continuing pregnancy. I apologize for not posting more often, to all 14 of you subscribers out there and hope to get back into the full swing of things again soon.

As a side note I added a News Page to the site that is tied to my Google Reader account. So when I find a cool article it will show up there. As I can go through hundreds of articles a day at least something is bound to show up in there worth mentioning. I am not entirely happy with the formatting yet and it may go through some more versions before I find a scheme that I like, so beware.

MurfMan Personal, Site News Personal