In S.J. Watson’s Before I Go To Sleep: A Novel, Christine is a woman who wakes up every morning and doesn’t recognize the man sleeping beside her. He’s a little old for her liking, she just doesn’t remember if she picked him up at a party or something. Until she looks in the mirror and sees that she has also aged at least 20 years from the night before.

Except it hasn’t been one night… Christine has a brain injury that causes her to not keep any short-term memories for more than a few hours, losing them all overnight.

If this premise sounds familiar, it was used in the Sandler/Barrymore film 50 First Dates (Widescreen Special Edition). But while there it was a sweet, sappy comedy here the story takes a much darker turn.

Why does her husband Ben hide things from her? Why does he try to dissuade her from seeking new treatments and trying to meet up with old friends? Most importantly, in the journal she keeps why did she write “Don’t trust Ben”?

Overall I liked this story a lot. The ending was a little bit of a surprise, but not “knock you out of your seat” surprising. It was a solid read, and one I’d definitely suggest borrowing from the library if not outright purchasing.

Since it has the surprise ending, it may merit one re-read, but I doubt seriously that I will do so. Your mileage may vary though.

Four stars.

Molly Ringwald’s When It Happens to You: A Novel in Stories is a series of loosely interconnected short stories told from multiple perspectives. Most are third person, but one very personal and painful story is related first person.

In some ways this book was pretty enjoyable, but a lot of the themes and hurts all seem to revolve around a world that is kind of Fitzgeraldian. (Everyone is well-off, and if there is a problem it’s a betrayal in love.)

That isn’t to say there weren’t a couple stories that didn’t fit this mold (and they kept the book far more interesting than the central family.)

Ultimately the book promotes trying to heal as a central theme without shoving it down your throat. It ends realistically without a final resolution, but in a hopeful light.

I’m a little lost on why Ringwald chose the format of loosely-connected stories. Some of it seems like she had a few ideas which would not make a whole book by themselves, so she tossed them all together Creepshow style. Or maybe there was a theme I missed.

I’d give this one 3.5 stars. I like it, but it isn’t Warren’s “normal fare”. I’d have still tried it out had specific people recommended it to me though.

Probably not a re-read, but worth your time for once.

The Te of Piglet was originally rated at two stars by me because it really paled in comparison to the Tao of Pooh, which I still highly recommend.

But after a little reflection, I downgraded it a little more. Why is this book now only one star? A few reasons….

1. Hoff clearly didn’t want to write it, from the way he was describing in the beginning. I don’t know if there was a contractual obligation or he just realized that he liked money, but he already went into it with a little less than “pure” intent.

2. While there was still some charm in the book, it wasn’t as good with tying philosophies into the other animals in the Hundred-Acre wood. A good attempt is made with Piglet, and even some with Tigger, but Rabbit and Owl just kind of fall flat.

3. Did you ever read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair? It’s a great book till the end, where it becomes insufferably preachy. This book veers into similar territory with a completely irrelevant bashfest on American political conservatives, while remaining completely silent on problems that may exist with the other side of the political aisle.

He even goes so far to bash Gulf War I while saying that we could learn a lot from Chinese philosophy.

Here’s the issue with that… Gulf War I was in about 1991-2…. China had the Tienanmen Square Massacre in 1989. If you want to contrast ancient philosophy with modern society but don’t critically analyze all sides you are doing yourself a disservice.

I would recommend this book for: People who have it all figured out already and know that they are never ever wrong.

I would not recommend this book for: True Pooh fans, and people who found the Tao of Pooh an endearing comparison of classic English literature to classic Asian philosophy.

The wonderful thing about online classes is that you can take them at any time which is convenient for you.

The bad thing about them is when you forget (or get too busy to deal with them) for a couple months, and then realize that there is a time limit for you to complete the coursework.

A case in point is a class I’m taking now, which has somewhere around 40 hours of classwork. It also has a “final” that you have 30 days to complete after the first 90 days of the course. Obviously, I’m in that 30-day period now.  And not surprisingly I forgot about the course for a couple months.

What makes it really bad is although the class is really interesting (for me), it’s got a lot of heavy stuff using C and assembly language. And LOTS of calls to the innermost workings of an operating system.  This is going to make the successful completion of the class a challenge, to say the least.

But when I complete it, hooboy. It will be awesome.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a rock concert. There are a few reasons for this, including the fact that I’m cheap. Sure, I’ve been to a couple concerts in the park in the past few years, but normally it’s local talent, and it’s always free.

This week I decided to break my self-imposed exile from concerts, and take in the Social Distortion concert. It makes me sad that I took off for so long.

One of the best parts of the whole thing was the other people.  Another attendee named Carolyn was really into the whole thing, and had high-fives for everyone in the immediate area.

Devil fingers!

I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to go to Carolyn’s (the girl on the left) birthday party or something.  But she hasn’t called.

This was much better than a concert I attended in ’89, where someone beside me was injecting something into their arm.  We’ll just say it’s “insulin”.

On the whole, the crowd was very mellow.  No fights that I saw.  Amy wanted to crowd-surf, but I convinced her it was probably a bad idea.

Mike Ness is also a lot shorter than I pictured him.  But he rocks.  Go see him if you can.

And Carolyn, give us a call. 

You know the most awesome thing about blogs?  99.999% of them are regularly unread by everyone except spambots and the person who writes it.  Occasionally someone will come across anything you have because you have a picture of pre-exploded lead-acid batteries, but for the most part a blog is like tagging your basement wall.

Sometimes that’s good.  I can rant about work, even using my real name should I want to.  I can kibbitz about my online art projects which are only seen a little more often than this blog.  I can discuss my plans for getting amazingly stinking rich, or more amazingly stinking drunk.  I can confess to crimes that I haven’t even imagined committing yet.

And it’s all here, in the virtual pages of my own ego.  Just a few bucks a month and I can pretty much do anything I want.

So, yeah.  I’m working on a project I haven’t touched in about a year.  I’m feeling pretty psyched.

Still trying to get through “Dracula” on the Kindle.  You’ll find all the other things I’ve read on it here.

Did a mixed-media painting I’d been planning for a while, one less thing on the bucket list!

And contrary to what I’d normally say, I actually am wearing pants.

A few months ago work decided to morph my duties.  In addition to all the network security, hacking, telephone programming, pass card authorizing, data recovery and web history monitoring that is usually in my daily fun, now  I also add videography and nonlinear video editing to my ever-lengthening list of my job description.

In a way, there is a certain symmetry to the whole thing.  When I was in my teens, I worked with a guy* video taping weddings.  As times changed and wedding videos were no longer something you automatically chose with the photographer, I suggested that this guy get a degree in computer networking (which I was studying at the time).  A few years later he got me a job with the company I’m at now.

So spring forward to the present day.  I’m doing the videos for the company.  I got a Windows shop to buy me a Mac so I’d have something with a little more oomph than Movie Maker.

Now here’s the problem: the Mac is now my primary computer.  Through habit many years ago I found it more efficient for me to cut and paste with keyboard commands than with the mouse.

You probably see where I’m going with this if you have a Mac.  Instead of the CTRL key, you use the Command key for this certain key combo.  Not a big deal, right?

Unless you also use GIMP for the Mac, which reverts back to the CTRL key for cutting and pasting.  And unless you also use a Windows machine at home.

I find myself instinctively hitting the ALT key (where Command lives on the Mac) almost every time, unless of course I’m using the Mac… and not GIMP for Mac at the time I need to paste something into a document.

Another fun reality is that some software I have will continue to be Windows-based, meaning a second desktop and/or Parallels will be with me for a long time, so cut and paste will be the bane of my existence for years to come.

If you see me in a coffee shop, make sure to say “hi”.  I’ll be the one hitting CTRL when I’m looking for Command.

*During the videotaping wedding years, I also suggested this guy buy an Amiga for video effects.  If you don’t understand what this means, you can look it up.  It is the Internet after all.  It also means I’m cool.