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Music Memories + Songs

Saturday, July 28, 2012

On blacklights

I can't remember the first time I saw my first blacklights, but they soon became a widely seen experience in my youth. Every nightclub had to have them, of course. They were part of the strobe light show experience. When they didn't have spotlights going all over you in red, blue, green, yellow, and purple, it'd be a blacklight making everyone in white t-shirts or white slacks standing out and glow in the dark. And of course I had psychedelic posters hanging up in my bedroom which you could only appreciate by turning out the regular lights and turning on a blacklight. Some people, so I've heard, liked that effect when they alter their consciousness. The effect on your eyes can be trippy.

On which bookshelf speakers

I'm close to finishing Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. I read it many years ago, and remembered the basic ideas of a bunch of kids (similar to Stephen King's It), but didn't remember the title. And this time I didn't remember it was the same book until I came to once specific incident, which doesn't even fit into the plot. Overall, I like it better now. Did it get better or did my standards go down? I'm not sure. I still think It is by far the better book (although still flawed), and I'm not likely to change that opinion. Still, a recent incident where they drew out and destroyed the Rendering Truck and killed the man driving it, was good. You can put it on your bookshelf next to which bookshelf speakers, and I'll no doubt read the sequel, Winter of Darkness. which takes place 20 years later.

Monday, July 09, 2012

On Tom Ford sunglasses

Yet I have to admit I believe Thomas Harris's choice to make Hannibal Lecter unique among serial killers is valid. He obviously had own vision of Lecter and didn't feel the need to conform to standard reality. So, we find out in the next book, Lecter became a killer and cannibal because of childhood experiences in Europe during World War 2. However, it's not really clear what Lecter gets out of it. There doesn't seem to be sexual component. In the movie of Hannibal (don't remember this in the book but it may be there), another FBI agent says of Starling's relationship with Lecter, "Does he want to eat her, fuck her or kill her?" "Probably all three, though I hate to think in what order." I thought that was funny dialogue. Yet even after Lecter brings her to him, and they seem to be a couple, there's no mention of sexual activity. He just wears Tom Ford Sunglasses to hide his face from people looking for him. Does he sublimate it all into his appetite and intellect?

On steak seasoning

Another way Thomas Harris manipulated the facts concerns serial killers themselves, their psychology. The original FBI criminal profiler, Robert Ressler, on whom the guy in The Red Dragon is based, has found serial killers fall into two categories, disorganized and organized. Organized serial killers are generally pretty intelligent and harder to catch, but none are as brilliant as Lecter. In his own book, Ressler mentions Harris visiting him to do research and not liking Ressler's scheme, so Ressler to some extent disparaged the credibility of Dr. Lecter. As I recall, Ressler said these killers tend to engage in a lot of criminal and sexual, and criminal sexual activity, starting in their youth, long before they become killers. Yet Lecter is simply one who is brilliant, would disdain eating his victims with steak seasoning, and doesn't seem to have any sexual obsessions related to it.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

On where can I buy iphone

So I never really felt that Lisbeth was really much of a hacker. And yet near the end of the book she uses the information gained from researching a Swedish businessman to rob him blind of hundreds of millions of dollars. I found that difficult to believe. Wouldn't it require more than clever disguises and even the guy's secret access codes? Would the banks do it without contacting the guy first? And are fake passports really so cheap and easy to buy? I'm not so sure. I got the feeling the author, as a journalist, did a fair amount of research, but when necessary pulled it out of his ass? Not mention the tax consequences of overseas money. She is not the kind of person who ever needs to ask where can I buy iphone. She somehow just knows all the latest technologies, as if by magic, but they are not magic, that's my point, although they sometimes seem that way to older authors who have read too many shallow articles in the media without becoming an expert themselves.

Monday, June 11, 2012

On computer insurance

So the partner is the junior partner of the law firm of the guy cheating the government, and he's being cheated out of his rightful share, assuming it was a legitimate fee, which it's not. He already was planning to escape, so he decides to steal the $90 million right after faking his own death. The book is constructed to make you feel sympathy for him, though teasing you with the secret of how he got a dead body into his car, so people would think he burned up in an accident, though he didn't. That's the final obstacle to sympathizing with him. He had lots of life insurance for his wife and legal child, but not computer insurance. Then he lights out for Brazil.

Friday, May 04, 2012

On leather restoration

The first thing that bothered me about the book was that it starts out with Rain in Macau waiting for his target to appear so he can kill the man. As camouflage, he has a hired a beautiful young Japanese woman to stay with him so he looks like a Japanese businessman vacationing with his mistress. It seems to me Eisler failed to think through the implications of this. First, there are legal security problems. As a hit man for hire, Rain should want to look as innocent as possible, especially when crossing borders, especially in airports, and commit as few other crimes as possible. By paying a woman to go with him from Japan to Macau he's probably technically guilty of human trafficking, even though she went willingly. It's not about leather restoration.

On asbestos companies

So I finished reading Rain Storm by Barry Eisler not long ago. I have mixed feelings about it. I had high hopes because I like to read about Asia, spies, international intrigue, the martial arts and other such subjects, all of which are included in this series. It does not include material on asbestos companies. And there is a lot of detail about luxury hotels in Hong Kong, Macau and Rio -- and some other places in those exotic locales as well. However, try as I did, I just couldn't like the story or the main character as much as I wanted to.

Monday, April 23, 2012

On vlc player

I also recently read In the President's Secret Service by Ron Kessler. That would be an interesting book even without the recent Secret Service scandals, but it's now very timely. He goes into the background of the Secret Service and explains a lot of how they protect the president, vice president, serious candidates, up to forty other government officials, foreign dignitaries, and their families -- and provide security during important events such as presidential inaugerations, the super bowl, papal visits and so on. They can't just use a vlc player. What's sad is that the management of the agent is the kind I sometimes ran into as a federal employee, but much worse. Agents want to be transferred to a certain for personal reasons, and they're refused even though that city's field office needs agents. What sense does that make? So there is a morale problem already. And there's a high turnover rate. I suspect some of that contributed to the attitude in Colombia why not do what you want when you can?

Saturday, April 14, 2012

On alpha t-1 reviews

In the middle of the next month, hubby learns from a ham radio operator in Ireland the violence is limited to the United States. There are refugee camps in southern Canada. How did aurora borealis lights affect people like this? Who knows? Why? Not explained. Why was effect limited to the United States when all of North America would have been able to see them that night? No explanation. The family's young boy also watched the lights while staying up with a friend that night. He can see the halos around the bad people. And at the end he's the one who tells them the effect has gone away. But he never turns violent. Why not? We're never told. Other children must have seen the lights. Did they turn violent? Who knows? All the bad guys we see are adults. Why did the effect go away after thirty days? No explanation. There also aren't any alpha t1 reviews.