Starry Wisdom

Entropic Words from Neilathotep

Sunday, September 21, 2003

57

Thanks to Eugene Volokh for letting me find this:

The Library Hotel is now offering a unique Erotica Package for $650,
per room, per night, based upon availability. Experience the
Erotic Literature Room, the Love Room, or any room you choose,
with this special package which includes many gifts to take home
to keep the passions burning:

  • Champagne on arrival
  • 1 dozen Red Roses
  • Strawberries, and a bowl of Low-Fat Cool Whip
  • Kama Sutra Love Essentials Package
    This irresistible set of Kama Sutra’s all-time favorites includes a sprinkling of sweet, edible Honey Dust, tongue-tempting Original Oil of Love and a lubricating Love Liquid.
    Kama Sutra Treasures of the Sea
  • Transform a simple bath into an ocean of azure blue, relinquishing body and soul to the soothing rhythms and distant scent of the sea with this wondrous blend
  • Erotic Dice (yours to take home)
  • Erotic Moods: The Very Best of Nusound.
  • Godiva Gold Ballotin ¼ lb box
  • Tantric Massage Video
  • This video shows the grace, the flow, and the dance of erotic massage.

  • Two plush Library Hotel bath robes (yes, yours to take home)
  • Choose one of the following books to take home as our gift to you:
    The Art of Arousal, by Dr. Ruth Westheimer
    Mars and Venus in the Bedroom: A Guide to Lasting Romance and Passion,
    Or, a copy of the Kama Sutra

For reference, I found his on their website, here, and it was in reference to this amusing story.

posted by neil at 2:48 pm
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Friday, September 19, 2003

56

This is completely crazy:
$387,000 Plate!

posted by neil at 8:09 pm
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Thursday, September 18, 2003

How My Day Was Made (yesterday)

I was watching Season 3 of the delightful BBC series of Jeeves and Wooster starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. Good series. Anyway, Bertie Wooster was chatting about his new adjustable golf club, and how it could go from a niblick to a mashy-niblick to a mid-mashy with just a few clicks. Then, 30 seconds later, his Aunt Agatha was calling him a Poltroon. My two favorite words used within seconds of each other. Granted, if this was something non-Wodehousian it would be a lot more impressive, but still, it did make my day!

posted by neil at 11:51 pm
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Thursday, September 11, 2003

54

A Quantum Murder by Peter F. Hamilton: I broke a tradition by reading a fiction book right after another fiction book. But my collection of unread books is very highly weighted to fiction now. Anyway, this book is another mystery book, although one set around the year 2040. This is the second book in a series of three. So you probably shouldn’t read it without reading Mindstar Rising first, but whatever. Anyway, the book follows ex-military gland-psychic Greg Mandel’s investigation of a bizarre ritualistic killing of a physics professor. The setting is a fairly dystopic England that was pretty much raised by global warming and a decade of totalitarian socialist rule. Things are starting to get back on track, slowly but surely. This book probably fits best into the cyberpunk sub-genre than any other. Anyway, I tend to like Hamilton quite a bit. He has good characters and good pacing. And this book has a decent mystery component to. All-in-all I enjoyed it quite a bit.

posted by neil at 11:55 pm
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Tuesday, September 9, 2003

Books

So, I’ve been missing the Obloid Sphere for a long time now. And one of the things I miss most about it was the chance for me to write stupid reviews of the books that I read. So, I think I will start doing that here. I will begin with a longish entry chronicalling the books I’ve read in the past couple of months.

  • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace: I mentioned this briefly a little while ago. Reading this book is no small undertaking, but it is more readable than a lot of Pynchon. I very much enjoyed this book overall, and I have recommended it to several of my friends. I wouldn’t just rush into though, without first saying that you will take the time to go through it, even if it makes no sense and is a bit crazy at first. The basic premise of this book is, well, no, I don’t even think I can really describe it. I actually had very little idea what it was about when I read it, some vague ideas of it having something to do with tennis for some reason, but that was about it. Maybe it truly is best to go into it blind.
  • Double Bucky Shanghai (Phreakers No. 1) by Alice Bach: Wow, this book is simply amazing. Basically Alice Bach is some crazy lady who decided to write a series of “teen girls books” like uhm, Babysitters Club or what not, based on the escapades of a couple of 31337 h4x0r ch1x. I don’t think they ever ended up going much of anywhere, but man, they sure make for some amusing reading. At least this first one did. And quick too, I pretty much read it all over an iced chai at a coffee shop one afternoon.
  • Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher by Richard P. Feynman: This is a distilled portion of the Feynman lectures on physics. I knew everything covered in this book at one point, but it was an interesting refresher. It is very much written in a qualitative fashion, so it is very accessible to the layman. But it is interesting none-the-less. If nothing else, Feynman’s presentation these concepts of physics is novel and interesting.
  • The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson: I highly recommend this book. It is about the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, and the amazing amount of work that went into getting it going in an incredibly short amount of time. It is also about a man who is probably one of the most bizarre psychopaths ever. Very good juxtaposition. I think I had to admit that there were a few places where I was very underwhelmed by Larson’s writing, but he still told a good story, and it was compelling overall. I think that you Chicago people should most definitely read this one if you haven’t already!
  • Hell’s Faire
    by John Ringo: This is the fourth book in what I guess is called the Legacy of Aldenata Trilogy. Four books in a trilogy? Yeah, that is sort of messed up, but Ringo is most apologetic. Basically this book should really be stuck on the end of the third but When The Devil Dances but 9/11 basically made him stop short of finishing what he wanted to. And he decided to release the book on time. Whatever, it’s not that important. Anyway, the series is pretty good, although this last book was a bit subpar. It did end the trilogy satisfactorily. It is basically SF military fiction, like Tom Clancy with aliens. Overall, Ringo does a pretty good job of making things believable (although there are some goofy stretches), and he certainly created a compelling and interesting alien race in the Posleen, the crazy hordes that are invading earth along with other parts of the galaxy. I shouldn’t spend too much time on this. This series would almost certainly piss oregano off, but I think he could enjoy it if he managed to get off his high horse! One thing that might amuse some people that might or might not read this is that there is a funny slight tie-in with Sluggy Freelance…
  • Director’s Cut : A Moses Wine Novel by Roger L. Simon: This is the latest book in the Moses Wine mysteries series, which began with The Big Fix. This is also the first book in the series that I have read. The small background in that is that I have a signed copy. Slightly more background is that I went to the signing along with my friend steve, but the author himself missed it due to some strange timeing issues. Anyway, he went back to the store and signed some books the next morning, and we were able to go buy them the next day. This is a pretty standard thriller mystery novel, set in the post 9/11 world. Terrorists are out to get an art film being made in Praque, and it is up to Moses Wine to save the day! I guess this book is a pretty big departure of the Moses Wine character from his hippy roots, but I haven’t read the earlier books yet. I just ordered the first three and bought the fourth and fifth at used bookstores locally, so I am interested in reading them. If you dig light reading and mysteries, you might enjoy this series. I will post more about them when I get around to reading them.

I hope I didn’t bore everyone to death. But these things were really almost as much for me as for other people. Expect to see more entries in the future, but probably single book entries, not these giant marathon ones.

posted by neil at 11:02 pm
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Tuesday, September 2, 2003

t-shirts

Some of you could care less about Niblick the Poltroon as a comic. Whatever, you might still be interested in the concept of Niblick t-shirts. I have a page posted which has some details on my concept, and I would like input, as to whether you might want one, if pricing is an issue, or anything else. There is no time frame set for this yet, but this is what I know (which is repeated on the t-shirt page):

  • The color of the shirt will most likely be black
  • I will likely need about 20 people with a high degree of certainty if I am to do this
  • I am shooting for a price of $15 or less

Anyway, tell me what you think!

posted by neil at 3:51 pm
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