Jakedog.org

8May2013

Posted by Dirk under: Uncategorized.

24October2012

Cowardly Conservatives

Posted by Dirk under: politics; rant.

My Dad is 72 and has Parkinsons Disease.  He spent 22 years in the U.S. Army, including 2 years in Vietnam.  He had already been in the Army for several years when Vietnam started and he was a Sergeant.  His men called him Sgt Poppa because he took such good care of them.

He proudly supports President Obama in this election, just like he did in 2008.

My parents recycled their Obama/Biden yard sign from the last election by putting an American flag over the ’08 part.

Below the word ‘Biden’ on this sign you can see some discoloration.  That is where they had taped a ‘Veterans for Obama’ sign.

Somebody came by in the middle of the night and tore it off.   My parents taped it back up again, and again, some cowardly, low life piece of shit snuck up to their house in the middle of the night and tore it off.

My parents glued the sign, taped it and stapled the sign the third time, and once again, some local conservative goatfucker crept up to their house when it was dark, to avoid the 72 year old man with Parkinson’s, and ripped that sign off and threw it on the ground.

They put the ripped sign up again, tacked onto the post they use to fly the American flag.  It’s further away from the sidewalk than it’s previous location, so maybe the nutless fucktard Republican that has been tearing it down won’t be able to get up enough courage to venture that far onto their property to vandalize it again.

I am tempted to tape the sign in it’s original location again and stay at my parent’s house all night, watching the sign, just to catch the person doing this.  I bet that un-American asshole talks lots of shit about ‘supporting the troops’ while violating the home of this old veteran, who has fought off cancer three times.  The cancer and the Parkinson’s is thought to be the result of the Agent Orange he came into contact with in Vietnam, where he was risking his life, missing his family and living in horrible conditions to protect the lives and rights of all Americans, even human vermin like this.

But the best revenge will be to have President Obama win re-election.

15March2012

Recent Books

Posted by Dirk under: books.

A few good books I’ve recently read:

Alden Bell – The Reapers Are The Angels: An odd book but I liked it quite a bit. Sort of The Road meets Night of the Living Dead but not as depressingly grim as The Road.  About a young woman trying to get by in the world after some sort of zombie apocalypse.  I found it to be much more lyrical and literary than I would have expected from a zombie apocalypse book.

Daniel Abraham – The Long Price Quartet (A Shadow in Summer, A Betrayal in Winter, An Autumn War, The Price of Spring):  A four book series of books that starts when the main character is about 10 years old and jumps forward 15 to 20 years or so with every book, continuing to follow the same characters through their lives.

It’s a pretty great series.  Probably unlike any other fantasy series you’ve read, it caught me by surprise at least once.  You should definitely pick this one up while you’re waiting for G.R.R.M. to finish his next book.

Daniel Abraham and Ty Frank (as James S.A. Corey) – Leviathan Wakes:  A gritty noire science fiction detective novel.  Set in our solar system and not too far in the future, a space ship hauling water to Mars (I think) finds a derelict ship and stops to investigate.  And then things go wrong.

Very different than Abraham’s fantasy books, but just as good in it’s own way.

17November2011

The Walking Dead

Posted by Dirk under: television.

As you can see in this picture from one of my bookshelves, I really like the graphic novel version of The Walking Dead.  (Not as much as Hellboy, but still, I dig it).

So, when I heard that AMC was going to make a TV show based on this I was pretty excited.  This comic seems like prime TV show material.  I didn’t see how anybody could fuck it up.

But, in my opinion, AMC did.  Their version of The Walking Dead is very disappointing to this particular zombie fan.  It has a few glimmers of goodness (Norman Reedus as Daryl is the best part of the show), and I am still watching every episode, but I think AMC is really screwing the pooch on this show so far.

Hopefully the show will gel somehow and start not being annoying sometime soon.

31August2011

Scott Lynch – The Lies of Locke Lamora

Posted by Dirk under: books.

I loved this book. A tale of an orphan who is taken in and raised by a con artist, along with a group of other orphans.  They are trained to be a team of con artists and they take on the really big scores, stealing fortunes from nobles.  An assassin known as the Grey King starts offing gang bosses throughout the city they live in and makes things complicated.

The characters are cool.  The setting is cool too, a fantasy city with a splash of Italy or something like that.

Anyways, one of my favorite recent reads.

28August2011

Ernest Cline – Ready Player One

Posted by Dirk under: books.

Set in America in 2044, an America that sucks.  The main character is an orphan that lives in a mobile home (along with his aunt and something like 14 more people) that is stacked on top of a dozen other mobile homes to make an apartment block of sorts.  The only good thing in the dude’s life is OASIS, the virtual game world/internet  (they sort of combined over the years) that was created by a reclusive billionaire game designer died 5 years earlier.  He left no heirs and instead left a final game for the people of the world.  A quest through OASIS to find three keys and unlock the final gate to get the ultimate video game ‘easter egg’.  The winner inherits his entire estate.

Of course, this causes a huge rush of people trying to figure out the puzzle and win the fortune, but after 5 years, only the hardcore still search.  They specialize in 1980′s pop culture because the dead billionaire loved that shit and the clues to figure it all out are in that old stuff.

In addition to the many solo searchers there are also clans of searchers and one evil mega-corp that has an entire department of searchers.

And after 5 years, our hero finds the first key and then it’s on like Donkey Kong.

28August2011

David Moody – Hater

Posted by Dirk under: books.

A horror novel where some event (that is never really explained) starts changing people.  These changed people are called ‘Haters’ because they hate non-changed people and attack them and kill them.  The main character is a married guy with three young kids in London.

I didn’t really like the book all that much.  None of the characters were sympathetic or likable.  In fact, they were downright annoying.

Supposedly the first book of a trilogy, I doubt I’ll read the rest of them though.

27August2011

Ursula K. Le Guin – A Wizard of Earthsea

Posted by Dirk under: books.

I’m sure I’ve read this at some point in the past.  It’s one of the classics of a genre I read a lot of and it’s been around nearly as long as I have (published in 1968).  I don’t remember reading it though.  I’ve certainly heard of it.

Nothing really much to say about it.  It’s a classic for a reason.  The story of a boy known as Sparrowhawk and how he became a mage.

If you consider yourself a fan of fantasy you really should read this one.

27August2011

Commenting

Posted by Dirk under: Uncategorized.

I changed the commenting so that you can’t comment on any posts that are more than 15 days old and you have to be logged into jakedog.org to even comment on the newer ones.

I was getting way too many spam comments.  Even though Akismet was catching them all, I think it was slowing down the website, having to deal with them all.  In two days I got over 1500 spam comments.

Screw those asshole spammers.

20August2011

Charles Stross – Halting State

Posted by Dirk under: books.

Cool book set in a possible near future (2018 is the setting, but it was published in 2007) where a bunch of orcs and a dragon rob the bank of an online MMORPG which causes a cascading series of events in both the real world and the online world.  Set in Scotland (and several online worlds).  I liked it quite a bit. Lots of references for an old gamer like me and lots of cool thoughts about what the future holds from Mr. Stross.  You should check it out.  (and I think he just came out with a sequel of sorts).