After carting Under the Dome around, it's time to clean the palate with Huge.11 November 2009
10 November 2009
Books: Under the Dome by Stephen King (2009)
While Stephen King’s Under the Dome is more thriller than a chiller, it can scar you. Mostly for its heft, clocking at 1072 pages. Then there’s the town of Chester Mill, it’s elaborate map and it’s large cast of characters that include most of King’s colorful archetypes.
But while the thickness may seeming daunting, the novel -surprisingly - moves fast.
When the town is suddenly surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must do almost anything to survive. But things go from bad to worse rather quickly, with the dome's ecological effects on the town and the maneuvering of one Big Jim Rennie, an deviling local politician and drug lord who quickly realizes he can now make Chester Mill’s his own little private kingdom, with himself as absolute ruler. Our heroes include Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a group of skateboarders and many others.
One of King’s traits is he loves people, and he loves to see what happens when the nine circles of hell open up and see how it slowly unravels their worlds. While the story has been noodling around King’s head since 1976, Under the Dome (which, in the end, resembles the old Twilight Zone episode The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street) is rife with current day issues. He takes the old 1950's communist fears and opens a can of present day terrorist notions to create a nearly flawless novel.
At times funny, disturbing (especially how the people of Chester Mill easily let the fabric of their daily lives unravel), and even moving, Under the Dome is as close to a nonstop thrill ride you can get when a novel tops 1000 pages.
But while the thickness may seeming daunting, the novel -surprisingly - moves fast.
When the town is suddenly surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must do almost anything to survive. But things go from bad to worse rather quickly, with the dome's ecological effects on the town and the maneuvering of one Big Jim Rennie, an deviling local politician and drug lord who quickly realizes he can now make Chester Mill’s his own little private kingdom, with himself as absolute ruler. Our heroes include Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a group of skateboarders and many others.
One of King’s traits is he loves people, and he loves to see what happens when the nine circles of hell open up and see how it slowly unravels their worlds. While the story has been noodling around King’s head since 1976, Under the Dome (which, in the end, resembles the old Twilight Zone episode The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street) is rife with current day issues. He takes the old 1950's communist fears and opens a can of present day terrorist notions to create a nearly flawless novel.
At times funny, disturbing (especially how the people of Chester Mill easily let the fabric of their daily lives unravel), and even moving, Under the Dome is as close to a nonstop thrill ride you can get when a novel tops 1000 pages.
31 October 2009
Happy Halloween!!!
See, it's easy to put a simple costume together.
Bet he had all of this just lying around the house.
30 October 2009
Measure of Me
So, the dullness that is my life continues (thus the lack of posts here on my blog). But times are interesting at work.
* My GM announced she is leaving the company, after 15 or so years with Borders. However, she's not leaving the book industry, just going back to being a DM for a Christian Book company. We also got a new DM for our region, after our last one was fired earlier this month. Since his firing, we've all learned about how piss poor the SoCal region is doing -we seem to be the redheaded step-child of Borders. Also, the GM for Riverside is also leaving next week, which proves how much damage the previous DM did the area and how much work is needed to make this area shine, though I'm guessing the damage is done.
* For the first time in a long time, I agreed to do an overnight shift on Sunday to set-up the holiday stuff. Mostly, the reason I said I do it was because last years crew did a shityy-ass job. So I'm hoping to correct this year; sort of do it right the first time mindset.
* The fate of Borders, by the way, is still not set. It will be an intersting holiday season to say the least.
Happy Halloween all and welcome back standard time.
And less we forget, the Day of The Dead is nearly here.
Peace out.
08 October 2009
05 October 2009
04 October 2009
This weekend
Nothing spectacular, this weekend. Had a quick Frontier Guard shoot on Saturday, was in and out of studio in two hours. We have a bit longer shoot on Tuesday night, which I'm already dreading. I stopped and had lunch before going home and then spent about two hours at Starbucks reading Stephen King's Under the Dome.
Today I went to Disneyland, now all decked out for Halloween. It was pretty crowed, with this weekend being the unofficial Gay Day. As typical, the bears where there early while the twinks showed up at around 1. In some ways, I wanted to be with them, all dressed in red shirts; to fit in. But there is also a part of me who does not want to thrown into such a stereotype.
Argh.
Been on Live Journal checking all the comments about Borders. Seems there are a lot of bitter people working for my company. I posted a few comments myself.
Borders is doomed. Ha!
Today I went to Disneyland, now all decked out for Halloween. It was pretty crowed, with this weekend being the unofficial Gay Day. As typical, the bears where there early while the twinks showed up at around 1. In some ways, I wanted to be with them, all dressed in red shirts; to fit in. But there is also a part of me who does not want to thrown into such a stereotype.
Argh.
Been on Live Journal checking all the comments about Borders. Seems there are a lot of bitter people working for my company. I posted a few comments myself.
Borders is doomed. Ha!
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