My favorite concert shirt and one of my favorite old shirts has gained too many holes to continue wearing. Here’s the memorial:

Scarlett had a good time picking apples, so Danielle thought it’d be neat to take Scarlett strawberry picking. I was pretty surprised at how many people were there.

When we arrived, they gave us a box to fill with strawberries. Scarlett was quite excited about carrying the box over to the fields.

Unsurprisingly, it was mostly Danielle and I - with Scarlett putting in one or two strawberries at a time.

I swear to God, I cannot play in my room by myself.

-Scarlett

When we went to my graduate degree graduation, it was also Alex’s birthday so we went to see Aladdin on Broadway. It was really good. Danielle and I enjoy Broadway shows, but have not really enjoyed the Disney Broadway shows. Mary Poppins in particular was quite a disappointment. Aladdin, on the other hand, hews a lot closer to the story that movie audiences remember. The only changes they make have to do with the fact that it’s harder on broadway to have animal characters. So instead of Abu, Aladdin gains a few friends (and a fun song about them in which they are busking. Iago becomes a man who seems to be doing a mix between Sam Kinison and Gilbert Godfrey. While we’re talking about impressions, one of Aladdin’s buddies appears to be doing an impression of Horshach from Welcome Back Kotter. Of course, the star of the show is Genie who plays on our stereotypes of overweight people to impress as he does the most impressive feats of broadway of the entire cast.

The Rapture of the Nerds: A tale of the singularity, posthumanity, and awkward social situations by Cory Doctorow

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Once, a long time ago, I starting reading The Illuminatus Trilogy. I’m not sure why, but I think someone who was also into scifi had recommended it to me. Between its strange pacing and storytelling and sexual content I wasn’t quite ready for, I didn’t get it and quit early.

The Sagan Diary by John Scalzi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is best read right after the original trilogy so you can get all the references. As these are Jane Sagan’s BrainPal diary entrees, Scalzi doesn’t over describe the references.

It’s much more poetically written than other Scalzi stuff I’ve read, so it was neat to see him showcase some of his other writing talents.

Questions for a Soldier by John Scalzi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Full of inside jokes for readers of the first trilogy and a chance for Scalzi to expand on Perry’s thoughts which would have been too awkward to fit in during the original narrative.

View all my reviews

Tiger Eye by Marjorie M. Liu

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I set out to see if I could enjoy a romance book. I got this Marjorie Liu book for free from Barnes and Noble in a Friday giveaway. The cover promised a cheesy romance, but I knew going in it was Liu who I loved on X-Men and I knew it was a paranormal romance, to which my wife said “like the movie Ghost?”

It wasn’t until this year that I realized I was no longer in control of my personal narrative. I believed that I could be in charge of how private or public my life was. But it’s become increasingly obvious this year that it’s not in Facebook’s financial interest for me to be able to control my narrative. Too many of us are disengaging with the social network to a large degree. So now others can post about me and tag me and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s quite frustrating that all too many conversations nowadays begin with, “please don’t post this to Facebook.” It just makes me want to turn in on myself and spend less time socializing. Because, at least for now, anything that happens in my home when I’m by myself will only end up on the Internet if Danielle and I both want it online.