An End-of-July Update, of Sorts.

Reading: A book of Dostoevsky’s stories from Barnes and Noble (“Notes From Underground, The Double, And Other Stories“), Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart.

I’m actually enjoying all of it, although Dostoevsky and Nietzsche aren’t nearly as hard to put down as Sputnik Sweetheart. (That being said, I’m obviously biased towards Murakami – my favorite author.)

Watching: In the last few weeks or so, I’ve watched a bunch of Criterion Collection stuff – Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm, Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (À bout de souffle), and an early Wes Anderson film, Bottle Rocket.  Apparently, I have an affinity for French New Wave. Speaking of which, I recently acquired a few more Truffaut films, which I’m definitely looking forward to checking out. Of the aforementioned three, Breathless was the best, but I would watch any of them a second (third, fourth, etc.) time.

Playing: I’ve been playing a ton of Starcraft on the iCCup (International Cyber Cup) servers. In other words, I’ve been getting my ass handed to me by an ever-growing list of players from around the world (mostly Korea, for obvious reasons). I *did* however manage to make it up to D+ (the second rank) in my first week of playing. I just reset my stats, so I’ll give it another go sometime soon.

Besides sc, I finally got around to picking up The Orange Box. When I went to install it originally, I was informed that the CD-key of my brand-new, unopened game was already in use. In other words, the game(s) I had just purchased were useless. In order to get the situation fixed, I had to write my Steam account name and support ticket number on the CD-key reference card and scan it, as well as scan my receipt, and file a ticket on the Steam support site. To their credit, they were really great in getting back to me – I had all the games added to my account less than 24 hours later.  I expected it to take a week or two longer..

So, what this means is that I’m finally getting to play through Half-Life 2, which I’ve been meaning to do for forever. Team Fortress 2 is interesting as well. I thought it would be much more similar to Counter-Strike (having never played the original), but its gameplay is unique (as far as fps games go) and is complemented nicely by the really cool cartoonish art style. Haven’t tried Portal yet, but from all of the fanboyism running rampant amongst the internets, I can tell it’s going to be a winner.

disjointed ramblings.

why am I listening to Grizzly Bear,

at 2:49 a.m.?

(why did I just lose a wc3 ffa, despite my solid ne build?)

I recently finished Heart of Darkness (which is the basis for Apocalypse Now, surprise, surprise) and now I’m working my way through Thus Spoke Zarathustra and some Dostoevsky stories/novellas.

I think it’s time for more Haruki Murakami..

maybe I’ll start Sputnik Sweetheart this week.

I’m considering reading that, as well as Norwegian Wood and After Dark, in the next month and a week or so.

That’s not long.

At all.

anticipation is killer.

Good Bye, Lenin!

-2003 German “tragicomedy” film.

-Set in East Berlin, in the early 90′s.

-Focus on cosmonauts, German reunification, capitalism, and more importantly, family and love.

The things we will do for relationships…

^Anyways, I highly, highly, highly, recommend watching it. It’s worth your time and/or money. I promise.

On a side note, I recently started reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. So far, it’s pretty interesting (despite the fact that I haven’t gotten too into it yet). Stay tuned.

Other recent reads worth your time:

1. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan, immigration to the U.S., importance of family)

-Note: Somewhere, I came across a review saying that this book was racist and unfaithful in its depiction of the Afghan culture (almost to the extent of propaganda). As I have no experience with aforementioned culture, I can’t really comment on that one way or another. I can tell you, however, that it is a well-written, captivating novel whose themes should resonate with everyone – no matter what culture they’re depicted in. Check it out.

2. Microserfs – Douglas Coupland (early 90′s programming scene/dot-com explosion, working for The Man (aka “Bill”, in this case), Legos, awkward friendships/relationships).

-quirky, humorous, Lego references, highly original. what more could you ask for?

Everything Is Illuminated

…in the light of the past. I just finished watching the movie version of the book, minus the subtitles, unfortunately. Nevertheless, it was pretty outstanding, and most parts were like I had imagined them while reading the novel (which I finished about a week ago). The book is definitely worth reading, and the movie is an interesting companion to it, despite the fact that it only tells half of the story. As Alex would say, it is quite premium.

I plan on reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s second novel, Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, sometime soon, so I’ll let you know how that goes. I have my hopes up : )