So much of this went over my head. So veryveryvery much. But I walked out of the room a tad smarter than when I walked in, so we'll call this a win. And So much of this went over my head. So veryveryvery much. But I walked out of the room a tad smarter than when I walked in, so we'll call this a win. And isn't that the point?
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Sean Carroll takes the reader on an adventure that spans years (and years and years) telling a story of all the stops and starts as dedicated scientists drum up the funding for what would eventually be CERN's Large Hadron Collider. And there have been lots of payoffs for their hard work, but the most famous is the Higgs. If you pay any attention to the science-y side of things you'll remember what a huge deal it was when they found the evidence they were looking for to confirm the Higgs boson particle.
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And while quarks, black matter, and string theory are all things I strive to get my tiny dinosaur brain to make sense of, I think I can say now at least that I understand the importance of the Higgs, even if I don't understand everything about particles or physics. Carroll has such an engaging manner that even when what he was talking about was going in one ear and out the other, I was still enjoying myself.
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Ironically enough, I wouldn't even be writing this review right now if it weren't for scientists at CERN needing to share massive amounts of data information with each other, leading to Tim Berners-Lee developing the World Wide Web. Proving once again that the search for answers for the sake of the question typically leads us to new and interesting places.
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The moral of the story is that science is fun, inspiring, and just really fucking cool. Hopefully, we will always have little kids with big imaginations and loads of curiosity, who grow into big kids with even bigger imaginations and loads of international funding, that allows them to continue discovering the secrets of our universe. Recommended....more
Nothing like a Batman vs Dracula comic around Halloween.
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And I managed to slide this Shalloween buddy read in at the 11th hour. Boom! Done! VerNothing like a Batman vs Dracula comic around Halloween.
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And I managed to slide this Shalloween buddy read in at the 11th hour. Boom! Done! Very proud of myself - hold your applause till the end, please.
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This is a fairly decent Elseworlds story that takes Batman to his natural horror villain, the vampire. Bat = Vampire = Dracula The little kid in all of us was just waiting for this to eventually happen. I mean, you can't go around in the night stalking prey and wearing a batsuit without some kind of retaliation from the vampire population, can you? It's just science. And that's what Moench did here.
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So Gotham's homeless and unwanted are being picked off the streets with little to no fuss, and found with their throats slashed. While Gordon tries to work the angle from a cop's pov, Batman hits the streets as a vigilante to suss out this serial killer. He begins dreaming of a woman who disappears into mist, and eventually finds out she's the leader of a group of good vampires who plan to take down Dracula. Can the Dark Knight team up with rogue vampires and save Gotham?
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The whole thing is very early 90s and it shows. Not in a bad way, but it does have a bit of a dated look and feel to everything. Even so, I thought this was a pretty fun little story. Not exactly something I would say is a must-read, but if you're looking for something a bit out of the ordinary, this would fit the bill nicely.
Recommended for fans of Anne Rice's Batman....more
This is the first book that I can remember Bertie giving the audience a little recap! Of course, after 13 other books (that don't actually need to be This is the first book that I can remember Bertie giving the audience a little recap! Of course, after 13 other books (that don't actually need to be read in order), I thought it was a pretty good idea.
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His much beloved ancient relative, Aunt Dahlia, calls upon her favorite nephew to help her wheedle some of the money her future son-in-law is owed from an invention his father made while in the employ of businessman L. P. Runkle. And so off to Market Snodsbury he goes!
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And while there he gets embroiled in the local elections to help his friend Ginger stay in the good graces of his fiancee, the overbearing beauty Florence Craye. <--who is under the mistaken impression that Bertie secretly loves her. The drippy Madeline Bassett also rears her flower-filled head and strikes fear in the heart of our eternal bachelor. If you don't know, Madeline is under the very mistaken impression that Bertie longingly pines for her, and only her engagement to Roderick Spode saved him from a trip down the altar the last time they met. But since it would be bad form to pipe up and let a lady know that you'd rather spend a stretch in prison than spend your evenings in their company, Bertie is seemingly stuck becoming engaged to these women whenever their respective fiances tick them off.
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At the heart of this one is the often-referenced book kept by members of Junior Ganymede Club, of which Jeeves is a member. It is a club for butlers and valets and the book contains the escapades of the various members' employers. Bertie features heavily. The point of the book is to let prospective job seekers know what they are up against should they agree to employment with one of these noodles, and the contents are kept secret from the general public. Bertie has loudly complained throughout the series that something will someday go sideways, and this is THAT book. Although, things don't go quite the way he envisioned.
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Very funny story that I think most Jeeves & Wooster fans will enjoy. Recommended....more
I saw this and thought it would be a fun little lecture series - and it was! But not in the way I thought it would be. I didn't read the blurb, I just lI saw this and thought it would be a fun little lecture series - and it was! But not in the way I thought it would be. I didn't read the blurb, I just looked at the title and mistakenly assumed it was about Vlad the Impaler. No.
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And while you might think that I should have learned my lesson about that sort of thing by now, my itchy trigger finger has honestly opened the door to a lot of books that I probably would never have found if I had done my due diligence instead of just grabbing something because it looked cool.
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Ok. So what this actually is, is a lecture on the history of vampires in folklore. It centers on the history and cultural effect of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but they also go into the history of vampires from the oldest known folklore (where vampires were a lot like the fae), to fairytales (Snow White), to Anne Rice's Interview, to Marvel's Blade, to the sparkling reimagined vampires we have today.
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And while Stoker and his Dracula get the most page time, they also delve into other cool stories, like Polidori's Byron-inspired Vampyre. I've always wanted the skinny on that whole relationship, so that was worth the price of admission right there.
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This was fun. And the two lecturers were kind of adorable with the way they did this little back-and-forth with each other. At first, I thought it might be annoying but they were just geeky enough to pull it off. And it's not a long lecture, clocking in at only about 4 and a half hours. So if you're looking for something a bit different to kill time on a long car ride, this would fit the bill.
This was a great selection of Sabrina stories. You are 100% getting your money's worth with this.
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Now, they aren't complete. Like, you'll get onThis was a great selection of Sabrina stories. You are 100% getting your money's worth with this.
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Now, they aren't complete. Like, you'll get one good issue and no resolution to the story. But if you're a fan of this particular teenage witch, it will give you a good starting point to help you find some runs that you're interested in.
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Starts off with her earliest stuff and continues on to her newer incarnations, but not in any particular order. I absolutely loved it. Sabrina is fun. Witchy women are my jam, and this has always been such an adorable character in the Archie universe.
Highly Recommended for fans of Sabrina the Teenage Witch....more
This volume mainly focuses on Michael pleading insanity for killing and getting stuck in an asylum until the doMs. Tree goes to the looney bin.
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This volume mainly focuses on Michael pleading insanity for killing and getting stuck in an asylum until the doctor there clears her. These are pretty meaty volumes, so she deals with an abortion bomber first, goes to jail for a bit and uncovers corruption, and then ends up semi-brainwashed after being released from the facility. It's a lot.
This one included the story of young Mike running away from home and ending up in the hands of a sexual predator/child killer thaMore Ms. Tree.
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This one included the story of young Mike running away from home and ending up in the hands of a sexual predator/child killer that was referenced in a previous volume. That one really plays on your fears as a parent but the fact that our heroine gleefully shoots the guy at the end of the story gives you a little revenge therapy.
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She's still battling with the memory of what happened to her husband and getting frustrated that the cops aren't doing enough to take down the crime family that had him killed.
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According to the foreword, due to the series changing publishers, they couldn't afford to have them in full color, but everything still looks great anyway.
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Michael moves through these stories with so much confidence and so few fucks given that I can't help but hope that when I grow up I turn out like her.
The plot was decent, but some of the dialogue almost seemed like it was written as a parody of Readable. If you're a fan of this genre, that is.
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The plot was decent, but some of the dialogue almost seemed like it was written as a parody of a hardboiled crime story. Surprising, because while this is the outline of Spillane's story, Max Allen Collins wrote the comic, and his Ms. Tree series is top-notch.
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The interior artwork kind of threw me, too. Everyone looks glossy and plastic - cheap. I can't explain it any better than that. Those covers are amazing, though.
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Ok, so without spoiling anything (though the end result was pretty easy to guess early on), Mike Hammer gets caught up in a sexy blonde and spends the rest of the book protecting her from the mob. But we all know he needs to dump her and hit it with his bad-ass secretary, Velda.
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Like I said, the actual plot isn't bad, but there are some pretty cheesy lines in this and that artwork is...woof. Eh. I've read worse....more
I haven't read much Marvel lately but this was a bonus borrow from Hoopla so I grabbed it. It kind of reads like a continuation oNot too shabby.
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I haven't read much Marvel lately but this was a bonus borrow from Hoopla so I grabbed it. It kind of reads like a continuation of the Scarlet Witch tv show but I don't know that for sure because...well, like I said, I haven't read much Marvel lately.
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Anyway, Scarlet Witch is attoning for the crazy stuff she did in the past, and her way of doing that is by helping people who have reached the end of their rope. She is literally the LAST hope for some of them when they walk through her door. And by the way, the door is magic so these folks are coming from everywhere.
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She's got a sassy assistant with a past to help her. And in this volume, lots of cool cameos come waltzing into her little magic shop. From Pietro to Agatha Harkness. Cool, cool, cool. I'd read more but I'm also not invested.
The infamous cow creamer is back. Aunt Dahlia, Sir Roderick Glossop, and a whole slew of Bertie's nutty friends, ex-fiancees, and frenemies show up in The infamous cow creamer is back. Aunt Dahlia, Sir Roderick Glossop, and a whole slew of Bertie's nutty friends, ex-fiancees, and frenemies show up in yet another hilarious story.
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This is also known as Jeeves in the Offing. <--because Jeeves takes off (ing?) for a vacation, leaving poor Bertie to fend for himself. Don't worry, he comes back at the end to sort it all out.
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I know that it doesn't have a lot of Jeeves in it, and maybe that will cause some of you not to like it as much, but I really loved the story. Just the fact that Bertie & Glossop bond in this one made me laugh. Loved it!
And the version I listened to had Ian Carmichael as the narrator. Bravo! Well done, sir!...more
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