Year: 2007

Sarah Andrews’s Bone Hunter has a dinosaur skeleton on the cover, and drags “forensic geologist” Em Hansen into the Utah desert to solve a mystery. Yes, this was one of the lighter reads. If you need the elevator pitch, it’s “CSI meets paleontology meets the Mormons, with an edge of romance to tease.” (OK, that’s…

Read on →

Patton lingered on the shelf for months, but three hours last weekend finally appeared. I know nothing, historically, about the General, so my knowledge is now based on this fictionalized account. The film is compelling enough, though. Metacritic wasn’t around in 1970, but for Oscar winners, they’ve gone back in time: 91 is the score.…

Read on →

It took longer than expected, but secure bike storage at work is once again a reality. (Thanks, Laura!) I biked to work and home again today for the first time in 6 months. Just in time, too, as I’m signed up for the San Bruno Hill Climb on New Year’s Day.

Read on →

Jonathan Gash is the pen name of a doctor, John Grant. But he’s not known for his medicine. I’ve read all (I think) of the 23 Lovejoy crime novels, and The Ten Word Game from 2003 was a re-read. I’m trying to avoid returning to old favorites, but sometimes a comfortable read is worth it.

Read on →

Margot at the Wedding may have Nicole Kidman, but it’s not a movie I’d recommend. I don’t think a 70 at Metacritic is deserved. But it is short.

Read on →

I didn’t have any excitement about moving to Mac OS X 10.4.11, especially since Safari 3 was a required part of the update. I’m happy to say that Safari 3 has improved cookie management, nearly catching up with Firefox and Opera. I can finally search within the thousands of cookies and easily remove just the…

Read on →

I didn’t enjoy Night Train from Martin Amis. The author is famous for many things, including being famous as a contrarian public intellectual. (English authors pull that off even better than the late Norman Mailer did in this country.) He’s not famous for this book, and he shouldn’t be. It’s brief, and the female policewoman…

Read on →

The library “books you should read” table got me again. No complaints about this one, though. John Le Carre is a known entity, but not to me. Smiley’s People is my first Le Carré read, though I did catch a recent movie. Despite missing the first two books of the trilogy, I fell in with…

Read on →

The post-Thanksgiving tradition continues. I ran the 5K in the Run Wild event this morning. A month ago, I was targeting the 10K, but a few weeks out of commission due to a back strain left me less confident of my fitness, so I stayed with the familiar. I finished in 18:46 officially, 29th place…

Read on →

I have a lot to be thankful for. I’d like to add a clean inbox to the list, so time for a link smorgasbord. Randy Pausch’s video lecture is old news, but I haven’t set aside 90 minutes to watch it. Everyone who has says it was worth it. California is still the #1 state…

Read on →