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The Chronicles of Prydain were one of my favorite series of books growing up. I just re-read all five because the boy dove in a couple of weeks ago. He’s now read them all and is re-reading them. The books sit in a stack on the floor, and he returns to Taran and Eilonwy and all the rest again and again. This weekend, we’ll take them back to the library, and pick up the last few of the Narnia series. I didn’t jump in to re-read those, after my The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe experience ~18 months ago. But Taran and the rest of this Lord of the Rings “lite” saga haven’t worn out their welcome yet.

I’ve known about NextBus, but today we took advantage of the service. We made the call to head down to the Ferry Building for a visit to the Farmers’ Market, and NextBus correctly said that the 5 Fulton was 4 minutes away. We made it, which saved 25 minutes of waiting.

On the way back, the mobile version of the site came up flawlessly on the Treo. There was a phantom bus, where NextBus told us the 21 Hayes was about to arrive, and it didn’t. But on a beautiful Saturday in San Francisco, waiting in the sun wasn’t a hardship.

You know how it’s hard to write something brief sometimes?

We’ve worked hard to make shortcuts come alive.

The power of DNS just got a lot easier to explain. Sure, you don’t need to care about DNS itself, but shortcuts are something you can see, something you can use…almost something you can touch. After improving life behind the scenes for months, OpenDNS can now demonstrate another way the Internet experience can improve. That’s fun.

What a nice surprise to linger in the public library on Saturday morning and find a Dick Francis novel I had not read: Under Orders. According to Wikipedia, this was the first novel since the death of his wife, Mary. Like all of the Francis books, a fun read that didn’t take much more than a day…and only that long because I made time to go for a ride in the park, ride for exercise on my own, and even help with a bit of garden cleanup. Dick Francis is my literary comfort food.

I read the graphic novel over a year ago. The film version of A History of Violence has been on the list ever since. The film was solid. Different, though, in its patience and willingness to linger even further on the small town scenes instead of the Philadelphia backstory and finale.

Unlike a horror movie or other violent thriller, there are few surprises. You know what’s coming…most of the time. There is one sex scene which startled me. Never saw it coming, although it shares some of the emotion of the title.

The iconic image I mentioned when writing about the book is not in the film. Maybe that is why I was not startled, since I was waiting for that gruesome step.

Metacritic score of 81 is appropriate.

Chances Are…Adventures in Probability was my other pickup at Cody’s a few weeks ago. Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan jointly authored this exploration of statistics, but the voice is consistent. Chances Are… picks through history with an eye on the odds. Skills with numbers, and misconceptions about numbers, affect far more than simply the roulette wheel, and the Kaplans enjoy underlining the importance. Math isn’t avoided, of course, but the point is more how math is understood and misunderstood.

Each chapter follows a theme. My favorite was Chapter 5, Securing, considering insurance. That may not scream exciting. But weighing the odds isn’t simply a requirement for gamblers. It’s a necessity for commerce on any scale beyond the village. Sharing and distributing risk, even catastrophe, doesn’t depend on good will, but math. Like the other themes, the story of insurance through history reminds us that there are no certainties, just better calculations of probabilities.

I’m mildly curious whether Michael and Ellen are brother and sister or something else, since they are not husband and wife.

I’m not very musically inclined, so I know I don’t listen carefully. I’m afraid I would have been one of the 1,000 people who walked right by one of the world’s best violinists playing in the Washington DC metro during rush hour without hesitating.

Fascinating story, enlivened by video of some of the telling moments. [Via Matt]

Shooter was exactly what I expected last night. Nothing more, nothing less…so I was entertained. Metacritic shows a 53. I suppose your standard “lone hero against the conspiracy” movie doesn’t excite anyone any more. But telling a genre tale well isn’t a terrible thing. Shooter felt like a mix of a Tom Clancy movie (pretty much any of them!), Day of the Jackal, and maybe Total Recall for body count.

My mother suggested I would enjoy Harry Turtledove, so when I was wandering an airport bookstore and came across In High Places, I bit.

I finished this slim novel on the brief flight to Phoenix. This was a reasonable tale, though nothing special. Certainly an imaginative premise, though. I learned just now that the Crosstime Traffic series is aimed at young adults, so I suppose the length is deliberate.

I’ll have to try the re-imagined American Civil War series instead.

Writing of comics, I finally got to see 300 last Tuesday. Another Frank Miller comic book made into a movie, 300 feels like a great graphic novel. Not having read the graphic novel, I don’t know if it’s great or not, but Frank Miller is a sign of quality.

The movie’s story isn’t fantastic, but it’s clear, with few complications, so it runs faster than the blood which fills it. This movie was almost exactly what I expected… and I enjoyed it for just that reason. Seeing it on the IMAX was a great call (thanks, Sean).

I had heard that critics were not fond of the movie, and a Metacritic score of 51 underlines that point. But given the $200M and counting the film is making, we can expect more of these stories. We can only hope that the visual style doesn’t become old hat too soon.