SINGAPORE GIANT FAKE ANIMAL TOUR 2011: THE MERLION, IT WATCHES

There’s nothing quire as amusing as typing up a post to explain why you’ve been absent from the LJ for the last few days only to discover it’s been under a DDoS attack anyway, so odds are no one noticed you were gone.

Quite.

Anyway, it’s been a busy week. I went to Singapore on another telephones-related mission, and between that and hellacious miss-them-and-yr-fired deadlines, I’ve been too swamped to even post stuff I’d written up in advance, let alone liveblog the Singapore trip.

Not that there was much to liveblog, what with all the work and deadlines and PowerPoint slides and all. There wasn’t even a Borders clearance sale to plunder (and not that I'd have had the time anyway).

But this trip I was stationed on Sentosa, Singapore’s resort island, which I’ve blogged about before (albeit briefly, as I was as super-busy on that trip as I was on this one), which means yr almost always within walking distance of a photo opportunity.

In my case, all I had to do was step outside my hotel room door.



That is the famous Singapore Merlion (part lion, part fish) lurking over the Mövenpick Heritage Hotel.

Which beat the view from my window.



Especially in the evening when it activates its laser eyes.



I figure I can milk at least three more posts out of that.

Lucky you.

The merlion sleeps tonight,

This is dF

I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (DECEMBER 2011 EDITION)

It's the last book report of the year. Huzzah.

JUST FINISHED

The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The classic haunted-house story in which Dr Montague invites people with paranormal experience to stay in a reputed haunted house for scientific research. For someone who grew up with 50s B-movies and 70s/80s horror schlock, I found Jackson’s approach of keeping things ambiguous interesting, if frustrating. But I like that it's unclear how much of the “haunting” is real and how much of it is either in the head of protagonist Eleanor Vance, or actually being caused by her. If nothing else, I read the whole second half of the book in one night. It’s not often I’ll do that. This is my second time reading Jackson, and while We Have Always Lived In The Castle is a more satisfying read, I can see why this one is a classic.

JUST STARTED

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
I’m a fan of Gaiman, but it’s taken awhile to work my way to this YA book about a boy named Nobody “Bod” Owens raised in a graveyard by ghosts, who are hiding him from the man who killed his whole family and still intends to kill Bod. It’s a far fetched premise, but I’m betting Gaiman can make it work.

RECENT TITLES

Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide To Hoaxes and Other B.S. by Alex Boese
The title comes from a news story that occasionally pops up in newspapers about a circus act gone horribly wrong that, as it happens, is a hoax but run as a real story. That’s the starting point for Boese’s compilation of anecdotes which collectively make the point that much of what we see in the media (newspapers, TV, and especially the Internet) is increasingly apocryphal, wildly inaccurate or outright lies. From PR spin, viral ads and 419 scams to email chain letters, pranksters and media editors who can’t be bothered to fact-check a great-sounding story, we’re being constantly misinformed, and often spreading misinformation by forwarding it to our friends. That’s not to say everything on the web is bullshit – but Boese’s point is that it pays to have a critical eye when that outrageous story appears on yr Facebook feed or in yr inbox. Recommended.

Destry Rides Again by Max Brand
The book that inspired the James Stewart film, with the added bonus that the film won’t ruin the book since they’re almost nothing alike. It’s a revenge tale (of course) about Harry Destry, a carefree roughneck troublemaker framed for a stagecoach robbery, who gets out of jail six years later and seeks revenge on the 12 jurors who were all too happy to find him guilty. It may use the Count Of Monte Cristo as a starting point, but the story unfolds in some unexpected ways as Destry carries out its plan. The melodrama gets a little OTT at the end, and I don’t know that I’ll be seeking out other Brand titles. But it’s not a bad read.

His Master’s Voice by Stanislaw Lem
Lem’s satirical tale of a mathematician who joins a secret govt project to decipher an extraterrestrial broadcast (code-named His Master’s Voice), only to discover that another scientist has accidentally found a way to weaponize some of the data in the message that could escalate the nuclear arms race to catastrophic levels. All of which is almost beside the point as Lem uses this idea as an excuse to ruminate at length about philosophical and scientific aspects of the human condition, as he tends to do. It’s good if you like yr science fiction heavy on the intellectual side, but there is such a thing as overdoing it, and more than once Lem arguably crosses that line. Good, but a pretty hard slog.

My Friend Maigret by Georges Simenon
In which Chief Inspector Maigret looks into the murder of a crook who was last seen in a bar on a small village island boasting about Maigret being his good friend. Not too different from the other Maigret books I’ve read in that it’s pretty laid-back Euro-style detective fiction, with the added twist this time of Maigret being accompanied by a Scotland Yard inspector assigned to observe Maigret’s methods and pick up useful tips – which ironically makes Maigret so self-conscious as to hinder his usual style. On the one hand, Maigret’s constant second-guessing himself disrupts the narrative, but then again that’s also kind of the point. Anyway, I liked it.

Doom Patrol Vol 3: Down Paradise Way by Grant Morrison, John Case and Richard Nyberg
Third collection of Grant Morrison’s take on the Doom Patrol. The first story arc – in which the DP is caught in the middle of the Men From N.O.W.H.E.R.E. (who oppose all abnormality) attempting to kill Danny The Street (literally a sentient street) because it’s a transvestite – is good fun. The second story – in which Rhea Jones awakes from her coma, transforms into a Lodestone (a being in tune with the Earth's electromagnetic waves) and is kidnapped by an alien race at war with another alien race – is damn near incomprehensible as a story, though. At least to me.

I come from nowhere,

This is dF