Obama is channeling...

From the "Day by Day" webcomic back on October 9:

Makes you go 'hmmmm...'

NPR's 100 best SciFi/Fantasy novels

I came across this list at another blog, which I won't bother to mention as it appears the author has not updated it for awhile.  The ones which are listed in bold are the ones I have read:

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin (soon)
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis 

 Now there are some more classics which are not included that I have read and enjoyed, as well as some which may be considered 'modern classics' as they have been published within the last 20 years.  They are listed below by author:

Robert A. Heinlein

• Space Cadet
• Friday
• The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
• Tunnel in the Sky

C.J. Cherryh

• Downbelow Station
• Rimrunners
• Heavy Time

Michael Z. Williamson

• Freehold
• The Weapon
• Rogue
• Contact With Chaos
• Better to Beg Forgiveness...
• Do Unto Others
• When Diplomacy Fails 

David Weber

• All the "Honorverse" series (great military sci-fi)

John Ringo...hell, I love practically every single one he has written!

Now obviously I do need to play catch-up on my reading of the classics, but hopefully that will be something I can tackle once I finish draining the swamps and fight off the gators. 

(edit 11/30/2013: turned out after re-reading this I left off a couple I had read, so updated the list to reflect it.) 

Looking back at UserFriendly.org

I found myself yesterday perusing the UserFriendly.org website, which is essentially Dilbert aimed at the hardcore geek and IT crowd.

Started up in 1997 by JD 'Illiad' Frazier, it described the daily lives of workers of a small Canadian ISP mixed in with some oddball characters from the works of H.P. Lovecraft, along with the Dust Puppy, who was a collection of dust bunnies and other detritus come to life (with Hobbit-like feet!), and Erwin, a sentient artificial intelligence residing in an old SGI O2 workstation (although at times he also resided in an iMac, a iPod, and an ancient IBM PC).

The strips were published daily online, and IIRC were also published in some tech magazines in the late 1990's and early 2000's.  Unfortunately, due to personal reasons, Illiad has stopped producing new strips since mid 2009, but the strips are still archived online at the site.

The casual observer who is not familiar with the ways of geeks, nerds, and IT workers in general may find the punchlines and the plots confusing, but it still offered a unique point of view of how IT and our Internet culture has evolved in the early days when the Internet and the World Wide Web was new and exciting and seemed limitless.

Also, if you can find it at Amazon, the book 'Ten Years of UserFriendly.org', a huge 1000-page tome of the first 10 years of the strip is worthy to add to your library.

Back to reality?

So it appears that the congress-critters have finally decided to get their collective heads out of their asses and agree on a temporary solution to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling once again.

Polls have advised before the shutdown that the Republicans will take the brunt of the blame for this mess.  IMHO, everyone in Congress is to blame!

Time to do some changes come Election Day 2014... 

Some awesome concept weapons (courtesy SpecOpsBrand.com)

Confessions of a Street Pharmacist: Louisiana Red Beans and Rice

Stumbled across this recipe while looking around the blogosphere.  I definitely gotta try this sometime:

Confessions of a Street Pharmacist: Louisiana Red Beans and Rice

Another month gets off with a bang

So now the government decided to really kick the stupidity level up a notch and decided to shut things down as neither side wants to man up and compromise a little on their respective positions.

At least our military will still get paid, otherwise it might be interesting if time went on and all they got were IOUs.