Category: Books

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Book: The Mindbody Prescription

At the suggestion of one of my online friends/fans, Forkmantis, I just finished reading The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain. This was a very insightful read, founded on the principle that the mind and body are one, and therefore physical manifestations of pain can controlled, and eliminated, by the brain. The theory is simply that we suppress stress and anger and the brain knows this, and inflicts pain on its own body as an outlet. Continue reading “Book: The Mindbody Prescription”

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Book Review: Christopher Moore's "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove"

Once again, Christopher Moore fails to disappoint. Set again in the little town of Pine Cove (which you’ll remember from his first book, Practical Demonkeeping), Christopher Moore once again brings us a supernatural comedy that made me laugh at least every other page, if not on every page, in The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. Continue reading “Book Review: Christopher Moore's "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove"”

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Christopher Moore's Blood Sucking Fiends

Just before I left for SANSFire 2008, I decided to down one more of Christopher Moore’s hilarious books, Blood Sucking Fiends. This one, written in 1997, takes place in San Francisco, and centers around Tom, a small-town boy who moves to the city to become a writer, and Jody, who becomes a vampire early in the book and has to cope with her new “life” as an undead.
This book made me laugh, a lot. Moore manages to quickly give you enough background information on the characters that you can get to know them, without losing your interest in the main plot, and every chapter is entertaining. I really liked Moore’s take on the master vampire and his sanctum, which was an interesting spin on Dracula’s ghost ship.
Two thumbs up for Blood Sucking Fiends.

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Christopher Moore's Coyote Blue

I’ve been dieting for nearly a month now, but I’m not talking about the Medifast diet, rather the media fast as recommended by the The Four Hour Work Week. Given that I’m spending less time reading hundreds of RSS feeds and listening to dozens of podcasts, in the last month, I’ve read two books (Practical Demonkeeping and Coyote Blue) and listed to two books in audio form (The Four Hour Work Week and The Tipping Point). That’s an nearly four more books per month than my average!
Coyote Blue is a good read. Moore again takes established mythology and challenges what we “know” about said myths, this time interweaving Egyptian and Native American gods. The main supernatural focus of the book is the Indian god Coyote, the trickster. Moore sets him up as a guy you love to hate from the get-go. The other main and supporting characters are largely likeable and memorable, despite their character flaws. I particularly liked “M.F.” (guaranteed not to stand for what you think it stands for) and am looking forward to seeing him in Moore’s other books. I also appreciated the subtle references to Practical Demonkeeping, and how he casually reminds the reader of the previous book.
While this book won’t go down as one of my favorites, I definitely recommend it as a great way to get a few hours of solitary entertainment

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Christopher Moore's "Practical Demonkeeping"

I just read Christopher Moore’s book, “Practical Demonkeeping.” It was a great little read. Think “Stephen King or Neil Gaiman with some of the seriousness replaced with humor” and that’s what you get. I believe this was Moore’s first published work, released in 1992. It mixes old legends and mysticism with a great plot that, despite having many characters, is easy to follow without leading you by the nose. Highly recommended.

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Virtualizing Windows XP Professional for Fun and Profit

Today I decided to finish virtualizing my copy of XP, so that I could run all of my XP apps (except my beloved World of Warcraft) under XP, while actually using Ubuntu as my native OS. This eliminates the hassle of having to maintain multiple copies of Windows, freeing up disk space, and improving performance.
But that performance comes with a price… Continue reading “Virtualizing Windows XP Professional for Fun and Profit”

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Jim Cramer?s "Stay Mad for Life" – Part Two

Continuing where I left off reviewing this book, chapter 3 covers planning for retirement, and the five biggest mistakes people make with their 401(k) plans. Since I own a small company, we currently have no 401(k), but we do offer a SIMPLE IRA for our officers, and most of these points hold true for me as well. They are:

  1. Buying the employer’s stock
  2. Investing in stable-value funds
  3. Accepting the default offerings in their company’s 401(k)
  4. Cashing out their 401(k)s when switching employers
  5. Not paying attention to where the money is going (which seems to me to be the same as point #3)

He then covers a few practical tips to make the most out of your 401(k), such as automatically contributing to it each month, instead of waiting ’til year end. I’m guilty of not doing this, but luckily cash flow isn’t an issue right now, so I can still contribute. Cramer also advises that you contribute the maximum amount to your 401(k) that your employer will match. After that, you want a separate, self-managed IRA, which gives you more flexibility than your employer’s plan.
So far, I’m liking the advice I’m getting from the book. Check back in thirty years to see how it worked out.