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Here are some more mini reviews of books. I’m going in order of when I read them.

First up: Eruption by Michael Crichton and James Patterson

I wanted to try something other than middle-grade fiction for a change, and this book caught my eye at the library.

It was a decent book but it was a little too far-fetched for my tastes. I have no problem with far-fetchedness in general – a lot of the fiction I read is not realistic (see “The Rithmatist” below, or any number of the fantasy/sci-fi stuff). My problem is this book was written to be realistic but it wasn’t.

I’ve seen both the Volcano and Dante’s Peak movies (tip: watch Volcano and skip Dante’s Peak). Same concept, came out at the same time, but I prefer Volcano because it wasn’t as cliche and also didn’t have a romance angle.

Anyway, this book seemed to do too much – it was action plus suspense plus a volcano plus a worldwide health disaster. It could have worked but it seemed generally too shallow. Plus the resolution of the problem was rather abrupt, unlikely, and made it seem like they ran out of ideas and just wanted to end the book.

This was a draft started by Crichton and then completed by Patterson well after Crichton’s death. I wasn’t sure how much of it was Crichton and how much was Patterson so I decided to get a book that was Crichton only – see Pirate Latitudes next.

Next up: Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

Flipping through Crichton books at the library, this was the one that looked most interesting by its cover and blurb inside the cover. I checked it out and read it and only after finishing it did I realize this one was not published during his lifetime. With no one else listed as co-author I have to assume it was all Crichton, not sure if he would have changed anything had it been published while he was alive.

I would say this one is not worth reading, mainly because of the adult content. If you watched the Pirates of the Caribbean movies then you cover most of the plot points of this book. But the book adds a lot more bawdiness.

Next up: Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Disclosure: I didn’t read this book. I am putting its review here so you’ll know why I didn’t read the book. My wife read the book and said I wouldn’t like it.

It apparently has a lot of objectionable material. It sounded like an interesting premise and I would have like to read it, but I didn’t want to read all that other stuff like “romance” and bad words. So I don’t know how well the premise was implemented, but it doesn’t matter because it was marred by so many problems that didn’t have to be there.

And that’s why I stick with middle-grade fiction.

Next up: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Ok, so I should have said I mostly stick with middle-grade fiction. My wife picked up this book, and I had seen the trailers for the TV show based on it, so I was interested enough to try it.

It started off well. My wife may have looked over at me a couple times to see what I was laughing at. But as the book went on it was no longer funny and more sad. I don’t regret reading the book but my thoughts on it were underwhelming enough that my wife skipped reading it. And much of it is written as a script, so it takes a little getting used to.

Last up: The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

I was looking for another Brandon Sanderson book, but our library didn’t have it in stock. Not feeling like putting it on hold and waiting for it to come in, I grabbed one of his books that was on the shelf and that looked interesting to me.

The idea of the book, as portrayed on the opening flap, looked good. Once I started reading it, it was a bit much. I was not a fan after a few pages, I didn’t feel like learning another world setting. I don’t think the author did anything wrong – I just wasn’t in the mood.

But I stuck with it and after a few chapters it was worth it. It ended up being a very good book and I would have recommended it with no qualms, except that it is the first book of a series and no other books exist yet. And it’s been many years so at this point I don’t know that we’ll see the sequel(s).

I still recommend it, just with an asterisk that if you like it then you’ll be disappointed that the story is unfinished. The book is mostly self-contained, but it ends with a major plot point open.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up later this year.

There’s a scene in the movie Wall-E where the guy is explaining that after so many generations in space, human bodies experience loss of bone density – some skeletal changes. If you’re not using something, it wastes away. Like if you’re bedridden for a while, your muscles atrophy.

Here’s a still from the movie. If you’re looking for it, it’s at time 48:17 into the movie, if you’re looking at the progress bar in Disney+.

And each time technology progresses, there’s a study that shows how humans are using their brains less. For example, everyone used to know many phone numbers. Now with cell phones doing all the remembering for you, people don’t know anyone’s phone number anymore. I know my wife’s phone number because she’s had that number before smartphones existed so I had to know it. But I don’t know any of my children’s phone numbers because I never have dialed their numbers. Since phones remember things for people, people are losing their memorization capability.

Phone numbers was an early indicator. Next thing that comes to mind is navigation. People used to be able to read maps. Now they just know how to follow the line and the instructions that come up on the screen. Being the navigator in the car these days means selecting the destination on the nav unit, not actually knowing where you are. So people are losing their navigation/direction/way-finding abilities.

Now with AI doing a lot of things, people are losing those abilities too – writing essays, putting thoughts together, putting lists together, drawing pictures of themselves as Star Wars characters, etc. More skill atrophying. But at least we humans are retaining the ability to identify all stoplights and crosswalks in various photos, thanks to captcha for honing those skills.

I’m sure there are some more examples, but that’s just what I came up with quickly. The point of this blog post is not to make a list of everything that’s atrophying, rather I just wanted to show the results of all such degradation in the style of Wall-E.

Here it is:

That’s all really. Keep using your brain – exercise it – so that you don’t lose functionality.

One of the amusing clips from the Pixar movie Onward had the sight of unicorns rummaging through garbage cans. Sometimes when I see how woodland creatures are portrayed in movies, especially animated movies, where they are whatever the opposite of villainized is – made to look cute and cuddly and harmless – I want to invite the writers over here.

Earlier this week I almost tripped over a muskrat because he ran across the driveway right in front of me. I had groundhogs chewing through my extension cords (no, they were not plugged in at the time) and rabbits eating flowers I planted in my flower bed (begone with you Peter Cottontail). And if a car sits for several days without being driven then the squirrels store walnuts in the engine bay and mice chew throgh wires.

It was amusing though one time when I started down the driveway and the now-disturbed mouse tried to escape by running for the nearest light, which happened to be the cowl so he ended up on the bottom of my windshield and didn’t know where to go next since he couldn’t scale the glass.

I’m not complaining though, I just make sure to plant things like daffodils and marigolds that rabbits and deer don’t like. And garlic and hot pepper on things I don’t want groundhogs and squirrels to touch. I leave the muskrats alone – they’re fun to watch. Deer and Canada geese on the other hand – I actively chase them away. My family doesn’t like it when I chase them while we’re in the car and I’m driving though.

In the last week or so, we had the announcement of the 2025 NFL schedule. Now that we know who will play whom and when, we can start predicting wins and losses.

I keep my predictions over at Some Fun Site. View results of previous football seasons.

2024 Summary

Last year, I predicted that

• Denver Broncos = 5-12
• Detroit Lions = 13-4
• New York Jets = 6-11

How they actually did was

• Denver Broncos = 10-7
• Detroit Lions = 15-2
• New York Jets = 5-12

Not bad on the Lions and Jets. Broncos was a ways off though.

Read the rest of this entry »

Subtitle: in which I improve the government’s records

Allow me to introduce to you the 2024 SFS List of Baby Names that Combine Similar Pronunciations. That baby name list is the place to go in case you are wondering what are the most popular baby names in 2023 regardless of how they are spelled. The Social Security baby name list does not adjust the rankings based on alternate spellings (like Catherine/Katherine), but SFS does.

It is almost Mother’s Day, so the SSA released the name rankings for 2024. Last year’s champion, Liam has repeated as the most popular boy’s name in the US, for the second year, so the trend is official. Liam and Noah and Oliver repeated as the top 3 and with large gains, whereas Jackson is on the decline.
No controversy for the girls – it’s Sophia again, and by a similar margin as last year.

Some Stats

• In the top 11 names for the boys, names 4 and 5 switched spots, and then 6-11 have a bunch of shakeup except name 11 stayed in place, and Lucas and Luca switched spots.
• The top 9 names for the girls are the same as 2023, and in the same order for the first 5. Then 6-9 get all mixed up.
• Again, Liam has the title of the highest-ranked boy’s name that has no spelling variations, at number 1.
• Again, Emma is the highest-ranked girl’s name that has no spelling variations, at number 4.
• Girl names still have more spelling variations than boy names (248/1000 vs. 176/1000 alternates)
• Kayson once again took the prize for the most spelling variations for the boys at 9.
• The girls finally don’t have a tie for most spelling variations – Kehlani gets top honor with 6 ways to spell it.

2024 Improved Baby Name List

Click on the link above and peruse to your heart’s content!

Since I’ve been tracking them, the baby names have been released by the Social Security Administration on the Friday before Mother’s Day.

It is the Friday before Mother’s Day and the names have not been released. Note that it appears the SSA does have the list and let People magazine see it. Why not just let the rest of the world see it too? I’m hoping it will go live this weekend and I can have the baby names updated early next week.

I did not have another blog post planned for this week, and now I’m out of days for this week, so I’m posting this to say why there’s no blog post this week.

Upgrades and Downgrades

Child 1: I used to be awesome. Now I’m … really awesome!
(A short time later he does something annoying.)
Child 2: You’ve been downgraded to semi-awesome.

Thanks a lot, Echo

The Scene: the kids have been using the Amazon Echo to do various things, mainly starting a song that someone else doesn’t like then he tells Echo to stop that and play his song instead. After that was done, the boys were interacting with each other, until one tired of the other.
Gamma: Hey Delta, turn off

Which Brand

Me: Time to go, get in the car.
Gamma: Are we taking the planet car?
Me: We are taking the Mercury. Oh, yes, I suppose that’s the planet car.
I need to get a Saturn so he will have to be more specific next time.

Not in Real Life

The Scene: We are driving down the driveway in the morning pre-dawn fog. A flock of turkeys, which we had always seen walking around but never flying, comes flying in from the left and lands in front of us and then they walk off into the fog on the lawn. Since turkeys are big and not well organized, they appear kind of one at a time right in a row rather than all at once.
Delta: We found the turkey spawn point!
Yes, that boy has played video games recently, why do you ask?