Trinity

Trinity was a pretty good read. I like the interactions between DC's big three...Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. You read this and you basically understand the dynamic that these characters have in every other book in the DC universe. Got it at the Library (cool, graphic novels in a Library!). It is interesting the comparisons of DC and Marvel when it comes to iconic characters. DC has a pretty big trinity...a crime fighter, an alien, and Amazon. Marvel's pseudo big three would probably be Capt America, Thor, and Iron Man (ok and maybe Spiderman). Kind of a big difference and probably why DC and Marvel, while similar, have a much different storytelling perspective especially on themes. Anyway I digress...loved the book and art!

End of a Decade...

Well another year in the books, another orbit around the sun. Good year, I managed to keep up with blog although I only managed 196 posts (due to some intense studying I kind of slacked on the writing) Comic reviews and AF football suffered. Again it was nice to be able to go back and review 2009. I hope to get back to the comic posts. So the final tally:

- 30 books read over 9,000 pages (favorite, "Horse Soldiers" and "Dance Dance Dance")
- Best Comics this Year - Had to be the Scott Pilgrim series

- Best Movie seen was "Hangover"

- Favorite Album - Swoon by Silversun Pickups
- Best Comic Cover was Uncanny X-men #503
- 56 Haiku's Written

My Favorites Haiku's

Shadow

Your doppelganger
Where do they go in the night?
Perhaps they sleep too

Stars

Gazing upon thee
Wonder if someone watches
and Haiku's about us?

Jazz

Saxophone simmers

Base thumps, piano prances

America's song

Top Posts

http://cykes.blogspot.com/2009/01/risk-adverse-or-lack-of-imagination.html

http://cykes.blogspot.com/2009/01/rox-talk_26.html

http://cykes.blogspot.com/2009/02/rox-talk.html

http://cykes.blogspot.com/2009/02/6-word-memoir.html

http://cykes.blogspot.com/2009/03/comic-bracket.html

http://cykes.blogspot.com/2009/06/twenty-years-ago.html

http://cykes.blogspot.com/2009/08/david-herter-ceres-storm.html

http://cykes.blogspot.com/2009/11/things-wrong-with-our-country.html

http://cykes.blogspot.com/2009/12/ebook-future-of-books.html

Top 10 Viewed Features of 2009 on NYTimes.com

1. From Deep Pacific, Ugly and Tasty, With a Catch
2. Take Bacon. Add Sausage. Blog.
3. It's a Fork, It's a Spoon, It's a ... Weapon?
4. When the Icing on the Cake Spells Disaster
5. Op-Ed Contributor - Dear A.I.G., I Quit!
6. Really? Never Blow Your Nose When You Have a Cold
7. The Unfortunate Location
8. What Do Women Want?
9. How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?
10. The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating

Good year, things to look for next year....new Iron Man movie, SSPU in concert, U2 in concert!

Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Another Murakami book, another chance to go hmmmm...This one was big. An enormous book, a lot to think about, although it is kind of funny because the overall point to the story was pretty simple. The journey from A to B was pretty easy...getting there was the tough part. Reading Murakami feels like watching an episode of Twin Peaks. For the most part his characters are very simple, very Japanese (with probably an overkill fondness of things American) and yet both this character and the one in Dance Dance Dance had an unnatural connection to another world (whether physically, emotionally, or figuratively?). Insight into this other dimension lays out the "hmmmm" in this book not to mention the people he meets because he has this insight into this out worldly dimension. The book doesn't bog down, it does have quite a lot of info on the Japanese conquest of China during WWII. While that does a play a part I don't see it being essential (?). It does help develop some characters and the whole Well thing does play a part.

Haiku Wednesday

Stockshow

Denver gathering
A vision of the Old West
A livestock party!

Ebook - Future of Books?

Has the Ebook hit its tipping point? One wonders with the Kindle, Sony, and the soon to be released Nook (and of course the dark horse...Apple's vaporware tablet thingamajig), whether the book will finally go the way of the CD and newspaper?

I doubt it. The book is a little more resilient then other mediums. When I am on the beach or on vacation I don't want to curl up with another computer type device (can you say sand in your electronics!). Of course as the devices become more ubiquitous I am sure my sons will find them more appealing. My guess then, with this rush to convert books to electrons, is that everyone wants lightning to strike twice (iRead anyone?). Companies see what Apple has done with music and want to jump on that money making scheme. The roadblocks to such comparisons are 1) basic book cost and the medium, 2) needing another device, and 3) ownership.

1) In music the "single" was always the driver. In the days of analog and the record it was easy to market a song as a 45 so when iTunes came along it basically just reinvented the 50s way of distributing music. Books are sold entirely different. A book is an album not a song. You can't parse it in chunks...it is what it is. Publishers sell a book in multiple formats extracting smaller and smaller profits with each release. The book is a very different form of entertainment then a song or even a movie. In rare instance books are read again but of the three mediums my guess is that books are read then never looked again. An interesting question then is what is the value or price point of a book? How much time does it take to create a song versus a book? A song has the artist, the recording studio, the band members and what not. To me that is a huge apparatus and yet it goes for 99 cents. Now take a book...you have the creater, their computer (typewriter, hand written notes) and maybe an editor? A song takes maybe a month to create 4 minutes and a book may take 6 - 12 months and take a week to read? How does one value that? A song is 99 cents, an album is $9.99, a new movie release is $19.99...what is a book price point? Publishers have set a hardback at $30.00 (of course at WalMart you could get it for $12.99!) and $6.99 for a paperback. The price points has been set and I translate these costs to the cost of actually producing a bound paper copy. What then is the cost of sending me electrons? Does the price have to support the creator? Does a 99 cent song support the musician?

2) I love books and currently reading an electronic copy on the computer or my iTouch is painful. I have also at times tried the whole MS Reader and an old Rocketebook. They all just don't compare all that well with a real book. Who wants another electronic device? Ever try to read in bed with a computer? Plus don't you want a media device...one that you can read a book while listening to your tunes? Current Ebooks are pretty expensive one trick ponies and why they will never appeal to the masses.

3) And the final gripe to me is who owns an electronic book? After much problems, music has settled on the mp3. Every device plays it and you own your music. Now the same battle is reshaping over book copyrights.

The NY Times adds to the fray on whether the book you electronically buy should be copy protected and I take the following quote to be total BS,

"On the other hand, yes, unprotected books at this stage would be easily and wildly pirated — the barriers to staying ethical would be so low, people would pass around books like they forward e-mail jokes — and it would cost the book industry dearly."

Oh really? so I am being unethical when I give my book to my wife so that she can read it (or to my neighbor and what about the libraries of the world?) This is the same argument about music and movies that make me cringe. Growing up I had a tape deck...I would record songs on the radio, make mix tapes send them to my friends, and you know I wasn't paying for it. Same thing with movies and HBO and dual tape machines. This piracy thing ain't new...I remember my dad borrowing someones album and recording it to a tape on his tape deck. Sure the medium has changed but any form of entertainment can and will be copied. That is the nature of ideas. Ideas are meant to spread...

Studies seem to indicate (one in article above, others studies by the authors Gaiman and Doctorow) that if you give away your book for free not only do sales of book stay the same they actually increase. I think most people would agree that they are willing to pay something for someones creation...the problem is what and who are you paying for? Has a hardback book at $30.00 going changed any when it is published as a paperback? Has the value of the written word changed at all? Of this price what does the author receive? You know we could probably segway into the health insurance argument right about now...

Bottom line in all of this is not the author or the inventor but that the middleman wants his slice of nothing. Today's digital world brings us closer to the creator and thus we don't need that music industry, book publisher, or whatever. How often has it been said that the creator over the years has been screwed by the industry for making a whole lot more money then the creator. The industry says what about cost to advertise and support the creator? Yeah well the Internet axes the middle man. The internet has become the distributor. All creators want to become rich and further their creations but in the big scheme of things only a few creators become famous and most toil unknown for years without earning a penny. Distribute your creation!

Sherlock Holmes

Guy Richie's take on the super sleuth was a welcome diversion during the Holidays. Having read one Holmes book and seen all the other iterations (hey what about the Young Sherlock Holmes...), I thought this one hit the target. Holmes, portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., was convincing. Not for sure if Holmes was really that rough and tumble (a boxer?) but a younger version simply kept the action up. We can only hope that sequel does contain his nemesis. Maybe even an appearance by Mycroft ;-)

Haiku Wednesday

Champagne

Ring in the New Year
Pop the cork, tiny bubbles
Toast to Auld Lang Syne

Rox Talk

A simple link dump before the Holidays...

Surprising article in how blunt it is about Atkins performance...I mean testing began in 2004 and Atkins got his first big shot in 2005. Drug testing is supposed to be more intense in the minors so I guess I would have a hard time thinking he was on the juice and then had to go cold turkey...

Todd Helton was ranked as one of the top 3 hitters in baseball history according to this study (link to the link here). Wired declared it a baseball version of six degrees of Kevin Bacon...

Winter Solstice

As of this posting the Winter Solstice has just occurred. The sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. Today is also the shortest day of the year with the sun only showing itself for 9 hours and 21 minutes...Winter starts today

Date	Sunrise	Sunset	This day	Difference	Time	Altitude	Distance
							(106 km)
Dec 20, 2009	7:17 AM	4:38 PM	9h 21m 23s	− 05s	11:58 AM	26.9°	147.176
Dec 21, 2009	7:18 AM	4:39 PM	9h 21m 22s	− 01s	11:58 AM	26.9°	147.165
Dec 22, 2009	7:18 AM	4:39 PM	9h 21m 24s	+ 02s	11:59 AM	26.9°	147.154

Conan Doyle - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

This is the first major Daily Lit book that I read. After 131 installments, I am not for sure if I like to read this way or whether it seemed to much like work! You would think that a couple of paragraphs a day would make this an easy way to go but I found that trying to get to it daily was incredibly difficult and then if you slipped a day it was easy to slip another and then suddenly you have 30 posts in your inbox that suddenly need reading!

This was my second attempt of getting through a Sherlock book. The first go of it I just wasn't into it. This time I enjoyed it. The stories were good although I the "mysteries" were sometimes contrived. The formulistic way of writing got a bit tiring it at times but overall it was a peak at the 19th century London.