I've begun reading The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman and it's quite good so far. I heard about it first when we covered it being turned into a movie at The Fake Life. I think I'll write up a little review of this when I'm done reading it.

is a book by the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. The words are listed below with links to the M-W definition (I hope). What do you think and how did you do?

So I know you're all waiting with bated breath to hear how my birthday weekend was. Well it was a bit of a mixed bag, but good overall.

As you can see by my sidebar I'm reading what has become known as The Art of War by Sun Tzu. From today's reading this jumped out at me, "In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns." This section focuses largely on the need to make war quickly and to use the bounty of your enemy to bolster your ranks and pay your way rather than relying on money from home. There's good sense here that could certainly be applied on a variety of fronts, not just war.

So I caught the end of the 1960 version of H. G. Wells Time Machine. It's been far too long since I read the book (if, in fact, I have) so I've no idea how close it stuck, but at the end George returns to the future to build a new civilization with the Eloi and his beloved. His friend Filby hears the time machine leaving and rushed in to see...nothing. It seems that George has taken nothing with him back to the future (hmmmm good name for a time travel movie title) until that is Filby notices three books missing from a shelf. He doesn't know which ones and asks the housekeeper "Which three books would you have taken?"

Sooooo, assuming you were to travel to the future and try and build a civilization with a group of really fit and attractive folks that were pretty much completely naive, what would you have taken? It has to be three actual books. Much like Netflix a trilogy counts as three separate books, if, however, it is ordinarily sold as one book that's acceptable. Remember that these are books that you wish to build a civilization on. This is not a "desert island" question. Also, assume that zero other books survive.

Somewhere while tripping through the food-blogosphere I ran into Pure Chocolate: Divine Desserts and Sweets from the Creator of Fran's Chocolates. After I apologized to the book for the nasty bump I immediately added it to my wish list, intending to purchase it. As with most things, that never happened, but I was pleasantly surprised when I unwrapped it as a Christmas present from my mother-in-law (Thanks Mom!). I call this a dangerous book because 1) it makes me want to make everything in it and 2) Fran of Fran's Chocolates doesn't skimp on fat, sugar or the titular ingredient. None of the recipes seem particularly difficult, especially if you are a reader of the English language. Every recipe is well explained and several include pictures and diagrams where necessary. The pictures themselves look good enough to eat.

To date, in the two weeks I've had this I've made three deserts, more than I've made in as many months. A few of the recipes require "special" kitchen implements, like a quarter sheet pan or a tart pan. All of them recommend high quality ingredients (naturally) and she lists some specifics. In addition there are also sections on how chocolate is made and on a few special techniques, like how to temper chocolate. At no point did she talk over my head, so if you've a sweet tooth, particularly a chocolaty one you should go get this.

I made a chocolate torte (a very dense cake), a semisweet chocolate sorbet that was smoother than Bill Clinton's pick up lines, and a white chocolate/key lime/ginger ice cream. And no I'm not sharing.

So last night I got a wild hair (hare?) and decided to whip up some more recipes. I fixed up a batch of Truffle Brownies, Meringues and Chocolat au chocolat ice cream. I love to cook, it's good for my soul. Not so much my wasitline, but I brought several samples to work today and got quite a bit of positive feedback. The ice cream is all ours though. It's kind of hard to transport.

The truffle brownies turned out great. I used bittersweet and unsweetened chocolate, so the flavor was intense. They were somehow dense and light at the same time. The meringues were MESSY, especially since I didn't have a tip big enough, or didn't chop up the chocolate finely enough, or both. They were interesting to make because once piped out onto the baking sheet (via a ziploc baggie with the corner snipped off) I baked them in a 200 degree oven for an hour, turned the oven off, and left them in overnight. They were crisp and incredibly light. They also weren't overly sweet. I'm really looking forward to the ice cream though. The base is pretty much a hot cocoa flavored custard with semisweet chocolate and Kahlua mixed in.

Next up, truffles!

Cory Doctorow, geek god, defender of all things open source, and generally great podcaster/writer is releasing a new book this year, Little Brother

Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

Boy THAT'S gonna push a button or two. Knowing Cory, which I don't, not personally anyway, this will probably be available for free in some form or another. I can't wait to read it. Evidently every chapter will contain some interesting how to's like defeating CCTV's and your school's proxy server. Heh.

Harper Collins is letting folks read American Gods by Neil Gaiman gratis, with Neal's blessing natch. Neal let his blog readers pick the book. The results?

68,000 unique visitors, 3,000,000 pages viewed, and an increase in sales of 300%. How cool is that? If all my readers went and did likewise that would make 68,003. MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!

Full, free PDF of INFECTED | Scott Sigler is giving away a pdf of his book Infected. It's been free as a podcast. Crown Publishing picked it up and prior to its debut it's available at the above link. You can get it between now and the 31st and can buy the book at Amazon or your local brick-n-mortar bookstore April 1st!

I'm listening to the 'cast now. I'll warn you, this guy is like some nightmare mix of Stephen King (when am I going to learn that that's with a ph?) and Clive Barker with some pit bull DNA thrown in. The novel is not for the week of heart or stomach.

From General Sigler himself:

Please do not email the PDF, email the LINK. This is so I can prove to Crown the value in giving away content, and if your friends click on the link, that counts on their server stats - emailing the PDF doesn't count on the stats.
THANKS & ENJOY!
Copy the link address below, paste it into your email and send it to all your friends. Free crap for them! http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/infected/downloads/infected_novel.pdf

Soooo, I feel the need to update the ol' bloggy-blog but don't have one solid thought. Thus you get the following.

- "Auditioned" for a part in The Metamor City Podcast. I had a couple of chapters recorded for a podcast novel of my own and sent him those.

- I will start posting said novel by this weekend and will do so weekly. Sunday seems to be a good day. Watch this space for updates.

- Speaking of updates there are none on my wifes condition. The wait, while not fatal, is certainly maddening. Keep praying.

- MCF has posted his second tier brackets and I made it. I'm going up against the Unseen Blogger an ultraconservative Catholic with whom I agree with rarely, but who generally makes interesting posts.

- I am officially addicted to Twitter. You should join. It doesn't hurt and doesn't change your personality... much.

- I love Jango

- You should really be reading Spitball Politics. It will make you smarter, better looking, and quite possibly liberal.

- Go buy Infected. It will make you cringe and laugh. Possibly at the same time.

That is all.

I am Siddhartha.

You're Siddhartha!
by Hermann Hesse
You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in. This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in ferries.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

John Scalzi is doing something pretty cool. He is releasing a shareware short story. Called “How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story”. Basically you can download the story, pay for it if you want to, don't if you don't. Now granted this isn't particularly a new idea. Cory Doctrow does it after a fashion. Podiobooks does it with podcast books. Even Scalzi has done it before with a novel. So why do it? I'll let the man speak for himself.

I’m curious to see what the market is for shareware shorts (or, at least, my shareware shorts). Basically, I think it’s an interesting experiment. Also, I think it’s a fun, fast story, one that folks will enjoy reading — i.e., if any science fiction story could make a go at converting readers into buyers, it’s this one. And finally, today I just paid a plumber lots of money to fix the pipes coming into my bathtub, and for a new faucet. I could use the cash.

As far as the money goes? Again here's John.

Half of the money you send (after PayPal/Amazon fees are subtracted) will be donated to The Lupus Foundation of America, a favorite charity of Subterranean Press publisher Bill Schafer (who has graciously given me permission to use Subterranean’s beautifully designed and typseset version of the story). The other half goes to me, because it’s nice to get paid.

Certainly a worthwhile cause. You can get the details here.

I blogged about this before and it looks like I was right. You can get a free thirty minute audio excerpt and a free pdf version. Check Sigler's site for info.

BONUS: 30-minute audio excerpt from Cory Doctor's new novel LITTLE BROTHER

Cory Doctorow interviewed by J.C. Hutchins. If you write and are interested in hearing about how giving your stuff away is a good thing, you need to listen.

Cory is best-known as a pioneer in the Open Media movement and the “giving it away is okay” philosophy — releasing free versions of his fiction to evangelize and enhance the exposure of his printed work. He’s a trendsetter and visionary in this field. In addition, Cory is an activist, consumer advocate, and a co-editor for the culture blog, BoingBoing.net.

In this interview, Cory chats about his career as a writer, his activism, and Little Brother, which debuted in bookstores last week. Stick around after the interview: you’ll hear an excerpt from the novel, which is also available as a DRM-free audiobook from Random House Audio.

I read Samson and the Pirate Monks: Calling Men to Authentic Brotherhood as a result of our men's retreat back in April. As a result of my struggles several books have been recommended to me and none of them really spoke to me the way this one did.

It turns out that this book isn't solely about addiction and recovery. What it's really about is a desire to get Christian men into authentic relationships where they feel comfortable talking about their struggles, whatever those may be. See certain parts of the Church have a real hard time with Christians who are honest about areas of sin that they struggle with. What often ends up happening may run the gamut from trite offers of self-help and ineffective counseling to outright rejection. Fear of those reactions often leads to people suffering silently.

Nate Larkin is very open not only with his own struggle with sexual addiction, but also his tremendous problem with self-righteousness. As a preacher's kid, he felt that becoming a pastor was part birthright, part familial obligation. Ultimately he ends up leaving the ministry and becoming a successful businessman, one who is active both in the church and in supporting the commercial sex industry financially. This nearly costs him his marriage.

As a result of these experiences he winds up going to a number of different 12 Step groups and finding some degree of help there. Gradually he built a network of Christian brothers who both support and get support from Nate. They develop something they call the Samson Society and here we are. The reason it's named after Sampson is not because he's some paragon of virtue, to the contrary. Sampson is constantly going it alone, working things out for himself and generally screwing things up. We as Christian men are so often Sampsons, doing just that.

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Nate and some other guys who were traveling around the country with him, talking about the Society. We have one at our church, made up of about seven guys. Last night there were over fifty guys present. There is a huge need for this sort of openness and honesty. I'm not sure that I'll be going to our Sampson Society meeting as I already have a group that I meet with weekly. We are going to try and take Nate and the Society's examples and ramp things up just a bit though.

You don't have to read the book to start a Society of your own. You can get just about everything you need here. Give it a look. I would recommend the book though, especially to anyone who struggles with what Nate and I do.