Back In Black

With an appropriate head thrash to Brian, Angus and the boys, it’s been too long.  I’m glad to be back.  To make up for lost time, and on the off chance this is my April post, I’ve decided to treat each of my topics:  books, brewing, movies, music, personal finance, and an other if it occurs to me.  My blogging has been sparse of late, but life goes on.

I have been reading a lot.  Some personal finance stuff:  Automatic Millionaire (Bach), The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read (Solin), Wise Investing Made Simple (Swedroe) — standard Boglehead stuff.  And for what it is worth, I am following a 50/50 strategy of paying down my mortgage and socking away excess in Vanguard Total Stock Market in a taxable account.  Still, investing for the long haul is fundamentally boring, so my mind has turned to other titles like (nobody knows you’re blushing on the Internet) Goals! (Tracy), How To Get Rich (Dennis), and The 4-Hour Workweek (Ferriss).  The latter has been described as snake oil by some reviewers on Amazon, but parts of it have me intrigued.  It is a new year;  time to try something new, money-wise.  No fear;  no retreat;  nothing to lose.

On the brewing front, I haven’t been lately.  Tonight that all changes — planning a blueberry-pomegranate mead and a pyment (grape mead).  After that, as soon as my primaries clear out, it’s a few extract batches of beer, likely American brown, amber, a porter, and a stout.

I haven’t watched many new movies, except Quantum of Solace, which was excellent.  I watched Serenity (one of my faves) again last night on a new Roku Netflix player.  What a cool way to do on-demand movies and TV without paying the cable co for the privilege.  This is the wave of the future.

So music:  currently loving the latest from A Shoreline Dream and Silversun Pickups.  Also TV on the Radio and Thriving Irony.  And if listening to music weren’t enough, I bought a bass guitar.  Because, well, playing in a rock band is just plain fun, and of the three (bass, drums, guitar), it seemed to be the easiest to pick up.  Not that it’s easy.  As I get older, my patience for repetition has diminished, while my conception of how hard things are has increased.  Not a good combination.  But feh, I will persevere and regale the world (or a basement-sized part of it) with my amplified genius.  Or loud competence.  Anybody know a great guitarist in the Chandler AZ area looking for a bass player?

In personal finance, a lot of getting rich involves saving (particularly pre-tax) and living below one’s means.  There is, particularly at bogleheads.org (link at right –>), a lot of debate about which investing philosophy trumps what, and which investments belong in taxable accounts verses tax-deferred.  This is all well and good, but if one ups their savings rate from 10% to 15% or even 20% it will positively swamp those other considerations.  It is boring;  it is unsatisfying; it is not particularly fun;  BUT it is important.  Save, save, and save.  If you do, you will be rich.  Sooner or later.

Blog For Sale

Ha, ha, ha, just kidding.  Like I would sell this masterwork.  Ah me, this blog has gone from quasi-daily to weekly to less frequently than that.  So effective immediately, I hereby renounce my quasi-rule of at least one link per post.  Screw it;  I’m just going to type stuff.  Linking slows me down.

I have been brewing recently.  Just bottled a Belgian Pale ale last weekend — may sample tomorrow or the next day.  Also went over to my friend Steve-o’s house a couple of weekends ago and brewed my second all-grain batch, a Brown Porter.  Currently have two secondaries full of it, and I probably should bottle one.  Or buy a fridge for the garage and keg them both.  Decisions . . . .

And the economy . . . WTF is up?!  Some of this is self-fulfilling (golly THANKS media — can’t you come up with a good missing person story to distract everybody?).  My employer seems to be doing OK, which is nice.  Keep buying computers, y’all.  Good news is the new low prices on gas, travel, real estate, mortgage rates, etc.  I am pondering whether the 2009 plan should be to continue debt reduction, or to dollar cost average (DCA) into the market, or maybe both.  The middle path does have some appeal . . . . except that it limits the upside along with the down.  Again, screw it;  I should re-read my own “can’t predict the future” post.

Finally books — I have listened to both Tribes and The Dip by Seth Godin.  Both spoke to me, the former in a strategic sense and the latter in a tactical sense.  Together they should give me just enough rope to hang myself next year at work.  Or succeed wildly, if the author is to be believed.  Which reminds me . . . given the opportunity, should one speak the truth to power?  There are definite downsides. I may have the chance tomorrow.  Generally, I think yes — there are different types of loyalties:  to people, organizations, ideas, institutions, symbols, leaders, authority figures, ideologies, etc.  My chief loyalty is to people, but this requires a strong personal relationship, and is relatively rare.  A good second-place proxy is the organization/client, who I am meeting with tomorrow AM.  Wish me luck.

Tough Year

Late 2008 has indeed been rough for authors and the readers who love them.  Our latest loss, I am sorry to report, is Michael Crichton to cancer.   He was the author of many wonderful books (and movie adaptations) including The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Sphere, Rising Sun, State of Fear, and Prey.  He was also a medical doctor and the creator of the television series ER.

I have not read his latest books, and now I am remedying that.  Currently reading State of Fear, and later Prey when done.  The real lure of Michael Crichton’s books is their believability, in particular their scientific plausibility.  Crichton excelled at writing fiction that was set in some not-to-distant future.  He had the hardcore technical chops to pull it off.  My favorite work is still Andromeda Strain, but we will see after reading the more recent stuff.  

Finally what I remember about this remarkable author are his speeches.  Michael Crichton was a scientist, and therefore a skeptic on matters of science.  And he was articulate in his skepticism.  So I will leave you with a Crichton quote about consensus generally: 

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

And this absolute gem on scientific consensus in particular:

Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Finally, Michael Crichton on writing:

Books aren’t written – they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.

Not Writing Tonight – Reading Instead

Well, I am not writing much.  A pro forma blog post only.  What I am going to read bears mentioning.  Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, or DFW for those fans in the know.  Which is not me, I am chagrined to say.  I only became aware of this author on his untimely suicide.  Enough superlatives have been hurled at him that I had to see for myself.

For further background, see this story of his life and battle with depression.  The man is gone, but his words remain.  I am off to read some of them.

Music, Movies, Microcode & High Speed Pizza Delivery

These are the four things at which America still excels in the not too distant future of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.  I am on my fourth or fifth time through this book (reading and audiobook), and it continues to sweep me away.  Snow Crash is a representative example of the cyberpunk genre, that Wikipedia says:

Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and megacorporations. They tend to be set in a near-future Earth, rather than . . . far-future settings or galactic vistas . . . The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to be marked by extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its creators

Other cyberpunk books include Neuromancer and Count Zero by William Gibson.  Notable cyberpunk films include Blade Runner and the Japanese anime film Akira. 

In Snow Crash, Hiro Protagonist (kid you not), a sword fighter and freelance hacker, and YT (stands for Yours Truly), a teenage skateboard courier, become entangled in a stuggle for world control among the future powers that be:  the Mafia (in the form of Cosa Nostra Pizza, Inc.), Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong, a bandwidth baron, and a religious franchise operation (Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates).  In an ironic twist, an ancient clay tablet from Sumeria holds a linguistic virus that enables hacking/controlling the very brains of the techno-elite computer hackers.  The struggle spans both reality and the virtual world, the metaverse.

Neal Stephenson coins some vividly descriptive terms to describe his world, such as burbclaves — the sovereign fortified suburban developments of the future that have their own security forces, treaties, corporate branding, etc.  The mini-vans that occupy the future streets are bimbo boxes.  And most everything else is corporatised and franchised, such as the future jails of differing levels of service, the Hoosegow and the Clink where you may be put after a trial at Judge Bob’s Judicial System.  

Snow Crash is original in content and presentation.  Over a decade and a half after publication, it holds up well.  Do yourself a favor and check this one out.  Bonus recommendation:  Cryptonomicon also by Neal Stephenson.

Caught Reading On National TV

In an earlier post, I noted Stephen King’s advice to read daily and at every opportunity if one wants to be a good writer.  While eating dinner and tuning into the Red Sox game the other night, during the 7th inning the television cameras caught Stephen King practicing what he preaches:  reading a paperback during a professional baseball game, the American League Championship Series (ALCS) at that.  The announcers remarked on it.  Some people would have thought wow, what a coincidence.  I immediately filed this under things to blog about.

Now for the hard core baseball fans out there, he had some justification.  At the time the Rays were spanking the home Red Sox 11 to 1, so anyone’s attention may have wandered.  But our protagonist, Stephen King, may well have been reading during the 7th inning stretch even if it were a close game.  Just because it presents a time in which to do a little reading.  We should not be surprised that those who reach the pinnacle of their fields by effort and habit continue to exert those efforts and practice those habits once they arrive.  Still, it was a little surprising, as consistency between word and action sometimes is.  Thanks for role modeling reading for the younger folks and consistency for the rest of us, Steve.

Books On My Mind

I have been reading a lot in 2008, largely about finance but also about other areas now that I have hit some of the high points of personal finance writing.  My latest book is by Stephen King.  Oooh, now you have me pigeonholed — a dirty horror reader.  Not so fast there skippy.  No, this one is On Writing:  A Memoir of the Craft.  Whatever you think of the man’s stories as a literary matter, it cannot be seriously debated that he is prolific and a successful author of fiction.  Stephen King knows writing.

I am not even done with the book yet, but so far I like Mr. King’s theses.  One major idea is the stories-as-fossils analogy — that it is the writer’s job to unearth them with his/her tools as intact as possible.  I am also intrigued by his process of letting the stories determine themselves — placing the characters in situations and seeing how they extract themselves, if they do.  He eschews plot or storyboarding as unduly and artificially restrictive.

What I am most grateful for is his admonition that to be a good writer, one must both write and read a certain amount each day.  This blog is my start on the former.  I am double-posting today because I skipped yesterday.  It was a long travel day;  bygones.  I am really jazzed about the reading part.  I love to read — for fun, to learn, whatever.  And now Stephen King is telling me to read more if I want to become a better writer, and I don’t think he cares all that much what I read.  Puh-lease don’t throw me into that briar patch.  OK, I will listen to audiobooks at the gym.  I will read at lunch and maybe during meetings.  And at night, during the quiet times, avoiding as he terms it the glass teat.  And Stephen freaking successful King says it will improve my writing, giving me permission and charter to read more.

Thanks Steve-o.