Author: Mosh

Quick book reviews

Cover of "Mayday"
Mayday

More so I have a record of having read them, a few words on the last couple of books I finished.

First up, Praying for Sleep by Jeffrey Deaver. This is a definite improvement on the other standalone Deaver novel I read recently, The Lesson of Her Death. It’s still a little ploddy and seems to spend an age telling you too much about character background, but the story’s better and the ending is a great twist.

Secondly is a book I’ve had kicking about on my shelves for years, but never read. I picked up a copy in Australia and finally got around to reading it. Mayday by Nelson DeMille and Thomas Block was re-released, slightly updated, in the 1990’s and this is the version I read. It’s a story of an air disaster but focuses more on the actions of those on the surface than those in the air.

It’s typical DeMille – fast-paced and interesting – with a good dollop of realistic tech courtesy of co-author (and old schoolmate) Block. Yeah, it’s silly when it comes down to it – but it’s a disaster movie in paper form so it’s bound to be. Entertaining enough to be worth picking up, but far from the intellectual enjoyment of The General’s Daughter or Word of Honor (sic, which was fantastic).

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17 Again

17 Again (film)
17 Again

Harking back to older films such as Big and Vice Versa, and more recently Freaky Friday, 17 Again is another “body swap” movie where one person magically becomes someone they’re not for bizarre magical reasons.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Friends’ Matthew Perry plays a middle-aged guy (Mike O’Donnell) going through a divorce with his school sweetheart. After a bizarre meeting with a mystical janitor, he falls off a bridge and awakes as his 17 year-old self – played by Zac Efron who’s apparently popular with the teen brigade. I saw the film with my little cousin (who’s 7½) and he’s the reason she wanted to see it.

It’s rated 12A in the UK, and there’s a fair bit of sexual talk – thankfully all this went right over the little cuz’s head. The plot’s nothing special, you just know what’s going to happen but there are still a few laughs along the way. Some moments are well played, such as the young Mike O’Donnell trying his best not to snog his own daughter despite her launching herself at him.

Overall, I enjoyed it way more than I expected but still not a huge amount. Although I do want Mike’s friend’s bed. Anyone who sleeps in a floating full-size Star Wars vehicle is a true geek.

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Depression

Depression‘s a bad thing.

Everything sucks. Then it sucks that it sucks. Then it sucks that it sucks that it sucks. Then you think, “What the hell – it’ll be OK”. Then five minutes later you’re thinking, “But what if it isn’t?” and the whole spiral starts again.

It doesn’t matter what you do, your mind starts circling. Nothing seems to have much point, but you go ahead and do it anyway.

Even if you’ve been through it before and know that things will be fine some time later on, it doesn’t help. It’s now that counts. Because it’s now that you just want to curl up and let the world pass you by. Only you can’t as that’s giving up and you have to put a brave face on it for everyone else.

Not having a good day. Or week. Or forseeable future.

Tomorrow I shall be with my little cousin. That, right now, is about the only thing I reckon that will genuinely take my mind off things. She’s the most amazing kid and I love her more than life itself. On the downside, I think she wants to go and see 17 Again. Ick.

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Dropbox

Dropbox
Dropbox

Dropbox is a funky new toy I’ve been playing with under Ubuntu but it also works on pretty much any Linux flavour, as well as Windows and Mac.

It’s a file synchronisation program, and one of the simplest I’ve found to use. The free package gives you 2Gb of on-line storage and the little program that runs in the background synchronising things uses very few resources.

Download, install and (in the case of Ubuntu anyway) log out/in to trigger the background process. Register an account and let the program know where your “dropbox” folder should be stored. That’s it.

Linux has one major advantage over Windows in that you don’t have to store all the files you wish to keep synced in a particular folder. Use any old folder for your Dropbox and drag/drop virtual links to other folders into it. These folders will then be read and their contents stored on Dropbox’s servers. Make any changes, add files, delete them… and very quickly these changes will be reflected on the main site.

Updates are logged and a full history is available on your profile page.

A Public Files folder is located in your Dropbox. Any files here are, obviously, publically browseable. In addition, a simple right-click and menu selection will put a URL into your clipboard. Paste this on an email or wherever and the recipient will be able to click on it to get a copy of the document from the Dropbox servers.

I’ve not made big use of programs like this in the past, but for offline storage, file sharing and synchronising between two or more machines it’s an excellent little tool.

If you do download it, pretty please do so via this link – that way I stand a chance of getting my 2Gb storage upgraded for referring you!

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