[TV] The Big Bang Theory: Season 5

It's kind of surprising how quickly the current TV season appears to be wrapping up. I know it has more to do with the fact that they shows are really designed to end around a certain point. I guess the feeling has more to do with the fact that it doesn't always feel like the show has actually wrapped up it's business for this period and thus we're craving a bit more.

I really felt that way with how The Big Bang Theory wrapped up a few weeks ago - so much so that I was still expecting an episode or two to come out in order to do a proper job of finishing things. It was still a nice season - or at leas a decent enough one I suppose. But at the same time it felt like it was missing a certain something or other - I can't quite put my finger on what it is exactly, at least not yet.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the show's cast has grown over the years. And irony of ironies, it is Wolowitz is the only with with a truly stable relationship with a woman at this point in the series. And as much as I love Amy Farah Fowler, the added character load does somewhat limit how much screen time each character can get in any given episode, thus resulting in a lot of group dynamics.

[Gaming] Geek Trivia via Did You Know Gaming?

There's a new gamer geek trivia site called Did You Know Gaming? that features a wide variety of interesting tidbits about various games regardless of platform. I mean seriously, that have stuff for console games, PC games and even an Angry Birds factoid.

The Tumblr site is still relatively new (4 pages) but has been already making the rounds of various geek blogs (which is how I found out about it).

To get more of a taste for what the site covers, check out a few more interesting pieces of trivia after the cut...

[Books] The Miserable Mill (A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 4)

I've been treating the books of A Series of Unfortunate Events as a quick way to get through the week when my heavier, more complex books bog me down. Plus when I'm nowhere near finishing one of those books in time for the weekly review, it seems the best course of action to get through one of these titles since I finish them fairly quickly.

The first three books have been entertaining, but rather light fare even when compared to other young adult novels that I've read. And I admit that may be due to the fact that those books were all part of the movie adaptation released in 2004.

But this fourth title is already outside of that comfort zone of familiar titles and it completely new territory. And I have to admit the prospects of this had me both somewhat excited and yet a tad nervous, too. It could go either way, after all, and this may determine whether or not it was worth the effort of getting copies of all the books for my Kindle. Ah well.

But thankfully the book turned out to be a heck of a lot more disturbing than the others - and I mean this in a good way. On to the review!

[Movies] This Means War (2012)

I miss Reese Witherspoon. She just doesn't seem to have as many movie projects as she used to and so we rarely see her shine on the silver screen. And when we first saw the trailers for This Means War, I have to admit I got a bit excited since she was starring in it and it featured the likes of Tom Hardy in as well. Yay Tom Hardy!

But at the same time, it was clear from the trailer that this was going to be one of those movies that I knew would be rather corny. The whole two spies fighting over a girl premise wasn't all that interesting to begin with plus the trailer just had that feeling of, well corniness. I lack another word for it.

So we waited around to watch it on video instead of in the theaters and I can safely say that it was the right thing to do. I don't see how this would have been worth the theater ticket price no matter how cute Tom Hardy is. And I'll get to Reese Witherspoon's involvement later on.

Still, it's not exactly a bad movie either. It just wasn't all that impressive overall. Ah well.

[Videos] How to Dance in the Club

Given how much time Tobie, Prince and I spend at O Bar Ortigas, it's only natural that we encounter a wide variety of bar patrons. And at any club like O Bar, we also encounter different folks on the dance floor and their respective ways of dancing.

And this is probably these two videos resonate so much with us and our friends and it's my pleasure to re-share them with all of you! Seriously, they're totally worth the time to watch - spot how many dance steps you've witnessed at the bar (or perhaps have danced yourselves, hehe)







See what I mean?

Beyond how brilliantly funny the videos are, they're also local in origin. Apparently they're from a guy who calls himself Jem Mark and you can catch his other videos on YouTube, like his Facebook fan page or follow him on Twitter.

And yes, I also realize that watching these videos will inevitably lead to you re-evaluating your dance moves at places like O Bar moving forward. But that's part of the fun!

[Movies] Star Trek Generations (1994)

Three years after the movie franchise associated with Star Trek TOS wrapped up with the release of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the studios finally decided that it was time to launch the TNG crew into movie orbit with Star Trek Generations. And naturally they wanted to have some sort of a hand-off between the two crews in the form of veteran cast members appearing in the new movie.

Now there are rather mixed feelings when it comes to this movie. Many fans believe in a sort of "curse" regarding the odd-numbered releases in the Star Trek universe save for the last movie released in 2009. And given Generations is technically the seventh Star Trek movie released, it can be argued indeed that the curse was at work here.

Maybe the marriage of the two crews and the eras they respectively represented wasn't the best thing at this point. Or perhaps the direction was prepared to find a way to logically bride the generations.

Or maybe we needed more than a spatial anomaly as a central pillar of the movie's story. Maybe.

[TV] Community: Season 3

Yes, I'm the sort of geeky who absolutely loves Community. The show is amazingly funny and it has the creative guts to try out a lot of new and crazy ideas when it wants to, no matter what everyone else says. And the has just barely survived it's third season with the fourth one technically confirmed but still possibly changed. But we'll get to that in time.

I appreciate the humor that fuels Community mainly because of how the show embraces a lot of pop culture references mixed in with some obscure geeky moment as well. It's not has nerd-core as shows like The Big Bang Theory are, but it's sort of in the same neighborhood. But quite frankly, I like Community a heck of a lot more than I like The Big Bang Theory these days. But that's life.

The third season officially wrapped up last week with a staggering triple episode airing - and man what a big finish! And while I can understand how Community isn't a show for everyone given all the subtle references and the strange episode formats, but then again I like it and that's all that matter for this review to push forward.

[Finances] Credit Card Mathematics

 I was recently studying various credit cards and their related features and benefits when I came to an annoying realization - just how little the credit card companies actually give us in terms of rebates and rewards. Allow me to explain.

When you sign up for a credit card, there are a few things that you're bound to use as your evaluation criteria:

• The diversity of the credit card network
• The finance charge
• The annual fee
• The rewards / perks of the card

And with more and more stores like Bench and Forever 21 launching their own credit cards through local banks, all the more it seems like a good idea to sign up for one of these cards in order to reap the benefits. But before you take that leap, you might want to consider doing the math.

[Books] Star Wars - Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel

I hate arriving late for a movie. In fact, I do my best to watch movies only from start to finish, even when watching something on a movie channel like HBO or whatever. I just hate the sense of disorientation you get as you struggle to catch up with the story and staying for the next screening just doesn't quite address the issue in the long run.

The same thing goes for books, and thus when it comes to those trilogies and continuing series of titles, I also make sure to read the whole thing from the beginning. And this is one of the rare cases that I tried to make an exeption - and it didn't help me.

Now I picked up Order 66 since it looked like a pretty interesting period in Star Wars history to explore. Plus I was also banking on the fact that even when part of an on-going series, the authors do their best to help each story stand on its own two feet without relying too much on the prior stories. I felt Michael A. Stackpole's X-Wing series of novels was a good example of this. Each book involved a series of missions that were part of a larger campaign. You could immerse yourself into the action of that one period and still get a general sense of what was going on in the overall scheme of things.

This book surprised me by how much back story was floating around given the three books prior. And thus I felt this affected my ability to enjoy the material, apart from the fact that the entire prequel era has always been rather iffy for me for a wide variety of reasons that I won't go into right now.

[Movies] Moron 5 And The Crying Lady (2012)

You may have noticed that we've been trying to watch more local movies as of this year. After all, we need to support our own, right? And maybe the quality of local movies is getting better.

This movie, however, is not an example of that. Totally not.

Moron 5 And The Crying Lady is supposed to be a comedy directed by Wenn Deramas. While he did in fact direct the movie, it wasn't at all funny. It's so bad that I won't even bother with a full review.

The basic premise is built around 5 friends - Albert (Luis Manzano), Isaac (Billy Crawford), Aristotle (Marvin Agustin), Michaelangelo (DJ Durano) and Mozart (Martin Escudero) They're all idiots in every sense of the word and as kids they manage to break the heart of a budding gay boy who grows up to be played by John Lapus. In order to get revenge, the "crying lady" frames the group for a crime and gets them convicted.

The movie doesn't have much more of a plot beyond that as they get into one badly-written comedy sketch after another. The jokes weren't at all thought-out and the comedic timing of the actors was often off. You can't really tell the 5 apart since they don't really have defining characteristics apart from their stupidity.

We walked out of the theater mid-way through the movie. It was THAT bad, and I don't care if it's one of the third top-grossing movies of the year. Thus I can only let the movie go by with HALF a start out of five, and that's only in recognition of one joke, Martin Escudero and the fact it ranked so highly at the box office.

[Technicolor Musings] Manny Pacquiao Is Still A Bigot

So what started as a badly written article that made it appear that he was condemning all gays to death supposedly in line with the Book of Leviticus (which he later revealed to have never read - which I sincerely believe), a clarification that he was misquoted and later a statement that he doesn't condemn gays, but he's still against gay marriage, where does that leave us?

It's a complex issue when you get down to it, and we can break it down into several points, for the sake of discussion. It should prove to be an interesting exercise for this week's Technicolor Musings indeed.

And before you even ask - NO, his statements against gay marriage and other rights do not make me "hate" Representative Manny Pacquiao. I never liked him to begin with. So there.

[Movies] Dune (1984)

One random day in my younger years, the family was watching, of all movies, Tremors (on Laserdisc no less!) when a relative of mine mentioned that if the giant worms in that movie seemed scary, then I should out the giant sandworms in Dune. And by this point, I was already playing Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty on the PC, so the thought that there was actually a Dune movie seemed phenomenal to me.

But it wasn't until a few years later that I finally got the chance to watch this David Lynch creation, which was probably a good thing since by then I had also read at least the first three books.

Despite my love for Frank Herbert and the Dune franchise as a whole as early as that time, the movie was a bit of a struggle to get through. And looking at the general consensus on the web whether we're talking about reviews by critics or just random internet users, it's clear that most folks didn't exactly like the movie.

And yet the movie remains highly iconic in terms of its look and feel and one cannot argue against the influence it has had on many other Dune-related incarnations such as some of the Dune-themed video games. Plus we'll never see Sting in quite the same way ever again.

[TV] Up All Night: Season 1

It's hard to figure out just what shows you might get into. I've had a few cases when I get swept but by the geek buzz about a particular show only to get disappointed once the program actually airs. And there are those shows that I've never heard of before and yet when I give them a shot, I find myself inevitably drawn in.

That's exactly what happened with Up All Night - I had minimal prior knowledge before the show aired beyond the Wikipedia summary. But since it involved Christina Applegate and a few SNL alumni, it seemed like an interesting venture.

So why did this geek fall in love with a show about first-time parents and an Oprah-style character played by Maya Rudolph? It's hard to explain and maybe I'll come up with a decent enough answer over the course of this review. Or at least that's the working theory.

Or maybe I'm just getting older, and thus my parental instincts are looking for an output. And since I obviously don't have children, maybe this show has become a bit of a side diversion along those lines.

Or the show is just funny.

[Gaming] Now YOU Can Get the Double Fine Adventure Game

As I had mentioned yesterday, I'm one of the adventure game loving geeks who decided to help back the Double Fine Adventure on Kickstarter - now known as one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever and an interesting twist in the whole video game publishing market.

And while the fundraising project ended last March 13, Double Fine has recently announced on the Backer-only forums that they're now open  to latecomers to join in the fun! Not only can you still become one of the first to get the completed Double Fine Adventure game, but you'll also get access to the Backer-only forums where you can participate in the game development discussions and help shape the game, but you'll also get access to the exclusive documentary videos that show the behind-the-scenes moments as the game developments.

The documentary alone is more than worth your minimum $15 contribution since it's quite the special journey about how the likes of Tim Schafer goes through his creative process and how such games start as concepts and turn into reality. While the other reward tiers that include the Double Fine T-Shirt or the art book are no longer available, at least you'll still get access to the documentary, which is just amazing to watch, believe me.

You can read up on this new option at the Double Fine website, which contains a link to their PayPal account where you can may your donation. Remember that the email address you use for the PayPal transaction needs to be the same email address that you'll use to sign-up for the Double Fine Backer forum.

So what are you waiting for? Get your PayPal account ready and I'll see you on the forums!

[GeekyScrawl] The Creative Writing Process

I normally post book reviews and comic book reviews on Tuesdays, but I'll change things up a bit today.

Now when I'm not blogging, writing business proposals for a multinational BPO / ITO company, watching too much television, playing console games, fiddling with this computer or that gadget, reading books, playing tabletop role-playing games, watching movies, seeing stage plays and musicals, or hanging out at O Bar, I sometimes remember that I pride myself as being a creative writer of sorts. I've written a number of odd stories over the years and attempted to write a novel more times than I can count but I've never actually tried to get any of my work published in a professional (read: revenue-generating) capacity. Boo me.

Now rewind to February of this year when a certain Kickstarter campaign launched (which I had backed) and went on to become one of the most amazing Kickstarter campaigns EVER. Totally. And beyond the fact that I'm going to be one of the first to get their "hands" on the new Tim Schafer adventure game, but as a Backer of the project I also get access to the on-going series of videos documenting the whole creative process.

I recently caught up with the second episode of the documentary series - A Promise of Infinite Possibility. Great title for an episode, right? And it was a pretty darn good episode, too.

[Movies] The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

When we first heard about The Cabin in the Woods, all we knew was that it was supposed to be some sort of a horror movie and that Joss Whedon was involved as producer and writer. And while some might argue that Joss Whedon's career is somewhat tainted given how his TV projects almost inevitably get killed time and time again by the TV networks, he still has quite the fan following among geek circles.

Once the movie was released in the US, even more buzz started to come out and it was clear that the movie was more than just your run-of-the-mill horror flick. Plus when you'd ask people what made the movie so great and what everyone was so excited about, they'd suspiciously keep quiet and avoid discussing it entirely.

The kind of behavior felt a lot like how things were when The Sixth Sense came out and everyone was determined to enjoy the movie without giving away spoilers. A lot of the fun of that movie was in the reveal and I think there was similar trait in this movie in comparison. It's not quite the same thing for sure - they went down completely different paths, but there's definitely the element of how things can be fun when the movie is hinged on a bit of mystery.

I don't typically like horror movies and other films that aim to scare, surprise or shock me. But this movie was definitely impressive and I'm glad that we took the time to watch it.

[Technicolor Musings] Obama Supports MARRIAGE (and so should YOU!)

As I had celebrated over on our Baduy Pride blog, President Obama surprised everyone (although for different reasons) when we (finally) publicly came out in support of equal marriage rights for members of the LGBT community. And as much as we could gripe how he had to time this for yet another election year, this landmark occasion is still something worth celebrating. I mean come on, this is still the first time that a sitting US president has made a public statement in support of same-sex marriage and not just wobble with things like civil unions and all that fun stuff.

But while we all ponder over his motivations, laugh at Republicans calling this Obama declaring war on marriage or even dream about local politicians someday making similar statements in support of LGBT rights, I'd like to go back to a core thought at the heart of this debate.

We often use the term "gay marriage" a lot to easily explain what we're talking about in terms of the rights we're fighting for. However the term in itself assumes that the marriage rights of the LGBT community are still distinct and separate from the rest of the heterosexual world since we need to clearly label it as "gay".

The image above (and variants thereof) has gone around on various social networks and has garnered loads and loads of Likes, Re-Tweets and re-blogging on platforms like Tumblr. The quote is attributed to the actress / comedian / writer / producer Liz Feldman, as part of a longer statement that can still be found online. Coincidentally enough, the statement was in support of President Obama's initial presidential run, and here we are 4 years later with him starting his re-election campaign.

At the end of the day, we need to remember that all these discussions are about the fundamental rights we should all be entitled to and our freedom to love whomever we chose to. Beyond that love, the law needs to respect us and recognize who we are and the decisions we make in terms of wanting to marry the men and women that we love so dearly and to be protected by those same laws.

This is not about creating a new type of marriage that should be tagged as "gay marriage" but instead we should just be allowed the right to marry - period. And allowing people to celebrate their love for one another will not take away or somehow taste the love and unions of others. This is not about some perverse effects men marrying other men is going to have on (theoretically) straight families.

So STOP SAYING WE'RE DESTROYING YOUR MARRIAGES YOU CRAZY PEOPLE!


Quite frankly - you're doing a fine enough job of ruining your own marriages given the statistics related to divorces, separations and other such break-ups on the web.

We just want the free to love. Is that too much to ask for?

[Movies] Flash Gordon (1980)

In trying to figure out what older / potentially classic movie to post a review for, my cursory Google searching had me stumbling on a certain image (I can't even remember what it was now) and then starting to him the classic rock anthem theme song from the Flash Gordon movie. You know - the one by Queen that probably defined the movie a heck of a lot  more than its actual story or actors.

And darn it, I really like Queen. And I'm man enough to admit that on the internet!

So I first caught this movie during some lazy afternoon during that sad period when HBO seems to play the worst movies every. You know what I'm talking about right? Those dead hours in the early afternoon when they shuffle the slow-moving stuff from their archives given most people are still enjoying a late lunch or possibly an afternoon siesta at that time. But despite the lure of a nap, I remember plowing through the movie for the heck of it.

And to this day, this movie remains one of those that remain inanely memorably, although primarily because of the wicked cool soundtrack.

Oh yeah, you go rock on, Freddie Mercury.

[Theater] Metro Manila Plays of Note (May - Aug)

This is going to be a quick round-up post - plus it's to help me map out what shows we're actually going to see versus those that we may not have time for. So much good theater, so little time.

So here we go!

MAY

Resorts World Manila is wrapping up its run of The Sound of Music at the Newport Performing Arts Theater this month. Last show is on May 27 at 02:00pm.

Upstart Productions is staging Forbidden Broadway starting May 11 - 27 at the Carlos P. Romula Auditorium at the RCBC Plaza in Makati City. I definitely want to see this one, as long as I can figure out when and how.

JUNE

Atlantis Productions' first new (non-repeat performance) musical for 2012 is Rock of Ages with the added bonus of MiG Ayesa himself starring in the show. The play runs from June 15 - July 8 also at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium at the RCBC Plaza in Makati City. Another show I want to see, although I worry about the ticket prices since they're higher than your typical Atlantis show.

JULY

Atlantis Productions is staging its first straight play (non-musical) this year with God of Carnage, starring THE Lea Salonga. It's a bit curious to want to see a play where Lea doesn't sing, but then she's a pretty phenomenal actress so I know it's going to be worth it.

AUGUST

Repertory Philippines's Children's Musical for the year is The Wizard of Oz at the On-Stage theater starting August 18. If you've seen the classic MGM movie, then don't expect this play to follow that format or song list. This is a different musical show altogether and you can catch it starting August 18.

I've only just found out about this particular PETA production based on the Lino Brocka movie. Given I've never seen the movie, I don't have that kind of context to feel motivated to watch, however it's top billed by Eugene Domingo, which is a VERY good reason to watch. We definitely need to figure out how to squeeze this into our schedule!

And the really big show for the year is the touring production of The Phantom of the Opera. Ticket prices for this show are definitely going to hurt our wallets in more ways than one, but it's totally going to be worth it. The show will run starting August 25 at the CCP Main Theater.

So what shows are you looking forward to seeing? I'm sure I've missed out on other theater groups, so help a geek out and leave a comment discussing other shows of interest in Metro Manila.

[Games] Tower Defense: Lost Earth (Android)

So we recently acquired an ASUS EEE Pad Transformer TF101 and as much as it has obvious business applications in terms of being a handy way to make presentations to potential clients while away from a formal board room or projector (e.g. like when meeting with potential hotel partners at their resorts), naturally I'm curious about the other applications that get into the mix of things, especially the games.

This device counts as our first ever tablet, our first foray into the Android environment and probably the most gadgety purchase I've ever made apart from my Amazon Kindle 3. So expect more Android app reviews in the future, although primarily from the perspective of a tablet user and not a mobile phone user. There will be differences, I'm sure, and this game is probably a good example.

I love tower defense games - and I have Tobie to blame for this particular fascination. I guess it employs that slightly more strategic part of my brain that has enjoyed so many different real-time strategy games over the years. And that's a particular itch that I don't mind scratching, even on a "mere" casual gaming basis.

[Books] The Art of Discworld

I'm quite the Discworld fan, as some regular Geeky Guide readers should know by now. I got hooked on the series thanks to one of my college block mates and there has been no turning back ever since.

I was delighted to find out that a friend of Tobie's was offering his copy of The Art of Discworld for sale (his reasons are unknown to me). At first I worried that the book would (A) be priced rather high or (B) would be in poor condition given we are talking about the secondhand market here. But lo and behold the book was nearly as good as new, covered in plastic and at a pretty great price. You have to love it when you get to experience the love someone had for a particular book given how pristine it is when you finally pick it up yourself.

I don't typically go for these sorts of art books since they take up a lot of space, tend to be highly expensive and don't offer much beyond some pretty pictures. However I have to admit that Paul Kidby has done some amazing things for the Discworld universe through his art given how uniquely he has managed to capture each and every character.

Whether in the form of book covers or beautiful posters, Kidby has pretty much defined the Discworld universe for all of us. And this book clearly celebrates the marriage of beauty and humor he has brought into the world through his interpretation of popular characters, locations and events.

[Pink News] Upcoming LGBT Events in May

There are a few major LGBT events this month that you Geeky readers may want to support. And remember these aren't exclusively for members of the LGBT community - these events are more than open to other straight supporters who want to support their LGBT friends or the issues that we're trying to achieve.

The first is a rally in support of the Anti-Discrimination Bill (House Bill 1483) on May 14, 2012. It'll be at the Sandiganbayan itself so if you can get up bright and early, it'll be a good idea to go. Be sure to wear pink or red on the day!

Next up on May 20, 2012 is that Love Yourself, Yoga for Life and other HIV/AIDS advocacy groups are celebrating the 29th International AIDS Candlelight Memorial at the Quezon City Circle. The annual event is meant to commemorate all those who have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS as we all renew our pledge to fight the biggest challenges related to this virus - ignorance and fear.

These are just some of the LGBT events that you can all participate in this month. If you have other events that you'd like for us to promote or help spread awareness about, feel free to leave a comment and we can discuss things more directly.

[Movies] The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

When I first heard that they were making live-action movie adaptation of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, I first wondered if this was going to become a Roger Rabbit kind of deal, but this time involving Mickey Mouse. But as more details were released, it appeared that I wouldn't be getting a fun little piece involve enchanted brooms but instead we were getting some Harry Potter wannabe invovling THE Nicolas Cage.

And please, as much as it's hard to convey sarcasm over electronic media like this blog, but the use of capital letters up there is not praise. Nicolas Cage has been brutalizing movies ever since he demanded we "put the bunny down" (and then some) and to have him involved in a project is quite the omen of bad news. For a matter of perspective in terms of my previous movie reviews, he and Michael Bay deserve one another. Seriously.

I had actually watched this movie on a whim sometime last year and was surprised I never got around to posting a review for it. Not that I particularly loved the movie enough to rush to post my feedback or anything. It's more along the lines of it being a waste of content if I don't take the time to write about, plus I also get to warn all of you away from losing 109 minutes of your life.

You can thank me later.

[TV] Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 4

The continuing saga of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series has certainly proven interesting, if anything else. While not overly compelling, it's just good enough for me to keep on watching the show despite a lack of full commitment. And over the seasons, they have managed to make some progress in terms of tempering more annoying characters like Ahsoka and giving a bit more sense to the tale of the various clone troopers that support the Republic in their war against the Separatists.

There has also been the increasing "darkness" about the show as the stories mature to some extent and the characters are made to face harder and harder decisions. After all, there is an actual war going on and even a children's cartoon can't pretend that war is a happy event over the course of four seasons.

And that really seemed to be the major thrust for this season - that things are just getting worse. Sure, we still don't have a larger meta-plot that could give the show a greater sense of purpose and direction. The war just rages on and on and we as viewers just get dragged along to the next destination. And it's this sense of being jerked around that makes fully committing to this cartoon a somewhat difficult thing given everything else that  has been done to the characters. While on some level you might argue that goal was to make you as a viewer feel how bad things were getting, it's still not quite the perfect emphatic experience.

[Gadgets] The Book Buyer's Kindle Conundrum

Many people wonder about whether or not an ebook reader like the Amazon Kindle is the best option for them. Others are interested in getting into the ebook game and are just puzzling over which dedicated ebook reader or tablet best fits their lifestyle.

What people don't realize is that there's another perhaps even bigger problem waiting on the horizon. Once you have your preferred device for ebook reading, you'll start to seriously consider whether or not you're still going to buy hard copies of the books you want. Seriously.


Especially when you're outside the US, you'll often find that a lot of books hard copy retail prices are in the same neighborhood or even more expensive then their ebook counterparts. Thus for titles that you don't necessarily have the same love for or lack paperback copies in local shelves, you'll probably end up considering whether or not the ebook copy is enough.

And as much as there are a lot of public domain books that are available for download around the web, there's still something to be said about the many benefits of buying the official Kindle versions of books, especially if you access your Kindle library of titles from multiple devices, applications like Kindle for PC or online via Kindle Cloud Reader. If you read solely on your ebook device, then this may not be a major selling point for you.

In recent months that I find myself rarely buying physical books since I keep double-checking prices versus the Kindle Store. Or I wait for the stores to majorly go on sale. Or I only invest in books that don't translate to Kindle well like art books. Or finally there are the books that I really love and want to have on my shelf, thus at times I end up spending double since I get both the Kindle and hard copy editions.

Life's funny that way.

How about you fellow ebook readers? What changes have you noticed in your book buying habits?

[Books] The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 3)

It's somewhat intimidating to consider that this series has a total of 13 books for me to work through and I've only just finished the third one. At the same time they boos really go by rather quickly so I don't know if that sense of intimidation has any true grounds other than the concern that I may work through the available titles faster than I want to. And it's not the kind of quick reading that is motivated by absolute love for the books but more along the lines of them just being so darned short.

Plus there's the movie adaptation to consider and how that may have "tainted" my experience with these books. While I'm man enough to admit that I only got into the books because of how much I enjoyed the movie, this third book also marks the end of my movie-related knowledge acting as a crutch and thus the new adventure of truly experiencing the rest of the series without prior knowledge of the plot. This becomes a wee bit scary mainly because I have to admit the book haven't quite hooked me solidly on their own. So yeah, that can be a pretty bad thing to consider given the rest of the series looming ahead in my "To Read" queue.

But still, I'm not known for leaving a series of books unfinished unless they're really, really bad. And I don't think this series quite falls into that category - at least  not yet.