Jaq Greenspon's Blog, page 50
January 19, 2016
Belgium 2016 Day 5 – A Ghent-leman and a Scholar
I left Antwerp early… again. Today I was heading towards Ghent, a town I knew had a history. The train ride was only about 30 minutes so I’d get to Ghent early and have all day to explore. Until the train stopped. Seemed that there was a train stopped on the tracks ahead of us […]
January 17, 2016
Belgium 2016 Day 3 – Opening Locks in Antwerpen
Once again, the boys from Jersey had their alarms set. They had overslept yesterday and missed Amsterdam so were trying it again today. The night before, when I’d gotten in, I mentioned the double alarm and gave my permission for one of their number to hit the guy who hadn’t woken with his alarm the […]
January 16, 2016
Belgium 2016 Day 2 – Doing it the way the Belgians Do
I awoke with a plan… and someone else’s alarm. There were these four young college guys from Jersey in our room and they were planning on hitting Amsterdam today (it’s a three-hour train ride – something I would remember a couple of days later) and so had set alarms to get up in time to […]
January 15, 2016
Belgium 2016 Day 1 – Mannekin (and sky) Pis
So, Belgium. Wasn’t supposed to be here all by myself but them’s the breaks. Rasa was supposed to join me, but they wouldn’t give her the time off work and then sent her to Germany besides, so here I am. Thing is, a couple months back, RyanAir (that bane of the comfortable traveler) had a […]
Review: Bloom County: The Complete Digital Library, Vol. 4
Bloom County: The Complete Digital Library, Vol. 4 by Berkeley Breathed My rating: 5 of 5 stars Going back to re-read these collections is like visiting an old friend. In this 4th of the yearly volumes you can see Breathed is hitting his stride. The characters are really in place and the softball political humor […]
January 13, 2016
And these children…
You’ll forgive me for the second indulgence in as many days, but I need a place to put these things, these thoughts and plans. As time goes on, I will update this page, I’m sure, as a repository for things I want to keep at close reach for the edification of my future child(ren). In […]
January 11, 2016
David Bowie 1947-2016
David Bowie died. He was probably my first rock and roll hero. I remember seeing him sing Space Oddity on some early 70s TV show, then seeking out the song, finding it on cassette on ChangesOneBowie. From there it wasn’t hard to pick up the albums which had come before and stick with the man […]
January 10, 2016
What do books do after hours?
In case you’re wondering what books do when the store is closed, you finally have an answer!
January 7, 2016
Review: Flashforward
Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars I’ll say this for Robert Sawyer, he’s got some great concepts. Sadly, this book doesn’t have much more than that. The basic premise is this: at a certain point, for reason or reasons (mostly) unknown, the entirety of humanity shuts down for 2 minutes and […]
January 5, 2016
2016 Reading challenge(s)
As we roll over into 2016, a number of reading challenges have made themselves known. I think for next year, I’ll actually make one of my own but for this year, I’m just going to link to a couple of them. Honestly, I love this. We’ve become a nation, a world, where gameplay is everything. […]
