Victorian Gangsterness

The Mayor of Casterbridge. Good book. I like it. Thomas Hardy. Good author.

I read this book a couple of months ago, and I've always wanted to discuss it here in my blog. The Mayor of Casterbridge is essentially a book about the consequences of gangsterness. The main character, Michael Henchard, is such an inveterate gangster that he ends up ruined and lonely. Early on, the book launches right into the action, when Michael gets drunk on spiked oatmeal in some weird tent at a county fair, and then decides to sell his wife and baby, because he is sick of their nonsense. Some sailor enters the scene and purchases the wife and kid, and Michael passes out in the tent, waking up the next morning to the realization that he might have done something horrible, not because he sold his wife and kid like cattle, but because, by selling them, he might have besmirched his reputation. After deciding that everything is cool because he did not give any witnesses his name, Michael departs and eventually becomes the mayor of a town called Casterbridge.

I didn't know characters in Victorian novels could be so pimplike. Among other gangsterisms, Michael manages to win his wife back nineteen years later (the one that he sold), lie to everyone around him, and fight a Scottish man in a hayloft with one hand tied behind his back. Totally an entertaining character.

Another entertaining character is the hapless Abel Whittle, who works for Michael.  Abel is always late for work, because he always sleeps in. He can't seem to get to work on time. He even tries tying a string to his big toe and hanging it out the window for one of his coworkers to tug on while passing by his home during the morning commute. This works okay, but sometimes his coworker forgets to tug the string, leaving Abel over-sleeping soundly. Anyway, after multiple warnings about his lateness, Abel blows it again and fails to show up on time. So Michael goes to his house, jars him awake, and forces him to go to work with no pants on.

At the end of the story, Michael Henchard wanders off and dies alone in the woods, like a dog.

The book is totally good.

Beat Games

Have you ever beaten the video game, Super Contra? That game is awesome. Have you ever beaten Contra? That game is awesome, too. I flipped both of those games on countless occasions with my good friend, J-----. We would blast the audio out of the stereo speakers in the dorm room, and then the RA would come by and scold us. Ironic, is it not? We were able to defeat the Vile Red Falcon, but we were not able to defy some RA dude. That is the mysterious way of things.

Have you ever tried to beat the game, Milon's Secret Castle? That game is so impossible. Have you even heard of that game? It was really obscure. I got it from my uncle on the weird, obscure side of my family. You have to be really good at video games to beat that game.

When I was in college, I played a lot of Quake. I played online. Freshman year. My friend played online, too, and his screen name was "'Tude Adjuster." He went to Vassar, which was a better school than mine, and he would always beat me in Quake, because he was smarter than I was. Neither of us had friends.

"'Tude Adjuster" and I went to golf camp during the summer in high school. We would play golf on this small, unkempt course where all the holes were par 3's. My other friend got a summer job there, and he said he saw one of the college-aged workers beat a beaver to death with a 9-iron in the tool shed.

At that same club, we would sometimes get stuck playing golf with this weird kid, E-----, who would rub dirt on his face when he got frustrated/fatigued. "Oh man, E----- got a double-bogey, and now he's exfoliating his skin with a divot." That kid wasn't a talented golfer. He's probably good at other stuff. I, too, am not much of a golfer. I am much better at racquet sports.

Cesspool Sweeper

I have been sitting at this cafe all day. I don't usually do that, but I secured a good spot near the outlet, and now I am dug in like an Alabama tick. Who loves references to the movie, Predator, as much as I do? Cool. Great film.

My friend and I were watching the guy who works at the Thai restaurant across the street sweep filthy sidewalk water into the sewer drain. He was wearing a bathrobe and open-toed lounge slippers, like Ray Liotta, at the end of Goodfellas, when he retrieves the newspaper in the front yard of his Witness Protection Program house. Not a good outfit choice for sanitation work. That guy is going to get some sort of foot fungus. It made it seem like he just sleeps in the restaurant, next to the Pad Thai machine.

Belgian Zombocalypse

I am reading World War Z, by Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks. I'm pretty sure I hate the book. Absolutely no character development whatsoever. Whenever I grow to like a certain character in the story, the perspective changes, and I have to get used to a new character. It's a little exhausting. Hopefully, by the time I finish this book, I will love it.

I brushed my dog, today. You could tell he felt conflicted about it. He mostly liked it, but it clearly made him somewhat uncomfortable.

Tonight I told my dog to "come" and "sit," and then, when he followed my commands, I explained that I just lost respect for him, because he shouldn't just do stuff because people tell him to. I'm trying to train him to be less of a patsy.

As I ate three and a half Belgian waffles tonight, I considered how I might be making a dining error, but I went ahead and completed my feast of doom. Now I feel like a baking soda volcano.