Running with Scissors (A. Burroughs)

Renowned because of the shocking content, this book was an excellent follow up on Frey’s {moscontentlink:A Million Little Pieces}. Another crazy autobiography, this time of the kid of a psychotic mother who is brought up by the crazy family of the mother’s shrink.

Now, the premise sounds interesting, and there are lots of sound bites and stories that are captivating and novel. The mother will formally hand over guardianship over her only son to the psychologist; the psychologist’s family is as crazy as any of the patients; and the little kid discovers at 13 that gay sex is not all what he thought it to be.

The difference between cats and dogs

Stolen from one of them funny sites…

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

There is this entire new world of movies from star novels that is happening these days. The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and now The Da Vinci Code. What do they have in common? Well, in all cases there was a huge fan base of the novel that needed to be satisfied, and hence the movies are a lot like the books, without the wanton changes that are so typical of movies in the past.

A Million Little Pieces (J. Frey)

James Frey is an addict. A multiple addict, doing anything from alcohol, crack, PCP, and a dozen other illegal drugs. He seriously screws up his life, almost dying from an overdose, and is sent to a treatment camp. Here he will do well.

All in all, the book is a champion of the ability to get better. It reads like one way of getting rid of addiction: by confronting it. I wonder how many of the readers that actually face addictions actually have followed the advice in the book – regardless, the history is well told and eminently readable.

Almost Done

Let’s abandon the bullet points… Despite missing his deadline again, and for the third time, Brad actually did a heck of a job and is completing the house. I was pleasantly surprised when I came in, and everything looked in place. Doors are hung, Lights are in place. The plumbing works (although it needs the generator to run, and I haven’t figured out yet how to run that stupid engine).

Setting the CUPS admin password

You can get to the CUPS admin page by connecting to http://localhost:631. But if you want to do anything useful, you have to present your administrator password. Who’s the administrator? root of course.What’s the password? Well, you have to set it to whatever you want.

To do so, go to a root shell and type:

lppasswd -a root

Enter a password, and that’s what you use in the CUPS screens.

Skipping Towards Gomorrah (D. Savage)

Considering that Dan Savage is all the rage (and has been for several years) here in San Francisco, I am actually surprised I waited so long to read a book of his. Known for his satiric outlook on society and conservatism, Mr. Savage is a gay Al Franken.

This particular book was inspired by Robert Bork’s “Sloughing Towards Gomorrah,” a “realistic” look at today’s America. Mr. Savage points out quite credibly that conservatives have a history of painting a picture of moral doom, denouncing the current nation, only to turn around at the last second and declare how much they love America.

Where did the cats go?

Sunday morning, after two years of living by myself with two cats, I sent them off to Minnesota, where they are going to be taken care of (still waiting for pictures). It was quite the moment, with preparations, planning, and trepidation. It’s all over now, and the only aftereffect to date is that at every sound in the house, I think it’s the cats and check out what they are doing.

The United States of Europe (T.R.Reid)

Being a European (still), I just couldn’t resist the temptation of buying this book. Mr. Reid obviously knew something I didn’t, his title suggesting that Europe was on its way to equal the United States (of America) in global power, no less.

Turns out that the book could have been titled: “The European Union, A Force Not to Be Neglected Any Longer.” Not as catchy, of course, and the whole tone of the book is sensationalized to attract readers to a fairly dull subject matter.

Leonardo da Vinci : Flights of the Mind : A Biography (C. Nicholl)

{moszoomimglink:Verrocchio – head of David}Leonardo is quite the character. For most of his life a beautiful charmer, surrounded by pretty boys in search of a career, we remember him mostly for his old age, a bearded man with long straight hair. He is almost as iconic as his creations, who became true symbols of art and science to a degree unparalleled before and ever since.

Yet, the man is a little elusive. He is from an age too far in time to have dutifully recorded all his comings and goings, and despite his fame, many of his works have not survived. Biographies came late, mostly at the hands of people that had only a scant acquaintance with Leonardo, or even never met him.