Equal Rites by Terry Pratchet

For those who haven't been following, I was really into Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies, of the Discworld series. So instead of going through all the books in consecutive order, I decided to follow the witches storyline, starting with Equal Rites. It starts out as somewhat of a parody to Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, given the magical power of the number 8, telling the story of an eighth son. Only the 8th son turned out to be a daughter, with the femme-wizardly name of Escarina.

Of course on the disc, there'd never before been a female wizard. So Escarina has to save the day and all that in order to be somewhat officially received into the Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork. While this story is funny and altogether brilliant, I didn't feel as touched nor inspired as I've been with some of Pratchett's other works (mainly Lords and Ladies). Still, I think any fantasy fan should check this one out, as well as everything by Pratchett. I'm a firm believer that he deserved all the hype toward him.

Gatti's Pizza of Martinsville, IN

I could take for days about Gatti's (or Mr. Gatti's) Pizza, but I'll keep it to a few paragraphs. At the location in Ashland Kentucky, I used their buffet to set a personal eating record of 21 slices, including crust. They were small slices, but I will always remember the victory. On Sunday nights, while I was in jr. high school, my dad would drive a van of college students to the church where he worked, and on the way home, we'd usually pick up a stack of Gatti's pizza, which I would stuff myself with and stuff myself again for breakfast while watching Zaboomafoo. Those school days were filled with belly-burning farts, but I didn't mind. I was a pig for that pizza.

So I'm going to try my best to be unbiased. While the Martinsville shop is a buffet, filled with erratically staggering anti-maskers, I usually prefer a fresh pie. Buffets are good, but with my 35-year-old metabolism, I have to prepare for a few days before that level of gorge. Let's talk about the pizza. It has a ratio of 2cr2ce2ch, perfect. Their crust is a little weird. While delivering a perfect goo factor, it seems to have either too much gluten or too much baking powder. It's crispy and chewy, and tastes good, but it's more stiff than you'd expect. I love this crust, but I'm going to be objective and give it a 3/5.

But their sauce gets a 5/5. It's super good, and I'm not totally sure why. It's thick and savory, and maybe has shredded onions in it? I don't know, but I think I could detect it if they used msg. I can't get enough.

As you can see, the old ladies at the shop really didn't put much love into this pie. However, there's nothing really wrong with it, despite a poor covering on the crust. It was cooked well, and the cheese had a really nice stretch. I really want to give it a 3 for overall quality, but I guess I'll go with a 2/5.

For style, I'll give Gatti's a 5. Either you love it or you'd much rather have something else, the way people feel about Pizza King, which is a pizza with definite style. Gatti's Pizza joints usually have a game/arcade room, which is sometimes comically shabby and sometimes really sweet. Their buffet has soft serve ice cream, salad, pasta, and other great stuff. I also love that they don't have table service. And to top it off, they offer a "value" pizza, which is like a regular pie but cheaper because it has less stuff on it. With a side of sauce, this is perfect because there's only so much cheese you can handle in one sitting.

Gatti's Pizza ends with a score of 75%, which makes me happy. I love it, and try to stop in as often as possible.

Others have pizza. We (who are not present) Make pizza.

Boasts PJ Fresh, the nationally famous chain of gas station food bars. I try to react to their arrogance by waltzing in and declaring myself as 'PJ Fresh', who always gets a free coffee as royalty for the use of my name. Of course I never get a free coffee. Even refills cost ~$2. Oh well. Not every PJ can be as cool as I, and I state that with a measure of conceit for this popular 'market'.

More than one of my friends informed told me about PJ Fresh's awesome pizza, and DudeCool25 (blog follower #1) took me all the way up to Indianapolis to try it. The person who makes the pizzas at the Flying J station was gone, so all they had was 4 cheese or meat lovers. We got the 4 cheese, and it was cooked in the gas station's Arby's. And I think if Arby's developed their own pizza, their own way, it would have been much different.

So how was PJ Fresh's pie? It was all right, really cheesy. Their crust was much like a garlic knot, which was cool. Overall, it was a better quality pie than what you'd get at a Casey's General Store, but Casey's pizza is still more like pizzeria pizza and less like gas station pizza. Both are better than what you'd get at 711. But I think with 711, the price of a $1 slice really amplifies the sense of satisfaction.

For the sake of rating, I'll score PJ Fresh's pizza with a ration of 3cr/2ce/4ch. Crust gets a 2. It was rubbery, thoough flavorful in a garlic knot kind of way and not in the way of a good dough. Sauce gets a 3, Overall quality gets a 3, and Style gets a generous 2. A final score of 50% is good for a gas station pizza. For those of you who might comment. What is your favorite gas station pizza?

Army of One (feat. Nicolas Cage)

For a good while, I was looking forward to this movie. It's the story of a legendary nut who hallucinates a calling from God, to go to Pakistan and take-out Osama Bin Laden. Based on real events, I thought this was a really great story. And Cage's performance is just awesome, reminding me how charming and convincing the truly crazy can be, because they believe so strongly in the crap they feed you.

The story is funny and the acting is funny, but I think it was presented in a way that's not only unfair to the audience, but exploitive to Gary Faulkner, the man who sold the movie rights to his story so he could afford a new kidney for himself. And it was his kidney failure that caused his hallucinations. With astounding courage, he was a hero. But this movie made every point of mocking him. And I feel like if Cage had known what the movie would look and sound like, he wouldn't have given his character so much charisma. It was like the narrator was added after the movie was finished, just to to make sure we knew what parts were meant to be funny, just blowing it with me.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Pig
6. Birdy
7. Wild at Heart
8. Joe
9. Guarding Tess
10. Dog Eat Dog
11. Color Out of Space
12. Mom and Dad
13. Peggy Sue Got Married
14. Zandalee
15. City of Angels
16. Bangkok Dangerous
17. Drive Angry
18. Army of One
19. Lord of War
20. Gone in 60 Seconds
21. Matchstick Men
22. Vampire's Kiss
23. Con Air
24. Face/Off
25. The Boy in Blue
26. Honeymoon in Vegas
27. Amos and Andrew
28. Moonstruck
29. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
30. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
31. Bringing Out the Dead
32. The Family Man
33. Knowing
34. It Could Happen to You
35. 8mm
36. Looking Glass
37. Between Worlds
38. Left Behind
39. Ghost Rider
40. The Humanity Bureau
41. Next
42. The Weather Man
43. 211
44. The Croods

The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary

During my month of young reading, I let myself revisit this one from a series I very much loved in first grade. I acquired a few toy motorcycles with knowingly far-fetched hopes that a mouse might befriend me, and turn my toy into a real zoomer. It never happened. Still my imaginings of Ralph with the little motorcycle were so vivid despite the bare prose of this work. Even if I'd already read the book, as a kid I felt so much emotion regarding the Ralph's well-being. And it wasn't just because I read with such deliberation. Cleary knew how to get into kids' heads and make them feel things. And returning to this book as an adult wasn't much of an experience. It's a cute story about a brave mouse who got a motorcycle, and that's it.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

You readers probably don't follow me on Goodreads, but if you do, you know I've fallen behind on my reading schedule. However, the blog hasn't caught up. I decided to take some time away to do a game jam (which I won), and as you know, it's hard to jump between modes of activity. Working on one game naturally sparks ideas for a lot more games. Before the game jam, I blasted through this book by Jim Butcher. My first taste of Butcher was int he audio book of The Aeronaut's Windlass, which really rocked my socks, so I was excited to check out his acclaimed Dresden Files.

And this introductory story of Harry Dresden delivered on all fronts. Harry Dresden is an old soul and wizard-for-hire in the city of Chicago, a big town bursting with character. You can tell Butcher is an avid player of table top games. His narrative voice connects so easily with our memories of that competent nerd who keeps surprising you with their hidden brilliance. Dresden is the wizard within all of us who love fantasy and consider ourselves a bit more wizardly than our typical entourage. He's not espcecially Woke, but even the most progressive of us like to get comfy sometimes, especially with a good story in our hands.

I wouldn't say the story of Storm Front is perfect, but it scratches an itch while, most importantly, begs us to keep reading.

A Room of One's Own by Virgia Woolf

You might consider this Woolf's original (pre)feminist manifesto, originally used in lectures at the few women's colleges of the time. Even today, I think this could be an adequate foray into feminist ideas, especially for someone who has never thought about the work that has gone into patriachy, for patriarchy. Though I don't think Woolf used such terminology, mostly talking about the (then short) history of women in literature, and perhaps inventing the concept of Shakespeare's brilliant sister.

Woolf also had some very forward-thinking, though probably not applicable today, ideas about gender fluidity, seeing the writer within as a woman. That's why men were so threatened by women, superior writers, in fiction. However educational, I don't think this is the ideal book for any who seek empowerment while oppressed by today's weird world.

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Somewhere I was given the advice to read the types of things I want to write, or someday get published. So on my quest for a good Fantasy/Romance, I found this one. Obsidian is one of many in its own class of Twilight-types. It's told from the first person of a likeable teenage girl who grudgingly falls into a complicated love affair with a supernatural, hunk of humanoid in the form of a teenage boy.

So this isn't the type of thing I try to write, and I could have read more into the existing reviews. Oh well. I don't consider the experience wasted. Obsidian is about aliens in the mountains of West Virginia, with some connection to the Moth Man. For those of you who don't read fantasy, there are certain rules about Hard Magic and Soft Magic. Armentrout clearly didn't understand these rules. You see, Soft Magic is mysterious and chaotic, and shouldn't be deployed as a means to resolve a story.

Sorry if that's somewhat of a spoiler for those of you who thought this supernatural teen romance was really going to have a tragic ending, only to grow more tragic in its two sequels. The biggest tragedy was the lack of sex in this book.