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Today’s Readin Rainbow is a special treat because I will be reviewing 2 books instead of just one. It’s not because I’m a very busy individual and only have time to review one book. It’s because when considering the entire series of Dune books, I would say that Dune Messiah is the prologue to Children of Dune.
First we will start with Dune Messiah. Here we are 3 years later where we left off in Dune. Paul “Muad’Dib” Atraides found himself a little fremen chicky. Alia is grown up and has her own religion just like her older brother. Oh yeah, and Duncan Idaho has returned from the dead. I will try not to disclose too many details on this book, maybe you will pick it up and read it. All I will say is that it’s just like a good telenovela with all the twists and turns and double crossings. Very delicious!
Since becoming the Emperor of the known universe, Paul is worried that he’s become too powerful, almost a cult symbol. This only gets worse with Alia at his side. Both of these kids are too powerful. Paul has had a vision of the future of a religious war that is fought under his name. Throughout the book, Paul tries to de-mystify his name in order to avoid this “Atraides jihad”.
All of the characters in this series are exceptionally interesting. My fave is Alia, she’s so kick-ass, even though she’s a little nutso. Hey, guess where I got the name for this blog? Yup, it’s all Alia.
As Paul was preety much gonna give up on his fight against becoming a cult symbol, he gets inspiration to keep fighting when Chiani has his twins. And here is where Messiah ends and Children of Dune begins. Just like Alia was born with awareness of her past lives cuz Lady Jessica went through the spice agony while preggers, the same thing happened to the twins, Leto and Ghanima. Their dad was a Kwasi Haderah and their mom a spice junkie. No wonder these kids aint aright.
Because these kids are the heirs of the Empire, people want them dead. So while they’re raised by Irulan in hiding, Alia has taken ownership of the Empire. She’s also hooked up with Duncan Idaho. But runnin an empire and keepin her man happy is too much pressure for Alia, so she O.D.’s on spice as much as she can and goes froot-loops. he most important part of the book is when a teenage Leto goes out into the desert and lets sand trout (baby sandworms) attach to his body. This gives him power over the worms and makes him super powerful. He confronts Alia and takes back the empire. In the process of becoming uber-powerful, he’s seen the future jihad as well as humankind’s fate, and aint happy. So under him, the empire will follow the “Golden Path” and elevate humans to their next evolutionary place.
Like I said before, this whole series reads just like a Mexican soap opera. Even though the main characters so far have been male (Paul and his son Leto), it’s the female characters that make the entire story possible. Lady Jessica is the foundation of the whole story, the original heretic that defied her teachers and had a son(Paul). Alia is the radical variable that keeps the story exciting. Irulan and Chiani are the yin-yang that surround Paul. They are total opposites but need each other. Hell, Irulan raises Chiani’s kids, and loves them like they were her own. And of course the Bene Gesserit. These chicks are the center of the whole Dune universe.
Here is a little exept from the Sci-Fi channel’s attempt to make this into a movie. This is pretty much where Messiah ends and Children begins. It is a bit of a spoiler but if you haven’t read the books, you aint gonna know who’s who or what’s goin on. Still, It’s an amazing movie for an amazing series of books. I needs me that song. For those of you who want to know, the song in the clip is sung entirely in the fremen language. Talk about geekgasmic!!!!
I not only recommend these as well a the whole series, but totally endorse them by saying they’re probably the zenith of science fiction literature. But you don’t have to take my word for it!
Most often than not, whenever a movie comes out that is kick-ass, a sequel is probably already being made. The problem with this is that they always eff up sequels. There’s only been a handful of movies I’ve seen though that have had a better sequels. These are only a handful of movies I can think of.
- X-2 better than X-men:
Don’t get me wrong, I loved them both. The thing was that in the first one we were introduced to the main characters. Jean Grey is my favorite, so I’m biased. In the first one, she was kind of a secondary character behind Wolverine and Rogue. In the second one, she takes center stage all the way till the end sacrificing herself to save the team. Other things that improved in the sequel: Storm lost the hideous hair and accent. Wtf Halle? Also we had that Iceman and Pyro guy. They were a nice distraction. Magneto and Mystique became uber-cool in the second one too. Lady Deathstryke…nuff said. - Dark Knight better than Batman Begins. I totally dug the whole explanation of where batman came from. No wonder he can do all that shit, he got trained by a Jedi master! But after all that, I was all “Meh”. Katie Holmes was a little boring. Now in the sequel, we have Maggie Gylleh&*#&%. She rocked, and I was blown away by her story (so to speak). And of course we can’t forget the Joker. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, A hero is only as good as the villain he’s fighting. Ex. Look at the new superman movie. Speaking of Superman…
- Superman 2 better than Superman.
Ursa, General Zod, and Non
Yup, that’s where I stand. The first Superman’s plot is Luthor wanting to blow up California so half of it breaks off and he now owns all the coastline and he’ll be rich. Superman 2 has the man of steel fighting with not one, but 3 villains from his home planet trying to take over the earth, and more importantly, taking over the United States. The lines in this movie are priceless too!.
General Zod: This “super-man” is nothing of the kind; I’ve discovered his weakness.
Ursa: Yes?
General Zod: He cares. He actually cares for these Earth people.
Ursa: Like pets?
General Zod: I suppose.
Ursa: Sentimental idiot
I wish I had a British accent from the planet Krypton.
- Rush Hour 2 kicks Rush Hour’s ass. The first one was forgettable. The sequel had Ziji Shiang or whatever her name is. Cruching tiger girl made the sequel have a beautiful, demented psycho-villain. You go, girl!
- Terminator 2 better than Terminator. Ok the first one was awesome. It made Arnold a household name. The effects were ok i guess. The sequel was utterly amazing. I was blown away when I saw it, with that liquid metal robot guy. But it wasn’t just the effects that made it a kick-ass sequel. Sarah Connor finally grew a pair. She was kickin robot ass all over the place. The ending of the second one was too cheezy for me, i prefer the ending of the first. But other than that. kudos to the sequel.
- The Passion of the Christ gets better in the sequel. Just kiddin. The sequel is still in production. Will be out Dec. 21, 2012. I hear the premier is gonna be a worldwide event, everyone is gonna be there.
As if there wasn’t enough proof of how big a geek I am, I submit this to you. Today I really wasn’t in the mood to go out and do stuff outside, like running, swimming, driving around, etc. Instead I decided to clean my room. As I was cleaning I came across some boxes full of mine and my brother’s old Legos. One thing led to another and yadda yadda yadaa, and I spilled the pieces all over trying to build something.
This was the big mess that I made with the legos blocks. It looks like a lot because it is. I started getting legos when I was about 10, and it went from me to my brother, so some of these pieces are at least 20 years old.
Like any Legophile knows, you first start with the base or frame of the vehicle. The one that I decided to build is rather complcated, and requires plenty of very small pieces. That’s what probably took me the most time, finding all the damn little pieces in the big mountain of legos. Not only that, but I have little rubermaid drawers full of the bastards. Well, 3 enchiladas and 4 hours later, I was done.
I ended up building a Jeep just like the one I drive, except this one is yellow cuz I don’t have enough gray blocks. I put it on top of my laptop so you can get the scale of the project. My back is killing me from looking through that big pile of legos but man it was worth it! Even the steering wheel is in working order. I built it so if you turn the steering wheel, it moves the two front tires.
If you ask me why, I’ll tell ya its because I was in the mood for building something with the legos. Also, I found his website that has all the instruction manuals for legos, http://www.hccamsterdam.nl/brickfactory/. If you ever bought a lego set and lost the instructions, you will find them here. Ok, so now that this happy adult has finished playing with his legos, I reckon it’s Ovaltine time!
I knew it was gonna happen. I’ve become attached to this blog. Emotionally attached. It’s not like when that doggy followed me home. Ah, I miss Foamy. I have actually bonded with this blog to the point that I brag about it like it just got straight A’s, or got nominated for vice prez. I just started blogging about a month ago, but now it feels like I can do this for a good while. To tell you the truth, even though I try to check up in here everyday, I don’t want to bog the readers down when I’m just talking outta my ass with no real message.
I hate it when people get online and feel like they have this open forum where they can vent their emotional baggage and feelings. It’s like they’re out looking for a pity-party. Then they get all serious with their content and just end up sounding like a pompous, pretentious damm fool! I don’t pity the fool!
I guess what boggles my mind is that I’ve made this connection to something that’s pretty much an intangiable idea out there on cyberspace. When I get a compliment on one of my posts, I feel elated. If my traffic goes down, I don’t let it get to me because if my math is correct, I’m getting repeat customers. I can not believe I’ve become a blogger.
Meh, oh well, maybe I’ll blog about being a blogger.
I’ve been trying to eat healthier, and one way has been to become a 1/7th vegetarian. That means that for one day a week I eat nuthin but vegetables. Yeah, I know very admirable. Especially a big omnivore that I am. Well, I stumbled across this video on Youtube, and I’ve lost all appetite for anything that’s not 100% healthy. Just watching it made me feel unhealthy, so for those of you with a weak stomach, a warning. I was dry-heavin after watchin this, and I’m not sqweamish. By the way, I’m 10,000% vegetarian. For those of you that are wondering, I’ve never actually tried these, and honestly I dunno how anyone could!
P.S. My teeth hurt so much I had to use a whole bottle of Listerine.
I just posted a list of how to survive a Zombie Apocalypse. I then realized its kinda long and wordy. I get like that with stuff I’m passionate about. Well, now here’s a list on how to die in a Zombie Apocalypse.
- Head towards the mall. You will be heading to your grave, but you can finally get that jacket from Express that is to die for! Literally.
- Become a hero. You will have the snazziest lines and garner all the admiration of the rest of us, but heading into a crowd of zombies with only a knife and your courage aint gonna cut it.
- Wander off by yourself. It worked for the Scooby Gang, so why not for you? Um, you’re not a cartoon.
- Have sex. Those people always die. What’s more importantly, if reanimated decomposing, foul-smellin bodies chasing you down gets you horny, you got bigger problems. Trust me.
- Pretend you’re a zombie and try to fit in. If you’re in the jungle and a lion comes up, do you pretend to be a lion and try to fit in with him so he don’t eat you? No! You shoot it!
- Dance like a zombie. It worked for M.J., why not for you? Plastic surgery worked for M.J., so why not for you? Nuff said.
- Skinnydip. Please don’t do this, unless you’re hot. Not temperature hot. Hot hot.
- Become an asshole. There’s always an asshole only out for his/her survival. If you don’t save someone, they aint gonna save you. So do onto others, and all that shit.
- Reason with a zombie. Because they were your mom/dad/bff before they became Zombies doesn’t mean they gonna remember you and spare you. Zombies eat the ones they love.
- Listen to lists on the internet on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. Most of the people out there are kinda wack and think they know what they’re talking about. Trust me.
There are many guides out there telling you how to survive the oncoming zombie. Most of these list have good things and bad things, but all sound very familiar. Yeah, you know yo need a weapon. Yeah, you know you need transportation. But come on, people, be specific! Well, here comes me to specify more specifically what you need to survive the zombie onslaught. You don’t really have to do everything on this list, but you also don’t have to survive.
- Ok, people. first you need to calm down. The second you loose your cool, you’ll be zombie chow! Yes, I agree that a corpse walking down the street to come eat you up is very upsetting, but just chill out! You’ve prepared for this day, so take a deep breath and RUN!
- As much as you may not like it, you can’t survive on your own. Organize a team of trusted people skilled in different ways of survivng. 4-7 people you trust with your life, and all need to be skilled differently: First aid person, mechanical/tech savvy person, weapons, expert on getting food and water, and the leader that keeps them all working towards a common goal: survival.
- Find a safe house. Like everyone, you will have friends and family that will most probably not survive. It’s sad but you can help them survive. One of those bomb shelters will be ideal to leave your loved ones there. A farm out in the countryside will be safer. With them being safe, you can better take care of your own survival. You will leave them there hopefully in a safe place, with enough provisions for about a month or so. You will have to check up on them, but thats better then lugging your family around while zombies are on your trail.
Now to the nitty gritty… You’ll be going into life or death combat, so make sure you dress the part. Zombies will be grabbing for you so make sure you don’t have loose fitting clothing or long hair. Also, make sure your clothes will be durable to go treading through mud and sturdy enough for a fight. Steel-toes are nice cuz they’re stury, and if you kick, they will do good damage. Drawback is they’re not good in a sprint, so make sure you weight both sides and decide accordingly.
Pick your weapons wisely. My pick is the machete, since my brother took my samurai sword and I can’t find it now. Some of you purists will choose a shotgun or rifle. That’s cool. Hey, maybe you can teach me how to reload my machete. Oh wait, I dont need to so I can just keep hackin heads off the undead while you cower behind me reloading your gun. If you don’t have a cutting weapon, a blunt instrument like a bat or mallet is also good. Remember, you’re aiming for their heads, so both a baseball bat and a machete will kill a zombie. I prefer the machete.
Choose your transportation wisely. Just like the machete/shotgun argument, what are you gonna do when you run outta gas? Also, the second youstart teh car, zombies will hear you and come runnin your way. If you’re on a bike, you can not only cover a lagre distance fast, but also very quietly. Also, make sure you have the right tires on your bike. I have hybrid road/off road tires. These are hte best because you will need both speed and traction. Yes, on a bike you will be exposed to the elements and to zombie attacks, but that just means you need to be on yuor toes while riding around looking for supplies.
If you all flabby and slow, you think the zombie chasing you will take it easy on you? Pleeze! The Zombie attack is imminent. You need to be ready for it, both mentally and physically. After hackin head after zombie head, your arms gonna get tired, trust me. You just survived an attack from a group of zombies. Kudos! Wait, there’s another group of zombies in the distance coming your way. Time to run, kids! Will you be in shape to hit the road after hand combat with the undead? Don’t risk it, get in shape before the attack.- I know I mentioned before how you need to find a safe place to keep your family alive. Well, that’s not gonna work for you. Like someone famous once said, in a zombie apocalypse “there’s no safe place, only safer”. You need to keep moving. You will see your loved ones once in a while, but if you really want to keep them safe, you don’t want to lead the undead to where they’re at. At the same time, you want to keep moving avoiding the undead, looking for supplies, and looking for other survivors. You can’t help these survivors as much as you would like, but at the same time them seeing you and your team will maybe insipire them to fight for their lives.
- Ok, now the tough one. You have to grow a heart of stone and replace all your blood with cold liquid nitrogen (thats hella cold by the way), because you will have to make some tough choices. If a loved one becomes infected, you will have mere moments to make tough decisions. You know what I’m talking about. The second they become infected, they’re gone. This is a war, and casualties are imminent. Not only you, but everyone on your team has to be tough in every way. I can’t say for sure I will volunteer my life if I get infected now, but zombies aren’t banging on the door at this moment. When the day comes though, I will make the sacrifice as well as expect everyone on my group to do the same. Hard, but necessary.
- Most importantly, don’t lose hope. Who knows how long the zombie apocalypse will last and we will come out of it. You just need to keep in mind that you will come of it. Even if the onslaught lasts your entire lifetime and you will face the remainder of your days fighting the good fight. Well bring it on!
These are just tips on how to improve your odds at survival against the undead. You don’t need to follow any and all, and you can add tips that will work for you. If I have missed any, please let me know. Nobody knows how long one of these zombie apocalypses will last, but if you survive it, you will get a tshirt and have braggin rights and impress all your friends, well 10% of them cuz the rest will be zombies.
You know, a lot of people I like, respect, even love go to yoga classes. To those people, all I have to say is oops. I’m not trying to say anything bad about you or your lifestyles. All I’m trying to state is what I’ve noticed. Pretentious people love the yoga.
The other day I was looking for some organic biodegradeable earth-friendly eco-centric bendy straws, so I went to one of those high end grocery stores. You know the ones, they will sell you stuff that’s been marked up horrendously just because it’s in a recycled package. Well, I find my straws so I go check out, and lo-and-behold, there was this chick in front of me standing in line wearing what looked like pajamas and carrying a yoga mat. SHe looked at me and instantly I felt the snobbery oozing out of every one of her pores. She was in a hurry cuz she was late for the yoga, and she was rude, too. Then I got me some thinking, and decided to hypothesize why yoga fits so well with them: they love love to advertize how absolutely fabulous they are. Here’s how they accomplish this…
$$$ for Yoga = Awesomeness
- Pretentious people love to spend money on stuff they really don’t need. It’s called disposable income because they just throwing it down the drain. Does having a little thin mat between you and the floor makes you better at the yoga? I know they look like pajamas, I bet they feel like pajamas, smell like pajamas (if you used downy), but oh no, they don’t cost the same as regular pajamas. So you spent all this money on a uniform for the yoga, how are people going to know this fact? Simple, go to places frequented by regular people, or as you refer to them, the little people. But what if one of those little people just rolled out of bed at 3pm and ran to the bank before it closes. You will be wearing the same shit, how akward! Wait, the big difference here is you will be carrying your mat for the yoga with you everywhere you go. The beauty is in the mat! You didn’t just roll out of bed, you gonna go lay down somewhere and breathe!
- Pretentious people love love to talk about the yoga outside the yoga studio. They will talk about how the yoga has made their lives better, especially better than yours. Hey Mr. Mailman, Mr. Mailman got any mail for me? I’m in a hurry because I do the yoga and it’s awesome. You should try it, especially carrying that mail sack all over the place. You know since doing the yoga I sleep better at nights, even if I drink a cup of coffee at night. Oh yeah, sorry, I’ll have a venti machiatto with 4 shots of espresso, because since doing the yoga I can sleep at nights now. Oh, did I tel you that already? Sorry, since doing the yoga, my mind drifts in and out of nirvana and I forget how pretentious I sound sometimes.
- When pretentious people talk about the yoga, they lilke to throw terms around and act like you know exactly what they’re talking about. “The other day while in the brattislavva pose at the yoga, I totally figured out how to stop global warming by using the world’s oceans with cold fusion. But then as we went into the reverse suvita, I accidentally went in and out of enlightenment and boom, it was gone. Oh well, tee hee. That’ll teach me to go from a forward to a reverse inverted open lotus pose, don’t you agree?”
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- If you do yoga and nobody can see it, it never happened!
The other day I was jogging around town. I happened to jog through the park where ther’s a big pond. Lo-and-behold, there was a crowd of people doing the yoga outside by the pond. They were so serious looking while doing the poses. Why don’t they do that at their studio? Cuz nobody can see them there. Pretentious people love love to do the yoga outside where everyone can see how fabulous they are. I mean, come on people, its bad enough you have to rub your mats and yoga p.j.s in our faces when we’re at the bank, post office, store, etc. Now you feel it necessary to do it while we’re jogging on a nice day. “But doing the yoga outside in the nature is so much better because it relaxes you and gets you closer to the buddha and gets you all bendy!” Bull scheisse!!
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SInce they started the yoga, pretentious people feel it necessary to convert everyone to the yoga. To them its almost like scientology!! “If you do the yoga, your insert ailment here will totally go away, and the upper class will get tax cuts!!” They just started 2 months ago and are sporting their newest yoga outfits, but they’re now experts.
Like I said before, I know a lot of people I know do yoga. It has helped them lose a lot of weight. When some of them were preggers, they went to yoga classes and it helped them have an easier pregnancy. Some found inner peace relaxing with all the breathing and shit. These people practice sensible yoga. At the same time, there are those out there that use it as a status symbol. The pretentious people that do the yoga are so unbearable that I had to state it here. Please practice sensible yoga.
Yup, I’m a contradictin in terms. I’ve even been called an oxymoron (well, I only head the last part of that, but i think that’s what they meant). So whay do I hate blogs?
One of the reasons I hate blogs is because I have to update them constantly. The thing is, if I’m going to write on here, I want it to be a significant piece of writing that will enlighten people’s lives that don’t have direct contact with the fountain of knowledge that is me. I’m not going to post stuff that will not make you want to share it with your friends so they think that you’re a well read intellectual. You already have a busy schedule of watching nascar and eating corndogs and twinkies even though you’re not hungry. So why must I write stuff every day of the week?
Some blogs have good messages, but the messages are buried in post after post of drivel and unimportant stuff. They believe that in order to keep their readership, they must write anything on their blogs so it’s present in people’s minds. That’s when your message gets diluted.
I know almost all of the readers here are fellow blog writers, and I really don’t effin care if i step on some people’s toes. If I do, i think I’m sorry. I think. I’ve found some blogs out there that are extremely insightful and entertaining. The secret these blogs have is: they’re not going to dilute their writing just to meet an imaginary quota of posting every day. Hey guess what? Nothing interesting happened to me today. Should I write about it? I don’t think so. You really don’t wanna hear about it. Trust me!
First of all, I’m a dog person, so I don’t know where this fascinatino is coming from. Second, I don’t know why this video has had such an effect on me. Maybe it’s because I used to do the boxer’s workout. Training like a boxer 3 days a week for about 3 hrs per workout. Actually I lost too much weight, but next time I will do it better. After watching this video I think I’m ready to return where I left off. This time, there will be a beter soundtrack to the workouts too.
- “Eye of the tiger” for the warmups.
- “The Final Countdown” for jump rope.
- “Maniac” for the cardio section.
- “I need a hero” for the running.
- “Push it” for the weight training.
- Anything Bjork for the cool downs, That shit always puts me to sleep.
- Anything Tool for the enduranc training.
And If I lose steam, I will look back to this video to get me back on track. If I keep it up, I will hopefully graduate from the Rocky workout to the Xena workout. Yes, there’s a Xena workout, but that involves a sword. Once I get one I will be aight.
