Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

I just finished reading Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. I really, really enjoyed them both. I love conspiracy theories to begin with, and I like stories that have things lurking under the surface. I also enjoy puzzle solving. Both books are definitely not written for the lowest common denominator.

In this vein I also recommend House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (which I’m currently re-reading) and its companion book, The Whalestoe Letters. Also the movie Donnie Darko. Dark, puzzling, and requiring of a lot of thought.

Other movies along the same vein – Jacob’s Ladder, Brazil, Closetland.

Anyone have recommendations for me based on this list?

The past few days have been consumed with cleaning up the hacks left on the linux box, setting up a new linux box, and going to Houston. The Metallica concert was pretty good. I’ve never seen so many women flashing their boobs in my life. It was fun watching hub turn into a rock-and-roll-symbol-making, head-banging metalhead though. And say what you will about their Napstericity, that was the first concert I went to where the band stayed onstage for ten minutes after the last song to toss guitar picks and drumsticks into the crowd. I am a little concerned about Kirk Hammett, who was wearing a tank top with damn near spaghetti straps and appeared to have waxed his eyebrows recently. The new bass player cavorted around the stage like a little toad. He was exceedingly bizarre. Lars is, of course, a strange little monkey-man who made strange little faces during the whole concert. James Hetfield was actually the most normal looking one of the bunch and spent a lot of time engaging the audience (albeit with the cheesy applause getter “It’s good to be in Houston! Hey Houston! Sing it, Houston!”. Anyway, he has a cute smile and seemed really energetic and it was fun hearing him growl in person.

Back to the old linux box!