Muppet Movie

Last weekend my family, lovely wife, son and daughter, camped out in the living room and as the sun set we watched the new Muppet movie together. There were bowls of popcorn, sippy cups of chocolate milk and dim lights. My daughter had set herself up on the floor with a few blankets and a cast of stuffies. My son was sitting in my recliner while my wife and I snuggled on the couch.

I had been a little nervous about the movie. After all critiques had few good things to say about it and news commentators called it brainwashing. I grew up watching the Muppets and remember them fondly; I figured how bad could it be.

It has been awhile since my living room was so full of laughter. Not just the kids, but my wife and I were smiling and laughing through the whole movie.

In a day of age where families spend so much time running around to “activities”, with children caught up in the latest video games and not that interested in anything else. What a glorious change of pace. As a family we were able to smile together.

Perhaps, if more families took the time to slow down and watch a family movie, like the Muppet movie, there could be a little less chaos in our lives. Laughing together is a memory that will live with me and hope my kids, for the rest of my life.

Lost Fleet: Victorious — Review

Victorious by Jack Campbell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First things first… Every book in this series retraces some of the events of the previous books; being the sixth book there are a lot of these little moments. Some readers have complained about this and when I first encountered it I was mildly annoyed, please understand that I read the first 5 books in a single weekend about 18 months ago. I was annoyed because I had just read about all of that stuff and now the author is spending valuable words on rehash. When I ran across the recaps after the long break, well I can say that it didn’t bother me all that much.

Anyway, on to the content of the sixth book.

The story arc found a decent and fairly predictable conclusion. If you have read the series to this point you will not be surprised by the ending. Black Jack as much as he fights his legendary status continues to live up to his legend. One thing that bothered me was the pacing of the book felt so rushed I felt like there was no time to enjoy the details… oh wait, there weren’t many details! Each chapter was written like a summary of event. Boom, boom, boom close credits (oh and set up the next series). I missed the detailed ship engagements, the stress and tension of not knowing what new road block Black Jack would have to find a solution to. There were those events but there was no building to it.

It seems like the author was told… Do not allow this book to exceed X number of words, or else. The story suffered for it. I really enjoyed the other books, I loved the way the battles would unfold and the detail of each event was revealed. While I am glad I got to the end of the series, I feel that the ride was better than the destination.

I hope the new series has more of that original magic to it.



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Hawk and His Boy — Review

The Hawk and His Boy by Christopher Bunn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

On the whole it wasn’t a bad read. Though it did feel incomplete; as if it were a three act play with only the first act. I realize that it is part of a series. That fact; however, does not give a “get out of jail free” card to the author in creating an incomplete book. The way it was framed and the development of the characters seemed sloppy.



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Dragon Haven — Review

Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started reading this as soon as I finished the first book in the series (Dragon Keeper). I am confident in saying that the book offers more of the same. The characters continue to grow and I am pleased that the character Alise was allowed to open her eyes, though again it took a bludgeoning with hard truths for her to see the reality of the world she lived in.

The story continued to move at a decent pace and the book, again, was framed around a beginning, middle and end. While there were dangling plot points at the conclusion they were not central to the theme of the book. The author left enough questions to have the reader eagerly awaiting the next book, but not so many that I felt cheated.

I would recommended this second book to anyone who read the first.



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Dragon Keeper — Book review

The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recently I have been on a binge of independent authors and after a finishing a particularly underwhelming one I decided to “cleanse the palate” with a more traditional author, Robin Hobb. I will first state that I have been a fan of her books for sometime so the review might be slightly skewed in her favor.

Dragon Keeper presented a new take on an almost cliche fantasy trope. The relationship between dragons and people. I especially enjoyed the developing personalities of the dragons and the group dynamics of the characters around them.

The book was framed within itself, while being a part of a series the book had an independent beginning, middle and end. This is kind of a pet peeve of mine.

I would classify the story as more of a character driven journey than the typical fantasy “must save the world from dark evil hiding in the shadows”. The main characters are well rounded each with their own positive and negative traits. My one complaint is with the character Alise who from a modern pair of eyes seems a tab too naive and while other characters beat her over the head with her own naivete the messages don’t seem to resonant within her.

I enjoyed the book and almost immediately purchased the next in the series.



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Crashing down around my ears…

Though not updated I have been making some progress on Modern Man;however, I found the project was taking a real toll on me. Emotionally speaking, I thought I was ready to tell that story. Now I find that I am not. There is a lot of me in there, and sometimes when we look into the mirror we really don’t like what we see. In this case, the path of this modern man is an ugly trial that isn’t happy being retread.

2011 is ending, and good riddance. While there has been a lot of good in it, I am glad to see the tail end. I pray that 2012 brings me some stability and balance.

So what’s next? What are my plans for the near future? What are my goals for 2012? No idea. I have a whole long list of things I would like to do and achieve, but like having a lottery ticket I don’t want. totals about it in fear of jinxing it.

One thing I will say, as if you didn’t notice all ready. I am rebranding the site. This is no longer just writings and musings. That name doesn’t fit. I do like story telling, and that is something I would like to do more of… so there it is. Welcome to Brian Clay’s Storytelling.

Modern Man, Life and other Nonsense

Things in my life are a bit of a wreck.

Once some of the details unwind themselves, I will most likely make a huge cathartic post but until then, dear readers, you can assume that my life is a bit of a wreck and nothing is going as planned.

That said, I have shelved all of my fantasy projects, not that they were making much progress, and I am putting my steam behind a fiction project that has been tickling the back of my mind for the past 20 years or so. Right now I am calling it Making of a Modern Man, it is a semi-autobiographical tale that many in my life have been wanting told. I selected fiction, because the truth would never be believed and adding some artistic license gives me some need fudge room.

So that’s it… I will try to make some additional posts as I make progress in the current life drama and in the story itself.

Are you ready for some football?

Last year my son played in his first season of flag football. He had a ball and spent the off season constantly asking about the next season. For the 2011 season he is old/big enough to move up to tackle; however, my wife and I decided that he needed one more year in flag before moving up.

At registration I recalled how the previous years coach needed extra help so I signed up to be an assistant. A few weeks later I was informed that enough kids signed up for 3 full flag teams; however, there was only one head coach. Then before I knew it I was the head coach for a flag football team of 5,6 and 7 year olds.

Since August I have been spending my nights trying to teach my team the basics of football and during the day I spent every free hour (when not working) planing practices, plays and drills. I read once that in coaching one of the best ways to overcome inexperience was through preparation. So I prepared.

We are now 3 games into our season, with 5 more to go. Today the team fought for what I consider their first win. There is some dispute over the last few plays of the game, but 14-13 was the score when the clock ran out.

Being the coach for these young boys has been a wonderful experience, one that has brought joy to my life.

Being Daddy – Your body has a sense of humor

My son has recently turned seven, for his birthday he received a toy “Thor’s Hammer” that produces the sound of thunder when you press a button. He has had a ball playing the backyard pretending to vanquish hordes of frost giants with his mighty hammer.

Last night at bedtime, he was giving me a hard time, what seven year old willingly goes to bed on time. I was in a silly mood. I took up the toy hammer, held it a loft and declared, “I am Thor god of Thunder…” at which point my body unplanned and unintentionally made “thunder”.

My son and I both collapsed into a fit of laughter, that brought tears to his eyes and I practically lost consciousness. Needless to say it was pretty tough getting him calmed down for bed, but it was a moment that made me really happy to be a daddy.

Charity

Charity as the action of lending aid to a neighbor or person in need is something that many people or organizations use as a means to justify taking money from one person and giving it to another. At its core charity is a very good thing, life is a hard thing and very few people can make it through the tough times without the aid of others at some point, whether financially of emotionally.

I learned about charity in Sunday school at a Southern Baptist church. Now when it comes to a community rallying to aid or support a person or family in need nothing, in my opinion, moves with the shear power or grace than a Southern Baptist Church Family. I will forever be thankful to the way my childhood church jumped into my family during the events surrounding my grandmother’s death. The people of that church, many complete strangers at the time, did everything in their power to ease the grief my family was feeling. But I digress.

So for me charity was not always about money, it was about actions, it was being a shoulder to cry on, it was preparing a meal, sharing food, providing clothing, mowing a lawn or even giving a stranger a ride to a doctors appointment. Charity was something that was very personal, something that I would do to help another person that many times had direct results.

I suppose in many ways this is why I have a hard time with the big corporate “Charity” organizations. They rarely want your time they only want your money, and on top of that many of the people that “work” for them make insanely high salaries. I have issue with people making personal money from something called a charity.

Recently there have been many conversation concerning entitlement programs within our local and federal governments needing more money and that by taxing people more it will keep providing for these “charitable” programs. So I ask If you force someone to give money to a charity, is it a charity any more?

I said that I believe charity is a personal thing; so I tend to say no. A compulsory charity is little more than theft. Charity comes from the heart and good intentions of the giver, by forcing people to give it creates waves of resentment from the givers which kills the charitable nature of that person over the longer term. “Why should I give more when I already pay for food stamps, housing, etc..” Sure it makes that person sound cold hearted, but when they presented with a large population of “needy” that have the same possessions and services that they have but have done nothing to earn them they cannot help but feeling resentment.

I have seen how a community will come to the aid of the needy and provide the means for that person to get back on their own feet and then in turn become one of the community. I have also seen people take advantaged of the good hearts of well meaning folks.

I am not really trying to solve the problem, I am only pointing out that it is a problem.

For me, charity is when I make donations to local food banks, volunteer to help the blind or help my elderly neighbor when their basements flood. What is taken from my taxes and given to others… to me that is not charity that borders on state sanctioned robbery.