CU Season Preview

I've posted my season preview over at Buffs.tv. Go Buffs!

World's ugliest dog

Take a deep breath and then check out Sam, three-time winner of the World's Ugliest Dog contest.

And no wrestling the wombats, either

I took this picture at a zoo in Australia. If that's a kickboxing match, the kangaroo is totally going to kick his ass.

Are you ready for some football?

Only two and a half weeks left until the CU/CSU game in Boulder! For you CU fans, check out www.buffs.tv where I'm a contributing editor. I should have my annual season prediction column up within the next week (I know you can't wait).

Hooked on Phonics

I don't want this to turn into a book report blog, but I've been reading a lot lately and wanted to catch everyone up. Some thoughts:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time:
Wow, I thought this book was amazing. Don't even bother reading the rest of this review, just go out and get this book and see for yourself. Still here? Fine, I'll give you the synopsis. The book is written in the first person "by" a 15 year old autistic boy, Christopher. This is a daunting challenge taken up by the author (Mark Haddon), but he pulls it off deftly. I found myself enthralled by the journey into the boy's head. The first part of the book deals with Christopher's attempt to solve a neighborhood mystery, while the second half follows him on a journey he takes on his own. Scattered throughout the book are tangents that Christopher goes off on. It's these tangents that made me really appreciate how differently autistic people see the world. The book left me wanting more and I spent a few days reflecting and thinking about the world that Christopher lives in. You can't ask for much more than that.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
I read this one in about three days. Initially, I was reluctant to start the Harry Potter series. Once I started reading them, however, I devoured the first four volumes in hardly any time with the fourth being my favorite. With the fifth installment, I felt the Rowling was going downhill. The characters lacked the same likability and the story seems sort of forced. Due to that fact, I was sort of ho-hum about the sixth book. Deanna's mom bought the book and loved it so I borrowed it from her last week. Thankfully, Rowling has rallied and returned to greatness in the series. I would have to say that this is probably my second favorite volume, still trailing book four. I won't go into the details as I know there are a lot of folks who still haven't read the book, but if you enjoy the others, you'll be very pleased with this one.

Reading

I finished Freakonomics last week and overall I would rate it a "Hm". By "Hm", I mean that I thought it was interesting enough for a short single-toned "Hm", but not enough for the full-length, dual-toned "Hmmm". While I thought that the ideas were interesting enough, it felt like the authors repeated themselves way too often. The connection between legalized abortion and the crime rate is by far the most interesting part of the book. The rest of the book almost feels like filler to get to an appropriate number of pages. The authors spend some time investigating how much influence parents have on their children's future with the conclusion that almost all of the influence is limited to genetics. They didn't really convince me, as it seems that all of their data and "proof" relies on measures of intelligence. They found that all other things being equal, kids whose parents "over-parent" (i.e. read to them a lot, take them to zoos/museums, etc) are no smarter than those whose parents don't do these things. They then use this study to claim that parents don't really matter. I have a hard time with this as I think it ignores a lot of other aspects of a child's development. I know that they're just claiming that parents don't have much influence with regards to a child's intelligence (except for genetics), but I found the wording to be poor. All in all, a short and enjoyable read, but I didn't find it as interesting and thought-provoking as others have claimed. Now on to two other books, one good for me and the other for enjoyment (see to the right in reverse order).

(Ok, I realized that you can't really read the title of the first book over there -> It's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" and it's fantastic so far.)