Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Not so Serious Movie Review: The Devil's Nightmare (1971)

 

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip

Seven tourists traveled by bus

Into the Devil's web 



The driver was a buffoon,

Who forgot the way.

An old farmer points them to a castle

Where they can rest until the following day.

 

While there they meet a succubus, 

Brought back from many years.

She has no problem killing the tourists,

Playing on their fears. Playing on their fears.



The Devil was the farmer who also controlled the castle, and he collects the souls

Of the priest

The glutton too,

The adulterous man and his greedy wife,

The sleepy blond

The angry old man and the lustful brunette,

Here in the Devil's Nightmare!



Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Books I Read in 2024


 

2024 was a big reading year for me. I typically set a goal for 15 books in a year. In 2024, I read 27. According to Goodreads, I read over 7,000 pages.

I read 18 non-fiction books and 10 fiction novels. I read a smorgasbord of topics, from war to business, sci-fi to horror. I read a few biographies and a few books about music. I read best sellers and debuts by independent authors. I read a book written in the 16th century and another published in fall 2024.

Overall, a great year for reading.

By the way, I think pages is a better stat to measure reading. Some books are longer than others. 7,000 pages is now my standard. That's 19 pages a day, every day, for 365 days.


Books I Read in 2024:

Business @ the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy – Bill Gates

There's Just One Problem...: True Tales from the Former, One-Time, 7th Most Powerful Person in WWE – Brian Gewirtz

The Stelari – Andrew Denn

Devil's Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain – Ed Simon

Dr. Faustus – Christopher Marlowe

My Real Dad Was A Stripper – Angela Scott

The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century – Paul Krugman

Knuckler: My Life with Baseball's Most Confounding Pitch – Tim Wakefield

Return with Honor – Scott O'Grady

Practical Demonkeeping (Pine Cove, #1) – Christopher Moore

Mail Order Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery #1) – Leslie Meier

Jarhead : A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles – Anthony Swofford

The Howling of the Dead – Stephanie E. Jensen

Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America – Jason Tanz

Whose Blues?: Facing Up to Race and the Future of the Music – Adam Gussow

The Blue Nowhere – Jeffery Deaver

The Wall that Heals – Jan C. Scruggs

The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage – Clifford Stoll

Secret Tampa Bay: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure – Josh Ginsburg

The Republican Playbook – Andy Borowitz

Five-Minute Mysteries: 37 Challenging Cases of Murder and Mayhem for You to Solve – Ken Weber

Outlaw Summer, Cyber Dreams: A Hacker’s Journey Through Crime And Redemption – Eddie Miro

From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi (From a Certain Point of View, #3) – Elizabeth Schaefer

Forging the Modern Age, 1900-14 – Reader’s Digest Association

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die – Chip Heath

Why Climb the Corporate Ladder When You Can Take The Elevator?: 500 Secrets for Success in Business – John M. Capozzi

Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman