Hey Nerds, I Hate H.P. Lovecraft

You heard me right: I hate H.P. Lovecraft. His writing is terrible, which is perhaps why he wasn't appreciated during his lifetime. It's as if Nathaniel Hawthorne rewrote the Greek classics. The stories are so drawn out and tedious. He pays minute attention to details like architecture, culture, and language while at the same time ignoring plot pacing and development. The man uses the "deus ex" construct like it's going out of style! Oh, and don't get me started on his vocabulary. Here's a handful of his over- and mis-used words:

1. Terrible
2. Horrible
3. Blasphemous
4. Unspeakable
5. Cyclopean
6. Infernal
7. Foul
8. Basalt

And don't try to justify his bad writing by saying, "Oh, but look at all the great writers he influence." So? That's doesn't somehow make his stuff lovable. Just because Quentin Tarrentino was influenced by all kinds of schlock material that doesn't make those movies any better. There. I've had my say.

Skip to the Future

There are several "hot" technologies out right now that I'm making a conscious decision to avoid. The problem is that they're not really innovative, and will soon be subsumed by other, better technologies. Let's examine a few, shall we?

Apparently the Blu-Ray media format recently won the next-format wars. Actually, both formats were losers. That's because the "HD" (high-definition) was the real key, and not what it was being stored on. In fact, physical media is going to become increasingly irrelevant as downloads take over as the primary means of content distribution. I'm not going to buy a Blu-Ray player. Partly that's because they're so insanely expensive still. And the prices went up once retailers knew they had the consumer by the short and curlies! I'll build a home media computer with networked storage and streaming instead.

And then there's those new "energy saving" compact fluorescent light bulbs. They're significantly more expensive than the regular incandescent light bulbs. So they're energy savings take quite a while before they pay off the difference. And then there's the fact that their light isn't appealing to everyone. I'm going to hold off and wait for LED light bulbs to come on the market. LEDs consume little energy and they're not toxic waste. Yeah. Compact fluorescent require special handling and disposal methods. Oh, and don't break one on the floor!