Tolkein's Vogon Poetry

I've been trying to read Fellowship of the Ring again.

I read the series 35 years ago, and it was like slogging through Boston after the great molasses flood. Just agonizing.

Tolkein couldn't write poetry if a gun was held to his head and he was under threat of death to write a decent poem. And every chapter has one, two, or more of his awful fucking Vogon poetry.

I'll be just getting into the rhythm of the story when fucking JRR decides it's time to pull out his Prostetinic Vogon Jeltz mask and begin:

Jumping the Shark: The Fonz’s Funeral and Henry Winkler’s Last Laugh

It's a classic case of a show becoming a victim of its own success. What started as a grounded, nostalgic look at 1950s Milwaukee - centered on the Cunningham family - eventually morphed into the "The Fonzie Show," and that’s where the wheels started to come off.

Book Review: The Outsiders, by SE Hinton

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Have you ever read a book that changed your life?

For me, it was this book, which I first read when I was fourteen years old, over forty years ago.

Ponyboy Curtis lives with his two brothers, Darry and Sodapop, in Oklahoma, on the wrong side of the tracks. Their parents died in a car accident some time prior to the events of the book, and Darry is struggling to hold what's left of the family together, while working as a roofer.