By Any Other Nerd

Penthouse: Between the Sheets by Penthouse Magazine My rating: 3 of 5 stars Note: This review was originally written in the early 2000s and published for a no longer running website: AudiobookCafe.  This review is of both the book and the audiobook. The first mistake one can make when listening to “Penthouse: Between the Sheets” is to try to listen to large portions of it. This audio collection was not made for super-sized consumption, but rather a series of scrumptious and titillating snacks over the course of a week or more. In this selection of thirty-six stories from the pages of Penthouse, sex is rampant, and more importantly, sex is fun. The stories include couples, threesomes, public sex, casual encounters, and many other stimulating scenarios. They follow one after the other with only their title and author serving as introduction. “Wet Panties Everywhere” might have been a more appropriate title for this collection. Not in every story, but a majority of the s...

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance The Politics of Resentment by Katherine Cramer Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and  check out some of my other posts! . You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by  signing up for them via email.   This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

For those not in the know, today is Bi Visibility Day ...and with that, I decided to talk a bit about my bisexuality as it's a topic that I have occasionally addressed in this blog but not necessarily head on.  I mean, I did a whole schtick about it and talked about the linguistics of it , and reviewed an amazing book on the subject , but have never really done more than that.  So buckle up to hear how I got here. I've read enough stories of coming out, had a great many friends come out to me, and witnessed a good deal of coming out stories to understand that there's a significant amount of them that have similar trajectories but for many of us, that is not the case.  My own story has familiar threads but woven from many different coming out stories.   Some bisexuals have always known this aspect of their identity, but I, like others, discovered my bisexuality.  Heterosexuals tend to never have to discover or even question their heterosexuality, that's wha...

Blood Canticle by Anne Rice My rating: 3 of 5 stars Note: This review was originally written in the early 2000s and published for a no longer running website: AudiobookCafe.  This review is of both the book and the audiobook. Following as a direct sequel to Blackwood Farm, The Blood Canticle picks up only minutes after it’s predecessor. Anne Rice’s most famous bloodsucker from The Vampire Chronicles, Lestat, tells this story from the first person point of view—something Rice has not done since Memnoch the Devil, published in 1995. Lestat initiates this new adventure by addressing his listeners and fans in the amusing and stylish trademark that he has become known for. He rebukes his audience for complaining about his recent transition from devilish and mischievous deviant to new sainthood-hunting benevolent Boy Scout—in so much as a vampire can be a boy scout. Lestat’s new goal in life is to become a saint. The book opens up to immediate excitement with Quinn Blackwood brin...

So I ended up skipping July's check in because I was so busy that trying to write about my goals was near impossible.  I fell off my schedule nearly entirely for blogging because things were that busy.  Thank goodness for canned posts that could go out automatically.   The last 3 months have including a 3-week writing intensive workshop for my doctoral program, the start of a new job for me, the start of a new job for my partner, and a move.  So, it's kept me way more busy than I anticipated, but now that we're through it, we're thoroughly happy where we are.  Complete a Triathlon For this year, I think I'll need to put this goal aside.  I may still try to do one but with so much going on, this goal seems a bit removed until I can get back into a regime of swimming.  I am definitely still running a lot and biking more (my new home and job are connected by a bike path) but it doesn't seem like the right time this year.      15000 a...

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King My rating: 4 of 5 stars Note: This review was originally written in the early 2000s and published for a no longer running website: AudiobookCafe.  This review is of both the book and the audiobook. A book series that releases a new book every year or two creates sufficient anxiety while awaiting the new volume. But a series that has taken over twenty years to finish can be downright torturous. The Dark Tower series started in 1982 with The Gunslinger and since then, four other novels have continued the saga of Roland of Gilead and his troupe of fellow gunslingers as they venture forth to the mysterious Dark Tower. Wolves of the Calla is the fifth in this seven book series. Wolves of the Calla finds Roland, Jake, Eddie, Susannah, and their pet, Oy, arriving at Calla Bryn Sturgis, a rural community in the borderlands of a parallel universe. They are quickly recruited and accept a mission to protect the children from the group known as...

So this is what 38 looks like to me: I turned 38 today. Not a huge marker by any means but I decided this would be the year to start doing a bit more intentional tracking and reflecting on my birthday because well, that's what I do on this blog, right? So let's first take stock of some of the basic and relevant (what I find) facts about me at 38.  I decided to put these in alphabetical order to avoid trying to rank them in any away (who's got time for that!). The Facts Best time on a 5K:  24:31 Best time on a 10K:  52:56 Best time on 1/2 marathon:  1:52:35 Blog Posts in the last year:  198 Books read in 2017:  127 Blog Pageviews: 139,630 Blog Subscribers: 28/276 Blog Visitors: 81,000 Cats Owned:  2 (Bear & Pumpkin) Credits Completed Toward Dissertation: 42 out of 72. Degrees earned: 5 (3 masters, 1 bachelor, 1 associate) Degree working on:  Phd in Higher Education Facebook Friends: 715 Home:...

It went off without a hitch.  As a cohort member said a few weeks ago, we've been through a full cycle (or more rather) of the program.  We've hit our stride in a manner of speaking and feel comfortable as doctoral students, as cohort members, and as practitioners. This semester we are tackling Quantitative Methods and Teaching & Learning in Higher Ed.  They are quite different courses (as has happened before) but I'm excited about both.  I feel like Quantitative Methods will help me in areas where I am weak and I feel like Teaching & Learning is a return to the familiar where so much of my work exists (as instructional designer, instructor, and student).   Sometimes alignment works quite well and yo u have to wonder if it was intentional or accidental.  In this instance, they have the Quant class early and the Teaching & Learning class in the afternoon.  I feel like I would be more ready to handle numbers and such in the morning, than...

Another month of delightful reads has come and gone and here are what I consider to be some of the highlights.  What about you?  What kind of great reads are you finding?  I'm always looking for good recommendations so please let me know! The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World by Scott Hartley Hartley's makes a mostly convincing argument that there is increasing value in the pursuit of liberal arts education and that critical insight into human nature that liberal arts help to hone in humans that will be essential as we become a more technological society.  In conjunction with various research he provides on the value of a liberal arts degree, he provides innumerable examples of people with liberal arts degrees or background make substantial breakthroughs in the launching of a variety of technological tools and projects.  As someone with a liberal arts degree and a value for the pursuit of liber...