Today’s blog post has been provided by Pete, who has graciously ensured that the Big Bad Blog not be empty during Mr. Topp’s vacation. Management disavows any knowledge or approval of the content of the following message.

With Mr. Topp heading out on vacation I figured he could use some low quality filler for his blog. To that end, here I am once again providing you with my amateur reviewer’s opinion. My chosen topic this time is The Hunger Games.

(Spoiler Alert: I don’t want to be limited to what I can and can’t say because someone reading this may not be as up to date on current trends as I am. Seeing as I am practically a Luddite at this point if you are behind me in the times you should be ashamed of yourself. To that end I will be talking about what I have read (which is all three books and associated Wikipedia pages) and what I have seen (which is a few movie trailers) so I might ruin some endings if you aren’t careful.)

(Editor’s note: There weren’t any spoilers for The Hunger Games so in an attempt to preserve the tattered remains of Pete’s integrity we have added spoilers for other books and movies. We wouldn’t want Pete to be a liar.)

Editor’s note: The previous note was just Pete talking to himself. We’re not editing this for him.

Editor’s note: Except to break it into paragraphs. Paragraphs are good.

Editor’s note: And change “ladder” to “latter”. But that’s it. We’re done now.

Why the odd title? Suzanne Collins stated that she comes from a background of writing three act plays, something I noticed before I read that on Wikipedia. If you ignore the chapter and section breaks in the books, it is still very obvious that each book is three parts. Since I haven’t seen the movie I am going to mostly talk about the books, but I am going to mention the movie at the end. (Darth Vader is Luke Skywalkers father.)

I said before that I am a fair bit behind the times so the first I heard of this franchise was the buzz about the impending release of the new movie. Like any annoying buzzing sound I attempted to isolate the source and found that The Hunger Games was a book series that had replaced Twilight as the hot new teen drama. Once I had that fact I was ready to turn my back on the whole thing and pretend I was never interested, there was only one problem. I was still interested.

Something I found amusing about the Twilight series was the near universal scorn it received from anyone I considered a respectable source. The Hunger Games on the other hand was receiving moderate to positive reviews from the same sources. That caught my attention. (The Titanic hits and iceberg and sinks.)

I should come clean about something at this point. I read a fair bit of children’s fiction. As a kid I wasn’t much of a reader. Outside of the books I had to read for school I almost never read for fun until the latter half of high school. The reason for this was I was never given anything to read for fun that was actually fun to read. Adults were encouraging me to read books they thought I would enjoy, but I didn’t, so I just learned that books weren’t entertaining. When I started to have friends who read they were able to recommend books that were actually fun to read and I have been reading more and more ever since. Having missed out on some highlights of children’s literature I have made an effort to go back and see what they were like. Also the really good children’s books make adults wish they were kids again.

(Harry Potter kills Lord Voldemort in the end.)

Given that I am a parent it is somewhat obvious that I don’t have an infinite amount of time and money. So my investigation into The Hunger Games was going to have to be done in a way that fit my lifestyle. Usually I try to see the movie first, and then read the book. It has been my experience that the book is usually better than the movie so if I see the movie first and like it I will like reading the book too. If I do it the other way around I like the book and am disappointed by the movie, giving me one pleasurable experience instead of two. I have been to the movies exactly once since my son was born two years ago so I didn’t want to risk a rare movie going experience on something that I might end up hating, especially when there is a new Batman movie due out this summer. I also didn’t want to buy the books because even if I didn’t hate them the odds of me rereading them were pretty low. The left me trying to obtain a free copy of the books. Again Luddite, I went to the library, only to be handed a new challenge. The upcoming movie meant a lot of people were trying to read the books for free, at a time when the Toronto Public Library was on strike. When I check there were 2400 holds on the first book in the series. When I told my Dad this story he directed me to www.epubbud.com. A website that is self-described as youtube for books. There I was able to find a free, grey market, eBook version, which works well in a house with both a kobo and an android tablet. (Batman is really Bruce Wayne.)

I really enjoyed the first book, it was by far the best in the series. You are introduced to the fictional world by learning about life in District 12. Life in 12 is hard, so you feel sadness and pity for everyone, but you also sort of admire someone making it under those conditions. Once the story moves to the capital and pregame starts you get caught up in it and start to feel the anticipation of what is to come. And then the games begin and you get lost in the action. All in all a good span of emotions that work together to provide an engaging reading experience.

The second book is where the problems start. Book two actually feels like a copy of the first. Life in the districts is bad, prepping for the games is scary, and the games are intense. It seems like Collins wanted the story to be a trilogy so bad that she made a second act that was all filler. There was some information that we needed to learn and characters that we needed to meet, but we didn’t need to do so by going through a cheap knockoff of the first book.

Thankfully Book three did break some new ground. After the ending of the second book it was impossible to keep the same formula so changes had to be made, and change is good. I am a sucker for a good tale of rebellion, and book three hit a lot of high notes. Stirring speeches, fighting impossible odds, vying for freedom, what’s not to love? The climax of the series was a bit of a letdown, but I am used to that by now. I guess a climax is really hard to write because it keeps happening over and over to me. A story keeps getting cooler and cooler until you wonder “how can they top that?” only to learn, they can’t. Oh well let’s sum up and get out of here. The aftermath and epilogue were kind of lukewarm but they were believable. They went to war, there was trauma and loss, and then they had to get on with their banal existence for the rest of their lives. Dramatic or not, it is true. (Tyler Durden is hallucination of the narrator, part of his insomnia and MPD)

That is actually a good summary of how I feel about the series in general. It was very believable. The emotions that you felt, the events that were played out before your eyes were what you should expect from people in those situations. The main characters do grow and develop, but are still flawed like real people and sometimes do dumb things, like real people. I think whether or not you will like the series will be determined by whether or not you like the characters. If you find them annoying you will likely not like the story. One thing Collins does well is vilify the enemy. It is very common in storytelling that you have to make the bad guys “BAD GUYS”.

Personally, I hate wishy-washy villains. If you are going to be bad, then be bad. If you are going to be bad for the greater good, then be an anti-hero. What Collins does in The Hunger Games is take aspects common to decadent western life and push it to a grotesque extreme, and then set them against the poor starving and oppressed. It is an enjoyably stinging satire of the divide between the haves and the have nots, until you remember we are the haves.

(John Ritter is a robot.)

(Seriously I don’t know why I told that joke. It was 10 years ago and there are like 8 people in the world that will get it. At least most of them read this blog.)

I am glad I read the trilogy, I will find the time to watch the movies, but not in theaters, and I likely won’t opt to buy either the books or the movies. I have a feeling the movies will proceed similarly to other recent trilogies. The first one will be amazing, the next two okay but not as good. Think of The Matrix, or Pirates of the Caribbean.

All of that being said if you did ask my opinion, I would suggest that you read the books.

The good outweighs the bad, and who knows, you may find sixteen year olds less annoying than I do and like it even more than I did.

This evening, of all things, I wish to talk to you about Friday night’s dinner.

The Scene

Here I am, in Malaysia, on my own. Karen and Maggie are home in London; I am away on business. It’s a solo business trip, which is to say that, while there are colleagues about, none of them have a schedule that necessarily conforms to mine.

It’s Friday night. It’s time for dinner. Where to go?

I elect for the fancy restaurant in the hotel. It feels like a good choice — being a hotel restaurant (and a Friday), I can avoid the awkwardness of being the only person sitting alone in a crowded restaurant, while still having the opportunity to enjoy what (hopefully) will be a pleasant meal.

The First Impression

The restaurant entrance is reached shortly after 8:00 in the evening. There are two tables currently occupied, by four patrons (in total). There are three employees visible — a suited man behind the bar, and two women in white dress shirts. One of the women is conveniently located equidistant to the two occupied tables. The other woman is located beside the entrance.

The latter woman, unsurprisingly, greets me. I ask for a table for one.

“Do you have a reservation?”

I pause momentarily, to take in the large number of unoccupied tables in the restaurant and remind myself that it’s sufficiently late that would-be diners ought to be seated by now, for the most part, if they intended to eat dinner.

“No,” I reply.

She considers this. The expression on her face suggests that my lack of reservation might be a problem.

“Are you a Premier guest at the hotel?”

“Yes.” She looks relieved. Heaven forbid I have an inexpensive room in the hotel. They might have had to decline to seat me.

As it was, this hostess/waitress had to consult with the gentleman behind the bar before she was satisfied that I was deserving at a seat at the restaurant, thereby bringing the number of tables with patrons in alignment with the number of staff on duty in the room.

The Service

And there I sat, for — I would guess — about twenty minutes.

At the twenty minute mark, the man behind the bar — presumably having his patience with the two waitresses reach its limit — left the bar, crossed the room, passed by the two ladies who were in the immediate proximity of my table for the previous twenty minutes, and procured a menu for me.

That gentleman was lovely. He also offered me a drink. I accepted.

I chose my order and, seeing as the gentleman had again retired behind the bar and that one of the ladies was busy with the two other occupied tables, I attempted to grab the attention of the remaining waitress — the closest one to my table — so she might take my order.

With nobody else in the restaurant, one might think this would be an easy task. One would be wrong.

Eventually, the other waitress noticed this, and took my order.

I took note. This restaurant is best avoided when busy.

Busy means that more than one table is occupied.

The Food

The food, on the other hand, was delicious.

A little perplexing, perhaps, but delicious.

The restaurant, you see, is called Spices. It’s in a hotel that is located in Malaysia. This country has fantastic cuisine. While the actual local fare is a bit of an acquired taste, there’s a general Asian-fusion vibe which is also “local fare”. It tends to be spicy, and is reliably delicious.

So … Spices. Sounds like local fare in a posh environment, right?

Wrong.

Western fare. I had Foie Gras and Lamb Chop. Delicous, but hardly what I expected. Though the pineapple with the foie gras was a nice touch, I must admit.

The finishing touches

At the end of the meal, I wanted to ask for the bill, as one does.

The waitress who seemed upset and confused that I might appear at an empty restaurant without a reservation, who sat me without giving me the menu, and who stared at empty tables blankly while I was attempting to attract her attention to make an order, was walking across the room.

I made eye contact. Successfully. She smiled, recognizing me, if you will. She neared. Eyes locked. She was about to step into hearing distance (there was music), my mouth opened to ask the question …

… and she broke eye contact, moved out of non-shouting hearing range, and continued across the room.

Eventually, I re-established eye contact, made it clear I wanted something, and then asked for the bill.

When I paid the bill, I might have forgotten to tip. I feel bad for the (excellent) chef, but them’s the breaks.

Recently, I have bought what might be the greatest invention of the past decade: an e-book. The particular type? A Kindle, made by the people at Amazon.

As usual, I get absolutely nothing for reviewing things, which means that I only review things I am excited about, which means that this will be an intensely positive review …

Really? The greatest?

Really.

As crazy as we went over our new Android phone a couple of weeks ago, it isn’t really a great invention. No matter how smart a phone may be, there is no purpose to a smart phone. That it has “phone” in it is little more than a reference to the use of mobile phone data networks.

A smart phone is simply a modern-day swiss army knife. It is a single compact device which serves as your phone, your MP3 player, your GPS mapping device, and so on. It does none of these things as well as a dedicated device would, but it saves one from having to carry around a dedicated device.

Great inventions, however, do things.

The printing press printed. The light bulb illuminated. The car moved a wheeled vehicle via a motor. The e-book allows people to read books.

Note that this is something that some “competing” devices, such as the iPad, cannot claim. The iPad has a target market, not a function. As such, it can hardly be termed an “invention”. What does it do?

The Kindle not only has a function, it also performs that function incredibly well. It remembers where you were when you put the book down. It looks up words for you, if you don’t know them. And it lets you carry as many books as you could possibly need around in a single device the size of a trade paperback.

It is, quite simply, brilliant.

The Impact

The first thing I note about having a Kindle is how much more I read.

We have gone from thinking that we should pick up a book more often to actually doing said picking up. We believe there are several reasons for this:

Convenience. The book we want is always the book we have with us. If I feel like some light reading, there is no need to curse myself because that morning I felt like tackling some James Joyce. I just switch books. Later, when I want something challenging, I will switch back.

The Kindle is the size of a trade paperback, and while the title selection is still quite limited compared to the world of paper, it is still quite impressive.

The Bookmark. Regular readers of the Big Bad Blog will know I have a daughter. Her very existence means that days on which I read more than a page or two at a time are few and far between.

The book needs to be put down, and the baby needs to be picked up. Regular readers of paper books know that frequent picking-up and putting-down lead to frequent searching-for-the-damned-page-I-was-on-last.

The Kindle just remembers where you were.

The Binding. One of the biggest – and best – anti-ebook arguments is that there’s a quality to a paper book which is lost in the electronic version.

We believe this is true, and will touch on this below.

But the average book picked up by the average reader at the bookshop on the corner is not a work of art. The content might well be, of course, but the book itself — the several-hundred sheafs of paper with ink on them bound within covers — is most often made as cheaply as possible. This is not so with the Kindle. It is, itself, a sleek little device, but there is something quite satisfying about putting a Kindle into a nice case.

There are two Kindles — hence two cases — in the Topp family. One is a nice notebook-style case. One is a nice brown leather case. Wrapped in either case, the Kindle certainly feels better than your standard cheap paperback.

The Kindle makes it easy to read. No scouring the bookshelves. No placing bookmarks or dog-earing pages — or forgetting to. Everything is simple – pick the book you want to read. Put it down. Pick it up. Read some more.

It is more pleasant to read than the average book. It makes everything associated with reading easier without being the muddle of distractions that a swiss-army-knife style technology (such as a smartphone, iPad, or laptop) tends to be.

And reading begets reading. We are reading more than we have in years, and enjoying every minute of it.

The future of paper

Of course, paper books still exist — and they most likely always will.

There are still horses, despite the existence of cars.
There are still candles, no matter the ubiquity of electronic lighting.

There is something satisfying about a bookshelf filled with books. And there is a tactile comfort in holding a well-made book in your hands.

But these are not your average books.

And an ebook, of course, requires electricity. As long-lasting as a Kindle battery might be, it does run out eventually. Sufficiently long trips to places without electricity would require a solar recharger (which are, actually, pretty easy to find) or paper.

Once the paper book has become a “thing of the past”, it will still exist. There will still be a market for books that look beautiful, to serve time on bookshelves and coffee tables. There will still be a market for books where the publisher has taken care in the selection of the paper, bindings, font, and so on, where the purpose of the paper book is to give the reader an experience beyond the mere words, which can be delivered electronically.

Paper books will become collector’s items. Pieces of art. The vinyl record of the written word, complete with exquisite cover art.

And they will most certainly be worthwhile.

The pros and cons of a Kindle

With our reasoning complete — what of the Kindle itself? Why the Amazon device, and not a Nook, Sony e-Reader, or some other cheap e-Ink device?

Here at the Big Bad Blog, we lack extended time with these other devices. We can tell you that we played a bit with a Sony device (nice, but not as nice as the Kindle) and with some knock-offs (all of which were poorly made, and not worth your time).

But a central point to consider is this: The Kindle is like the iPod.

Amazon locks you in, much as Apple does in the music world — they have their own eBook format (though the reader can handle PDFs), it’s integrated with Amazon’s Kindle store.

Throw in the 3G version — which means that you automatically connect to 3G networks worldwide to buy and download books, not that you get to pay a monthly fee to a mobile operator — and a larger selection of books than available on other devices, and the user finds themselves in a seamless environment. Hot and cold running books, on tap.

If you love books, buy an e-Reader. We know you’ll love the Kindle, and suspect that you would probably love the Nook.

You won’t regret it.

It has been noted on the Big Bad Blog before: I listen to a lot of music.

If I am working from home, and not on a call, I am listening to music.
If I am in transit, and alone, I am listening to music.
If I am at work, and concentrating on a (solo) task, I am listening to music.
If I am writing a blog post, I am listening to music.
If I am editing photos, I am listening to music.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Much of the time, I am listening to this music on a portable device. The portable device in question, built by the people at Apple, is very expensive. And, until early this week, that music that I love so much was being transported from my expensive Apple device to my (invaluable) ears with the earphones that came with said Apple device.

These earphones must be the worst ones on the planet.

They have all the attributes of a bad pair — they’re uncomfortable, made to fit some strange alien ears; they let in all sorts of ambient noise, forcing the wearer to crank up the volume to hear the music over their environment; the sound quality is pretty poor.

Then, this week, I bought these headphones:

These are the Stretch headphones from Philips and O’Neil.

Before I go any further, the caveats:

• My comments below must be tempered by the fact that these are the most expensive headphones I have ever owned. I am not comparing these against any high tech gear here.
• Neither Philips nor O’Neil are in any way sponsoring me here. I get nothing from this, unless you buy the headphones from Amazon via this link, in which case I get some sort of remarkably poor commission.

Now, where was I?

Oh, yes. I have, in the past, made it a point to have slightly better than average headphones, for the above mentioned reasons of using-them-all-the-damned-time. However, I am also notoriously bad at owning stuff. I break the things I own — headphones, in particular. So I avoid buying those that are too expensive.

But when my last ones broke, I just … procrastinated. Months went by, with the Apple earbuds rammed uncomfortably into my ears and the volume ramped up to maximum. I would occasionally look at headphones, but never make a decision.

Then I wandered into the Apple shop.

Apple has a great setup, if you want to try out headphones. They have them sitting out, plugged into iPods. You can put on one, two, or five pairs, and listen to music on them. I did so, with all of those available that did not require a third digit to display the price.

And I liked these.

But they’re expensive, you know? And I break stuff. I wandered back to the office, and did not buy them.

However … a bit of research later and your blogger has learned that these are expensive (for the sound quality), but are also supposed to be incredibly hard to damage. They are apparently designed with wearing-while-engaging-in-extreme-sports in mind.

We do not practice extreme sports here on the Big Bad Blog. We just stuff things into bags indiscriminately, drop things and sit on them. We will see if the headphones can stand up to this sort of abuse, or not.

In the meantime, we have acquired a new set of headphones.

Pros:

• Best music quality of any headphone we have ever tried (see caveats)
• Reputedly made to be tough
• They look pretty snazzy

That first point above is not to be taken lightly, despite the caveats. If you — like me — are accustomed to the sound “quality” of the Apple earbuds, Apple earbud facsimile, or not-terribly-expensive upgrades on said concept, the sound quality of these headphones will be awesome.

It’s like sitting in your own little room, with nice speakers on either side of you. The wonders of stereo are revealed to you again — or, perhaps, for the first time. The difference between quality production and poor production is suddenly readily apparent. You notice every note.

If reviews are to believed, you can get a better experience than these headphones for that same price, but it won’t be as indestructible. And quite probably not as snazzy.

Cons:

• Won’t fit under the adventure hat
• Very conspicuous

Earbuds are nice, in that they are ubiquitous and subtle. One does not get noticed for wearing earbuds. A full set of headphones makes you feel like you stand out. And do not fit properly underneath a well-fitted hat. (That’s well-fitted without the headphones.)

At least they’re snazzy.