It sounds a little jazzy and a little like something from the area of relaxing music. As a background it seems to be working well but I can`t imagine listening to it because of liking the music. It`s not in the quality of elevator muzak, of course, but Les Hommes doesn`t stand well up to the highest standarts (are my standarts high? who knows).

Almost certainly "Crazy" is written by the youngest author whos book I`ve read in my entire life. Benny Lebert is 23 today but he was barely 16 when he wrote "Crazy". Just a reminder for myself - "Crazy" isn`t the English translation of the title but the title itself. The book is considered partly authobiographical (or compeletely, I don`t know for sure) and it`s no wonder. First, the hero of the book is called Benjamin Lebert and he`s sixteen years old. Second, the boy in the book has the same physical problem Lebert has himself - he can`t use his left part of the body properly do to particial paralysis. Benny is sent to a boarding school because he seems uncapable of studying at a normal school having failed to finish the 8th grade quite a few times because of being unable to master Maths. At the boarding school he befriends with a group of 5 misfits and goes through the daily troubles of being a teenager. Basically it`s a story of teenage love, teenage sex, cigarettes and alcohol, but it`s also a story of what directions life should take and a story about God. The weird thing for me remaines the personality of the author. If I weren`t sure that Lebert was 16 in reality when he wrote "Crazy" I`d say that teenagers don`t think and don`t act that way, they don`t care that much about what life is all about at 16. An another weird aspect about the book is the fact that Lebert references lots of Rock music from the 60s and the 70s, for instance, "Pink Floyd". That seems kinda weird, for who cares about that sort of stuff nowadays. In terms of style the book is quite primitive, of course, what else could one expect from a 16-year old who can`t even finish the eight grade? I probably wouldn`t call this a masterpiece, but I have to admit that this Lebert guy does have some talent in him.

If there is one thing in myself I particulary dislike (apart from spots on the face and my general nerdiness) it`s my perfect ability to disagree with every opinion. You just have to say "black!" and I`ll instantely reply "white!". And if you`ll say "white!" I`ll be left with no other option but to say "black!" The most typical case is following: someone highly praises some thing that I should read/watch/hear and I come to the inner conclusion that I must dislike it. Lately I`ve been trying to battle this sort of "being original" inside me but it doesn`t always work. After this introduction I must say that I was informed that "A Wild Sheep Chase" is a very good novel. Having already been acquainted with some other Murakami`s works I wasn`t particulary sure whether to believe it or not. There were some books of his I liked and others I didn`t. But this one about sheep proved to be the best one I`ve read this far. The story is about a man who seems to be an average Japanese fellow with his 30th birthday fast approaching. His wife has left him and he isn`t particulary fond of his job although it`s not bad at all. But everything changes for him when he meets a woman with ears of a perfect form. Still it`s not about the ears but about a sheep that`s using men for its goals. And the hero of the novel has to find this sheep within a month or bad things will happen. The only clue he has is a photo sent to him by a friend of his called the Rat (who I am already familiar with from some other Murakami`s early novels). In the end the story proves to be about what one can take and what he can`t and the ending is quite an emotional one. This is one of the few books with a very high "wov!" factor. I don`t know whether everyone would love it but I certainly do.

Šo ierakstu Furnjē kungs ierakstīja, būdams totālā pālī. To vēlāk viņš pats atzina, ka savus septiņdesmito gadu vidus-beigu albūmus viņš pats īsti neapzinās esam ierakstījis. Un šajā albūmā viņš to arī godīgi pasaka - dziesmā "I never wrote these songs" neko citu viņš arī neapgalvo. Protams, uz šo laiku viņš no šokrokera bija pārvērties par diezgan izteiktu Brodvejas mūziķi un tikai pirmās trīs šī ieraksta dziesmas atgādina, ka viņš savulaik asociējās ar smago roku. "It`s Hot Tonight" droši vien ir labākā no šīm trim dziesmām, bet arī "Lace and Whiskey" un "Road Rats" (it īpaši otrā no tām) nav zemē metamas. Taču tad roks kaut kur pēkšņi pazūd - "Damned if you do" sāk jau tuvoties Eltona Džona repertuāram, "You and Me" ir kārtējā no Kūpera liriskajām balādēm, kas nez kāpēc kļuva par hītu, lai gan tā ne tuvu nav albūma interesantākā kompozīcija. "King of the Silver Screen" izklausās pēc Endrjū Loida Vebbera kompozīcijas, nezinu tikai no kura mūzikla, piedziedājums patiesībā tai gan ir labs. Visdīvainākā dziesma šajā albūmā noteikti ir "Ubangi Stomp", kas ir kaut kāds veltījums Čakam Berijam un Little Richard, vismaz tā tas izklausās, ka tas būtu tapis piecdesmito vidū. Un uz beigām Kūpers atkal iekrīt liriskajā režīmā (tiesa, ne tik banālā vairs kā "You and Me"), "Love at your convenience" pat paša Kūpera klātbūtne nav īsti jūtama, par "I Never wrote these songs" jāsaka, ka melodijas tur varētu būt vairāk, ideja jau laba, tikai šķiet, ka par dziesmu rakstīšanu Kūpers īsti padomāt tolaik tomēr nespēja.

I`d read it before, and more than once, but why can`t I re-read a piece of sci-fi I like? The story itself isn`t particulary groundbreaking but it`s warm enough to fill my cold limbs and it`s believable enough for science fiction. Daniel Boone Davies is a 30 year old scientist who goes into "cold sleep" (suspended animation") for some thirty years. He does that out of personal problems when his fiancee and his best friend have cheated him and driven him deep into alcoholism. But when he awakes in year 2000 he decides that he wants to go back. Not because he dislikes the 21st century but because he has unsettled business in the past (not a particulary original storyline you may say). I admit that but D.B`s desire to go back in time to find his beloved (no zoophily) cat and to sleep for some years so his friends step-daughter would be old enough to marry him (strangely, no pedophily either, as a matter of fact Heinlein tries hard to convince the reader that no dirty deeds with children are involved in the story, which only leads the reader to believe that Heinlein is just protecting his hero). In terms of technology most of the stuff described in this book is quite funny for science hasn`t gone in a way similar to Heinlein`s predictions but that`s fine with me for I don`t read science fiction to find there some realistic descriptions of the future. If I want to know anything about the year 2000 I can always simply google it. I almost pressed the "submit" button when I realized that I haven`t mentioned how much I like/dislike this book. To improve myself I can say that I like it although I`m not sure why. It has some good humour and it has likeable characters, maybe - that`s why. On the other hand maybe I like it only because I liked it when I read it the first time. Who knows?

Dear Johnny Depp, I am writing you this letter to tell you just how much I love you and how I want to spend my life with you. I`ve seen all your movies and I loved every single one. I consider you to be the best actor since Moses and the best looking man since Jesus. I want to hold you tight and I want to be your lollypop. Ok, maybe not.

I`ve been a fan of quest games since I don`t know. Probably since I first played "Kings Quest 5", a very fine game for sure but it may seem a bit dated in the modern cyber-crazy world. And so after a long starvation with no quests at all I decided to give a try to a relatively new Russian quest. Although Russia may be far from the most progressive country in the world no one can deny that it has lots of potential in the area of programming and in the past I`ve enjoyed some of their quests - games like "Bratya Piloti", "Shtirlic", "Petjka" and other stand up proudly even in the presence of "LucasArts" or "Sierra Games". Sadly "The Revolutionary Quest" fails to deliver much joy into my life. First, the graphics are a bit plain and fail to convince me that 3D quests are bettern than those in 2D. But I`m not the kind of fellow to dislike a quest because of the graphics. It may be a perfectly logical decision by the makers of the game - an artistic trick so to say. What I want from a good quest is an interesting story. Although "The Revolutionary Quest" promised to have one it delivered very little of its potential. A modern student Vanya is sucked into the year 1917 while preparing to an exam on the October revolution. What he has to do is saving Vladimir Lenin from his enemies and help the Revolution to start. This would in theory provide a background for a perfectly funny partly historical game (similar to that of "Shtirlic" or "Day of the Tentacle"). But it doesn`t turn out to be that. There`s very little possibility for the player to decide for Vanya what he hero can do - there`s never a big number of screens where to go, you can`t pick up an object earlier than you`ve used the previous one - therefore the games becomes too simple for a quester like myself. Humour is present in the game but it isn`t particulary funny. So all we have is a simple game with plain graphics.

Lately I`ve been listening to "Ween" a lot, although you wouldn`t know that by looking at this factoid. I was informed by three different sources that the band was supposed to be interesting: both of my favourite music reviewers - Marc Prindle and George Starostin like it a lot, and a colleague of a friend of mine once said that "Ween" was worth checking out. I can`t say that I knew absolutely nothing about the band until recently - I had heard "I`m Waving My Dick In The Wind" quite a few times for it was on the Soundtrack to either "Grand Theft Auto" or on some EA Sports game, most likely the former. But I never thought that "Ween" would be much more than a comedy band - something similar to "Weird Al" Yankovic. In reality "Ween" turned out to be a very interesting duo with a very diverse catalog of recorded music. "White Pepper" may not be the most diverce of their records but even on here you can`t really categorize what sort of a band you`re listening to. There you have the beautiful multi-layered "Flutes of the Chi", the hawaii-sounding "Bananas and Blow", the "Ace of Spades" reminding "Stroker Ace", the crazy dissonant instrumental "Ice Castles", the easy-listening "Back to Basom", the distorted and heavy "The Grobe" followed by the funky "Pandy Fackler", a masterful pop song "Stay Forever", "Falling Out" sounds somewhat like the Zutons, although they never existed when "White Pepper" came out. This is one of the albums where I`ll say - there`s no real filler and almost every song could eventually become a hit single. Which only means that the album didn`t deliver even a single hit.

"I`m a king kong man, I`m a voodoo man, I am an apeman." This is a quote from a song entitled "Apeman" by "The Kinks". It has little to do with the brand new film by Peter Jackson ("Lord of the Rings") but since I like this song very much I can`t stop myself from referring to it right now. "King Kong" is a classic, ofcourse. I may haven`t seen neither the original 1933 film, nor the remake from 1970s but even I had at least some idea about the story. You know, a huge ape running around carrying a blonde and fighting off T-Rex`es, that kind of stuff. This new film features a strong cast including Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black (from "Tenacious-D") and some others that I don`t know, a huge budget providing terrific special effects and a touch of humanism. What the film had a little too much of was length. I am familiar with P.Jackson`s inability to make short films but I still found some of the fighting scenes too long. At least I have to admit that I was waiting for the ending quite a lot, which is no wonder, considering that we had seets in the second row and that the film started at fifteen past eleven, PM. By the way - if you`re in the right state of mind don`t even consider sitting that close to the screen! It sucks completely - the video quality seems to be worse than that of a screener, your eyes will ache all the time, you`ll be surrounded by ape-men and ape-women and you`re gonna find it quite hard to enjoy the best of films created by man. I can appreciate what Peter Jackson did to the King Kong story and I agree that it was cleverly done (apart from lots of little logical errors) but I can`t agree that this was the best film of 2005. On the other hand I doubt that I have already seen the best one yet.

I don`t know why but the records in this factoid tend to get smaller and smaller day by day. Once I used to write long sentences about everything concerning the book/film/album in question but nowadays it`s basically a one-liner with very little meaning. It may be me losing the faith in my factoid or I`ve just been too tired lately to come up with long descriptions even for books I`ve liked (since a book provides much more ground for a long discussion than a musical disc). Francois Mauriac has become quite a common name on this factoid although I have a lot of doubt whether I really like him. I read the first two novels because I happened to find a book by a French writer whom I didn`t know on a shelf at home. After that I completely forgot that Mauriac existed at all until I was at my girlfriends place and had nothing to read. So I made an inspection of books there and noticed a familiar name. This novel`s title can be probably translated into English as "The monkey". It`s the story of a child of 12 living in a castle with his aristocrate parents (his mother wasn`t actually an aristrocrate but the mayor`s daughter) who hated each other, the young boy lived worse than most of his peers despite being particulary rich on paper. He wasn`t a smart fellow by all means - he barely was able to read and write but the main thing he lacked in his life was love - nobody loved him for he was just an unwanted abuse for his mother who was ashamed of having such a child, while his father was a bit of an idiot and mostly just didn`t care. The mother tried to convince the local school teahcer to give private lessons to her son (in fact she only hoped to have an affair with the teacher). First the teacher found out that the boy wasn`t as terrible as it had seemed to him in the beginning but after a longer consideration he refused to take the boy which led to the monkey understanding that he was unwanted once again. And in the end the father drowned himself and took the boy with him for he saw that there was no place in the world for either of them. Sad, sad, sad.