Awakening the Entrepreneur Within

Holy Shit! I want my money back. Awakening the Entrepreneur Within (Unabridged). Shoot me dead.

"Stop...feel....awaken....feel that you are awake...stop and recognize that this is the moment you are awake....feel that you have stopped to become awake....Chapter 5...Realization.....realize you are awake...stop and awake to the realization that you are stopping to feel that you are awake."

This guy wrote a book for the sake of a paycheck. He has nothing left to say...but spent all his money from E-Myth.

This the type of guy that would respond to this review by saying..."You are not ready to recieve the message that I am bringing forth..."

Michael Gerber...you suck!

The problem here is that I promised myself that I would listen to every book I bought...so that I wasn't wasting money and would take my time to choose the next one.

5 more hours to go....

All time favorite authors

So, I have stilled kept myself trapped in my room. I rode my exercise bike (500 calories) while watching a DVD (The Haunting of Molly Hartley....SUCKED!!!).

Read a 100 pages of Moneyball.....I love Michael Lewis. He is one of the my new favorite authors.

Here is a list of my favorite authors through time. Most of them I have stopped reading for the following reasons:

1. They stopped writing (Passed away)
2. They started writing a book a year
3. I have outgrown them
   

The criteria for making this list is that:

1. I have purchased and loved more than 1 of their books.
2. I would gladly give or advise someone to buy the author's books.
   

I have also marked an astericks by their names based on the impact they had on my life (5 stars means I lived for them, 1 star means I enjoyed them )

1. Judy Blume (1980-1982)
2. John D. Fitzgerald (1983-1985)
3. Don Pendleton(***)(1985-1987)
4. Stephen King(****)(1985-1987)
5. Michael Crichton(*****)(1987-2006)
6. Isaac Asimov(**)(1991-1995)
7. Anne Rice(*****)(1992-*)
8. David Suzuki(*****) (1992-1999)
   
9. Stephen Leacock(*****) (1992-1995)
   
10. Joseph J. Ellis(***) (1999-*)
    
11. Ron Chernow(****) (1999-*)
    
12. Elizabeth Gilbert(*****) (2008-*)
    
13. David Sedaris(***) 2008-*
    
14. Michael Lewis(*****) 2008-*
    

I will build my pergola!!!!

Now I am the one that is pissed off. It all started when I told Isadora that I was going to move the bike down in the living room so that I could ride while watching TV. Rather than spend all my time on the internet...while watching TV.

I don't watch that much TV. But if I am browsing the internet at the same time. Then I tend to linger around the automaton maker longer.

SHE LOST IT! She went on for a half an hour of how I was cluttering up the living room.

THEN SHE GOT ONTO me about the Pergola AGAIN! She truley thinks I have no idea what I am doing and she keeps blowing up everytime I talk about initiating the project.

She came up with a 150 bullshit small tasks that should be completed before I build the Pergola. We have this giant vine that is hanging in the middle of our deck. You can't eat lunch or anything because there is a vine in the middle of the table!!

I sat quietly while she berated me and called me an idiot....

Finally my body had had enough and I went into full panic attack mode. I was lying on the couch paralyzed. It is the worst feeling. I hadn't had a chance to take my Lexapro yet...so I was empty on defenses. I waited until she went into the kitchen and then went upstairs.

When she realized I wasn't coming back down (Because I was too busy being paralyzed in my bed), she started doing the laundry so that she could have an excuse to come into the bedroom.

Where she berated me again!

Then I got desperate. She doesn't seem to get what it is like to have anxiety disorders. You want to escape. ALOT. I took my pillow and blanket and Moneyball book and hid in the walk in closet.

Darryl came looking for me. He couldn't find me. She knew I hadn't snuck out so she came upstairs and found me in the closet and started berating me again.

And then she asked me...."What can I do to get you out of this?"

I don't know FUCKHEAD...if I am lying in the corner of the closet what do you think you should do? What do you think I am telling you? GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!!

Isadora is completely obtuse when it comes to reading a situation. She has no idea how to motivate anyone or make them feel good.

I blame the fact that she never did any athletics or team or group activity.

Finally she left with Darryl. I crawled out and went to Lowes to buy the wood for the Pergola. Stand up to her. She is going to try to mentally defeat you. Don't let her.

I had been paralyzed to buy the wood all week because I knew it would set her off.

When I got to Lowes...they were all out.

GOD BITCH!

I came home kissed Darryl and went to my bedroom.

She claims she hates this room because it is slanted. GOOD we will keep it slanted. She doesn't want to spend the money to straighten it. CHEAP ASS MOTHERFUCKER!

I need to find a job where I travel. The thought of spending the next 3 days with that psycho is too much.

She has a husband that is trying to build and repair things. Saving us money and increasing the value of the house. She has a husband that plays with his son. She has a husband that voluntarily gave up cable so he could spend more time with his family.

BITCH!

God, I am missing ESPN right now.

I am going to continue reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis. This guy is awesome. I love this book.

Finished Never shoot a stampede queen

Ok, I liked this book. Once you get passed the fact that you will not be laughing insanely at every page. You might smile. You won't laugh. It was a very enjoyable read. I couldn't put it down. If you are going on a beach vacation or want to get away for awhile, this is a great book. It is also a great book for reading right when you go to bed. The stories put you in a pleasant mood.

It is a bunch of shorts about a junior reporter in Central British Columbia. Central British Columbia is like...Vermont...everyone knows it exists...but no one has ever been there.

The way I rate a book is:

1) Will I buy the author's next hardcover book: No
2) Will I buy the author's next softcover book: Yes

For movie stars, I rate them like this:

1) Will I see their movie in the movie theater?
2) Will I wait until the DVD comes out?
3) Will I wait until it comes out on TV?

I am now going to read Machiavelli's The Prince.

Yes, my reading is eclectic.

The Blind Side - Michael Lewis

This was a GREAT BOOK! There are good books and there are great books. This is an example of a Must read pass it onto your friends and family book. I don't care if you like or do not like sports. This is a great book. I like football...but being a Canadian, I barely understand the roles other than the quarterback and the wide receiver and running back. Everyone else is just running around. This book explains what a linebacker is and why they are important. It explains the history of the position. It explains what life is like for the son of a fatherless crack addict (Brutal, third world).

You learn incredible things about children who the world deem uneducated and stupid. Michael Oher is an incredible unique individual with special intellectual powers. He didn't learn how to read through phonetics.....he memorized the look of words.....WHAT?!!! YES!!!

Never Shoot a Stampede Queen

Never shoot a stampede queen won the Stephen Leacock award for best Canadian Humor writing. Canadians writers are good at being humorous. Stephen Leacock is the best! The best rainy day curled up on a couch with a cup of coffee/tea books you will ever read. I regret having read all his books and having none left to read.

I figured the winners of the Stephen Leacock award would fill that void. The book is good. It ain't that good. Not particularly funny. But a good read. Peter C. Newman and Will Ferguson really endorse the book. I love both those authors....I don't think they read the book. They both make it sound like you will be rolling off your bed laughing. You won't. You will read it. You will enjoy it. You won't be passing it onto your friends as a "MUST READ".

Books read since Salman Rushdie

I have finished three books in 6 weekends. Pretty good accomplishment for me. I am not a very fast reader and have a pretty busy lifestyle with Darryl and Isadora and T-Ball and work.

Super Crunchers - Boring. Good subject. Probably good for a non IT person. For me...yadayadayada

Watchmen - Alot of hype. Apparently it WAS groundbreaking. Key word being WAS. The wizard behind the story....kind of a nerdy idiot that thinks he's "deep". Comic book store guy on the Simpsons.

The Nine - Page turner. Good introduction to the Supreme Court and the major issues facing the supreme court. My God does Roe Vs. Wade EVER occupy alot of thought and time in American society or courts and politics. With all the problems in America....Roe vs. Wade is EVERYTHING. I need to read this thing to understand why it matters so much. I know it is about pro choice or pro life. We are never going back to an age where women need to do back street abortions. Abortions will happen with or without Roe vs. Wade. Abortion is a horrible thing. But...it has always been here.

Finished the Sex lives of Cannibals

I finished the Sex lives of Cannibals - Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (Audiobook). It is a 2004 travelogue by author J. Maarten Troost describing the two years he and his girlfriend spent living on the Tarawa atoll in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. In the book Troost describes how he came to discover that the tiny sliver of land in the South Pacific, barely known to the outside world, was not the tropical paradise he thought it would be. Nevertheless, he and his girlfriend Sylvia build a home for themselves in Kiribati, alongside a host of colorful local characters, all the while having new encounters with the bizarre and unfamiliar.

The audiobook was ok, but it wasn't close to Eat Pray Love. The trick to an incredible memoir is to put yourself completely out there. Jump off a cliff. Hide nothing. Elizabeth Gilbert has the balls of an elephant.

The next thing is this....the narrator...had a British accent. The author is a Canadian that migrated to the U.S. The definition of a Canadian is someone that writes like the English ("Colour" vs. "Color") and talks like Americans (minus "Aboot"). It is kind of distracting to listen to someone claim to be American...with a British accent. I got over it..but still. It is like if you were reading a memoir by Madonna and the narrator was a man. Ten minutes into it you are lik...ok this isn't working for me.

J. Maarten Troost just pokes fun at everyone and himself, but there is nothing deep. I guess when you are married you can't admit too much for fear of pissing off the other.

It was worth reading. Definitely not how I imagined living in the South Pacific would be like. Sounds like hell. I love food (Kiribati diet is fish all the time everytime). I love animals (They kill kittens and dogs all the time). I love to read (there is very limited reading material available). However, I do like to windsurf. You can do that forever.


The sex lives of cannibals came from the fact that on a certain island many people were missing their noses because everyone was fooling around with each other and jealous spouses would bite each others noses off.

....gross. Great...now you are married to someone without a nose. Take about cutting your spouses nose off despite his face.

Analysis of The Satanic Verses

I just read the wikipedia entry for the Satanic Verses. I understood alot more than I thought. Now I think the book is just plain stupid. I commit to the belief that this book was written to employ english literature professors...hence the example below:

Timothy Brennan called the work "the most ambitious novel yet published to deal with the immigrant experience in Britain" that captures the immigrants dream-like disorientation and their process of "union-by-hybridization". The book is seen as "fundamentally a study in alienation."

Srinivas Aravamudan’s analysis of The Satanic Verses was perceived by other scholars as hailing the book as a proof "demonstrating the compatibility of postmodernism and post-colonialism in the one novel."

I laugh...the guy used the word "postmodernism"...gee whiz

A good writer tells a story that can be understood by the common people. That is my take. It is a wonder that muslims understood the book and understood it! I don't. I don't get the point. Must be because I am not an Indian migrant to Britain living in a postmodernist dream like disorientation....

All I picture is a bunch of stoned Indians walking around London muttering "This isn't Kansas..."

I FINISHED THE SATANIC VERSES!!!

The first piece of literature that I have read in 10-15 years. I am amazed at myself. I am perseverance. I was sick and tired and worn out, but I read a 500 page book that I really don't understand. I don't think I was meant to. I think Salman Rushdie wrote this book to employee University English Literature teachers. You can interpret this book a thousand ways. It was horrible.

Now I get to read the reviews on this book and figure out what was going on. I have a general sense of what happened. I don't understand the meaning of the book. What was the message? Archangels exude the same personality traits as a paranoid schizophrenic? You can drive a paranoid schizophrenic into a murderous suicidal rage just by leaving him anonymous phone calls? Some one can turn into a goat and then back to human form with no explanation or reason why it happened?

The book was incredibly "fruitcakey". Things happened throughout the book that later seemed to have no relevance to the story. It was like Salman was just writing and correcting himself mid story. I am going to turn this guy into a goat...OK this story isn't going anywhere, let me turn him back into a human.

I am done!

I bought another Salman Rushdie audio book for my iPod. I figure maybe he makes more sense when you listen to the book.

Maybe I will make this my idiosyncrasy. I have read all Salman Rushdie's novels. Even though I didn't understand any of them.

Last 10 pages of The Satanic Verses

Almost finished The Satanic Verses. 10 pages left. This book is a killer. I have to reread every paragraph just to pick out some meaning to what has happened. I can't tell if every character in the book is a paranoid schizophrenic or biblical character. Can't wait to read some studies on this book. Something tells me they will be just as cryptic.

"The horn of Azrareel represents the postmodernist urge to upsert the revolutionary tendency to deny oneself inner freedom at the expense of self denial."

Darryl wanted everyone to go to bed together so that we could all cuddle. 4 year olds are so cute.

Downloading 6 books from Audible.com

Downloaded 6 audiobooks from Audible.com. They had given me credit for 6 free books because I am a paid member. However, I was purchasing all my books from Audible via iTunes. I didn't realize my credits were going up. Isadora is looking for ways to cut our expenses. I have to cancel my Rhapsody account which I never use. Now I realize that you can download unlimited number songs that are compatible with my beloved iPod.

The books I downloaded are:

- Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut, Literature)
- Paris Stories (Mavis Gallant, Short stories)
- The abs diet (David Zinczenko, fitness)
- Throwing the elephant (Stanley Bing, Managing up)
- Shalimar the clown (Salman Rushdie, Literature)
- Funny in Farsi (Firoozeh Dumas, Memoir)

Think this is eclectic enough. I suppose I got a lot of literature. Wanted to get something on economics and another on the Bush Dynasty. But I will have to wait until I build up enough credits.

My big new book on Cunnilingus

Tonight I am going to go home, play with Darryl and go for a walk.

My new book on tape is about Cunnilingus....the whole damn book. It is called She comes first. Highly recommended relationship book on iTunes. It is hard to listen to 8 hours on cunnilingus. Especially since Isadora hates cunnilingus. She is very sensitive about her "smell". She smells fine. Can't wait till this book is over.

The Satanic Verses Part II

I finished the section of Satanic Verses that pertains to Mohammed. I have no idea what happened. The book is english. I am literate.

My only understanding is that Mohammed was being told by the ArchAngel Gabriel how to convert a village from their Gods to Islam. He goes back and forth trying new tricks and making compromises with the leaders of the current dominant religion. Mohammed excepts their Gods as members of his religion and lowers the prayers from 40 to 5 times per day. Frustrated Mohammed starts fighting with Gabriel. Gabriel knocks him unconscious. When Mohammed comes to, he decides that it was the devil who had told him the first set of laws he had given the village. However, it was someone called Ba that gave him both sets of laws.

I don't get it.

I think the Ayatollah just wanted to scare everyone from writing about Islam. All he did was increase sales and popularity of an ambiguous writer that the lay person cannot understand.

Entertainment

I can't help to think that all of entertainment is designed by the wealthy and powerful to keep us passified so that they can figure out more ways to make money from us while we sit stoned with entertainment.

While I am reading, someone is doing something that is going to make me want to pay them for it.

I could be doing something that would make you want to pay me. Once enough people were paying me, I could spend my days reading.

I love reading, tv, movies and browsing the internet. I am a stoner. I am passified. No revolution for me.

People used to read the same book over and over and over again. They were lucky if they had a book and could read. People must have sat around and talked. Talked about what...if you didn't know anything. I guess news traveled by word of mouth. How long did it take. How tainted did it get before it reached your town. Maybe Jonah wasn't swallowed by whale...maybe he just stepped on a garden snail.

Thank you Gutenberg. Tamer of the masses.

Reading the Satanic Verses

I got a little better yesterday afternoon. I still couldn't move. I was sick of listening to Rush's defense of the Republican Conservatives Movement's defense of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights which are constantly under attack by the Liberal left. That sums up Rush.

So...I scanned my book shelf and pulled out Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. I had just listened to a podcast, on Writer's and Company, from the CBC, where the host interviewed Salman.

I figured how special can his writing be and what was in this book that was so appalling to the Ayatollah? You want people to read a book...issue a Fatwah. When will we ever learn. If the Mullahs didn't want anyone reading the book, they just should have paid a NYT reporter to say "It was sooo boring."

The man writes like no other. I don't know if it is good or bad. It is just really different. You can get through an entire paragraph and not understand a single thing that just transpired.

I tried to find a paragraph, but now I seem to understand everything. I guess I got used to his style of writing. It sometimes takes me awhile. That is the difference between novels and literature. Novels you understand right away. Literature takes awhile and you have to slow down and have a fresh mind.

You cannot read literature when you are tired with television playing in the background.

You have to find a quiet corner on a rainy Sunday when the wife and children are out.

Literature can also end...not the way you wanted or expected it to. Sometimes it just ends. You want to be rewarded with a big glued to your seat ending....in literature that sometimes doesn't happen. That is the stress of reading literature. Anyone can die. Anytime it can end. Anyway it can end.

Five best audiobooks I have listened to in 2008

These are the five best books I have read...I mean...listened to all year.

I have also listened to a lot of crap.

Finished Eat, pray, love

I am depressed. I finished Eat, pray love....and loved it. Isadora loved it and said I would love it too. What the hell. I have been downloading crap from iTunes these past couple of times.

The problem with audiobooks is that if the reader is boring....it is unlistenable.

I am always weary of audiobooks read by the author.

This author was fantastic.

I get depressed when I finish a good book, because it is so hard to find another. You have to spend so much money.