The Russia Hand, The Last Colony

I was in the middle of reading Strobe Talbott's The Russia Hand when Boris Yelstin died. Talbott was the Deputy Secretary of State for President Clinton and head of the State Department's office dealing with Russia and most of the countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. It was an informative read about international diplomacy and the importance of the personal relationship between Clinton and Yelstin. Talbott didn't entirely whitewash the mistakes that were made or the difficulties caused by the personalities involved in the process.

The Last Colony by John Scalzi is a fun scifi read. I didn't get parts of it because I haven't read the previous two books in the series. There were some plot holes and questions left unanswered, but it was still an enjoyable, light read.

Black Book

I saw Black Book a week ago; it's a story of a Jewish woman in the Dutch resistance in World War II. It was well worth watching, and I highly recommend it. It is much better than most of the crap that Hollywood is putting out right now.

We didn't quite know where the movie theater was when we were driving over to Palo Alto to see it, so I called 1-800-GOOG-411 and was also impressed with the voice recognition and relevancy of the results. The system got that I was looking for movie theaters in Palo Alto on the first try, and then CineArts was the second listing. I got the address texted to my cell phone, and then got connected to the theater's recorded line.

Why I don't read Forbes.com anymore...

I can't stand Forbes.com's welcome screen that you have to click through. So much so that I've pretty much stopped reading any articles on there, and if I see someone linking to a Forbes article I won't even bother clicking on the link. It's not worth my time when no one else is that annoying...

House of Meetings

Martin Amis' House of Meetings is a novel that I normally wouldn't read, and I'm not sure I ever fully got into it as I read it. Mostly because I have trouble relating to prisoners in the gulag. An interesting read, but I doubt I'll ever read it again.

Company

Company is Max Barry's amusing look at the antics of corporate life. He draws absurd stories from various sources, including his own time at HP, and pulls them together around Stephen Jones' new career at Zephyr Holdings. I'm not sure I would agree with the back-cover-quotes gushing about how hilarious the book was. It was definitely funny, but the second half felt like it was dragging a bit. The movie rights have apparently already been sold, and a screenplay is in progress. I think it could turn into a passable movie, although it might also just end up as a two-hour long Office, or a slightly modified version of Office Space (both of which are fantastic pieces of entertainment, but it would be a shame to simply regurgitate either of them).