The Lost Symbol - A Novel

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, 2009. This is the third novel in the Robert Langdon series. I read the first two books in the series about twenty years ago... The Da Vinci Code, 2003 first in April 2004 and then Angels & Demons, 2000 in June 2004. So why read the third book now. I saw that the sixth book in the series was just published this past Fall and then I found the Da Vinci Code on a book shelf recently. It reminded me of those early books and I saw that the third one was available at the library to download the e-book. I got it right away and then I read it in six days. 

I got to say I had mixed feelings about this novel. In some ways I just kept reading and couldn't put it down for long periods of time but I was also constantly being disappointed by almost gibberish story telling. I think I got through the book so fast because I was skipping and skimming paragraphs which I don't usually do very much with books that I'm reading... and enjoying. 

When I looked back GoodReads at those first two books I saw that I gave both of those book 3 star reviews which means I had a problem with them. I also never wrote anything about them either.

So there are three more books in this Robert Langdon series and I don't think I will bother with them. This guy seems to write the same book over and over again but not in a good way.

Robert Duvall RIP

I was sad to hear that the actor Robert Duvall passed away today and then surprised to hear that he was 95 years old.

He was in so many of the films I loved over the years. He was also in a lot of TV shows early in my life when I didn't know him or who he was or who he would turn out to be later on but apparently I probably saw him a lot on so many shows in the early to mid 1960's.

Shows like The Outer Limits, Route 66, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Combat!, The Untouchables, The F.B.I. and many more. And then he was in that classic miniseries I loved from 1989... Lonesome Dove.

The films of his that really made an impression on me as a young person were these and so many more...

• To Kill A Mockingbird, 1962
• Bullitt, 1968
• True Grit, 1969
• M*A*S*H*, 1970
• THX 1138, 1971
• The Godfather, 1972
• Joe Kidd, 1972
• The Conversation, 1974
• The Godfather Part II, 1974
• The Killer Elite, 1975
• The Eagle Has Landed, 1976
• The Seven-Percent-Solution
• Network, 1976
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1978
• Apocalypse Now, 1979
• True Confessions, 1981
• The Natural, 1984

And the list would keep on going.

NBA All Star Game 2026

I've always enjoyed watching the annual NBA All Star game between the East and the West conferences and having grown up with the Phila. Sixers I naturally rooted for the East. I went to a lot of games during the Wilt Chamberlain Sixer years 1965-1968 and especially loved going to games when they played the Boston Celtics with Bill Russell on the court with Wilt. 

However, this year was something uniquely different with the all star game. It was the NBA's 75th anniversary so they created a different format to celebrate. They shifted to a 3 team mini tournament featuring four 12 minute games. Two of the teams, "Stars" and "Stipes" were made up of US born players and the third team, "World", was made up of international players. The players all played for some significant prize money.

I watched several games and it was some fun and very different. The international players lost both their games to the two US teams but they were close. The final game of the Stars over the Stripes was a blowout.

Overall it was a fun evening of NBA basketball.

Pasta Fasul

Becky made a Pasta Fasul dinner tonight. So called Peasant Food. 

It was very good. Pasta, beans and pancetta. And some very good cheese springled on top. 

And then we had some of that wonderful Heidelberg French Peasant bread with it too. 

Becky made enough of this soup that we will have some significant leftovers for the next couple of days... another dinner and probably a lunch for me too.

Dinner @ Coles with Brian

This evening Becky and I went out to dinner with our old friend and neighbor Brian at Coles. His wife Anne had to back out because of a medical procedure done to their dog who she didn't want to leave home. So after our dinner at Coles we stopped at Brian's house down the street where Anne had made a desert for us... peanut butter cookies. We hung out there for another hour or so and had a nice time.

Our dinner at Coles was wonderful as usual. I had their delicious Sheppard's Pie. Becky had their Buffalo Wrap and Brian had their Chicken Bruschetta sandwich. Brian and I had their black and tan Guinness and Southern Tier Pumpking... the Drunken Pumpkin which as become my regular pint at Coles. It wasn't on the menu this time and it looked like it was going to be reverted back to a seasonal Fall brew but they made them for me and Brian. I also had a St. Fatty's Irish Red Ale by Fat Head Brewery. Very tasty.

It was a cold Thursday night. I was surprised how quiet Coles was tonight.

Pizza & Salad

Some frozen pizza and a homemade salad. The pizza was a Rao's Pizza and was actually quite good... for a store bought frozen pizza. I liked the crispy crust and their sauce.

Becky's salad was wonderful and very tasty. A nice easy dinner.

The second picture is the salad before mixed on the plate.

The Clockwork Man - A Science Fiction Novel

The Clockwork Man by E. V. Odle, 1923. Finished this crazy thought provoking science fiction novel last night. It's considered to be the first cyborg novel written in 1923. It was a very strange story of some 8,000 years in the future when the male gender becomes indistinguishable from machine or what we now call AI allows people to pass through time and space. Then a malfunction sends this "clockwork man" stumbling back to 1923 England to pop up in the middle of a cricket game. 

This is the second book I've recently read in the series of very early 20th century proto-science fiction published by MIT Press in their self-described Radium Age of underappreciated forgotten classics from 1900-1935. 

New Tankless Hot Water Heater

Today we had a new tankless hot water heater installed. It took a little over 6 hours with two guys working. It was a lot of work and they had to rerun pipes in different patterns and also had to drill through the side of the house for the exhaust pipes. It as a very noisy job but they got it done.

He said it would take a day or so for everything to settle in. 

Bad Bunny Show & Puerto Rico

Watching the Super Bowl halftime show yesterday with Bad Bunny reminded me of how much I loved my time in Puerto Rico with the Navy. I made many trips to that island paradise in the early 70's. Here is a previous post I made about that experience. San Juan 1971.

It was shocking how racist trump and his ignorant disgusting maggats reacted to this show. How they complained about not being able to understand his singing and that the super bowl half time show should be performed by Americans. 

Like they don't know that the people of Puerto Rico are Americans. And how many half time shows over the years have been previously performed by non-Americans... like U2, Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Shakira, etc. 

YouTube Music

I also recently signed up for a trial period for YouTube Music that is included along with my YouTube Premium.

I spent several days loading playlist from my iTunes program to YouTube Music using the Tune My Music app. I had started using that app awhile ago when I was moving playlist to the Spotify app. I tried the trial period and liked it but I had used up the free uploads so now I had to purchase a subscription. It was only about $20 a year so I went ahead and got it. I'll use it this first year and then unsubscribe. So I started moving playlist from iTunes to YouTube. I also found out it was easy to also move other playlists from Spotify to YouTube Music. I now have quite a few playlist on YouTube Music.

I also moved the playlist I made for Artists in my Focus series. I still have a lot of them to move. Then in my YouTube Library I also added a lot of albums that will be easily available. I can access my YouTube Music app from my laptops, phone and tablet and play them on a speaker with Blue Tooth. Right now I'm playing a mix from YouTube Music on my kitchen speakers through the laptop.

I'm going to investigate how to play it with the car stereo next.

I decided to give up on Spotify and move to YouTube Music after reading a book on the AI driven curated playlist... Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify.