Category: ‘Books’ · TangleBones

Get your free Ruby on Rails book while supplies last

Okay, it’s a PDF so there aren’t any sup­plies to run out, but in 60 days, the file will be pulled and if you want to read Patrick Lenz’s Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Appli­ca­tions you’ll have to pay for it. So if you have any inter­est in get­ting started with Rails, head over to Site­Point to down­load it for free now.

Still not con­vinced? Well, Jamis Buck, one of the Rails devel­op­ers, gave it a pos­i­tive review, and said that he learned some­thing new. Pretty amaz­ing, con­sid­er­ing that he helps write the software!

Oh, and do your­self a favor and remem­ber to turn off the newslet­ters when you’re deal­ing with the popup win­dows. No need to clog up your email with all that stuff.

Comics Addiction Going Strong

Last year I wrote about how Marvel’s Civil War cross-​over event was suck­ing me back into read­ing comics. And it totally worked. I’m on a first name basis with the guys at the local comic shop, I have two long boxes that are nearly full of comics, and I’m sub­scribed to the fol­low­ing titles:

• All-​Star Batman And Robin the Boy Wonder
• All-​Star Superman
• Amaz­ing Spiderman
• Aston­ish­ing X-Men
• The Authority
• Avengers: The Initiative
• Black Summer
• The Boys
• Buffy The Vam­pire Slayer
• Cap­tain America
• Crim­i­nal
• Dare­devil
• Doktor Sleepless
• Immor­tal Iron Fist
• Incred­i­ble Hulk
• Iron Man
• Jus­tice League of America
• Loners
• Mid­nighter
• Mighty Avengers
• Ms. Marvel
• New Avengers
• New Avengers: Illuminati
• NewU­ni­ver­sal
• Powers
• Pun­isher War Journal
• Run­aways
• She-​Hulk
• Silver Surfer: Requiem
• Squadron Supreme
• Sub-​Mariner
• Super­nat­ural: Origins
• Super-​Villain Team-​Up: MODOK’s 11
• Thor
• Thun­der­bolts
• Ulti­mate Power
• Ulti­mate Spider-​Man
• World War Hulk
• World War Hulk: Frontline
• World War Hulk: Gamma Corps
• World War Hulk: X-men
• X-23: Target X
• X-Men: First Class

And that’s just the stuff that I get every time it comes out - there are other things that I pick up on an irreg­u­lar basis. Not to men­tion the col­lec­tions of back issues (trade paper­backs - TPBs) that I get in order to get caught up on all of the things I’ve missed. Luck­ily, some of those are lim­ited runs, and many come out bi-​monthly. But it’s still a lot.

The sad thing is that there are a lot of great comics I’m miss­ing out on. I should really be read­ing Pun­isher now that I know that it’s being writ­ten by Garth Ennis. I missed out on Pun­isher: Bar­racuda Max, and now I have to wait for the TBP.

There are even things on the list that I don’t even like: Jus­tice League is really well writ­ten, but I just don’t know enough about the DC uni­verse to under­stand what’s going on. All-​Star Super­man is  great, but it’s not so much a con­tin­u­ing series as a bunch of sto­ries that I appre­ci­ate with­out enjoy­ing. I keep hoping that I’ll start to like it, but at three bucks an issue, I don’t think I can wait around much longer.

So what ter­ri­ble wallet-​emptying addic­tions do you have?

Essay goodness

So I was read­ing the latest David Sedaris essay in the New Yorker, and I was think­ing about how amaz­ingly honest David can be when he’s talk­ing about some­thing uncom­fort­able or embar­rass­ing and still make the whole thing so funny….

Wait, you don’t know David Sedaris? You’ve never read his essays? Oh for pete’s sake. Start with these:

• The Birds
• Memento Mori
• What I learned
• Old Faithful
• Our Per­fect Summer
• The Girl Next Door

That should get you well on your way.