1.) 9 things you’d rather be doing today.

Though I think this is rather negative thinking, I’m in a dreaming mood today so why not?

#1: I would much rather be at the beach. But you know, I don’t know if I’d want the family there. As much as I love going with the kids, it’s also not as relaxing. I’d either rather be there alone or with just Ash or my mom.

#2: I would rather be at home, either reading or cleaning, crazy as that sounds. If you’re like me and have a lot of work and a family, etc, you find that there’s little time to really clean. Sure, I make sure things get done and tidied up but really clean takes time and an empty house.

#3: I’d rather be walking around in the woods. I know North Florida isn’t exactly Hike America, U.S.A. here but we have some great trails you might not really know about. If we’re talking a little more logistically unreasonable, I’ll take exploring the mountainous region around my family’s home in Western New York: the beaver pond, Little Rock City, down Hale Road. These are places I explored as a kid and a leisurely stroll in the quiet, cool woods might help reboot my frazzled brain.

#4: I’d rather be spending the day at Disney. Sure it’s hot, but I don’t mind that so much. i had a whole heck of a lot of fun at Epcot last month and I could use a Magic Kingdom day.

#5: I actually feel kind of crafty lately so I’d rather – if I had money to burn – be shopping at Michael’s and figuring out some kind of project to do. Something artsy.

#6: If we’re talking unrealistically, I would LOVE to go back to the Mandara spa in the Hilton Hawaiian Village, where we stayed for our honeymoon. I got a massage there and only briefly explored the rest of it, though I had a half day pass to use all the facilities. I guess I felt guilty for leaving Ash on our honeymoon so I didn’t stay there too long.

#7: On that note, I’d rather be back in Hawaii! I don’t know if you can truly understand the magic of that place; it was, well, perfect. I want a little cabana by the ocean, endless drinks, yummy food, and the best tan in the world.

#8:  Hmm, these last two are proving difficult. let’s see… I would definitely rather I DIDN’T have any work to do, though that’s in my dream world. I have another 20 pages of this manuscript to edit and a few journals to grade and a few outlines, too. I also have to make some labels, shore up some documents, and email some folks too.

#9: In essence, I’d rather be somewhere relaxing but have the sense that I accomplished something to earn that time off. I’m actually kind of bad at just sitting around unless I know that there’s nothing else I need to be doing. Otherwise, those thoughts will ruin my good time.

Recently, I downloaded Ready Player One, after my friend told me about it and in a lull between books, this seemed promising.

This book surprised me in a lot of ways. It opens up in the future (2040s, I believe) in a post energy-crisis America. The entire country is in a state of chaos save for large cities. Small town are reduced to rubbish where everyone is poor, huddling in RVs stacked on scaffolding. Our “hero”, Wade, is a high schooler who has been plugged into the OASIS, the virtual reality world created by James Halliday, since he was a young boy. In fact, most of the world spends their time plugged in to escape. But what turns everything on its end is when the creator of this virtual world dies and tells everyone that there will be a hunt for his fortune. It involves three keys to three doors and if you find it, you inherit it all. So players everywhere, known as Gunters, go on the search.

What we quickly learn is that Halliday was a huge fan of the 1980s, so the entire Oasis has little homages to aspects of 80s pop culture and nerd culture and the clues to find the keys are all hidden within the things Halliday himself liked most. There are entire planets built as replicas of his favorite movie scenes and even his pizza place hangout and his home and room.

We follow Wade as he starts deciphering the clues from his special hideout. Though he lives with his aunt, he found an abandoned van (from when people started deserting their vehicles when gas prices rose too high) and made it his safe spot from which he could access the OASIS. He gets close to the first clue and we’re introduced to his best friend, Aech (pronounced “H”) and then he meets Art3mis, Daito, and Shoto, who – though they are in competition with him – are still in league with him and his avatar, Parzival, because they fight for good. On the other side of this are the Sixers who are basically corporate gunters, hired by a huge conglomerate that represents all that is evil in the world. If they find the keys and the treasure, they’d use it for personal gain and then raise prices on the OASIS and take away the one last thing most people have.

To me, the best parts of this book lay in the ways Wade connects pieces together from the 1908s tidbits of information. That was fun for me. I also felt a connection to him when he fell in love with Art3mis, especially seeing as how so many young people today are used to a world in which we carry on relationships online without ever having met the person.

This book took an interesting turn about 3/4 of the way through so even though it is in first person, something I don’t typically enjoy, it works and kept me on edge. I wanted to read this book every day and yet, I dragged out the last few chapters so it wouldn’t end. If you know about “nerdy” things, computer things, 1980s culture, etc, you’d probably like this. If you’re pretty mainstream, some of the stuff might be lost on you (i.e. the place where he bought some items is the L33t HaXorz; this means something to me.) It didn’t receive the highest reviews on Amazon but to me, it was a really fun read.

From DeviantArt: