After reading this book Scott Adams is someone I’ll have to add to my continuing fascination with humourists who are incredibly talented and clever when it comes to more serious things. I’m determined to figure out the correlation. I mainly witness it with media celebrities. Perhaps it’s simply raw talent, but take these few people for example. Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, Adam Sandler, and Jamie Foxx.

They’re all known for their comedic work, yet when it boils down to it they all give killer serious performances.  I would almost argue they give better performances than so called “serious” actors.  Jim Carrey has The Majestic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Robin Williams has Good Will Hunting, House of D, and a numerous others. Adam Sandler has Punch Drunk Love and now Reign Over Me. Jamie Foxx has Collateral, Jarhead and Ray of course.

Anyways, back to the book. It’s a designed to “make your brain spin around inside your skull”.  The book is filled with numerous notions of why life is life, the world is the world, and things are the way they are.  It’s a story which calls into question our perceptions of reality, God, science, physics, the world around us.  Much like the move Matrix, it makes you think about what reality is.

The story is about meeting an old man, that happens to know literally everything.  He has an explanation for everything you’ve ever wanted to know.  Things about evolution, God, light, psychics, phenomenons, probability, free will, pattern recognition, relationships and more.  The book is filled with his explanations of all these topics.

As the book warns, although it has no violence or sex the ideas are powerful and not appropriate for readers under fourteen. It also warns that the main character has a view about God that you’ve probably never heard before.  So if you think you’d be easily offended by this character’s view then also don’t read this.

Scott Adams penned this book to be a thought experiment.  His experiment is this: “Try to figure out what’s wrong with the simplest explanations”.

Furthermore he encourages you to share God’s Debris with a smart friend and then discuss it while enjoying a tasty beverage.  So that’s what I’m doing here.  Go out and get it and read it then come back here and rant   It’s a quick read, takes less than a day. Large type, short sections, limited pages.

The current recommendations are based off of keywords used to describe the books you read, but as more people start using it for suggestions it will have a more realistic and human recommendation for books. So if you’ve read any books lately submit it if you have the chance to and help it get going.

They also have a spin off project called Blog Code, which essentially does the same for blogs. So if you’re looking at reading a blog that has a similar feel you can punch in the existing blog that you currently read and it’ll pop up a list of blogs that are similar.

Thank goodness for the 24 hour coffee shop that is close to my house. I decided to go to the coffee shop to relax and read a bit thinking I’d spend an hour or so. Yeah well I ended up reading from cover to cover. It took about 3 hours, minus the time I spent chatting to Karen an old highschool friend who I bumped into at the shop and the stranger who shared my table/couch. So it’s definitely a quick read.
This book can be definately called inspirational as it is constantly strumming your introspective strings. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone going through any personal or professional changes in their lives. There’s a certain magic to the eloquence in the storytelling. It conveys so much in its simplicity. It’s smooth and calming yet exciting and enticing as this exotic story flows along. This fable in it’s simplicity makes for a calming much like a bed time story from grandma.

It touches on everything vital in life. The pursuit of dreams, following your heart, exploring the spiritual, discovering things of importance, finding “home, this was simply amazing and magical for me. I’d recommend it to anyone.

It’s definitely a refreshing and eye opening look at the pursuit for perfection. I think the many things that erked me throughout life, growing up, and to this day are all summed up in this book. With so many people who have probably experienced one degree or another of some of what is illustrated I can see why this book gets top reviews.

I’m not one to differ, I would say this was a good read. It helps you realize that no one is perfect and the things that you thought so poorly of yourself over … well they happen.

Anyways, it was a good read. In relation to my recent contemplations and explorations it has been a helpful revelation, like peeling back a few layers of that dried up onion skin.

Here’s the blog for explorAsian

The big kick off will start tomorrow and the 6th with the Canadian premiere of Welly Yang’s “Finding Home” a broadway play featuring an interesting mix of songs from Elton John, Lee Ann Womack, Tim Rice, Dan Hill, Luther Vandross, Billy Joel and more. It’ll be at the Alcan Theatre.

Another one to watch for is Cheuk Kwan’s Canadian premiering “Latin Passions” which is part of his long running “Chinese Restauarants” series of docu-dramas. If you’ve seen any of his other Chinese Restuarant pieces, you’ll probably agree that it’s quite a genius way of exploring the cultural impact of the Chinese diaspora worldwide. This particular piece “Latin Passions” as the name suggests takes a look at places like Peru, Brazil, and Argentina. All his other documentaries that are part of this series will be showing throughout the month as well.

Not only are there events every day but there are also multiple events, so I’m sure there’s something for everyone.

So what have I been reading lately?

Well to start off I finished this book I picked up at Toronto’s Pearson Airport.

Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. It’s definitely another good Crichton novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It has the same great captive quality as his classic Andromeda Strain. You definitely won’t think of Global Warming issues the same way again. Kudos for the Vancouver mention as well

Well next was my move to a non-fiction piece, Martin Booth’s The Dragon Syndicates. A great history/documentary on the origin and proliferation of the Asian Triads. It’s definitely an insightful and eye opening look into how the Chinese Triads have shaped the culture and mainstream Asian society.

Ok so this one is technically a textbook. It’s Critical Thinking – An Introduction To The Basic Skills, by William Hughes. It’s funny that I am revisiting this old text from yonder years. However in my attempts to become a better communicator and avoid being misconstrued, I figure it would be a good refresher to look at. Not to mention I found it relatively light. If you think about it text books are generally sparser than thick novels, the information they contain are usually filled with plenty of whitespace which makes it far easier to read faster (as long as you enjoy the subject).

Next I moved on to reading a screenplay written by a local Asian-Canadian screenwriter. The story revolves around a family torn apart by their multi-generational differences. Dealing with various stigmas, the central characters have their relationships all intertwined in deep, dark, and often secret ways. Out of respect I don’t want to describe it too much since it hasn’t been optioned yet, but I’d love to see a film version some day.

Well that’s it for now, still working on a few other books simultaneously but haven’t finished them yet.