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THE ELVEN by Bernhard Hennen discussion & review

03 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, Book Review, books, Coffee, Discussion, Fantasy, friend, male friendship, men, recommendation, time, Today, Writer

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If there were one word to describe the 765 page behemoth fantasy novel, The Elven, that word would be “epic” indeed. The Elven is a story that spans both place, time and worlds as two elves and one human try to hunt down a demon that has emerged without explanation in the human world.

elvenThe story begins with Jarl Mandred and his hunting party hunting for game near their small village when they come upon the corpse of an animal that has been viciously attacked. The nature of the animal’s wounds alarm the hunting party – it is unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. As the men prepare to set up camp, they are attacked by a creature that is described as being half man and half boar.

The only survivor of the attack is Mandred who fled to a sacred, yet forbidden structure that takes him to the world of the elves. Once healed from his wounds, Mandred is taken to Emerelle the elf queen and requests to form a hunting party to kill the creature that murdered his companions. Mandred is convinced the creature that attacked him has its origins in the elf world.

The queen allows for the assembly of a hunting party on one condition – she gets Mandred’s first born. Due to the urgency of the situation, Mandred complies.

It is during the assembly of the hunting party that Mandred meets the two companions that will be by his side throughout the rest of the novel; Farodin and Nuramon. Farodin is considered the fiercest fighter of the elf world and Nuramon a healer. In one of the strangest story arch I’ve encountered in a book, Nuramon and Farodin are part of a strange love triangle with a strong sorceress, Noroelle who, through a series of events has been banished to yet another world by the queen Emerelle.

When the hunting party reaches the human world they learn that the creature that Mandred was attacked by was a demon – a creature that should have been killed many years ago. There is no explanation why it suddenly reemerged, but what the demon does sets a series of events into motion that will impact the fates of all the characters involved.

The novel is epic in scope and has a sharp focus on the role of fate and destiny, and how you sometimes have to endure a lot of trials to finally achieve what fate has in store for you. Although enjoyable, the book did have several parts that would have benefited with some form of explanation, for instance, the peculiar relationship the elves had with the trolls. At one moment they are fighting each other, the next they are fighting side by side – what caused this sudden trust? Then there is also the lives of the dwarves, what happened to them during and after the final battle?

But most importantly, the most irritating aspect of the novel was Noroelle, in many aspects she was a very unconvincing plot device. Apparently it was the love that Farodin and Nuramon had for her that drove them on this long epic quest to try and free her from her banishment. It’s not that I disliked her, but she certainly owed one of the characters an explanation in regards to the origins of a certain child. She put one of the characters through quite a bit of hell and seemed to only want to write it off as a mere ‘oopsie’.

The decisions she made certainly deserved more explanation on her part considering the multitude of lives she put at stake – including those of her lovers.

Mandred’s personality went through a lovely evolution throughout the book. I enjoyed his interesting point of view as he observed the changes taking place around him. It was also quite clear to me that Nuramon was a healer; his abilities were highlighted several times throughout the book. The book however offered little proof supporting that Farodin was indeed the ‘fiercest fighter’. Yes, there was that scene where he alone attacked the troll fortress, but nothing stood out that said, ‘look! this is the distinguished elven fighter, Farodin’. To me there seemed to be nothing very extraordinary about him.

If you are looking for an epic fantasy to sink your teeth into, I would suggest The Elven by Bernhard Hennen – it certainly had its weaknesses, but enjoyable none-the-less.

☆☆☆☆½ –  The Elven by Bernhard Hennen

I’m New to This

28 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in #friend, blog, debt, friend, home, House, Life, men, Money, rain, time, Today

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Before buying the house, I had lived alone for 9 years in a one-bedroom apartment. Then I got the house with the intention of living with my [former] best friend and a third roommate. But since my [former] best friend walked out, I had to get a new roommate. Someone that before March 24, I didn’t even know existed.

I’m living with a stranger.

I have nothing against the new roommate, it’s just that outside of a University context, I’ve never lived with people that I didn’t know. Technically I enjoy having the new roommate here, it’s just that I’m not a very social person.

I guess that since it’s only been four day’s since he’s moved in, as I get more used to him this peculiar dynamic will change. It’s just that for some reason (perhaps it’s the age difference) I feel like there is a employer-employee, very formal type of relationship that is going on.

That shouldn’t be how it is.

I should note that to this date, every person who’s lived in this house (EXCLUDING ME) is here because they were once living with a girlfriend who broke up with them then kicked them out. I find this rather peculiar. Oh well, I am on average, 10 years old than all of them so perhaps that is just how the world works now.

In other news, I feel quite a bit more relaxed now that I have someone here to literally fill the void left by my [former] best friend. I can go back to worrying about what I used to worry about on a daily basis – bills and food. Those things I’m quite used to.

I’m feeling optimism again – a feeling I haven’t had in quite awhile.

The Typewritten Word

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in #friend, blog, books, friend, home, House, job, Life, Love, male friendship, men, Money, time, Today

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The wind is extraordinary today. Every community around where I live is experiencing power outages as Michigan get’s hit with 50-60mph winds. I’m sitting at my desk in my second floor bedroom in my house watching whirlwinds of leaves fly by my window.

My best friend still has not come back yet. This little stunt of his is beyond frustrating.

I might have mentioned this in my previous post, yet I’m still excited about it: I was able to get myself a NEW electric typewriter (one in which you can still buy parts for at office supply stores) a week ago. The typewriter – a brother Correctronic GX-6750 – isn’t technically “brand new” as it was used briefly by the previous owner before she passed away. I was able to get it for an eighth of the price that retailers would sell if for.

I plan on doing a lot of writing on it. But for a little while longer, I want to focus on my “political notebook” that is half finished. Too many writing projects going on simultaneously can lead to the problem of nothing getting done.

Although I own three other typewriters – all of which work, the moment I run out of ink in their ribbons, finding more ribbon will be an expensive hunt that I’m not in the mood to go on. The electric typewriter that I got even comes with whiteout ribbon that allows you to correct mistakes.

What I need to adjust to is no longer having the ability to rely on auto-correct for misspellings. At any rate, I always feel more “involved” with my writing when using a typewriter. There is this sense of accomplishment when you can watch your idea’s materialize into something tangent right before your eyes.

No wonder the Beats thought the Typewriter Is Holy….

A Little Dark Cloud I find myself under

05 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in #friend, anger, blog, books, cat, friend, home, House, job, Life, male friendship, men, Money, time, Today, Trump, work

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I have technically lost count as to how many day’s my best friend has been gone. All I know is that his absence is the source of this depression that I’m dealing with. Since his phone is turned off, I do not have a way to get a hold of him – or to technically even know where he is. I can only assume he is at his baby-mama’s place, but that, at this point is just speculation on my part.

In order to deal with this, I’ve resorted to writing political essay’s everyday in a notebook. I realize that I’ve mentioned this before however outside of work, these essay’s take up a majority of my time.

I do want to be a writer someday. In pursuit of this dream, I also bought myself a used (like-new) Brother electronic typewriter. I think that if I can hand write a page or so a day in regards to the latest political controversy, I can also type a page or two a day as a basis to a novel of some variety.

Of course other chunks of my morning’s entail dealing with the cats, the plants I’ve started growing that will eventually go into a garden and copious amounts of reading.

All of this as an attempt to get my mind off the absence of my best friend.

There aren’t any real developments in my life aside from the fact that this is the first weekend that I’ve had off since December and I spent a majority of it sitting alone in my house wondering if maybe my best friend might stop by before I just fell asleep from exhaustion.

I’m just not liking this situation at all.

Writing, Building and Reading

27 Monday Feb 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in #friend, blog, books, car, cat, friend, home, House, job, Life, male friendship, men, Money, time, Today

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I’ve been writing daily – in a notebook – my thoughts on world events. It is the only way for me to get my mind off of the fact that I haven’t seen my best friend for over a month now and how lonely I’m getting.

He did deposit his portion of the mortgage into my account the other day, and I’m still contemplating taking him off my car insurance policy on March 1st unless I see him first. The problem is that I get the distinct feeling that he is intentionally avoiding me. I think he is, once again, trying to get into a relationship with his baby-mama. I believe she convinced him that the reason it didn’t work out last time was due to me.

He’ll learn once again it was entirely her.

At any rate, I built a kitchen table over the past several days which is why I haven’t been updating this blog lately. I discovered that building my own would be cheaper than buying one. Menard’s had all the components, I just had to do all the refining and assembling. I think it turned out nice.

Both of my cats have been terribly sick all last week and after daily care of them, they are beginning to gt much healthier which is a relief. They both are sneezing frequently however which is particularly annoying.

In other news: this up coming weekend is when I plan on recording my first podcast of Bad Dinosaur. I’m both nervous and excited about this prospect. This weekend I also plan on buying 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster finally – after putting it off for at least a month now. I’ve been reading pages of it at the book store and I’m finally getting into his writing style enough that I think I’ll be able to invest time into reading it.

Someday I’ll write a novel – once I repair this damaged, lonely heart of mine.

It’s so empty here.

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in #friend, blog, books, cat, Coffee, debt, friend, home, House, job, Life, Love, men, Money, time, Today, work

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It’s been just under two weeks since my best friend told me that he’d just be spending “the weekend” at his baby mama’s house. I haven’t heard from him since and have no way of getting a hold of him. It doesn’t help matters that I’m going to need his portion of the mortgage in a few days.

I have yet to remove him from my car insurance. I am going to establish March 1 as the official cut-off since I am completely unsure what is going on. When (or if) he stops around again, he’ll be in for some big surprises since I’m making so many changes to this house in his absence.

For starters, despite my hatred for dogs, this up coming weekend we’ll be getting the only dog in this world that I like – my sisters dog, Diamond. This weekend myself and my other roommate will be buying and assembling a table as well. Oh, and I should be receiving my BAD DINOSAUR banner and the last few essentials for the pod cast that I plan on starting.

So my best friend will essentially be walking into an entirely new place – whenever he chooses to come back.

I’ll be honest though – his absence is making me quite depressed and worried. It’s making wonder why I ever bothered to do any favors for him to begin with.

In other news, my plants are beginning to grow. I have a myriad of peppers finally coming up, numerous herbs and a huge container of potato’s. It probably helps tremendously that it’s been around 60 degree’s and quite sunny for the past several days.

Both of my cats are severely sick and I’m trying to treat that as much as I can. I don’t know if it is due to the weather, but that situation is getting me quite stressed.

Revisions

13 Monday Feb 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in #friend, blog, books, car, cat, debt, friend, home, House, injury, job, Love, male friendship, men, Money, redemption, time, Today, Trump, work

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For those who aren’t aware – I’ve always been into politics, especially geopolitics. I realize this blog – so far – has not really shown that. The reason for that is that when I began this blog – which was around this time last year – I was in a very transitional part of my life.

At the beginning of December 2015 I had collapsed at work and had to be taken to the ER. I spent four days in the hospital and had to have three blood transfusions. I quite honestly nearly died. My hemoglobin levels were at 4.8, the doctors were surprised to see that I was even conscious.

I have an internal bleeding problem, and at the end of 2015, it had caught up to me.

After I left the hospital, my life was in disarray. I began re-evaluating everything. Things I had once found interesting no longer were and my  ability to focus on stuff had diminished to the point I didn’t even feel like myself any more. I didn’t feel like a “new” person but rather, I felt like my life had shattered and I was having difficulty recognizing the pieces.

Meanwhile my best friend lost his job and was putting himself through a whole bunch of needless drama which I inevitably got pulled into.

While I was going through all of this, I realized that I desperately needed a change in my life. The apartment that I lived in for nearly a decade no longer felt like home and the community I was living in continued to make me feel alienated. I came to the realization that the only way I’d be able to collect myself was if I completely uprooted my life and changed my entire environment.

And over the course of 2016, that is exactly what I did. During the summer months I went through the process of buying a house (which is loosely documented in this blog) and moving an hour away to an entirely new community. Instead of living alone like I had for eight and a half years, I was going to move into a house with two roommates.

I would have to share my living space with two other people. On top of that, I would take on new endeavors as well.

Basically 2016 – the year that I turned 32 – was the year that I decided to start over and begin to actually pursue my dreams in a much more aggressive way. The situation that I ran into however is that the people I live with don’t share this renewed desire I have to get stuff done. I feel like their laziness is becoming an impediment to the things that I want to do.

…and the things that I want to do include:

  • Restart my booktube channel
  • Restart my weekly publication
  • Start a weekly podcast/ radio show

The booktube channel of course would focus on books, the weekly (or monthly) publication would focus on politics AND books which the podcast/radio show would include talks on books, politics and include short radio drama’s written by me.

(All that while maintaining this blog and working 40+ hours a week. Ugh!)

So, as I was stating at the beginning of this post, my interest in politics (or “anti-politics”) will begin to be more evident in my blog postings. Don’t be alarmed, “personal” type blog posts will dominate most of the entries, but there will be times where I’ll have to completely rant about something our Cheese-puff-in-Chief has done.

So, no – this blog isn’t “changing”, this blog simply documented a life change I was going through and now that my life has re-aligned itself to some version of normalcy of what my life used to be like before I started it – this blog will simply be reflecting that.

So, until next time….

Rocky Roads…

10 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in #friend, blog, books, car, cat, Coffee, debt, friend, home, House, job, male friendship, men, Money, Today, work

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My best friend is treading on the fine line between asking for my help and blatantly just using me.

My best friends work had two weeks at the end of January where they were closed down with out pay. The employees at his work were told to go and apply for short term unemployment for that time period. The problem is that in order to qualify for that unemployment, you had to be continuously employed for 18 months. Unfortunately my best friend hasn’t been “continuously employed” for an entire year yet.

So he told me that during those two weeks off he’d spend that time applying for a second job in order to help cover his bills. He’d do this because his shift at work would go from a third shift 10pm – 6am schedule to a second shift 5pm – 1am schedule. He explained to me that this would allow for him time to sleep and work a part time morning job.

Those were the plans that he made.

But he didn’t do that – at all.

Instead he spent those two weeks with his baby- mama. Then when his work started back up again, he continued stay at his baby-mama’s place. When I am finally able to talk to him earlier this week (Wednesday) he tells me that he will not have enough money to cover his bills.

I told him that I would help him with his bills – I even went as far as telling him that on payday (TODAY) I would deposit some of my paycheck into his bank account so he can get by.

But… when I get home from work this morning, he’s not here – he’s [probably] at his baby-mama’s place.

I’m just getting irritated of digging him out of messes that he puts himself in (out of his own pure laziness) just for him to push me aside like my time is something that is OK for him to waste. If he expects me to go out of my way to put money in his checking account while he is off somewhere else – he is deeply mistaken.

Anyway I’m trying to find the motivation to set up a pod cast. I have all the (rudimentary) equipment that I’ll need, but the energy required is difficult to conjure up. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to execute everything. Hopefully by early March I’ll have something put together.

Until next time…

An Update

07 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by chadwickheller in #friend, blog, Coffee, friend, home, House, job, Life, male friendship, men, Money, snow, Today, work

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I realize that I’ve been on an abnormally long hiatus – but that is entirely due to the busy season at my work setting in which means working 7 nights a week. I’m working over 60 hours a week, and I have been since the beginning of November.

So basically I’m extremely tired all the time.

But there have been some worthwhile highlights that I should mention.

First; my best friend bought himself the first bed of his own that he’s ever had in his life. This makes me very happy.

Also, the roommate who lost his job at the end of October got himself a new job which also makes me happy.

I got a chest freezer for the house so that we can start storing larger quantities of food. The next thing on the agenda is a bistro table. I’ve been wanting a coffee shop style table since I got the house. I finally found one that I want really bad that I plan on getting this upcoming weekend.

Our dreams are coming together which is so exciting.

Drama, overall, is at a minimum.

One of the more exciting tidbits is that the third roommate decided to have a hook-up and got chlamydia and gonorrhea – which made for some fun trips to the free clinic and the pharmacy.

Over all, there isn’t all too much happening with us.

I’ll try to reinstate this blog into my daily routine so I don’t go through these long stretches without writing any more.

Seven Nights A Week

13 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by chadwickheller in #friend, books, cat, Coffee, debt, friend, home, House, job, Life, Love, male friendship, men, Money, recommendation, time, Today, work

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I’m working 7 nights a week now and continue to do all the work around the house. My roommates think spending their nights off getting drunk is somehow productive. I get to come home and clean up the messes they left.

The ‘third roommate’ is still without a job and he isn’t being very active in trying to find another one. Although he has this month and Decembers rent covered, if he can’t find a job soon I’ll be forced to begin looking for a new housemate.

I’ve been cooking and/or baking every day. I’m trying to have enough energy after work each morning to make food – but it’s irritating that my roommates – who literally sit around and do nothing will suddenly disappear moments before the food I’ve made is done. They complain about having no money and complain about being hungry but when there is food done – they’re gone.

In other news, I need to clean out the fridge – there are a lot of left-overs that they told me they’d finish, but they never did – opting instead for fast food.

I’m beginning to wonder why I even bother any more.

Right now I’m currently reading THE BURIED GIANT by Kazuo Ishiguro and enjoying it quite a bit, I’ve just been so tired lately – and busy – that it’s taking me much longer than I had anticipated to read. I began it over a week ago, it’s only 317 pages and I still have 90 pages to go.

In my works busy season, it’s not easy for me to read 100 page a day like I can during the slow season. Oh well, I’ll get through it soon enough.

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