Stuff I Recommend
Books Music Movies Kid Stuff Geek Stuff Stores Places Eats

There's no serious logic to this, just bunches of lists of stuff I think is worth recommending. I tried to sort it out into somewhat rational sections that I'd be likely to just add list items to, so here's the start and let's see where it goes from here.

If there's something you think I'd like, based on these lists, don't hesitate to let me know!

Books
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Or, what have I read lately or can I find poking through my shelves... and what do I intend to read again, or whatever. Sorted by genre, then by author, with lists of books in there too.

Science Fiction

  1. Iain M. Banks
  2. Wilhelmina Baird is currently intriguing me. She has an interesting style and her language is fun.
  3. Ray Bradbury Everyone who reads SF should read Ray Bradbury, he's classic.
  4. Emma Bull definitely hits my "I'll read anything she writes" list. I have a hard time finding her stuff but I've yet to read anything of hers that I didn't like.
  5. C.J. Cherryh I'm fond of her SF but I don't like her fantasy. All her SF ties together being in different parts and different points in time in the same universe, and that's neat.
  6. Arthur C. Clarke When I grow up, I would like to be Arthur C. Clarke. I'm a tremendous fan of him for a lot of reasons. I first read Arthur C. Clarke short stories which my grandfather, a retired nuclear physics professor, provided me with as a child. There's probably no reason for me to try listing books of his to read, there are a ton of them and other people are bound to do better pulling together lists of his stuff that must be read. Reading Arthur C. Clarke should be required for all SF readers... and for other folks besides. He should be among the authors that people are required to read before they can graduate high school.
  7. Ursula K. LeGuin I think it's possible that all children of cultural anthropologists are given LeGuin to read. In addition to being a really interesting writer, she's the daughter of the renowned anthropologist William Kroeber, and this undoubtedly gives her a leg up on writing about cultural stuff.
  8. Russell Hoban is probably best known for the Frances books, children's books about an otter and her family. However, Riddley Walker is a post-apocalyptic novel written in really interesting language. Hard to find, not a super easy read because of the odd language, really worth a read.
  9. Frederick Pohl I'd say Pohl also rates as classic. Gateway and the sequels are SF must-reads.
  10. Kim Stanley Robinson I must like enough to keep reading. Largely sociopolitical SF.
  11. Connie Willis goes on my list of authors whose books I'll automatically buy and read without even checking to see what it's about.

Fantasy

  1. Ursula K. LeGuin
  2. J.R.R. Tolkien But you already knew to read Tolkien, right? Nuff said.

General Fiction

Non-Fiction

  1. Tracy Kidder

Reference

  1. Jeffrey Friedl, Mastering Regular Expressions, O'Reilly and Associates.
  2. Travis & Waldt, The SGML Implementation Guide
Music
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These are my rough categorizations and I can't swear to them being consistent with anyone else's categorizations. In fact in many cases they're almost certainly not. I could actually categorize things further but I just don't have that kinda energy or time.

Where I could find some kind of link or useful URL I've linked it. Where I've had energy I've described stuff some. Lists are alphabetical by last name. I've listed specific tunes I like in some cases too.

Blues

Blues is probably what I could talk about the most. I could break this section up into sub-categories but I dunno that I have that kind of energy or time or anything.

  1. Bobby Blue Bland could arguably be categorized as soul as well as blues. "Turn On Your Love Light" is kinda a Bobby Blue Bland classic.
  2. Clarence Gatemouth Brown is a Louisiana guy who plays guitar and other instruments and puts on a heck of a live show.
  3. Albert Collins was a Texas guy, an electric player who played a bizzare tuning like an open F minor or something, capoed to like the 9th fret. I met him a few times thanks to A.C. Reed, who'd played with Albert. Albert was a pretty heavy drinker, up there with Junior Wells in terms of capacity, and his drinking undoubtedly contributed to his death. Even so, one of my favourite tunes of his remains "I Ain't Drunk, I'm Just Drinkin'."
  4. Snooks Eaglin is a New Orleans guitar player.
  5. Lowell Fulson is one of those musicians where it seems like the only people I ever talked to who were really hep to his stuff were musicians. I really like Lowell Fulson a lot. Off the top of my head, I think "Black Night" is my favourite of his tunes.
  6. Buddy Guy everyone's heard of now, but it seems like everyone listens to his newer stuff, which I don't think is as hip in many ways as some of his older stuff. I met Buddy a number of times too, thanks to A.C. who'd played with him for ages and ages. I think the "This is Buddy Guy" live album (which features A.C.) is great, as well as a lot of the 1960s stuff he did with Junior Wells. Buddy's a crazy showman.
  7. Earl Hooker is, in my humble opinion, probably the best slide guitar player there ever was. He could do stuff you just can't believe. I never heard him play live since he died in the early 1970s, but I used to have sooooo much of his recorded stuff... and he and A.C. together were the core of a lot of house bands for a lot of Chicago labels and suchlike, for quite some time, so I got to hear tons of interesting old tapes of random sessions and whatnot. Earl Hooker was also reportedly just an unbelievable guitar showoff. He and A.C. used to go out and sit in on people's gigs at random in the 50s and 60s, and A.C. told me, "People used to hate to see us comin', 'cause we'd be clownin' around all the damn time." A.C.'s peers told me the two of them would show up with something like A.C. in a gorilla mask while he played a neon green tenor sax, and Earl Hooker with a double-necked guitar and a hundred-foot patch cord, and they'd both walk the floor like crazy and just steal the show.
  8. John Lee Hooker gets tons of recognition nowadays, and again, this is another guy who if you haven't heard of him, you're definitely not done with your musical education. There's only one John Lee Hooker and you'll never mistake him for anyone else, or vice versa. Interestingly enough, John Lee Hooker lives in Los Altos of all places... probably has a nice view of Silicon Valley.
  9. Lightnin' Hopkins is just plain another must-listen. He was incredibly prolific and you just gotta love him. In a bio of him, I once read that he'd get a hundred bucks for a handful of tunes, from someone who recorded him a lot, so anytime he got to feeling he needed some cash he'd just go record a couple of random things and walk out of the studio flush again... he'd just make things up on the spot. Edward, my two-year-old son, is a big fan of Lightnin' Hopkins also.
  10. Howlin' Wolf I have always been very, very partial to the Wolf. I've never understood how come everyone has at least one Muddy Waters CD or tape or whatever but those same people don't have any Howlin' Wolf. What's wrong with those people, huh? Sheesh. I have too many favourite Howlin' Wolf tunes to list, but they're not the ones everyone always knows, which were covered by all the classic rock bands or on the London Sessions (though I do like the bit on the London Sessions where the Wolf rags on Eric Clapton for not getting the groove right). Anyway. The Wolf is a must-listen if you're going to be listening to blues. You just have to listen to him. It's required.
  11. Mississippi John Hurt An acoustic blues player who was well-known on the 1960s folk scene, Mississippi John Hurt was an old player from the 1930s and stuff. He's really classic. I think my favourite Mississippi John Hurt number is his version of the gospel standard "Farther Along."
  12. Elmore James is one of my all-time favourites. He's a quintessential slide player. I think the Elmore James song that always sticks in my head the most is "It Hurts Me Too."
  13. Blind Willie Johnson was probably more gospel than blues per se, but man, he was one of the absolute best slide players ever, and there's just totally something about his playing that has a certain oooomph and then some. The only stuff of his recorded is from the 1920s so it's old and scratchy but it's just mind-blowing.
  14. Albert King was largely a Memphis guy and Stax Records guy. He was one of those distinctive left-handed guitar players and some of my favourite songs of his include "Call My Job" and "Crosscut Saw." The classic "Born Under A Bad Sign" is one of his hallmark tunes.
  15. BB King is BB King, fer cryin' out loud. Everybody knows BB King, and if they don't, their musical education is definitely incomplete.
  16. Freddie King Texas blues guitar player par excellence.
  17. Denise LaSalle has those songs that always make the women in an audience holler, "Hell yeah!"
  18. Little Walter is your classic postwar Chicago blues harmonica player. Apart from all the stuff he did headlining for himself, he's also well known for being Muddy Waters' main harmonica player throughout the years. I like Little Walter a lot, but my favourite blues harp player will probably always be Junior Wells... but Little Walter is pretty much the seminal blues harp player, who defined what people tend to think of as blues harmonica.
  19. Blind Willie McTell was a Georgia guy who played some really remarkable twelve-string stuff. I really like a lot of his stuff, and there's no mistaking him for anyone else, or anyone else for him. I'm probably most partial to "The Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues" as I sort of collect versions of that basic song.
  20. Memphis Minnie Seems almost nobody's heard of Memphis Minnie, but she was my teenage guitar idol. She played electric guitar in the 1930s, man! And she rocked. And she did goofy guitar show-off stuff. Probably her best-known song is "When the Levee Breaks," which was recorded by Led Zeppelin.
  21. A.C. Reed is like family to me. I lived and worked with him for two years and there's a ton to say about him... so much that when I get to it, it'll definitely be its own page.
  22. Jimmy Reed Much-covered, Jimmy Reed is another blues must-listen. I tend to think of him as A.C. described him, by saying, "His shit's what you call The Lump. It goes LUMPty-lump-ty-LUMPty-lump... he's the king of that shit." Though it's less lumpy, I think "Honest I Do" is one of my favourite Jimmy Reed tunes, along with "You Don't Have To Go."
  23. Otis Rush is another one of my favourite left-handers. "All Your Love" is a standard, and probably my favourite of his tunes.
  24. Koko Taylor is the Queen of the Blues. I met her briefly at a blues fest at a ski resort in Utah. She was kindly and unassuming sitting at a table, like someone's grandma or something, but put her in a sequin dress with a microphone in her hand and it's a whole 'nother story. Koko Taylor just rules.
  25. Big Mama Thornton was the woman behind big hit songs like "Hound Dog."
  26. Big Joe Turner could also be categorized a bunch of other ways but I think he's very much a big man of "jump blues," of which a tune like "Shake, Rattle and Roll" is a terrific example.
  27. Muddy Waters Oh, fer cryin' out loud, Muddy Waters. McKinley Morganfield. You know. Him. And if you don't know him, you need to go back to remedial music awareness class.
  28. Junior Wells My dad told me once that the first time he heard Junior Wells, it was on the radio while he was driving a car, and he had to pull over to the side of the road and stop and listen out the song. "Whoah," he said. The thing about Junior Wells was just the way he could make a harmonica sound. You would never, ever in a million years mistake Junior Wells for anyone else. When A.C. introduced me to Junior shortly after I moved to Chicago, I was surprised. Junior was about 5 inches shorter than me (Gee, I guess that's where he got the nickname), and he was wearing this dark green polyester suit with wide lapels that looked like something you'd boggle at on a second-hand store rack, plus this big broad-brimmed hat. Junior bought me a drink, and before I had finished it, he'd sucked down literally an entire bottle of Tanqueray. I'd never seen such prodigious drinking, and I'd seen some drinking. Once Junior took the stage, it was hard to believe he was only maybe five foot two. He looked like King Pimp Daddy of the Universe or something.

Country

I'm fond of classic country such as Hank Williams (senior, not junior), George Jones, and Patsy Cline, and contemporary women of country. People are often surprised that I like country music. Well, some of it's classic, and for another thing, I'm a big fan of music that's not just slickly produced, music that's playable live... and I've always been a fan of ballads. So there you go.

  1. Mary Chapin Carpenter
    "Passionate Kisses" is probably my favourite song of hers.
  2. Patsy Cline
    For God's sake, she's Patsy Cline. What else is there to say? Patsy Cline.
  3. Nanci Griffith
    I'm a big Nanci Griffith fan. She's definitely evolved from the folk music tradition, and she's got a slew of terrific songs she's written, that are perpetually on my list of songs to learn. I like too many songs of hers to list favourites.
  4. George Jones
    He's one of the greats. I often shake my head in amazement at people who haven't heard of him. Many of his songs are also perpetually on my must-learn list.
  5. Hank Williams
    He's just classic. Ya know?
  6. Trisha Yearwood
    She sings those ballady kinds of songs that I'm just a sucker for.

Contemporary

Folk

Funk

Hard to Classify

Hip-Hop

Jazz

International

Rap

Reggae

Rock

R&B

Salsa

Soul

Movies
Books Music Movies Kid Stuff Geek Stuff Stores Places Eats
Kid Stuff
Books Music Movies Kid Stuff Geek Stuff Stores Places Eats
Geek Stuff
Books Music Movies Kid Stuff Geek Stuff Stores Places Eats

This section basically talks about geek stuff that I recommend. You know, like what newsreader do I use, what editor do I use, that kinda religious war stuff, plus a few web sites that are useful or worthwhile for one reason or another.

Software That Doesn't Suck

  1. trn is the One True Newsreader. HTH.
  2. pine Pine Is Not Elm. And, pine sucks less than GUI mailers! Only people who either wrote their own mailer or use mh are allowed to rag on me for the fact that I'm still using pine after all these years. Besides which, if it's good enough for Sven Guckes to have a page about it, it's good enough for me, by Ghod.

Games That Don't Suck

  1. Baldur's Gate good fantasy RPG type game.
  2. Caesar III kept me occupied for far, far too long.
  3. Civilization and its descendants. Classics.
  4. Dungeon Keeper from Bullfrog. r0x r0x r0x!
  5. Pharaoh is like Caesar, only in Egypt
Stores
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Silicon Valley Stores

  1. Action Computer 500 Lawrence Expressway #F, Sunnyvale CA 94086, (408)739-0316
    God only knows how many cheap used workhorse SCSI hard drives I've picked up here. Computer cases and pieces and parts and random stuff, too. Hey, while you're there, go to the lunch buffet at Sarovar, in the same shopping center complex on Lawrence Expressway right off 101.
  2. BookBuyers 317 Castro Street, Mountain View CA 94041, (650)968-7323
    This is where I go to pick up piles of SF novels and work on rebuilding my library. They've got a really wide range of stuff and they're also a favourite place for me to do gift shopping.
  3. Cosentino's has two locations, on Homestead and Lawrence Expressway in Santa Clara, and Bascom Ave in San Jose. It's a great grocery store which is where Chad and I tend to go when we say, "Hey, let's make a really nice meal." Good produce and meat and fish, for starters, and hard-to-find foods.
  4. Craig Muffler on El Camino in Santa Clara
    Very fast, excellent work, definitely the place to go to have exhaust work done. I had the Borla cat-back exhaust put on my Trans Am there. He was done in an hour flat, and it was done right! Thanks to the BA f-body list for the recommendation.
  5. Halted Specialties 3500 Ryder Street, Santa Clara CA 95051, (408)732-1573
    Halted Specialties, aka HSC Electronic Supply, is the place to go if you're either looking for some totally obscure computer or electronic part, or looking for props for your low-budget sci-fi flick and you need bizarre-looking oscilloscopes and a reel-to-reel tape drive that probably actually works. I frequently find stuff there that I spent years looking for... "Aha! There's that oddball cable for that Sun 4/110 I don't have anymore!"
  6. Just Leather 2370 Stevens Creek Blvd, San Jose CA 95128, (408)286-3450
    I love this store. They're great. Give them your business if you want something made out of leather. If they don't have it there already you can probably get them to make it. They're a family-run shop, and they're neat folks, and the service is just fantastic.
  7. Linden Tree 170 State Street, Los Altos CA 94022, (650)949-3390
    This is a really great kids' bookstore. I would have collapsed in paroxysms of sheer glee to have had this bookstore around when I was a kid. I'd have just lived there. And hey! It's right down the street from Thai Silks!
  8. Rasputin Music has several locations, and is a great music store with a really diverse selection of new and used music. Another gift-shopping staple for me. The one on Bascom in Campbell is closest to us.
  9. SeaScapes 298 Castro Street, Mountain View CA 94041 (650)961-1386
    SeaScapes is the best store in the area for marine reef aquaria, to be sure, and an all-around great fish store. The folks who run the place are terrific, knowledgeable, and conscientious. They have excellent stock and we do pretty much all our aquaria shopping there.
  10. Thai Silks 252 State Street, Los Altos CA 94022, (650)948-8611
    If you sew or quilt or anything like that, or if you just like fabric, Thai Silks is absolutely a must to visit if you are in this area. Really. A serious must. A big time must. Bring ample cargo space and all your money, because you'll be saying, "I... I don't really need this ten yards of gorgeous sandwashed silk for four bucks a yard, but... actually, I do need it. And while I'm here, I've never seen anything like this, I'd better pick some up in case I never do again...OH NO! Remnant basket!"
Places
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Silicon Valley and Nearby

  1. The Century Capitol Drive-In Theatre Capitol Expressway and Snell Ave in San Jose
    If it weren't for this place, we'd probably never get to go see movies when they first come out. It's a bona fide drive-in, with I think six screens, and it's the last one in the Bay Area, so go, go, go, give 'em business so they don't sell the parking lot space for someone to build a heinous burbclave or corporate office park.
  2. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is two or three hours from Silicon Valley, and a nice day trip. We took Edward there when my mother was visiting when Edward was about a year and a half old, and there was stuff he could enjoy even at that age. There's a good area set up for energetic kids to run around, play, and grab stuff, make noise, you konw, the usual. I could spend an entire day sitting in their theatre setup staring at their million gallon tank. Neat place.
  3. The Sunnyvale Farmer's Market happens every Saturday on Murphy Street in downtown Sunnyvale. It's a small farmer's market and they close off the street and there are all kinds of booths with all kinds of stuff, and it's a fun place to go.
Eats
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Silicon Valley Restaurants

  1. Falafel Drive In 2301 Stevens Creek Blvd, San Jose CA 95128
    The best falafel and suchlike in Silicon Valley. You order at the window, and can sit at picnic tables and eat, or take the food home with you. I get falafels, Chad gets gyros, and Edward gets falafel balls and pita chips, and we dunk the pita chips in hummos. Mmmmmm.
  2. Jing-Jing 443 Emerson Street, Palo Alto CA 94301, (650)328-6885
    Great Szechuan and Hunan food. They deliver in Palo Alto and sometimes we order carry-out. They're also great with Edward and this is one of the few places we generally don't hesitate to go out to eat with a rambunctious two-year-old. Chad loves the Orange Peel Beef. We all love Dan Dan Mein. I don't think there's a bad item on the menu.
  3. Palace Bar-B-Que Buffet 1092 E El Camino Real #1, Sunnyvale CA 94087, (408)554-9292
    Korean BBQ! All you can eat buffet! Yum. Unfortunately, we have not been there since Edward was born since you have a grill on your table and that's just asking for trouble with a youngun.
  4. Pasand Indian Cuisine 3701 El Camino Real, Santa Clara CA 95051, (408)241-5150
    Some folks really, really swear by Pasand as the best Indian restaurant around. It's really good, but I think that both Shilpa and Sarovar are a little more to my personal taste.
  5. Sarovar Indian Cuisine 544 Lawrence Expressway, Sunnyvale CA 94086, (408)245-6800
    I used to make a regular habit of going to Sarovar's weekday lunch buffet... all you can eat, and I really liked the food.
  6. Shilpa Indian Restaurant 3530 El Camino Real, Santa Clara CA 95051, (408)243-6737
    Another excellent Indian restaurant.
  7. Thai Basil 101 S. Murphy Ave, Sunnyvale CA 94086.
    Thai Basil is a tiny restaurant on the one main block of Murphy Street in downtown Sunnyvale. Since it's so tiny, we've never dined in there, but we've ordered takeout and it was positively scrumptious. Edward gives it a ringing two-year-old's endorsement.
  8. Vito's Pizza 1155 Reed Ave, Sunnyvale CA 94086.
    Vito's has New York style pizza which does the trick to satisfy that New York pizza urge. There are actual New Yorkers there. We like to go, order a couple of pies, and let me play pinball while we wait for it to be ready.