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Driver Theory Test Ireland: Car & Motorcycle - DTT Questions
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Driver Theory Test (DTT) Questions and Answers for Irish Driver Theory Tests categories B (Car) and...
Cyn Armistead (14 KP) rated Ready Player One in Books
Mar 1, 2018
Add this book to the short list of must-reads for every True Geek, right alongside [b:Snow Crash|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320544000s/830.jpg|493634]. It's a gleeful homage to geekdom and pop culture.
Wade explains to the reader that he was born after humanity wore the world out and escaped to OASIS, a massive simulation that has replaced the internet and all other forms of entertainment. Nobody seems to spend time in reality any more, because it sucks. There are multiple wars going on over the few energy sources that are left. Poverty, hunger, and homelessness are rampant everywhere.
Most people who are fortunate enough to live indoors at all are like Wade, who lives with his aunt and her latest boyfriend in a three-bedroom doublewide trailer shared with 17 people. The trailer is at least near the top of a stack, which is just what it sounds like: a stack of trailers 10 or so high, so many across and wide, so that 500 or more trailers are held together with rusted scaffolding, chains, and whatever other reinforcements people have added over the years. Stack collapses are common.
Wade spends most of his time in his hideout, the back of an old van that's parked in a junkyard and crammed in a stack of vehicles. That's where he keeps his computer and other equipment, so he can attend school (in OASIS, of course) and spend time research The Contest, which is the center of his life.
The creater of OASIS, James Halliday, created The Contest in his will. Whoever wins it will inherit Halliday's vast fortune and control of OASIS. At the opening of the novel, it has been five years since Halliday died and contestants are ridiculed in everyday society as obsessive losers.
Wade's quest through The Contest and his fight to simply survive is far more interesting than I thought it would be. I'll also admit to being entertained by the 80s trivia that pops up throughout the book (integral to The Contest). I'm biased, as I was a teen during those years.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book. It's one of the very few that I'll be saving to re-read in the future.
Wade explains to the reader that he was born after humanity wore the world out and escaped to OASIS, a massive simulation that has replaced the internet and all other forms of entertainment. Nobody seems to spend time in reality any more, because it sucks. There are multiple wars going on over the few energy sources that are left. Poverty, hunger, and homelessness are rampant everywhere.
Most people who are fortunate enough to live indoors at all are like Wade, who lives with his aunt and her latest boyfriend in a three-bedroom doublewide trailer shared with 17 people. The trailer is at least near the top of a stack, which is just what it sounds like: a stack of trailers 10 or so high, so many across and wide, so that 500 or more trailers are held together with rusted scaffolding, chains, and whatever other reinforcements people have added over the years. Stack collapses are common.
Wade spends most of his time in his hideout, the back of an old van that's parked in a junkyard and crammed in a stack of vehicles. That's where he keeps his computer and other equipment, so he can attend school (in OASIS, of course) and spend time research The Contest, which is the center of his life.
The creater of OASIS, James Halliday, created The Contest in his will. Whoever wins it will inherit Halliday's vast fortune and control of OASIS. At the opening of the novel, it has been five years since Halliday died and contestants are ridiculed in everyday society as obsessive losers.
Wade's quest through The Contest and his fight to simply survive is far more interesting than I thought it would be. I'll also admit to being entertained by the 80s trivia that pops up throughout the book (integral to The Contest). I'm biased, as I was a teen during those years.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book. It's one of the very few that I'll be saving to re-read in the future.
The second book in [a:Veronica Roth|4039811|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1363910238p2/4039811.jpg]'s 'Divergent' series, this picks up almost exactly - like, exactly exactly - after the climax of [b:Divergent|13335037|Divergent (Divergent, #1)|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328559506s/13335037.jpg|13155899], with Beatrice ('Tris') on a train about to leave the desolate future city of Chicago following the 'Simulation' attack by the Erudite faction.
I can't stress this enough: when I say exactly, I really do mean exactly: almost as if the first sentence of this book is the second half of the last sentence of the previous.
Anyway, it's not too much longer until Tris is heading back to Chicago, in company with some old friends and enemies-who-later-prove-not-to-be, in order to find a way to deal with the consequences of that attack, and to prevent further mistakes being made by members of both her own and other factions.
For a large portion of this, she is still struggling with guilt over some of her actions in the previous novel - in particular, over one that she (was forced to) carry out during the Erudite attack. This one also ends with a(n attempted) cliffhanger ending, in which we may yet find out how and why the faction system came about if we read the next in the series ([b:Allegiant|18710190|Allegiant (Divergent, #3)|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1395582745s/18710190.jpg|15524549])
While I did feel that this had its own identity maybe a bit more than [b:Divergent|13335037|Divergent (Divergent, #1)|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328559506s/13335037.jpg|13155899] (which, at times, felt to me almost like it was trying too hard to be another 'Hunger Games'), there is still a strong resemblance between the two series', in particular in their choice of leading characters, and in the theme of sacrifices.
I've come this far, so I probably will read the next (and, like The Hunger Games, maybe the whole will prove to be more than the sum of its parts).
I can't stress this enough: when I say exactly, I really do mean exactly: almost as if the first sentence of this book is the second half of the last sentence of the previous.
Anyway, it's not too much longer until Tris is heading back to Chicago, in company with some old friends and enemies-who-later-prove-not-to-be, in order to find a way to deal with the consequences of that attack, and to prevent further mistakes being made by members of both her own and other factions.
For a large portion of this, she is still struggling with guilt over some of her actions in the previous novel - in particular, over one that she (was forced to) carry out during the Erudite attack. This one also ends with a(n attempted) cliffhanger ending, in which we may yet find out how and why the faction system came about if we read the next in the series ([b:Allegiant|18710190|Allegiant (Divergent, #3)|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1395582745s/18710190.jpg|15524549])
While I did feel that this had its own identity maybe a bit more than [b:Divergent|13335037|Divergent (Divergent, #1)|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328559506s/13335037.jpg|13155899] (which, at times, felt to me almost like it was trying too hard to be another 'Hunger Games'), there is still a strong resemblance between the two series', in particular in their choice of leading characters, and in the theme of sacrifices.
I've come this far, so I probably will read the next (and, like The Hunger Games, maybe the whole will prove to be more than the sum of its parts).
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) in Movies
Aug 7, 2019
“ Yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me. We pillage plunder, we rifle a loot. Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho. We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot drink up me ‘earties yo ho”.
Captain Jack Sparrow is at it again with a map in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other. In the fourth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Captain Jack Sparrow teams up with an old flame Angelica (Penelope Cruz) and her father Blackbeard (Ian McShane) in the hopes of finding the Fountain of Eternal Youth. There are a group of Englishmen captained by Barbossa and a group of Spaniards who are on the quest to find the fountain as well. In order to reap the benefits of said fountain they have to find two chalices that are in the possession of Ponce de Leon and a mermaids tear. With a great storyline from Tedd Elliot and Terry Rossio the summer movie season has started off on the right foot and looks very promising.
Jerry Bruckheimer brings us Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger tides in excellent 3D. Unlike a lot of the other recent 3D movies converted into 3D, POTC is actually shot with a 3D camera providing the audience with better graphics and exciting effects. Unlike the others this new installment is based upon the book On Stranger Tides written by Tim Powers and includes but is not limited to mermaids, Zombie crewmembers, lots of rum, revenge, romance, mystery and a lot of swashbuckling excitement.
Orlando Bloom and Keira Nightly are not missed as Capt. Jack once again steels the show. The 1967 Disney attraction has changed over the years and most recently Capt Jack himself, Capt. Barbossa and coming soon they will be adding Blackbeard to the previous Davy Jones fog projection screen. The future for Jack Sparrow looks very promising as it has been rumored that Johnny Depp is already signed on for more pirate adventures. I loved this movie and is a great kick off to the summer movie season and I plan on seeing it again only this time in “4-D” at the closest D-Box(motion simulation seats) theater.
Captain Jack Sparrow is at it again with a map in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other. In the fourth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Captain Jack Sparrow teams up with an old flame Angelica (Penelope Cruz) and her father Blackbeard (Ian McShane) in the hopes of finding the Fountain of Eternal Youth. There are a group of Englishmen captained by Barbossa and a group of Spaniards who are on the quest to find the fountain as well. In order to reap the benefits of said fountain they have to find two chalices that are in the possession of Ponce de Leon and a mermaids tear. With a great storyline from Tedd Elliot and Terry Rossio the summer movie season has started off on the right foot and looks very promising.
Jerry Bruckheimer brings us Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger tides in excellent 3D. Unlike a lot of the other recent 3D movies converted into 3D, POTC is actually shot with a 3D camera providing the audience with better graphics and exciting effects. Unlike the others this new installment is based upon the book On Stranger Tides written by Tim Powers and includes but is not limited to mermaids, Zombie crewmembers, lots of rum, revenge, romance, mystery and a lot of swashbuckling excitement.
Orlando Bloom and Keira Nightly are not missed as Capt. Jack once again steels the show. The 1967 Disney attraction has changed over the years and most recently Capt Jack himself, Capt. Barbossa and coming soon they will be adding Blackbeard to the previous Davy Jones fog projection screen. The future for Jack Sparrow looks very promising as it has been rumored that Johnny Depp is already signed on for more pirate adventures. I loved this movie and is a great kick off to the summer movie season and I plan on seeing it again only this time in “4-D” at the closest D-Box(motion simulation seats) theater.
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