[Tech/PC] VirtualBox, Windows 7 and a new CPU

As I've done from time to time, this blog serves as a bit of a bench-notes of what I did.  However, maybe someone else hits the same problem, and finds my blog via search. About a month back, the new nVidia 2080 Ti card was announced.  I decided to hit up eBay to see if anyone was selling off a 1080 Ti, and I was not disappointed in the price drops....

15 Sep 2018 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Leia, Princess of Aderaan by Claudia Gray

Book cover This book is a Star Wars story.  It takes place during Leia Organa's 16th year.  I would like to say that familiarity with the Star Wars universe isn't absolutely necessary, but I cannot be sure of that.  It is, at its base, an exhilarating and sometimes sad, coming of age story, where we see Leia grow from a teen who thinks she's all grown up, to a woman who knows she isn't quite there....

12 Sep 2018 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Home After Dark by David Small

Book cover Bonus review this week (because this book comes out on the 11th), and I finally figured out what to say about it. This tale is, all at once, heartbreaking, terrifying, uncomfortable, troubling with a tiny bit of hopeful mixed in.  Trigger warnings would be helpful here: racism, suicide, sexual predation, sexual bigotry, bullying, alcoholism, violence (both human and animal), parental abandonment, and smoking....

8 Sep 2018 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Insurrecto by Gina Apostol

Book cover Even though I'm reviewing an Advance copy, this story is surprisingly nonlinear, and I doubt that will change, though - really - it could.  The book starts, like a 1970s movie, listing the cast of characters in the approximate order in which the characters appear.  It's a story about two people, writing screenplays that are not exactly about the same thing, but are derived from a shared starting point and past....

5 Sep 2018 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink