Typical Monday.

Checking out a baseball game. Dodger Stadium and the wave. Name two things more synonymous.

Zoo by James Patterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Let me start off by saying that the premise of “Zoo” sounds like a very promising story. It’s a techno-thriller set in the present day and explores a mystery illness suddenly spreading around the world that is causing all sorts of mammals to inexplicably attack humans on sight (and smell). From domesticated pets to wild animals, we’ve suddenly become nature’s favorite snack.

In reality, this book should probably be named, “50 Shades of Prey.” The writing style leaves quite a bit to be desired. The story alternates between poorly written third person narratives describing various animals attacking humans and tortuous first-person accounts from a “scientist” named Oz — an arrogant manic drop-out with ADHD from Colombia University who you would probably find calling into Art Bell’s Coast to Coast each week. Oh, he also has an insane chimpanzee for a pet.

Anyway, the story opens with two lions from the LA Zoo attacking their keeper (whom they’ve been familiar with for years) and escaping into the urban jungle known as Los Angeles and generally wrecking some major havoc.

From there, we meet Oz, a self-proclaimed pioneer of a little-known theory called HAC — human-animal conflict. For roughly the last 10 or so years, he’s been tracking every instance of animal attacks on humans and is the only one who notices a disturbing trend: they’ve been increasing exponentially!

It probably doesn’t help that his main / preferred companion is a chimp and he is a chronic homebody. (Interestingly enough, he still manages to have a girlfriend or two in the book.) Coupled with his caustic attitude toward other scientists who looked down upon him (and the constant snarky quips and comments he shares throughout the book), I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would have a hard time believing him.

Anyway, all of this leads to an interesting thought experiment: What happens when rats, bats, dogs, and dolphins (all lead by a single chimpanzee) take over the world and potentially lead to the fall of human civilization as we know it, while our only savior is a crazy introvert who knew this was going to happen all along?

Let’s just say that I really wanted to like this book. The concept had a lot of potential. Sadly, I found myself wanting to get through this book just so I could get done with it and move onto the next thing on my reading list. The parts describing the animal attacks tried to emulate a Stephen King horror novel while the first-person accounts with Oz were just downright torture to read.

Fortunately for me (and probably for you too), it’s a relatively mindless and quick read. I struggled with whether to give this two stars or three stars. The entire story started to unravel and grow more ridiculous toward the end (kind of like this review). Ultimately, I decided to give it 2 stars.

View all my reviews

Kerry and I participated in the Color Me Rad 5K run in Fontana today. It was a fun, festive, and very colorful event!

Besides visiting my parents, Heska’s Sugar Shack is one of my favorite things about Mentone.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/heskas-sugar-shack-mentone

Via the always awesome Alexis C. Madrigal of The Atlantic:

“If you look at the offline world, the real world in which we live, that information is not entirely online,” Manik Gupta, the senior product manager for Google Maps, told me. “Increasingly as we go about our lives, we are trying to bridge that gap between what we see in the real world and [the online world], and Maps really plays that part.”

This is not just a theoretical concern. Mapping systems matter on phones precisely because they are the interface between the offline and online worlds. If you’re at all like me, you use mapping more than any other application except for the communications suite (phone, email, social networks, and text messaging).

I’m not one to gloat (okay, I sure am), but let’s take a trip back in recent time. Back to the good old dog days of summer, July 27th, 2012.

A surprised Melky Cabrera [San Francisco Giants outfielder] categorically denied an Internet rumor that he had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, saying neither he nor the Players’ Association has received any such information from Major League Baseball.

The article continues…

Cabrera said he had nothing to be worried about and credited his success to hard work. He speculated that perhaps a Dodgers fan created the rumor as a way to distract the club heading into the big, three-game series between the two rivals.

That’s a pretty awesome conspiracy theory!

Just over 3 weeks later, the sports news today is all about:

All-Star Game MVP Melky Cabrera was suspended for 50 games without pay Wednesday after the San Francisco Giants outfielder tested positive for testosterone

[…]

Flashing bright orange spikes, Cabrera singled and hit a two-run homer last month in the NL’s 8-0 All-Star win, which secured home-field advantage for the World Series.

Oops!

It’s going to be especially awesome when the Dodgers get home field advantage for the World Series later this year. Thanks for the kind words, Melky!

This loss against the San Diego Padres last weekend was especially embarrassing. Double steal of home in the top of the 9th inning.

Of course, the blame rests solely on myself. About 10 minutes before this, I was telling some friends who are Giants fans that, “there’s a reason we’re in first place.”

Yeah, no.

I’m going to rename my fantasy baseball team the “God Damn Dodgers.”

Via: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-making-friends-as-an-adult.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

In studies of peer groups, Laura L. Carstensen, a psychology professor who is the director of the Stanford Center on Longevity in California, observed that people tended to interact with fewer people as they moved toward midlife, but that they grew closer to the friends they already had.

Basically, she suggests, this is because people have an internal alarm clock that goes off at big life events, like turning 30. It reminds them that time horizons are shrinking, so it is a point to pull back on exploration and concentrate on the here and now. “You tend to focus on what is most emotionally important to you,” she said, “so you’re not interested in going to that cocktail party, you’re interested in spending time with your kids.”