I have never been a total fan though. At the end of the day, they are tools that I use to get things done throughout my day. I don’t hold them in any higher regard than the PCs that I use at my workplace (or grew up with). I’ve had my issues with their products as well and I’ll be the first to point them out. I will also be the first in line to point out that Apple has ‘screwing their clientele’ down to a high art. I mean, they have a release schedule and setup that makes sure that everyone that purchases their wares will be jealous of those who purchase the next iteration. They can really be dicks like that. They engineer demand so well that there should be a degree in it available to higher education locales.

But as of Thursday, July 7th, 2011, I can say that I am now a loyal customer of Apple. Still not a fanboy, but they’ve secured my loyalty. And all it took was an email.

The Story

To understand my new-found loyalty, we have to roll back to July 1st, 2011. Canada Day, for anyone that is unaware happens on this day. As a proud Canadian I went off to the large London-based party that took place in Trafalgar Square. It was a fun day despite a gross lack of cider, and fun was had by all. I was decked out in Canadian stuff (shirt, tattoos, etc.) and I was even wearing shorts! I almost never wear shorts due to a general lack of ownership as well as a general distaste for them.

As the day wore down, I, along with my friends, decided to head on home as we were a bit drunk, a bit tired, and in my case a bit (a lot) sunburnt. We took the district line from Embankment, and then transfered to the National rail at Liverpool street. After getting off the train and walking half way home from the station to my house, I noticed that my phone was missing.

Now I knew that I had my phone when I got onto the underground at Embankment, so I had either lost it or my phone had been nicked whilst I was on the train. This can basically be blamed on my shorts – damn you shorts! – since they have wide, shallow pockets, and that’s a bad thing when you are sitting down with a long phone in said pocket. Regardless, my phone was gone.

Fuck.

For those that have never lost their phone, let me describe it to you: it sucks. It sucks badly. It sucks even more if you’re a tech addict like me, and even more so if you legitimately need your phone to do thinks like call people and services.

As soon as I got home, I jumped onto my mobileMe account. Thankfully, I’m involved in the iOS 5 beta (thanks @geofas), which means that I have free access to their Find My Iphone services (something that will be free for everyone, and was formerly a paid-for perk of the mobileMe service). I sent a message to the phone – ‘If you could turn this phone in, that would be amazing’ –  but I had to wipe the phone anyways. Why? Because it’s a company phone, and it’s got a lot of stuff on it that I’d get hell for if it leaked. Nothing sinister, but important work I.P. stuff.

Anyways, once you wipe your iPhone you can no longer track it. This was a sad reality that I just had to take. I had no hope of anyone actually turning in an iPhone 4. I mean, it’s an iPhone 4 in full working order.

On monday, I got the IMEI and SIM numbers from my work and logged the phone as lost with the TFL and National Rail. I wasn’t expecting much. I didn’t even bother reporting it to the police, because in all truthfulness, there isn’t really much they can do. I logged an order with my work for a new phone, and whimpered at the £450+ cost attached to my own stupidity. It was an expensive mistake.

“But Corey!” you sputter, ” Surely a man of your rugged good looks and shining brillance would have phone insurance, no?” No. I didn’t. I almost do now, I have to wait a week after upgrading my bank account but I didn’t have it at the time. Some friends suggested I get some for a phone that I no longer possessed, wait a week, and then report it lost. Basically they suggested I commit fraud. I declined, because I was going to take my costly lesson with as much good grace as I could muster. The high ground sucks sometimes.

I’ll skip the part where I went through horrible tech withdrawal. Suffice it to say, it’s horrible, and I totally understand people who are quitting smoking. Well, the mental portion anyways. I didn’t suffer from the shakes or anything, but I was irritable as shit and perpetually frustrated at everyone around me that still had their phones. It was bad, man, real bad.

As the week went on, I kept an eye on my email, hoping that I’d see an email show up from TFL or National Rail. On Thursday the 7th, I got an email from Apple Support. Now I hadn’t logged anything with them, and so I thought it was probably spam. Just to be on the safe side though I opened the mail, and was given the following:

Mr. Corey dutson

We were contacted today, because your iphone was found, it is in :
Shepherds Bush Police Station
226 Shepherds Bush Road
Hammersmith
London
W6 7NX

kind regards,
andreia, apple team*

*This is actually the address for the Hammersmith Metro Police station. Apple sorta screwed that up, but looking at the street name, I totally get why they could screw that up.

Now either this was the most specific spam email ever, or it was a legit email from Apple. I was willing to take that chance. I dropped what I was doing, jumped on the train, and made my way to the address. Then I went to the real address after I found out Apple gave me the wrong one. I walked into the police station and 5 minutes, some joking, and a lot of thank yous later, I was re-united with my phone.

We had celebratory Thai food that night. It was divine.

What happened?

As near as I can tell, when I logged into the Find My iPhone system and wiped my phone, Apple must have flagged the IMEI number in relation to my account. When the phone was plugged in, charged, and processed at the police station, Apple must have been alerted through the phone popping up in iTunes or the like. They then emailed me to let me know where it was, and I got my phone back, against all the odds.

The result?

Apple didn’t have to do that. I hadn’t logged a support request with them, nor ever paid for mobileMe. They had no obligation to do anything about it, and yet they did. Sure it’s not a large amount of effort on their part, and I’m sure most of it is automated anyways. The point is: they did me a small kindness, and I got my phone back.

What basically equated to about 40 seconds of effort on their part reunited me with my phone. If they hadn’t done that, I would have to purchase another one of their products. Their emailing me actually stopped them from making a sale. It did, however, make me see them in a new light and they’ve secured my pocket book for a good long while to come now. That’s an amazing long-term view and a gamble, and more companies should think like this. It fosters loyalty that you just cant buy with discounts or free soda.

So you know what? People can go on and on about how they screw their customers, their price-points are insane, and all their stuffs for hipsters, designers, etc. All I know is they’ve made themselves one more loyal customer, and all for sending an email.

One more thing…

The police wouldn’t give me the contact details for the woman that turned in the phone. I totally understand, but I’m a bit sad because I can’t thank her myself properly. I will say this though:

Thank you Ema. Thank you so much for doing what many others wouldn’t have done. You’re a swell human being, and I hope you get that promotion you want because damnit, you deserve it. Also, your hair looks amazing today. Seriously, you’ve got like, TV hair goin’ today. And hey, have you been working out? You’re looking really good! I am totally jealous.

You’re awesome, but you already knew that didn’t you.

I think it’s save to say that I love stories.

Hell I’ve even tried my own hand at writing a couple of my own. I admit that they’re not Pulitzer-level or anything, but I like to think that someone out there will enjoy them. Regardless, I’ve recently decided that I’d like to be told more stories. Lots more stories. What’s more, I’d like others to have the same opportunity. There are other sites out there that do what I’ve decided to do, but I’ve opted to do something a little different…

My focus is on the story.

I’ve made Tell Me a Story to do one thing: tell stories. The only requirements to tell a story are a title, and the story itself. If you don’t want to leave your name, you don’t have to. If you don’t want people to contact you via email, you don’t have to leave it. Like I said, the focus is on the story. There’s no real limit on the kinds of stories that you can tell, short of crazy graphic porn/slashfic (there are places for that), so I implore you to tell me your stories.

The stories do go through a review process to help strain out spam, stories that don’t match the rather liberal criteria, and blatant mis-use. I don’t expect a lot of stories to be rejected, as I’m pretty open to almost every kind of story telling.

So if you’ve got a story, tell it.

Support the cause

If you feel like supporting Tell Me a Story, you can link to it, twitter it, facebook it, or use this handy badge and link to the site:

So that’s Tell Me a Story.

Thank you.

See the problems with my playing these sorts of games are:

• I’m no good at them.
• I lack the toned fore-arm muscle of the veteran gamer.
• I lacked a console.

Well I now have a console, so I have no excuse as to whether I could try to play them or not. Turns out I still suck at them, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. The forearm muscle is a slow process, and I’ve already given myself muscle strain resulting in a fantastic carpel tunnel attack. You just don’t feel like a man until you’ve got to ice your forearm because of extreme button mashing.

Or is it “You just can’t feel like a man when you have to ice your forearm because of extreme button mashing”?

Either way, it hasn’t stopped me from playing Castle Crashers with extreme vigor.

I am currently very in love with The Behemoth‘s Castle Crashers. It’s a game that I can pick up and put down for an hour or so at any given time. It’s got this quality about it that lets me enjoy it (whether it’s frustrating the crap out of me or not) every time I sit down to play. Maybe it’s the solidity of the game mechanics; maybe it’s the well-placed fake-outs and humor; maybe it’s the constant challenge it provides. It’s very probably because of the joy one gets from beating the hell out of various enemies with reckless abandon.

Probably all of the above.

Mechanics

So as I said, the game mechanics are pretty solid. I’ve only ever run into one issue with the game crapping out, and that was at my friends house where a cut scene didn’t activate. We have no idea how we did it, nor do we know how to recreate it. We weren’t too pleased with that fact, as we had to do the whole damned level over again.

The enemy A.I. is only so complex, and yet it still manages to take full advantage of when you’re down. It thrives on kicking you in the kidneys while you’re on the ground. Revels, one might even say. They see, to have a set pattern of having equal numbers of guys attacking you head on and magicing/arrowing your unfortunate self. It does get aggravating after a while.

Castle Crashers has a bit of an RPG element to it by including an experience bar, four stats you can add points to (Attack, Magic, Defense, Agility), and even has hidden items, weapons, and pets. A neat twist with it all is that you gain experience by landing blows on enemies, and not by killing them. It took my friend and I a while to figure out why he was exceeding me in experience despite my doubling (sometimes tripling) him in kills. This introduces an interesting quandary: Get a weapon that adds to your Physical or Magical attack, or sacrifice those stats for increased Defense (allowing more hits on bad guys).

The sweetest part about the game is that after you’ve beaten it in normal mode, you can switch to “insane” mode and play through it all again. Now I used to wonder why they dubbed it “insane,” until I started playing through it. Hard mode, as it turns out, is for sissies. Insane mode basically triples or quadruples every enemies defense, health, and damage. Believe me that we are actually stuck fighting through a certain area because my friends magic user is useless in it. We honestly can’t do enough damage fast enough to the murder-machines.

Castle Crashers also does a fine job of introducing a variety of game modes. You have your standard side-scrolling bashery, your auto-scroll dodging level, your random swimming level, and even a flying portion. They really manage to mix things up as well as making everything feel fresh. It actually tooke me a moment to realize that there are a bunch of auto-scrolling levels, because they don’t really feel like them. That’s impressive

Humour

I cannot talk too much about the humour of the game without giving away most of the gags therein. Suffice it to say that there are many times when my friend were caught laughing for far too long at a well delivered joke. The active humour aside, many of the animations within the game allow for a solid chuckle. Watching the King bounce around on his Pony while being attacked by thuggish bees is just so absurd that you can’t help but laugh.

Did I mention that you play a game of volleyball as a “boss fight?” No? Well there you are then.

Visual/Audio Appeal

Castle Crashers is, quite simply, nice to look at. Sure, it’s not some insane 3d rendered planetscape where everything looks photo-realistic. In fact it’s almost simple in its cartoony goodness. Having said that, there is obvious polish that has been added to everything. Subtly added things that just help make the presentation of the game that much better. Maybe it’s the fact that you can see a bad guys skeleton when he gets electrified, or how enemies smolder after they’ve been hit with fire. How about an enemy that throws up the horns before you fight?

I have to mention quickly that when you’re not fighting for your life, make sure you give the backgrounds a gander. They aren’t amazing in and of themselves, but they do usually contain within them more humour and added style that makes everything just that much better.

It’s the little things that really bring about a great visual experience, and this game does it in spades. Oh, and the game is HD ready. That’s an added bonus.

Now the audio in this game is something that just cannot not… not not be enjoyed. The boys over at Newgrounds (where some of The Beheamoths crew came from) have released much of the music in their Castle Crashers section if you’re interested. Much of the music loops flawlessly (there are some exceptions, sadly) and I can guarantee that at least one of the songs will get stuck in your head. The common one for me is the song that plays within the Ark.

Throw in some solid action sounds (raising undead baddies never sounded so good!), and you’ve got yourself some really solid audio to enjoy.

Replay Value

This game comes with so much potential replay value that I am tempted to use the term “oodles.” I won’t but it’s right there, in the shadows, waiting patiently. First off, You have all of the Achievements, which are standard 360 fare. Then you’ve got all of the pets to collect, All of the weapons to get (some of which require you to trade with other players online), and 20 unlockable characters. If that wasn’t enough, there are even two mini games added on:

• All you can Quaff: this game is basically an exercise in pain. You mash the X and Y buttons repeatedly trying to eat your food faster than anyone else. First to finish five plates wins!
• Arena: It seems to play the first arena in offline mode, and I can only assume that online mode yields a “to the death” mode with the players.

On top of all that is the fact that you can play Castle Crashers with up to three other people online making it all that much more fun. Many of the Achievements actually require you to play in online mode, which is both a good and bad thing.

Cost

Dirt cheap. I can’t recall the exact price (somewhere around 800 Microsoft Points rings a bell) but it’s utterly worth it. This game pays for itself in play time as well as over all enjoyment. Added to that are DLCs (Downloadable Content Packs) which give you access to new playable characters, weapons, and even a new pet. They currently only have one DLC out (costing 160 Points), though there are many hints as to more.

Overall

Totally and completely worth it. If you have an XBox 360 and you don’t have this game, you are basically shaming yourself. It’s cheap, it plays well, it’s funny, it’s enjoyable, and it’s got oodles of replay value. I can’t think of a reason you wouldn’t want to get it.

9/10

God damn it all to the Abyss I said “oodles.”

Regardless, since using Dropbox I can only say that it does everything perfectly. If ever you could have a backup system for the lazy, the inexperienced, or the uninterested this would be it. I know that casts an odd light on Dropbox, but trust me when I say that it is probably the single most impressive piece of software/service that I have ever installed. I’ve commented on using Dropbox before, but now I’m going to get into it with more detail.

So what is Dropbox?

Though their website explains it well enough, the jist is this: Anything in your Dropbox is automatically synced with any computers attached to that account, as well as the Dropbox web server. That’s a lot of things that are awesome all in one sentence, so I’ll try and explain in greater detail.

First, most back-up devices require you, the user, to do something; click a button, tell the system to sync, commit your files, etc.. Sometimes you have chron jobs set up to do these things for you. The joy about Dropbox is that it’s all automatic. Even better is that it’s silent about it. If you add a file, it just tries to sync to the server. If your computer isn’t connected to the Internet, it just sits there patiently. No error messages, no dialogues, no chicken-with-head-chopped-off reactions from the program. This is fantastic.

When you are connected, and you add or remove files, it silently updates your computer and the server, and when it’s finished, it will tell you what has changed. It silently ques files to upload or download and just goes to town. No confirm or allows required.

Second, you can sync as many computers as you want to the same account. This means that personally, my laptop and my desktop have all of the same files within their Dropboxes. This allows me to share files between them even when I’m not on the network. This also means that if anything explodes, I’ve got at least one backup. The kicker is that my files are also stored on the Dropbox server, so if both of my computers die, I’ve still got the ability to recover anything that was in my Dropbox.

This as an added bonus. I have a niece, and she’s recently started in ballet. My mother is gaga over the little’un, but as she is currently in Alberta and we in Ontario, viewing is a limited practice. MSNs Sharing Folder decided to stop syncing. This is something that happens between specific users, and I have no idea why. In any case, I opted to get around it by creating a Dropbox account for my brother and my mother and linked their computers together. They can now share files hassle-free. Brilliant

Third, they’ve got a solid online management system. You can view a history of files you have changed, as well as that copy of the file. This is an impressive step on their part. Basically if you over-write or delete something, you can actually go and recover the file. You can set permissions on files to allow public linking, download entire folders as zip files, and even view what computers are attached to your account.

Fourth, it’s free. Well alright, you get two gigs of server space free, and if that’s not enough, you can upgrade to 50 gigs for 100 dollars a year (or 9.99 a month, if that’s what you’re looking for). This simply blows my mind, and I know that when I really get into designing and freelancing, this could very well be the best 100 dollars I could spend on my business.

Fifth, it acts like a normal folder. Add files to the folder, delete some, create sub-folders, whatever you want. Dropbox will replicate the structure and files on the server and any of the computers sync’ed to the account. No fancy interface to learn, no special keyboard commands to learn; it lets the operating system do all of the UI work for structure management.

Lastly, it’s unreasonably easy to install. You can either get Dropbox running in basically two ways:

First way

1. Go to www.getdropbox.com.
2. Make an account.
3. Download and run Dropbox.
4. When asked if you have an account, say yes.
5. Fill out account info.
6. Finish.

Second way

1. Go to www.getdropbox.com.
2. Download and run Dropbox.
3. When asked if you have an account, say no.
4. Fill out account creation form.
5. Finish.

That’s it. That’s everything you need to do to have Dropbox up and running. It honestly puts WordPress’ famous “Five-minute install” to shame. If you have a fast connection and quick fingers, you can have Dropbox running in about 2 minutes. That is an impressive engineering feat.

So what if you want to add another computer to your account?

1. On new computer, go to Go to www.getdropbox.com.
2. Download and run Dropbox.
3. When asked if you have an account, say yes.
4. Fill out account info.
5. Finish.

Now I think there could be a confirmation requirement on the web interface, but I honestly cannot remember. I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong before.

Additional perks

So I’ve talked about Dropbox and what it can do from a main feature stand-point, but what about those who are more technologically inclined? What is there in Dropbox that really makes it a solid program technically?

Well first off, you can specify where you want your Dropbox. By default it picks a location (Users/coreydutson/Dropbox on the ol’ Mac) but if you want to store it somewhere else, you are more than welcome to.

Using one set of credentials, you can attach multiple computers. This means that you only need to remember one user name and password for all of the computers attached. Though I admit that I haven’t found a way to attach to multiple Dropboxes (probably avoided purposely to negate free account abuse), and this could be considered a limitation, you must remember that it was made to be simple. This means that some consessions had to be made.

You can set Dropbox to use Growl, if you’re on a Mac and that’s what you’re into. You can also set maximum upload and download rates to help stop Dropbox from slowing your connection down. You can even have proxy information for those that need it.

So what?

Well for me, this is my only means of backup at the moment. This may horrify some people, but remember that should my hard drive fail, I can always replace it and re-install. There isn’t very much on this computer that I couldn’t get again. Everything stored in my Dropbox are files that I cannot replicate; namely all of my school work, resume information, and some freelance work I’ve done.

I can rest easy knowing that should my computers die at any time, I can still access all of my schoolwork upto this point. This is something that any student can appreciate. Those who work with a lot of important documents (layout PSDs come to mind) can probably share a horror story about losing a HDD or over-writing a file and being utterly S.O.L.. I’ve been there myself, and I now operate under the “once bitten, twice shy” method of job/school security.

In Summary

If you need a way to back up files safely, easily, and hastle-free Dropbox is for you. I cannot recommend it enough. I’m going to mention it to my Professors at school, and who knows, it may become standard practice for students. It’s totally worth the 2 minutes to get up and runnin.

Get Dropbox.

When I saw the actual lecture, I was at work. Though I told myself I would let it play in the background as I worked, that idea was quickly thrown out and I watched the 76 minute video without pause. Actually there was one pause when I went to the washroom. You get the idea.

When I found out he had a book, the only reason I didn’t buy it was because my girlfriend wanted it. So I got it for her and borrowed it when she was finished.

It’s not about how you achieve your dreams. It’s about how you lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.

Randy Pausch was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. Anyone who knows anything about this cancer (which is surprisingly little, as it turns out) knows that being diagnosed with this type of cancer is basically being handed a death warrant. Randy had three children – 6, 4, and 2 if I recall correctly – and the thing that ripped him apart the most was that he wouldn’t be able to be there as they grew up. His youngest children would probably have no memory of him whatsoever.

As luck would have it, the university he worked at – Carnegie Mellon University – had a series of lectures called “The Last Lecture” and asked him to do one. He realized that this would be a way to immortalize himself a bit for his children. He delivered the lecture, explaining how to achieve one’s childhood dreams, how to help others achieve theirs, and how to live one’s life.

The Last Lecture, the book that is, is not a verbatim transcript of the lecture, though that would have been rather good in and of itself. No, the book has everything the delivered lecture had, but it also had stories that took place before and after said lecture. The book reveals even more about what an extraordinary person Randy actually was. I know it sounds corny, but as it turns out he really was a fantastic individual.

I’m not trying to gush over the late Randy Pausch, far from it in fact. What I’m trying to say is that everything he says in his book is a direct extension of him; his past, his present, and the future he never has. His words of wisdom will most likely be quoted for years to come by parents to their children, and they may not even remember where they got it from.

My only complaint with the book is that it is too short. The reason I say this is because he shouldn’t of had to write a book, but because he was put into this position by things beyond his control, he did what he could. If and when his children read The Last Lecture, I hope that they can take away from it as much as the rest of the world has. The book is a perfect blend of sorrow and schadenfreude. You’re damned happy you’re not him, but your devastated that this man is dead. I can honestly say that reading through this book brought me to tears more than once. It moved me very, very deeply.

It’s just as fantastic as the lecture, but delivers even more personal stories and feelings to the reader. It’s as tragic as it is magnificent, and I mean it when I say that everyone should read this book.

Everyone.

11/10 – Just cause I friggin’ can.

Also, if you’re interested in researching Pancreatic Cancer, here are some resources:

• Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Reasearch
• Pancreatic Cancer Action Network
• and if you have some spare change: http://www.firstgiving.com/randypausch

I don’t even feel bad.

I really do suggest that everyone purchase and play the hell out of the new Sam & Max series. Both seasons are fabiola.

That’s right, I said fabiola.

I can honestly attest to what he’s saying, seeing as how I have worked insane amount of overtime at my current place of work. The worst part about it that I have noticed is that I bust my ass off by working overtime just so we can hit the all-important, all-omnipresent deadline and then turn around to find another one looming overhead. It’s painful, and to be honest it’s aggravating, infuriating, and depressing all at once. Point 2 – “If the deadline set for your project [...] next deadline will be as tight as this one. If not tighter.” – is so true it hurts. I have stated many times at my current reside that the time lines are made without actually talking to us (in some cases) and this in turn screws us, the development team. I don’t know if my statements fall of deaf ears, but I have noticed that recently I have not had to work the overtime I used to… with the exception of last week. That was rough.

Anyways!

I cannot say whether this tight-lining the deadlines is purposely done, but I can tell you that it leads almost instantly into point 4 and 5. Working overtime burns you out. I worked 7 weeks straight at my job at one point. It was our whole development team’s trial by fire. We pulled it off, but there is nothing to brag about pulling a 45 hour work day. No matter how hardcore you feel, you look like shit and your appearance will scare small children.

The second half of the post is the really important part though. It’s the part that attention needs attention paid. It’s easy(ish) to state what evil will be wrought from working overtime, if given enough time to think about it. It’s another thing entirely to actually come up with ways to stop doing it. I have trouble with this part, as I’m sure many other people do. It’s hard to say no to the people who sign your paychecks and keep you from living out of your car. Trust me on this one, it’s hard to do and I’m still trying to figure out how to get the idea across.

Jarkko makes good points on how to get rid of overtime; points 4 through 7 on the second list are easy to do and I feel are just good practices to… well… practice! Number 8 is the truly difficult one. If you do this wrong, people will feel you’re not a team player, only looking out for yourself, etc. When talk like this hits managements ears, you’re in for a world of hurt and/or welfare checks. I’m not saying you should live in perpetual fear of your higher-ups (though a little fear is healthy, or so I’m told) but shooting yourself in the foot by arrogantly declaring that you are a slave to overtime no more will not win you any points.

I’ll clearly state that I’ve got a screwed up work-ethic, and so overtime though a horrible concept, I perceive as an occasional requirement. I think I may have gotten it from my father, but I’m not entirely sure. I’m slowly working on being able to work without having to complete projects via overtime but it’s an ongoing process.

Bethany, the world is a beautiful place. Life is short, and yet it’s long. Being here is such a gift.
Excerpt from The Gum Thief

The synopsis is not something I can easily go through and so I shall keep it short. Roger is a pathetic excuse for a man who is in his 40′s and working at Staples. Bethany is a girl who’s a bit too old to be a Goth with no real direction in life. She too works at Staples. They connect through their writing each other notes. Nothing romantic in them, but a connection is forged. And that is the simple yet stunning basis of the book. From there it is a whirlwind of real-life and the human thought process. To add to it there is a story within the book called Glove Pond which I honestly wish was a book on its own, as well as the deeply moving stories of different slices of bread and toast.

I’m aware that I’m a fanboy of Douglas Coupland. Anyone that looks at my cluttered bookshelf will note that fairly quickly. I can say that I enjoy his writing style and that generally it isn’t for everyone. You need to appreciate the subtle (and some times not so subtle) outrageousness his books tend to sport.On that note, The Gum Thief may be his most toned-down novel ever. This is in no way a bad thing, and I find it unsettling how realistic the characters feel. They truly feel like people you would utterly ignore walking down the street while you think other thoughts. That’s exactly what he was going for, I think. He wanted to give depth to the two-dimensional characters we see walking down the street, the ones that work in Staples, those who move through life in obscurity.

It’s a story about nothing and everything all at once. It’s a snapshot of the every day life of two people. Not two super humans or eccentric crazy-folk. Just regular people. It hooked me late in the book, but when I finished it I wished that there had been hundreds of pages more. It’s heart-warming in the tenderness that the characters portray towards each other. It’s crushing in watching their lives go through dark patches and slide to the brink of nothingness. It’s triumphant in leaving you laughing on one page and deeply moved the next.

If you can read Douglas Copeland’s work (there are those who can’t stand him, and that’s understandible), you must read this. If you’re an actual fan of his, this may be the best thing I’ve ever read by him to date.

Depressing and beautiful. As captivating as watching the sun go out.

9.5/10