Some Stuff I've Been Reading

Liar's Poker and The Big Short by Michael Lewis
To the extent that one can have physical affection for written words, I have a total crush on Michael Lewis' writing. Liar's Poker is about the Gordon Gecko culture of 80s Wall Street. Lewis was a fresh out of grad school, and had the good fortune to land a job at Salomon Brothers-- a major Wall Street bond trading firm, and the originators of the mortgage-backed security.* The Big Short is about the economic meltdown of 2008, as seen through the eyes of a handful of analysts who saw the disaster coming. Though they were written 20 years apart, when read together these books are an awesome chronicle of the rise and fall of the mortgage security market. Lewis has a real flair for personal details that keep the stories and real-life characters engaging and interesting, such that the books read like novels, even during detailed discussions on how bonds work.

*If Salomon sounds familiar, that's because they were the inspiration for The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Liar's Poker reads like a real-life version of that book. Except that Liar's Poker is well written, and enjoyable to read. (Oh yeah, I went there. Tom Wolfe is a hack.)

Mass Effectin'

I finished up up Mass Effect 2 over the weekend, finally. I am an OCD completionist on these games, so I scoured every uninhabited rock in the galaxy in search of sidequests and loot.

I don't think I've ever seen such a frank, uncompromising self-assessment between sequels. The first game did very well, both critically and commercially, but Bioware looked deep and hard at the game they created, and they were not sparing of themselves. Mass Effect has emerged from its chrysalis leaner, smoother, and more streamlined than before.  The wretched, borderline torturous inventory system was completely scrapped, and replaced by a highly streamlined collection of hardware. And when I say streamlined, I mean there are only three or four entries each type of gun. That's a far cry from the 150+ (per gun category!!) that you had to juggle the first time around. Armor upgrades are now just permanent stat boosts, and ammo types have been relegated to powers rather than items. You even have a personal assistant to tell you when you have e-mail.