coreyfrazer.com

Most people who have been to my apartment lately have noted the sudden expansion of my book collection, mostly due to the fabulous used book sale run yearly by the Kingston Symphony Orchestra. People from the community donate books through the year, which are then sold for ridiculously cheap prices. The Symphony rakes in profits in the 10’s of thousands of dollars, and I have to buy new shelves to house my booty. Kingston is a pretty educated town overall, so the quality of the books sold is amazing. They’re not the newest editions, but if you’re dealing with a classic historical text, not much will have changed since it was written…

The book that I’ve most recently finished is Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie. It tells of the end of Romanov rule in Russia leading up to, and during the first world war.  It is an amazing story. The gist of it is that Nicholas marries a German princess and their first born is a son, Alexis.  It is soon discovered that Alexis has hemophilia. This clotting disease was very common in the royal families of Europe due to all the first cousin marriages. The Tsar and his wife are constantly beside themselves with worry over the health of their child, for whom a scraped knee could be fatal.

The story reads like a Shakespearean tragedy. The fall of the mighty Russian Empire, and ultimately the death of Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family can be traced back a single boy with hemophilia. The catalyst for this downfall was Rasputin. Believing that Rasputin was the only one able bring relief to her son, Alexandra gives him incredible access to the inner workings of the Russian Government. Even to the extent that appointment of the Tsar’s ministers was primarily based on whether Rasputin liked the man.

For me, reading this book was sort of paradiam shifting in that Rasputin has always been nearly a fairytale character. Besides the Boney M song (”Ra Ra Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine”) and a little bit about the details of his death (poisoned, shot, shot again while trying to flee, then drowned) I really knew nothing about him. To see the role this man played in events I’m more familiar with, namely World War I, was really interesting.

Anyway, great book. Highly recommended, even for people who don’t consider themselves history buffs.

Well, I’ve finally decided to make a little more use of the webhosting plan I’m paying for and start this blog. I’m a bit of a internet junkie and come across things all the time that I want to share.

I suppose Facebook has been a decent forum for these things, but as I’ve become more computer-literate over the last couple years, I’ve realized that Facebook is a big bloated piece of crap. Its good for looking up old classmates and cyber-stalking people, but thats about it… The best bits of Facebook can be done much much better by programs like WordPress and Php-based photo galleries. Not to mention those antiquated things like email and instant messaging. Once the thrill of looking up old girlfriends has gone, the whole Social Networking thing rings pretty hollow.

Anyway, this will be a place to talk about my interests and hobbies without all the “pirates vs ninjas” “scrabulous” “super-poke” garbage.