Book Review #63: Ghost In The Wires

Ghost In The Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker (2011)

Ghost In The Wires is about one of the craziest, insane reads I have ever come across. Boy, was this a fun ride from start to finish. I originally came across this book while watching The Colbert Report and Kevin Mitnick was on the show promoting the book. And when Stephen Colbert ask him about why he was thrown into solitary confinement when he went to prison and Kevin responded with "...the defense argued with the Court Judge that I could start a nuclear war simply by calling into NORAD and whistling the code." I KNEW I had to read this.

So, did it live up to what I was expecting? Oh hell yeah! It's everything and more, plus the kitchen sink too. I swear, I was reading this fast and furious and I could not put the book down at all. The entire time I was reading it, I was picturing this as a thriller, a movie that is sure to happen. I can guarantee you that it will become a feature length film down the road. Contrary to popular belief, WarGames was not based on his life as a hacker. The similarities are there and that was the first thing that kept coming to my mind as I read the book.

There as some pretty wild stuff inside, like how Mitnick was able to elude the FBI, CIA and every known Government Agency simply by hacking into their phone lines and frequencies and setting up an alert for when they were closing in on him. Crazy. 

One of the best cat and mouse games in the book occurs when he meets up with a "world renowned" hacker by the name of "Eric Heinz", only to find out that he is in fact an FBI Snitch looking to take down Kevin. But it's the ensuing invesigation into Eric's background that truly leaves you spellbound in the ease in which he takes apart everything the FBI worked so hard to put together. He literally makes it look like a hot knife through butter. That easy. Just...wow.

Along with all this high octane thrill rides, there were some pretty funny pranks that he pulled like the McDonald Hack where Kevin is able to hack into the Drive-In Speaker box from across the street and watch the hilarity ensue with drivers pulling up to place their orders. Love the scene when a Cop drove up to the speaker box to place his order and Kevin at the other end of the radio frequency tells him they "don't serve cops and he will have to go to Jack In The Box"

The other funny one was when he tells this chick that if she shows her titties, her Big Mac was free, only to enrage her to the point of turning off her car, grabbing a baseball bat from the car trunk and heading inside the resturant. Priceless!! The rumor about Kristy McNichol was pretty funny too.

This is a definite Buy.

Rating: 5 Stars out of 5

Review by Chiprocks1

Book Review #62: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)

On Writing was the book that Stephen King was writing when he was run down by a Van one evening, leaving him hanging onto dear life. It would be a while before he would eventually complete this book. So, how does it hold up? It's okay. The book itself is one part semi-autobiography, one part "how to write" and one part "I got mowed down by a car and left in a ditch".

The first part is a semi autobiography in that Mr. King doesn't go into great detail about his upbringing. The sole purpose of this part is to highlight where and how ideas come to him, and how to not quit something, no matter how much you may hate what your writing, or the characters or whatever, because you never know what you may have in your hands. In this case, it was Carrie. Believe it or not, but he actually threw the story away and only by devine intervention that his wife would find it in the trash, was the story saved.

The second part is where most people will head to first as it's the sole reason why most people, myself included, decided to pick up the book in the first place. There are some pretty useful tips that he hands over to the reader in the hopes to make us a better writers, But a lot of the stuff that we get is just common knowledge. If you're wanting to become a writer, I would think you already have the basics of grammar and all that fun stuff down cold.

The last part is of course Mr. King recounting in great detail about the day he was run over and the ensuing rehabilitation that he had to endure to get back into shape...both physically and mentally before he could even get around to writing again.

It's a good book, just not a great one. 

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars out of 5

Review by Chiprocks1

Book Review #61: You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried

 You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried (2010)

You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried is kind of a "biography" about John Hughes, the creative genius behind the best teen films of the 80's. But it's really about the movies themselves and the influence that Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, Some Kind Of Wonderful as well as other movies like St. Elmo's Fire and Say Anything had on both pop culture as well as those touched by them. It also goes into detail the lasting legacy they have had over the past 25 years.

Even though a lot of the book is devoted to John Hughes and his movies, a sizable portion is dedicated to both Joel Schumacher and Cameron Crowe, as both St. Elmo's Fire and Say Anything get dissected in ways I've never thought of before with a lot of background stories, which I found very interesting. But as the cover of the book alludes to, the majority is about John Hughes films.

I thought I knew most of the background stuff regarding pretty much all the movies associated with Hughes. Boy was I ever wrong. The most revealing stuff had to do with Some Kind Of Wonderful and all the turmoil behind the scenes during the making of that movie. I never knew that Eric Stoltz and John Hughes almost came to blows during the first day on set during the table read.

The other eye opening info had to do with how Hollywood in a way "corrupted" Hughes. As he became more and more powerful in Tinseltown, he started to change, and not in a good way as he began to alienate those closest to him as his head began to get bigger and bigger. Even though we get a lot of dirt about the man, it's doesn't go into great detail about his life. I won't fault the book for this because it's about his movies and their impact and not about where he came from.

Also dissected is how the Brat Pack moniker came to come about and how it affected those saddled with that label and how careers and friendships were ruined because of it.

I may be a bit biased, but because I'm a huge fan of all his movies and enjoy reading about them, giving the book 5 Stars was easy.

Rating: 5 Stars out of 5

Review by Chiprocks1