Tag: reading

When I was in elementary school; I used to get in trouble for talking to the other kids during class. Eventually, this got bad enough that the teacher called my Mom in for a parent-teacher conference to discuss the problem…

Teacher: Mark keeps talking during class and it’s very disruptive.
Mom: When is he doing all this talking?
Teacher: After he finishes his assignment.
Mom: Did you give him something to read?
Teacher: Yes, but he finished that book.
Mom: Did you try giving him another one?
Teacher: Yes, but he finished that one too.
Mom: *glare*
Teacher: In fact, he’s already read all the books in the room.
Mom: Why don’t you get him another one from the library then?
Teacher: I did but he finished it already.
Mom: *glare* Then why don’t you let him go to the library and get another one?
Teacher: Wha…. I can’t do that!?! He could get into all sorts of trouble walking down the hallway.
Mom: *glare* If you let him go to the library; he’ll stop talking in class.

Eventually, I was allowed to walk those halls, wander the shelves of the library and seek out new books to read. As Mom predicted, once I had something to read; I was quiet in class. This is a habit that has stuck with me over the years and I ended up spending much of my youth in school & public libraries. I bring this up today because for the first time in a long time; I went down to CPL and checked out some books. This sudden trip to my local public library was prompted by their advertising of an adult summer reading program. The basic idea is you have to read 6 books, turn in a log and then you’ll be entered to win a gift certificate to a book store. I never could turn down free books; so I decided to go sign up2.

As I wandered around the library looking for some books to read; I felt a sense of nostalgia and loss. There were entire summers in my youth were I barely went anywhere else besides the library. These days, the rarity is when I do go. I miss those fabled days of yesteryear when life was simple and I could relax with a book in my hand all summer long. *sigh*

So why haven’t I been going? Partly because I’m an ornery cuss who doesn’t like having to wait and if the library doesn’t have the next book in a series I’m reading; it irks me. Partly because I can afford to buy more books for myself than I could when I was younger. Having my own copy of a book means I can read it whenever I like 24/7/3653 and the copy of the book I’m reading is likely to be in better condition (plus it’ll stay that way). *shrug* Not sure what else I have to say, except that I hope to be making visits to my public library more often. It’ll let me relive parts of my past (and beat some of this summer heat).

1 For some reason, employers don’t like it when you read books all day instead of testing their software.
2 Besides, money has been a bit tighter of late and borrowing books from the library is cheap entertainment. 😀
3 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (366 in a leap year).

Gossamer Commons

Later today, I’ll be posting PLotW1 but before that happens here’s a different link that you should really check out. Gossamer Commons is a relatively recent webcomic, started back in March 2005 by Eric Burns and Greg Holkan. Eric writes, Greg draws. The premise is something like so; the main character, Keith, has saved the life of a fairy child. Since he did this while knowing that seeing the fairy would mark him for death2; the Fairies owe him 1 boon of Keith’s choosing. As Keith has longed to be a published author; he requests, as his boon, that the Fairies give him a muse so he can great the great American novel. A novel that will inspire generations to come and will be read by annoyed college freshmen four hundred years from now. 🙂 Mr. Holkan uses a variety of methods in his artwork on the strip and so far it’s working really well, but the thing that keeps me coming back and reading the new strip is the writing (done by Mr. Burns.). Since I’m not much of a writer myself; I charge you with looking at today’s strip for an example how good this strip can be.

Keep up the good work fellas, we’ll be watching you!

1 Pukka’s Links of the Week
2 Apparently in the GC world just seeing one of the Fairies will automagically mark you for death.

Product Image: TiBR Pro

My rating: 5 out of 5

I recently finished reading the last of my unread stack of books, took a look at my bank account and realized that continuing to buy more at the current time would be… unwise. So I started looking around the apartment for something else to read, but nothing really sparked my interest.

It probably wasn’t helping that a good friend of mine kept writing in her journal about how much she was enjoying rereading The Count of Monte Cristo. Then it occured to me that story is most likely in the public domain, so a quick jaunt over to Project Gutenberg and I’d confirmed that it was in fact in the public domain. Then I started downloading a copy of this and a few other stories when I realized that I didn’t have a book reader on my PDA any more. So I looked around at some review sites and ran across TiBR Pro by inDev Software. Niiiiiiiiice.

TiBR Pro supports reading eBooks off my PDA’s memory stick and even cooler; it allows me to rotate the screen sideways for a much more natural viewing area. They also had a free version, but the description didn’t mention reading from a memory stick and I’ve got enough stuff on my PDA that I really wanted that feature. So I coughed up the measly $9.951 and I’m most pleased with my purchase. So far I’ve worked my way through ~50% of The Count of Monte Cristo and I’ve already downloaded several other books that I look forward to reading using this great new tool!

As a side note while I was searching for eBook readers to load on my PDA; I ran across the ManyBooks website. ManyBooks takes etexts from places like Project Gutenberg and converts them into popular eBook formats. This makes it easier for lazy people like myself to quickly get the stories onto our PDAs for reading whenever we have a spare moment (e.g. during boring meetings).

1 I’ve seen other readers for my PDA costing twice that, which would definitly be out of my budget for the moment.

Ladies of the Internet, you missed your chance! By the time you’re reading this, my fiance Ariesna and I will have completed exchanging our wedding vows and will be shoving cake into each other’s faces1. I’ve known that this day was coming up for some time, but it hadn’t really sunk in what was happening until the rehearsal tonight2 at the church. The sun was shining down and flooding the church with light. My groomsmen were following me to the front of the church and would crack into “Whistle While You Work” or something equally silly. We got to the alter area and we waited for the bride’s maids to come up and finally for Ariesna to be walked up my her father. Then we were holding hands and she was staring up into my eyes with this smile that just radiated joy at me. I’m pretty sure the pastor said something or other to us, but I wasn’t really paying attention to him at that point. I did hear something about practicing our kiss and that part went really well. Then it was all over and back to my Mom’s place to finish up a few last minute things before I headed back to the apartment while Ariesna headed down to her parent’s place.

I’m sure that seems horrendously old fashioned but we’re not going to get to see each other until we show up at the church for our day of wedding bliss3. She’ll show up at the church and get changed into some sort of remarkably girly wedding dress that I’ve yet to see. I’ll show up fully outfitted in my kilt. Yup, a kilt. I’ve got some Scottish blood in my veins and over the past couple of years, I’ve become more interested in that side of my ancestry. Back in the early stages of planning these festivities, I decided too get a kilt and wear it at the wedding. Many of my male friends and family have mocked this decision, particularly after learning what the full outfit cost but I think it’s a good investment. Though I do have to wish I’d found those online kilt rental places earlier so I could have the groomsmen in kilts too. Perhaps then they’d not be so quick to make snide remarks about me wearing a “dress”. Oh and that reminds me, I’ve heard and read many a good quip as a reply to what is worn under a kilt. Most of them I just laugh off, but I’ve got one that works for me. When asked by my oldest brother what I planned to wear beneath my kilt; I told him if he really wants to know, he has to buy a ticket from Ariesna to find out. :p

I apologize if this post seems even more rambling than my usual babblings… But I’ve got my country’s 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. I’m swamped. So now I’m off to get some rest; because as you know, if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.

1 Note: I am under a threat of pain of death if I get any cake on her dress; so I’ll probably be all nice and gentle when I feed her that first piece of wedding cake.
2 I’m writing this post shortly before midnight on Friday, 6 May 2005 but I’m going to change the date/time of the post so that it doesn’t appear until the wedding ceremony has begun. I may get my past/present/future tenses a bit mixed up because of this, but you’ll just have to cope with that.
3 And yes, we’ve already heard many, many, MANY times about the lady from Georgia who had her break down and ran away to Alberqueque. Rest assured safe guards are in place so we won’t be kidnapped and so that neither one of us goes any further insane than we already are. Thank you for being the 900th idjit to make that joke to us.

My internet connection went down over the weekend and I ended up taking a half-day of vacation so I could be around for my appointment with the repair guy from 1-5. *grumpf* Why can’t they make appointments like normal people (e.g. 3-4)? Anyways, as you can see my internet connection has finally been fixed and I’ve been catching up on my email and reading the blogs that I do. The following quiz was found via AWelkin: