My New Ubuntu Natty Wallpaper

Dear Mr. Shuttleworth,

 I am having ever so much fun with the new Unity desktop. I felt so inspired by the spirit of unity that I created a new desktop wallpaper for my computer. It truly warms the cockles of my heart to beta test your wonderful software.

Cheers,

Mikey

I have the touch!

The poison touch, that is. The proverbial brown thumb. It's a reverse midas touch kind of power: everything I touch turns to crap.

It's  an awesome and mighty power. I have an uncanny ability to pick losers. Whatever I like, gets the spike. I liked the TV show Firefly. Canceled. FlashForward. Canceled.  My Name is Earl. Canceled. Yikes! No more TV for me.  I decided that I would wait a few years for the reruns to appear, and spend my time reading books and speaking in tongues to computers as a hobby, instead of watching TV. Although Hollywood heaved a very big sigh of relief, it's just too late for some.

Now writers must face my dangerous attentions. John Biggins was dropped by his publisher. He's self publishing on Amazon.com, poor guy. Even Neil Gaiman can't get R.A. Lafferty reprinted. (Good thing R.A. is now a blessed memory... he'd starve otherwise.) Earlier I reviewed Sara Vowell's book, The Wordy Shipmates, for Skokie Public Library's Winter Reading Whatever-a-thon. Hey, just shoot me, OK? I just wanted to win one of the prizes for my sweetie.

So, today I find in the "Buy Our Discarded Books for $1 Snack Zone Copy Center" section of the library... The Wordy Shipmates. The very copy that I checked out earlier this year and reviewed. With the purple X of death on its spine. The book was just published in 2008, and now in 2011 the library's already binning it for a buck. You know,  they still have Erle Stanley Gardiner books printed in 1955 on the shelf, but Sara Vowell gets the axe after three stinking years. I hope she has health insurance.

Screw it. I'm joining the Tea Party. They deserve me. There's just no way I'm going to the OTB, that's for sure.

Snow Day

The big storm has dropped a huge load of snow here in Skokie. I'm not sure I can open the front door -- there's a snowdrift  about 3-4 feet high in front of it. The back has a sliding door, so if I really want to go outside, I can. Earlier I heard children from next door outside, walking and playing with their dog. I started a pot of black beans with smoked turkey wings and sausage in the slow cooker, then did the crossword puzzle and the jumble. Then watched a couple ot TV shows on Hulu. The house smells great from the slowly cooking beans. It's now 12:38 PM; time to hit the showers.

Life is beautiful!

 

Dreaming in Chinese

Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love and Language by Deborah Fallows

The author, a lady from the USA, lived in China for years, and writes about her experiences there. What's interesting about this book is she doesn't write much about tourist sites, cuisine or martial arts, but rather about what she learned about Chinese people and society while living in China while trying to learn Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua). She writes about getting a Chinese name, something that “would demonstrate that we weren't just here to flit around China, but intended to stick it out for a while.” Foreigners are given a name made of Chinese words that sound like their name in their native tongue. For example, Dr. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger (who wrote as Cordwainer Smith) became “Lin Bai-lo” (“Forest of Incandescent Bliss”). Alas, Deborah became “jie bi” “borrow a pen”, which just plain sucks. She correctly deep-sixed the bad name, and spent three years dodging it. There's a lot more about Chinese culture, society and language – a lot of Chinese language here – because it takes a lot of work for English speakers to dream in Chinese.

A Writer is Me!

In the Kingdom of Loathing, the Naughty Sorceress is no more. Outside of the Kingdom of Loathing lies the domain known as the real world. In that place I wrote a book review for the Skokie Public Library Winter Reading program. To my surprise, they put my review in the library's blog! Way cool, but sadly, they didn't correct my accidental truncation of the title. The correct title is The Wordy Shipmates. The librarians probably respect my words too much to edit them.

 

What Skokie is Reading

from The Bookshelf by Lynnanne

As part of our Winter Reading program, we are encouraging you readers to write your own reviews of books when you enter them on your reading log. Many readers have already contributed book reviews and, during the course of the Winter Reading program, we will share with you some of these wonderful reviews.
Today’s review is of The Wordy Shipmate by Sarah Vowell:

This book, written by a former contributing editor and consigliore of the radio show “This American Life”, is a fascinating, penetrating, personal and funny book about the Puritan settlers who emigrated to the New World to build a “city upon a hill”. Few authors could get me interested in the minutiae of Protestant theology, yet I found myself reading eagerly about things such as “the covenant of grace” and “the covenant of works”. Not to mention all the other goings on – banishments, cruel and unusual punishments, the conjoined church and state, wars with the Native Americans and a legion of strong personalities with serious differences of opinions and only a little tolerance. These people, their issues and the events surrounding them, still resonate today beyond the cans of baked beans available in every supermarket.
Click here to find out what Skokie is reading and reviewing and to register for the Winter Reading program.

Still Looking for the Key

I'm still pillaging my way through Loathing, looking for the last necessary key. Above is one of my consolation prizes:

The Best Meal of My Life Trophy

which you can earn by eating  60 White Citadel burgers, 10 orders of White Citadel fries, four Cherry Cloaca Colas and four Diet Cloaca Colas. 

I'm still waiting for the heart attack.

 

 

Chasing the Naughty Sorceress

The Naughty Sorceress from the Kingdom of Loathing

Back in the day (the day being sometime around 1974), I used to play a game called Dungeons and Dragons. I was an enthusiastic player for a number of years, until I wasn't. I lost interest, and so did my friends. The thrill was gone. I stopped playing role playing games, cold turkey. I moved on to other things, and so did most of my friends. I cast no more spells, and adventured underground no more. Orcs were safe in my presence, unless they were very annoying.

This has all changed. I now adventure again, in a place called  The Kingdom of Loathing. Don't ask me why, because I really don't know. I do know that I am in good company and having fun, so I'm just rolling with it. Last night I earned the "Right Tool for the Job" trophy by adventuring 100 times in the Haunted Bathroom of Spookyraven Manor armed with a Gnollish Autoplunger.

That's a  tool I could use in the real world. The toilet has been acting up, and my arm is getting tired using the old-fashioned regular old plunger. Sadly, Gnollish Autoplungers appear to be unavailable for ready money. Later tonight, you can find me looking for Boris's key, which is hidden somewhere in the Kingdom of Loathing. With that key, the Naughty Sorceress is toast! Yes indeed!