A Medley of Extemporanea And No, I'm Not Marie of Romania, but thanks for asking

Where I Lament the Passing of Time

I love pizza.  I think I could eat pizza for every meal, every day, and not get tired of it.  Cold pizza for breakfast? Yum!  Dessert pizza from Pizza Hut? Odd idea, but I like it! Yummy cheese, a variety of things you can put on top, chewy if you want, crispy if you want, the choices seem endless!

I say all that, but I say it with a heavy heart (literally?).  I can’t eat it anymore.  The last several times I’ve had pizza, I’ve had a raging stomach ache the next day.   I have one now.  Courtesy of a “Smokin’ 67s” slice and a “Texas Bold’em” slice from Gabriel’s last night.  The slices were awesome; my reaction is not.

So folks, that’s it. I’m done. Please keep having Gabe’s pizzas, they are still good.  I’m just not going to do this to myself anymore.

Let’s see how long this lasts.

PS: AtD only complained about “Bold’em”.

Where I Wade into the iPad Debate

When I read a book, I read a book; everything else fades off into the hoary mists beyond my imagination.  When I write in a notebook, the same thing happens.  This is good.  I can read a book in a day or two. I can fill ten pages in my notebook with almost a pure stream of output. Simple enough.  When I’m using my web browser, I’ve got 15 tabs open all the time, and my mail client is there, and a bunch of other stuff, and flip, flip, flip, OMG new link in reader!  Case in point: I wrote that last sentence 10 minutes ago, saw that I had a new message, and away goes the concentration.

The iPad, with it’s lack of multitasking, would do away with that for me.  I imagine myself sitting in the back corner at the coffee chop , iPad attached to the add-on keyboard, typing away. Did mail come?  I don’t know.  I’m in my writing app, I can’t check.  I can’t be bothered by the little distractions that a notebook offers me.  I think of it as a more gee whiz (and more expensive)  AlphaSmart , since it will let you type until you are done typing.  But then, it also lets you read until you are done reading, email until you are done emailing, et cetera until you are done et ceteraing, so I guess the extra couple of hundred dollars are justified, since you would get the same functionality (and price) by duct taping an AlphaSmart and an iPod to a Kindle.

Though, you would be able to multitask with the iKinSmart.

The Ethical Dilemma Presented by #AmazonFail

I would like to get my lovely wife a certain book that she is constantly taking out of the library then having to return it as, yet again, someone else requested it.  It is one of those low production books that I haven’t been able to find anywhere in Canada.  In fact, the only place (online) that I’ve found is Amazon.com.  With the whole hurly burly going on now I’m less inclined to send them my money at the moment.

“But wait,” you say, “aren’t you also punishing the author by not buying her book?”

That, my friend, is where I’m getting dilemmaed. On the one hand, this author has been consistently not alive for almost a dozen years, and so is probably past the point of caring; on the other, her estate would probably benefit, and sweetie of mine would be happy.

Update: Problem solved.  I ordered it directly from the publisher.  That works.

Revisiting Old Prejudices

There are things that I haven’t done in life merely because I’ve said to myself, “Self, just because everyone else thinks A doesn’t mean you have to as well.”

This is silly, of course, but has some ramifications.  I’ve never, for instance, read anything by Isaac Asimov, by all accounts one of the grand poobahs of science fiction.  The last movie I’d seen starring Tom Cruise was Top Gun (I have seen cameo type films, namely Goldmember and Young Guns).  I lost Lost.

Not a big deal, true, since other than the reading, I don’t think I’m losing anything other than water cooler conversation by not watching Tom or the cast of Lost go about their business.  I decided to revisit this because of Tropic Thunder.  Funny movie, but  I was really watching it to tick off another Steve Coogan movie (another of my foibles, completism).  My favourite character in the film was the producer.  Bojana and I had been debating the length of the film who it could be, since he looked so familiar.  Tom Cruise.  Huh.

Now, another will fall (unless I don’t end up reading it, it happens in a busy house).  The Wiki page for L. Sprague de Camp mentions that he was part of a monthly banqueting club that had been fictionalized in a series of short stories that sounded so interesting,  I had to read them.  The first should be at my library today.  The author?  Isaac Asimov.