Book Meme
Christopher tagged me to do a book meme. This was rather fun. I've tagged five more people below, but even if you are not tagged, consider giving your answers below or on your own blog.
1) How many books have I owned?
I'd have to answer the same as Christopher. I have no idea. What can I tell you? I can say that my book collection is growing, not shrinking, because I do not believe in disposing of books and I also cannot resist a good deal on books (I bought six or seven books in the clearance area of Borders a few weeks back).
2) What was the last book you bought?I purchased the Rule of Four at Costco for $4.25 a week or two ago.
“Princeton. Good Friday, 1999. On the eve of graduation, two students are a hairsbreadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Famous for its hypnotic power over those who study it, the five-hundred-year-old Hypnerotomachia may finally reveal its secrets — to Tom Sullivan, whose father was obsessed with the book, and Paul Harris, whose future depends on it. As the deadline looms, research has stalled — until an ancient diary surfaces. What Tom and Paul discover inside shocks even them: proof that the location of a hidden crypt has been ciphered within the pages of the obscure Renaissance text.”
I read the prologue, and it sounded pretty good. For the price, how could I pass it up? It is $7.99 at Amazon.
3) Last book that you’ve read.
The last book I read was iCon: The Greatest Second Act in Business by Jeffery Young and William Simon. I'm going to post my final thoughts on that book later. You can find some half-way-through impressions, here.
I am presently reading two books. I am reading Brad Thor's State of the Union and C.S. Lewis' the Screwtape Letters, with Screwtape Proposes a Toast. The former I saw at the grocery store's mainline back in June and was intrigued by the endorsement quote by Dan Brown on the front. I went back the next week and they no longer carried it. I finally got it at Borders, which, like Amazon, but unlike the grocery store, was selling it for the cover price rather than at a discount ($7.99). It has a pretty good plot, after you get past the initial disorientation of each early chapter jumping to a new character. Now, I want to know what will happen. Sadly, its language and some events are a bit crude for my taste; while most pop novels use some language, this one has a particular penchant for the f-word. Unlike the Da Vinci Code, I'd have major reservations about recommending it for that reason.
The Screwtape Letters is such a good book. Several years ago, I read a good chunk of it one day at the bookstore when I was waiting to meet someone. Last Christmas I was given a copy, but only have recently found time to return to the world of Uncle Screwtape and his nephew, the newbie tempter Wormwood. I've finished the main part of the book and have ten pages left in Screwtape Proposes the Toast, which was written by Lewis much later in his life. Like everything Lewis wrote, the Letters are both enjoyable and thought provoking.
I had planned to borrow my mother's copy of Philip Yancy's the Jesus I Never Knew to read next, but she doesn't know where it is right now. I'm thinking about moving to C.S. Lewis' Miracles next, as a substitute.
4) 5 books that have meant a lot to you.
I'm going to take the Bible out of the running, like Christopher did. Let's see:
- Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
- Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
- the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
- New! Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
- the Orestia by Aeschylus
5) Tag five people that haven’t played yet.
I don't remember seeing this meme elsewhere, other than just now at WIT, so I'm just going by who Christopher tagged as to decide who to avoid.
On the Road Again
I'm heading out for a short trip down to the Ozarks. I need to talk to the Cranium Leakage folks before next time, that way we can meet. I'll be waving as I go by…
See y'all on Friday, after which I'll review Mame and explain what the new features are on asisaid.
MAME
I saw Mame tonight at the Muny. I'm too tired to write anything more about it just now. But, for being so hot, I will say that the light breeze helped a lot. For now, good night.
Testing Some New Features
Does this work right? I hope it does, because everything looks right in the code…
405
You just have to watch this. It is only three minutes long, so don't read the synopsis on the download site before loading it. You can view it in Windows Media Format, QuickTime or MPEG-1 (click Windows Media on the selection page to get to the MPEG version).
Smell the Color 9
I would take “no” for an answer
Just to know I heard You speak
And I'm wonderin' why I've never
Seen the signs they claim they see
Are the special revelations
Meant for everybody by me?
Maybe I don't truly know You
Or maybe I just simply believe 'Cause I can sniff, I can see
I can count up pretty high
But these faculties aren't getting me
Any closer to the sky
But my heart of faith keeps poundin'
So I know I'm doin' fine
But sometimes finding You
Is just like trying to
Smell the color nine
And, for the complete “Music Stuck in Tim's Head” chart for this week:
- Chris Rice - Smell the Color 9 (Smell the Color 9)
- Casting Crowns - Who Am I? (Casting Crowns)
- Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter (O)
- Michael W. Smith - All I Want (Healing Rain)
- Andrew Lloyd Weber - Hosanna (Jesus Christ Superstar)
- Evanescence - Tourniquet (Fallen)
- MercyMe - Spoken For (Spoken For)
- Sixpence None the Richer - There She Goes (Sixpence None the Richer)
- Meredith Wilson - Lida Rose / Will I Ever Tell You? (The Music Man)
- Dido - White Flag (Life for Rent)
Of Large Cats and Fuzzy Penguins
Well, I finally admit it on my public soap box at Open for Business: I'm a Mac user. Read my story of how I ended up using a Mac at OfB.biz. The article is part three in a series of columns on the desktop, beginning with “Debate Without End: KDE and Qt Licensing” and then followed up by “I GNU It”.
What You Leave Behind
After the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I pretty much quit watching anything Star Trek. I'm not sure exactly why, but I did. I do not believe I've even watched more than a handful of DS9 reruns since that sad day in June of 1999. I did watch part of the first season of Enterprise, but it never pulled me in that much, despite being a decent show.
Lately, I've used the DVR to grab some DS9 episodes off of the TV. It reminded me of why I liked Star Trek so much, and why Enterprise didn't cut the mustard.
I started toward the end of the series, catching three episodes and one episode from season six and season seven, respectively. All of the four episodes showed off DS9's ability to grapple with a wide variety of plots, from a wide variety of angles and do it well. I then recorded a few more episodes, just this week, catching Emissary Part I and II (the pilot episode), along with a few other earlier episodes.
From the beginning, DS9 managed to walk the fine line of being a dark series (both visually and plot-wise) while keeping an air of hope. Emissary is both depressing, beginning with the death of Commander Sisko's wife at the Wolf 359 Borg invasion three years prior to the beginning of DS9, and hopeful, as the Prophets help Sisko realize that he “remains” at the point of his wife's death despite that he feels he has moved on. Using this ingenious plot, the writers started off the Star Trek spinoff by exploring the psychological issues of loss and grief in a powerful, unique way that immediately made you connect with Sisko.
Connecting with the characters is exactly what the series managed best. Watching the early episodes again feels like being reunited with old friends. Two nights ago, I watched the episode that introduced one of the series' most fascinating, complex characters, “plain and simple Garak.” Garak the tailor turns out to be much more as the series unfolds: he is actually a washed out spy of the Obsidian Order of Cardassia and the illegitimate child of the head of the Order, Enabran Tain, who is never willing to acknowledge Garak as his son until Tain's dying moments in a fight with the Dominion. Garak's participation with Tain in a Cardassian-Romulan battle against the Dominion ultimately also brings about the collapse of Cardassia, which, in turn, brings about the Dominion war that covered approximately two years of the storyline, and is the climax of Deep Space Nine's seven year run.
Every bit of the show was interconnected. Few episodes were merely gratuitous stories: they all fit into the bigger picture, even if they were good by themselves. Unlike the Star Trek franchises before or after it, DS9 was really one giant epic that played out over seven years. Rather than being truly episodes, the episodes where more like chapters in a giant book. It has all the marks of a good story: villains who are evil but likable (Gul Dukat, Lt. Cmdr. Michael Eddington and Weyoun, for example), heroes that are flawed and fail to see their destiny (Captain Benjamin Sisko, especially, but Kira, Odo, Bashir and others too), and plenty of ambiguous characters to keep you on your toes (Quark, Elim Garak, Kai Winn, Sloan, etc.).
While each Trek had its high points, Deep Space Nine episodes such as Emissary, Paradise Lost and In the Pale Moonlight that drove DS9 further. While DS9 did pretty much trash the Roddenberrian idealism that formed the basis of Star Trek, I'd say that doing so was probably a good thing: as nice as Roddenberry's utopian vision was to imagine, it wasn't realistic.
Returning to DS9 after six years has given me a new appreciation for it. Instead of already being “inside the universe,” the story must pull me back in, and this has allowed me to analyze it much better than I could before. DS9 should surely rank among the best dramatic tales told on or off of television in the 20th century. Sure, you have to get yourself accustomed to Star Trek terminology and history to fully appreciate it, but once you do (or even if you do not), you'll find an amazingly complex, dark and rich story that accomplished what few other works have ever attempted, much less succeeded at.
Logic Board Blues
My PowerMac has been in the shop for almost two weeks. I knew I was in trouble before I took it in: it has had intermitent freezing problems since it was apparently hit by a surge this spring. It acted just like a car and refused to produce the problem when the Apple Store was trying to diagnose what was wrong. After four or five days, they gave up on diagnosing it and just ordered a new logic board.
For whatever reason, the logic board didn't arrive until today, despite being sent DHL. They installed the new logic board and — good news! — now the problem isn't intermitent, it happens every single time it is turned on! 
So, they said they are now testing everything inside the system to see if it could somehow be adversely impacting the new logic board. They also have another logic board on order, but that'll probably be another day or two.
I miss my G5. I hope the next logic board works better than this one did.
A New Donut Company
I was introduced to a new donut company this morning: LeMar's. Well, it isn't a new donut company, but it seems to be relatively new to St. Louis and it only has one location, in Creve Coeur, at the moment.
I've now tried two of their huge, $.75 donuts, and I'm fairly happy with them. This morning, I had a lemon jelly donut. It was probably close to twice the size of an average jelly donut, was very soft and had a good icing on it. The lemon wasn't the tartest, but it was good. Just a little while ago, I tried another one, a German chocolate donut, that was excellent.
As a whole, LeMar's isn't as tasty as Krispy Kreme, I'd say, but I'll stop again. LeMar's claims the Rocky Mountain News chose their donuts over Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Donuts (as well as others). While I'd probably agree that the donuts I enjoyed today where better than Dunkin' Donuts by quite a bit, I suspect it was a bit of hometown pride on the part of the News to pass up Krispy Kreme for first place. That's my professional donut eating story and I'm sticking to it.
