I'm hungry
I've been really hungry at night lately. I'm not sure why. I had a big BBQ dinner from Bandana's Barbecue tonight, but I'm getting in the mood for a nice, big snack. A piece of pie or pizza seems to beckon… I may just have to go get myself one or the other.
Shakespearean Backache?
I decided to get the complete works of Shakespeare on Amazon a few weeks back. I'll need them eventually for a Shakespeare class, and I thought it might come in handy in the mean time. I read the description, which seemed to indicate it was 2057 pages in two volumes. That sounded alright. It might be a bit of a bear to hall around, but the part about putting it in two volumes seemed like a good idea.
It pays to read descriptions carefully.
As it turns out, that was the description for the more expensive version of the Riverside Shakespeare, not the one I ordered. I had the Amazon box sitting on the couch for the last week, and finally decided to open it up today. When I opened it, I quickly realized that it was not in two volumes. This thing is a monster. It is nearly a foot tall and 2/3 of the same in width. It is the better part of three inches thick, and must weigh about the same as a Ford Explorer. Or perhaps a Hummer. And speaking of cars, this book would be an ideal way for the local junkyard to crush old cars — of course, not much would be left after the collision. Not much left of the car, I mean — the book would certainly survive.
I thought about sending it back and ordering the $20 more expensive version that divides things into two volumes, but I think I've thought better of it. This is just a book that won't be traveling with me. If I need to carry the bard's works around, I shall get a single play at a time from Dover Thrift Editions. At a buck fifty a piece, its hard to imagine a better deal than Dover's republications of classic works.
Speaking of which, I ordered one of those too. I decided I needed my own personal copy of one of my favorite works, Voltaire's Candide. That's truly a delightful satire that I was sad to say I did not possess a copy of. I do now. For $3.00 (including a $1.50 handling fee for Amazon to get it from Dover — I'm not sure what that was about), I now own my very own copy. If that isn't “the best of all possible worlds,” it certainly is close enough. I'm sure Dr. Pangloss would agree.
Almost Back
Well, I'm moving a bit slow, but I think I'm mostly recovered from the nasty effects of ragweed (which peaked this week — about a month late — at a high of 134 grains per cubic meter, substantially higher than the 50 grains per cubic meter that is considered “high.”). Nasty stuff. It has made me feel worse in the past, but it seemed to have a longer lasting period of “attack” this year. Right now, the main remaining issue is a cough, which, normally will stick with me for a few weeks.
Well, enough wallowing in self-pity. Today is 9/11. I cannot believe it has been three years since the World Trade Center was hit. I can still remember hearing the breaking news on CBS Radio News (via KMOX) early on that beautiful September morning. On the other hand, it seems like terrorism has been the top headline for ages now — I miss the time before we were so worried about it.
Still Down, but Not Out
I'm still not in the best of shape, but I hope to be back among y'all tomorrow… we'll see.
Scratch that False Alarm Stuff...
..allergy season is in full swing, at least for me. It hasn't been the best of days — I've been about useless for accomplishing anything that requires more than a small amount of effort; I'm hoping tomorrow will be better.
Organizing
I spent a number of hours organizing my computer today. I have a bad habit of leaving old files in a mess when I reinstall my operating system. Some stuff is still sitting on a long retired Pentium II on its SuSE 7.1 installation that got left behind when I switched to Mandrake in 2001. I'm not going back that far just now, but I am dealing with several years worth of mess.
As it stood, I had a folder in my home directory on my G5 that contained everything from my PC prior to me removing Fedora and reinstalling Mandrakelinux 10.0 in June. Eventually a copy of that will go back to the PC (as well as remaining on the Mac), but first I wanted to merge that with the directory structure I was using on the Mac. To make matters more complicated, I still had a backup folder within that backup folder of stuff I had never reorganized from when I switched from Mandrake Linux 9.1 to Fedora Core. Each of those folders had files in a number of different places and few things were properly sorted. Some of the files were duplicates, since I had started copying and reorganizing the files last year. I decided it was time to redo them so that I could easily get to my documents in the future.
So far, I've organized about half of my text and word processor documents (alas some are in the incompatible KWord format, which will require some time to convert to something I can use on my GNOME and Mac desktops conveniently), 9,066 photos, several hundred images of other sorts (animated gifs, logos from projects, etc.), 1,030 musical tracks, 107 MPEG-1 video files (from my digicam) and numerous other tidbits. My goal, by the time I've finished, is to make it so that I can call up any particular file with minimal searching. I hope I'm successful!
On another subject, today is Wictory Wednesday. It is too late to donate to the Bush campaign, but don't forget to volunteer or do other things to help the President's campaign. I'm skipping the Wictory Wednesday blogroll for today, since it will make this mostly non-political post too long. I'll post it tomorrow.
Allergies
My eyes are burning and I've been sneezing for the last hour. I hope this is not a precursor to worse things tomorrow… this does not bode well.
QOTW #15: Pie
As always, please feel free to respond in the comments or use the QOTW as a meme for your own blog (if you do, consider linking to your blog entry from the comments).
What is your favorite flavor pie? If you could have one cream pie and one pie of another type, what would you choose for the type that your favorite did not fall under?
My favorite pie is — hands down — Lemon Meringue pie. A really good Lemon Meringue pie should send a super sour sensation throughout your mouth followed by the simple, sweet enjoyment of the meringue. Other than Lemon Meringue, I also really enjoy Banana Cream pie and Chocolate Silk Pie.
Since my favorites all fall in the cream pie category, the tough question is what type of “other” pie would I pick as a favorite? I really like most pies, but my favorite non-cream pie would probably be Pumpkin Pie. I love that too.
How 'bout you?
Beat
I don't know why, but I'm dead tired again. Guess I'm still catching up from last week. I'm hoping this week will be quieter. Anything special y'all planning to do for Labor Day?
Busy Again
What a crazy couple of weeks. I think we've finally gotten my uncle moved in, but traveling to the second floor of a condominium complex dozens of times over the past few days moving stuff in is taking its toll.
The family has given him a stern warning: he better not decide to move again… we don't want to have to carry everything back down again.