Reading is fun...da...mental

I enjoy reading. Most of my reading is for entertainment purposes only as, except for some science or historical tomes, I get bored or befuddled. Or depressed.

Monday, Terry and I went up to Horseheads to go to Staples. Both of our printers were sore in need of spare ink cartridges. Right next door to Staples is a Barnes & Noble so, of course, we went in to browse. We had already gone to Amazon.com to make a wish list the night before, but there were Simon & Schuster Crossword Puzzle books on the shelves as well as a copy of Sir Terry Prachett's I Shall Wear Midnight, a stitching magazine, and a romance novel that Terry wanted. I still have a B & N card so a discount was involved but the price was still much higher than Amazon where there's no brick and mortar or sales staff to pay for. Sometimes, however, you just have to have an item right now and not 7 to 14 shipping days later. (No I do not have Amazon Prime for free shipping but the discount on the books is still enough.)

Anywho. I bought the Prachett novel because I wanted it now. Dammit! Anything to get my mind off the weather and/or politics. And it worked. For a day. That's how long it took me to read this fourth--and supposedly final--story of Tiffany Aching--now a teenage witch of 16--and the Nac Mac Feegles (aka The Wee Free Men).

This is has been classified as a teen book and that's where the clerk found it for me after I couldn't locate it with the other Prachett novels, but it's a pleasant enough read for any age and especially so if you're a Prachett fan. The action isn't as fast and furious as it is with the stories of the Night Watch or Rincewind the Wizzard. (That's not a misspelling, BTW.)(Wiki entry here.) It comes closest to the cerebral games played with the Witches novels. Which, come to think of it, is appropriate since Tiffany Aching is now a 16 year-old witch with all the duties and encumbrances that entails.

Having finished this latest of Sir Prachett's novels I now have a choice. I can either go back and re-reread all 38 Discworld novels or move on to something else. I've the first two book from Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series sitting here unread. Perhaps I had best get to them since the next four are on their way via Amazon (shipped today) as are books 11-13 of the Dresden Files (also by Butcher) and three or four Marcus Didius Falco mysteries by Lindsey Davis. (Yeah, I've fallen behind in my leisure reading.)

Look what went "missing"

From AOL News:
Rising Sea Swallows Contested Island

March 25) -- For more than 35 years, India and Bangladesh have been locked in a bitter territorial dispute over New Moore Island, an uninhabited sliver of sludge in the muddy Bay of Bengal. Now that argument has been settled by a higher power: climate change.

According to Sugata Hazra, director of the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India, the low-lying isle has disappeared under the rising seas. "There's no trace of the island anymore. After studying satellite images, I confirmed this from fishermen," he told reporters. "Climate change has obliterated the source of dispute." The 81-square-mile island is now classed as a submerged landmass.

Of course, they blame the rising seas on Global Warming/Climate Change, but anyone who reads Terry Pratchett knows what really happened!*

I'm sure that compaction of the sediments as well as erosive force of waves had nothing to do with the disappearance of New Moore Island. After all, it's never happened before to coastal islands. Long Beach Island of New Jersey would have slipped back into the sea long ago if not for the replenishment of its sand by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Idiots. The sea brought it into existence and the sea--and natural forces--took it away.

*You get bonus points if you can name the book.

Insights from Going Postal

Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, a Disc World novel of 2004:

Moist von Lipwig, con man extraordinaire, has been caught, condemned to die and hanged under his nom-de-con "Albert Spangler" in Disc World's greatest city, Ankh-Morpork. He has been given the task of revamping and revitalizing the Postal Service by Ankh-Morpork's supreme ruler Lord Vetinari, The Patrician. For Moist, it's a do-or-die (again and for real) situation.

Moist doesn't take to the task at first, especially when he inspects the main post office and discovers its total state of decrepitude. His first night on the job he thinks:

...I'm some poor bastard who's the victim of some stupid...experiment. What a place! What a situation! What kind of a man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of the government? Apart from, say, the average voter?

Which just about sums up our current situation here in the US of A.

News about Terry Pratchett

Here’s some sad news about one of my favorite authors:
Terry Pratchett says he has Alzheimer's

The fact that he looks an awful lot like what I see in the mirror everyday has nothing to do with my enjoyment of his books.

Terry Pratchett

Me.

(I do wish I shared more than just good looks with Terry P. Some of his imagination and royalties would be nice! The Alzheimer's? Not so much.)

Disc World on TV.

This is the movie on TV that I gave up watching football to view.

Cetainly different than watching Christmas Story...again.

It's a half hour in and we've met Susan, Lord Downey, the Auditors, and Mr. Teatime. And the story line is incredibly close to the book. Love it!

Only one problem: It runs for 4 hours on the tube.

UPDATE: They followed the story nearly word for word. It was great! The fella, Marc Warren, that played Mr. Teatime did so in a manner that allowed you to see him for the twisted psycho he is.