Weekend miscellany
Rain, rain go away / Come again on a working day-so I can get some yardwork done on a weekend for a change, and get a good walk in. Instead, I'm watching the boys on Top Gear race across London on a Monday-morning rush hour by SUV, bike, boat, and public transit. On the face of it, my money would be on public transit (the Stig taking bus, tube, and Docklands light rail), but it's Jeremy taking the boat so I expect the boat will actually win.
Bob Dylan is sounding a lot like vintage Louis Armstrong these days.
It was funny at first, but I'm really starting to get annoyed at all the typos and other scanning areas in my Kindle reading (currently SPQR II: The Catiline Conspiracy).
Thursday evening was helping with setup for jducoeur's book sale, working mostly in the genre fiction section with rufinia packing up the keepers and unpacking the books to sell. It got a little disorienting: every time I saw something and thought "Ooh, I'd want that," I'd stop myself and realize "So does he." But I did keep a couple French Astérix books (I hadn't realized either of them read French) for nostalgia value, and a replacement Sharyn McCrumb that I now regret giving away my copy of (Paying the Piper, which I was right that the mystery itself wasn't worth keeping, but I've several times wished I could share the part with the murder tour of Edinburgh).
To the modern eye, the Seven Wonders of the World are scattered over the map, rather: two in Greece (the Statue of Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes), two in Turkey (the Temple of Diana, the Mausoleum), two in Egypt (the Great Pyramid, the Lighthouse), and one in Iraq (the Hanging Gardens). But back in the Hellenistic age when the list was compiled, they were all in the same cultural area-different administrative districts (kingdoms), true, but all the same cultural world.
The final score: bike, boat, public transport, and car. I was wrong both ways.
Bob Dylan is sounding a lot like vintage Louis Armstrong these days.
It was funny at first, but I'm really starting to get annoyed at all the typos and other scanning areas in my Kindle reading (currently SPQR II: The Catiline Conspiracy).
Thursday evening was helping with setup for jducoeur's book sale, working mostly in the genre fiction section with rufinia packing up the keepers and unpacking the books to sell. It got a little disorienting: every time I saw something and thought "Ooh, I'd want that," I'd stop myself and realize "So does he." But I did keep a couple French Astérix books (I hadn't realized either of them read French) for nostalgia value, and a replacement Sharyn McCrumb that I now regret giving away my copy of (Paying the Piper, which I was right that the mystery itself wasn't worth keeping, but I've several times wished I could share the part with the murder tour of Edinburgh).
To the modern eye, the Seven Wonders of the World are scattered over the map, rather: two in Greece (the Statue of Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes), two in Turkey (the Temple of Diana, the Mausoleum), two in Egypt (the Great Pyramid, the Lighthouse), and one in Iraq (the Hanging Gardens). But back in the Hellenistic age when the list was compiled, they were all in the same cultural area-different administrative districts (kingdoms), true, but all the same cultural world.
The final score: bike, boat, public transport, and car. I was wrong both ways.