Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – Entire book, online.
If you’ve never read the book, it’s a good deal more than a zombie with a flat top haircut and neck bolts. (Though I do like the misunderstood monster / mad scientist version, too).
Tag Archives: books
The bookstore had a couple of really nice deals… I dashed away from there with a bag of ten, purchased for about $20. I picked up a nice collection of Edgar Allen Poe… an old one, so it’s extra neat and pre-creepified, for midnight readings of The Raven and Murders in the Rue Morgue … good to read aloud.
It was a nice enough day, though I bussed the distance rather than cycling (Mainly because I didn’t know what sort of massive book load I might be bringing home.)
Riding on the bus means… more doodles. Mousing over ’em may give you some insight as to where each drawing came from.
Also, the coolest T-shirt I’ve seen lately-
I never noticed before, but each major chattie has it’s own color. Yellow aim, green icq, blue msn, red yahoo. The new version of trillian has little colored circles rather than logos for each active. Pretty neat to me, for some reason. My connection to all of them comes on like a little drag-racer pole position light up… “Prepare to qualify”.
Jerry Falwell — yes, he’s flapping his yap again — has concluded from “reading Muslim and non-Muslim writers” that Muhammad was a terrorist. Which is kind of interesting, because from reading interviews with Jerry Falwell a lot of people have concluded that Jesus was a redneck, right-wing bigot. Holy men: Great ideas, bad PR representation. Why do the dumbasses seem to often get the loudest voices?
Palm Shadow I know what hubbub I’ll be synching soon. Of course, the real treasure trove (and only an isilo conversion away is here. of course, since it’s text, anyone can read it, not just palmers)
Off to work now… No bike today… big rains. Have a good day, dear journal, and I’ll endeavor to do the same. Going to leave Newtcam aimed at the futon and east window.
ok… I’ve got a new A/C unit. Let’s hope that it has a repair duty cycle a little more reasonable than once a month. Spent some lovely time this afternoon with my sweetie, gabbin’ about vampires, alligators, the O’Hairs, school religion, murder…and more. I love that head she’s got on her shoulders… (and the rest of her is equally adored.)
Hmm.. internet at work is down, if I left at three (next available transport) I could be there at four thirty…, if I foobar, five. Is it worth the trip in? I’ll have to shave… right now my jaw whiskers are long enough to be considered a beard, though my goatee is much more full.
I’ll call and see if they need me at all. I dropped
While I wait for a callback, I’m going to relax.
p.s. you can download audio books with peer-to-peer sharing too… it’s not just first run movies and music! I’m grabbing the audio to Ann Rice’s Memnoch, the Devil and a few others.
Good luck this morning… I found $25 dollars in a pack of smokes on the bus. I tossed the Winstons out, and kept the money as a just reward for anti-littering.
Home early, and taking it easy. New duties at work tomorrow…plus meetings about the website. I find out exactly what the duties entail tomorrow too…but I don’t imagine they’re too much fun… sales and the mail shop were bleating about having to do it… and Kev offered our dept… I hope it’s nothing tedious. Kev did mention that it’d only be for a little while…. that sort of softening suggests that it’ll be PITA work. Hopefully, it’s something I can automate programmatically.
Tonight’s book… Starting fresh with Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson, paperback edition. Tony gave it to me just yesterday. Got to dig found lit, given freely. I was interested in it last winter, but my reading queue was already quite full… glad to have it reappear.
Newt’s adorable tonight…curled up in the middle of my Indian-style sitting position. Time to read some non-backlit text, enjoy purrs, the scent of nag champa, and some science. Throw in some snuggly sweetie read-dreaming too, while I’m at it.
See you later, Dear Journal.
Never did hook up with my brother last night… I hope that the movie is still on with him for this evening…(I’m going, regardless).
I sat down last night, and futzed a bit, waiting for him… feral idea developed during that time
I’m fresh off the phone with Dave. He’s got some sort of Mac Virus that’s changing all of this data to Pc format, or some such. I really couldn’t help him out too much… he’s using os 9ish, and my strengths are really on Unix & Windows type machines.
First rule of business… *back up your data files regularly*.
I think that he’ll be ok, but has a few hours of fix-up ahead of him…. no envy here.
I’m glad that B-boy is doing well…I was concerned about his health… speaking of which, my brother’s getting better, but slowly. He’s been cutting back on the smokes… one pack every three days, rather than a pack a day… I hope that he can shave it down to removing it.
Looks like he’s kicking his roommate out… something like the fourth month in a row he couldn’t pull his side of the rent. (The roomie can go live with his mom, until he gets his act together). I agree with the bro’s decision… the roomie’s not landing in the street.
I’m not looking forward to the anniversary of Sept 11… I fear it’ll be a big political bit of noise. I know that I had enough trouble the first time around.
I forgot to mention earlier that at the toy store, aside from the recorder, I picked up a little 25mm scale play set with a police station, fire station, parking garage, a few civilians to go with the police and firemen, a fountain with a horse stature in the middle, a couple of trees, assorted vehicles including a paddy wagon, helicopter, fire engine, and a little train engine and tanker car. Cheap for $10. (Marked down from $15) Newton had a field day with all the twist-ties that came with… and likes to sit inside the fresh cardboard box.
By the way… Yahoo maps doesn’t do the best route to the local bookstore…purple is the path that they choose… flashing red is mine. As an added bonus, I get to ride through the park, wave at the squirrels, and watch kids practice soccer. The other route goes far out of its way… I’d at least think that the path logic would go to 6th, and shoot straight north. Fewer lights, more direct route. image cut to spare folks not wanting to see a flashing pic.
I bet you won’t find this in a kid’s book these days –
From Chapter four of The Emerald City of Oz, by L. Frank Baum.
“I want you to march this army through an underground tunnel, which I am going to bore, to the Emerald City of Oz. When you get there I want you to conquer the Oz people, destroy them and their city, and bring all their gold and silver and precious stones back to my cavern. Also you are to recapture my Magic Belt and return it to me. Will you do this, General Crinkle?”
“No, your Majesty,” replied the Nome; “for it can’t be done.”
“Oh indeed!” exclaimed the King. Then he turned to his servants and said: “Please take General Crinkle to the torture chamber. There you will kindly cut him into thin slices. Afterward you may feed him to the seven-headed dogs.”
“Anything to oblige your Majesty,” replied the servants, politely, and led the condemned man away.
Italics mine.
hey! I did an oz post, one year ago today, too!
It's Wednesday. Man, July is a long month! It's almost over, though.
Had a nice night’s sleep, but didn’t get any extra… just about 7 hours. I don’t recall my dreams last night, but had a nice wake up Had a nice shower, and I’m ready for a new day.
ooooh… pretty, and nifty!
3-d flashmap of a lj person’s friends… mouse over, and you can see who they’re buddies with.
more coolio 3-d shockwave schtuff here.
Cluelessmailers.org has created The Spamdemic Map… documenting, as you might guess, the epidemic of spam. It shows who’s sending it and how. The point of the “cluelessmailers” name is that some of these companies clearly don’t even realize that they’re paying spammers and annoying potential customers.
I have to remember to call and confirm dinner plans with the mother and the brother. (Hmm… sounds like some kind of 70’s detective show… She’s a working single mom, trying to get by with a latchkey child…he’s a african-american disenfranchised street tough who’s got a heart of gold. together, they catch crooks and show that two different people can get along! Played by Susan Saint James, and JJ Walker.)
from provenance unknown –
“Remember when only celebrities and CEOs hired novelists to write their books?” the Washington Post asks. “Now the novelists are hiring novelists.”
Names like Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum are more like brands than names of a particular artist, the Post reports. Tom Clancy the person “oversees a vast farm of fiction writers who crank out stories that he imagines,” we learn.
I suppose the reason it works in some cases but not others is that some “artists” don’t mind putting their own name on other people’s work. I can’t wait until some contemporary artist tries this with a painting or sculpture done by a student… it would make a great joke, I think. (One (totally unsophisticated and doubtless unoriginal) pet theory of mine is that the essence of contemporary art is that it’s all a joke.)
And just imagine the brouhaha this must be raising in literary criticism circles.
Ah well… as long as the books are good, I’m happy. I don’t care so much about the author’s name as much as I care about the quality of product. Heck, I know that a gang of people wrote stories for the Shadow, and Doc Savage, way back when…with a single pen name. Now, if the quality varies to a great degree, then I’ll raise my fist to the air, and curse the publishing gods. Maybe. Probably, I’ll just find a better set of writers and stories somewhere else.
I’m going to leave Newtcam on all day today… to spy on the boy while at work
Went to All Books and Records with the bro… he got the spider-man ps2 game for a song (direct trade for street fighter 3….) and I got a copy of The Big Book of the Weird Wild West… he had things to do today, so we parted company there, and I went on to Past Present Future. Sadly, they had no copies of UA2 left in stock, but they’ll hold one and call me when it comes in. I did get gifties for the office however…The Essential Spider-Man, Volume 1, The Essential Fantastic Four Volume 1, Essential Hulk, and Essential Dr. Strange. That should keep Kevin, Karen, and myself busy for a while during the slow-compile, data-crunching times. I added a couple of those to my wish list, too…just so I can remember to order myself the Howard the duck collection. Waugh! Next time I send off a goodie bag, I’m going to get a few of the used things for myself. (No point in paying $4 shipping for a $4.50 book.)
Here’s the trip I took today…not bad… about 13 miles round trip(with shortcuts and bus travel not counting). a healthy haul (mind you, I had a nice shopping breather twice in between. It was a nice enough day that I didn’t take the bike too far on the bus… but it was nice to know that the option was there if I’d tuckered out. Needless to say, I did shortcut through the park on the way home, so you can shave about a mile off there. I’m bone tired now, but feel good after having had a nice shower.
A Picture of a squirrel from Holiday Park. He was drinking from a puddle, and I barely had time to catch him. I’m happy that I snapped him in motion! trimmed to spare narrow friend’s pages
going out tomorrow (hopefully with the bro) to PPF to pick up my copy of UA2, and maybe bicycle down the beach.
I’m going to look for a few books… “people of” series, and for, “Treasury of Fantastic and Mythological Creatures” compiled by Richard Huber. The book should be in the art section. It’s well over 1,000 line drawings of critters from nearly every period of human evolution: Babylonian, Pre-Columbian, Asian, Medieval Europe(Including Heironymous Bosch), etc. And some comic digests for around the computer lab. 🙂
maybe also to sawgrass to do some giftie shopping.
Hmm… reading James Ellroy’s “LA Quartet” Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz… so far, it’s certainly his best work. (Reading Nowhere now… I’m glad that I took Robin’s Recommendation… I initially didn’t want to read them, because his later books are really kinetic, written in a telegraphic style that can go for paragraphs, pages, without a complete sentence. (“12:45. Buzz McCall on the Simmons roust. Goose egg on McKibben. Nothing yet from that lazy fat fuck in Ballistics. Hit the street and out to the Valley to brace the shine at his fuck pad.” Etc… I’ve seen people’s journals here written on the same level. bleh.)
Occasionally I got the giggles when reading in that format, which I don’t think is what he had in mind. That said, Dudley Smith is one scary guy. I’d cross the street if I knew he was coming, not that it would help.
Other things I’m currently stumbling over…Pennsylvania Dutch Hex signs.
- http://www.folkart.com/hex/meaning.htm
- http://www.amishnews.com/hexsigns.htm
- http://www.folkart.com/hex/ramona/sketches.htm
Thinking about a Clockwork Distelfink. Can you dig it, Scotto? Noir fiction in Pennsylvania Dutch country? Maybe.
Crank yankers mostly sucks. (one good skit, four lame ones.) I hope that lame show gets replaced by something worthy of the timeslot.
I’m impressed at how funny south park was tonight, though.
please don’t worry about nt7… Yesterday morning the probability that it would collide with the Earth was one in 60,000. But by the end of the day, when a new set of observations had come in, the odds against a collision had risen to one in 75,000.
in happier news… the Fortean Times website is back online.. ahh… how I’ve missed it.
This Looks Like a Job For…
…a complete scan of Action Comics #1. I dig old comics, I dig Superman, & I dig Joe Schuster’s simple but effective art. There’s something really endearing about it. I adore the early vision of Superman as someone who stops wife beaters and munitions manufacturers. He was so populist and leftist…too bad that changed into the cosmic demigod we have today. (Although I like that version of Superman, too… just not as nearly as much.)
Also…The cutest psych test ever. with just enough bad English to endear it to me. Hello, Dr. Kitty!
“You easily feel stressful. – Only with a little bit of additional work plus controlling your temper, you would then lose energy.”
They recommend “Not only you would accumulate your stress, you are weak to release it. for this type exercise and Karaoke will be the best way.”
Thanks for showing me those links, josh!
I’ve decided to name the bike the “Hofmann Zephyr“… a combination of missv and ldy‘s suggestions. Bright color trails and a gentle breeze. I like that. All the suggestions were fun ones.
I feel that I can only vaguely conceptualize infinity, not really understand it. I can make a sign for it and manipulate it in an equation, I can make up metaphors for describing it or “understanding” it, I can come up with synonyms and thought experiments…but I cannot experience infinity. How the heck can I possibly understand infinity when everything I experience is finite? Do not confuse a facility for description with understanding. Map and territory, menu and meal.
Hitting the sack… sweet dreams, dear journal. Warm thoughts to any who read this. Peace.
A quick quote before I go –
“I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new consciousness of an allreality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation.”
–DR. ALBERT HOFMANN