Mad Times"To be sane in a mad time is bad for the brain, worse for the heart." - Wendell BerryThe Hidden Family by Charles Stross- October 26, 2006 Second book in Stross's Merchant Princes series. In this volume, Miriam begins exploring another alternate world and opening it to commerce while in the other two known alternate Earths various and sundry plots thicken. Miriam continues to be hyper-competent (and hyper-lucky) to a degree that strains credulity. I suspect these books might be enjoyed more by people who are more Economics-geeky than I am. Still, Stross can spin a yarn interestingly enough to keep the pages flipping by. This...http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000853.html Lost Glove 102- October 23, 2006 September 13. On the bridge of lost gloves (stretch of SE 56th Street where it crosses Issaquah Creek. I have seen more lost gloves in this 100-yard stretch of road than anywhere else.)http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000862.html Lost Glove 101- October 23, 2006 Back on September 7th.http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000861.html Dzur by Steven Brust- October 23, 2006 I can't think of another author who writes books that are as entertaining as Steven Brust's. Vlad Taltos, the protagonist of the series this is the tenth volume in, is a flawed, sarcastic, intelligent character who has had some significant growth over the course of the series while remaining fundamentally himself. This volume is lighter on plot than most of the books, but it makes up for it with a whole stack of in-jokes and a lovely framing device in the lush descriptions of a multi-course...http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000852.html Blissing- October 21, 2006 That thing Alice is licking on is called a "Hot Cats", it's a fabric tube filled with cat nip. We've had that particular one for almost four years and they still seem to like it. Amazing.http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000866.html The Family Trade by Charles Stross- October 19, 2006 Miriam is a journalist reporting on corporate startups and venture capital. With the help of research assistant Paulette, she uncovers a massive money laundering operation. Rather than making her career, the discovery gets her fired and possibly stalked. If that weren't enough, her adoptive mother gives her a box of things relating to her birth mother. Among those things is a locket with a strange pattern inside. When Miriam examines it closely she finds herself abruptly transported from her...http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000851.html Two years later- October 18, 2006 This was supposed to go up back at the beginning of September, but here is what's left of lost glove 23 two years after I first saw it. It was still glove-shaped until just a couple days before this picture was taken which is fairly remarkable since it's not in some out of the way spot, it's right in the middle of the driveway for I-90 Motor Sports and must get run over at least a couple times a day. Here's what it looked like last year.http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000860.html Parked- October 15, 2006 I wasn't feeling well when I got home from work last night so I laid down for a while and soon had this furball planted on my chest. Feline therapy.http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000865.html Lost Glove 100- October 9, 2006 Well, here we are in triple-digits. Only took 3-12 years. This was on Juniper behind Gilman Village back on September 6th. I was thinking about stopping when I hit 100, but I've already got a few more waiting to be posted, so I'll have to pick some other more arbitrary number if I ever manage to kick the habit.http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000859.html Frogs Into Princes by Richard Bandler and John Grinder- October 9, 2006 A friend of a friend suggested this as a good introduction to the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). The book is the transcript of a three-day seminar taught by the authors. The seminar was attended by mental health practitioners, so even apart from the content of the lectures, it's fascinating being a fly on the wall for such a gathering. Bandler and Grinder call themselves modellers. They observe people who are successful in a domain and try to determine what it is that they're...http://tomecat.com/madtimes/archive/000850.html |