I want a reading icon. I don't know what I want. Look at the cute owl icon I made while messing around with pictures of people reading.

TWICE now I have tried to eat the french fries pictured on the cover of the book sitting beside my computer. I am going to have to move this book.

I finished Sex, Drugs, Einstein, & Elves by Clifford A. Pickover. It is probably one of the weirdest books I've ever read. I liked parts of it - anything dealing with wordplay, vocabulary, and Proust. ( But there are large chunks of the book I'm not sure about. )

My favorite portion of the book, on page 63 he talks about the Oulipo, a group of writers and mathematicians who play with constrained writing. He gave Mike Keith's version of The Raven encoded as pi. Each word in the poem corresponds to a digit, going to the first 740 decimals.

3.1415926535897932384626433832795?288419716

Poe, E.
"Near a Raven"
Midnights so dreary, tired and weary.
Silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore.
During my rather long nap -- the weirdest tap!
An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor.
"This," I whispered quietly, "I ignore."

Also, as I was searching for pi's numbers I found this really cool website that just sings pi.

And, yes, it was sheer laziness of me to try to google pi as opposed to counting the numbers in each of the words of the poem. I am lazy. What of it?

I do not like end notes. If something is important, put it in the actual related paragraph, darn it. Or at least as a foot note. They have templates that help to do footnotes, right? So they aren't as hard to create as they used to be. At the very least stick notes at the end of the chapter. It is waaaaaay too much effort for me to read a chapter at the beginning of a book, flip to the end and read the notes, flip back to the front and continue with the next chapter, flip to the end, etc... DISRUPTIVE. DISTRACTING. I am linear, and I liked it that way. (Perhaps if it actually burned calories to do all that flipping flipping I might be a bit more inclined... I should wear wrist weights while reading.)

I tried reading three chapters then reading three sets of end notes as a compromise, but it's still irritating, so I've given up that plan, and I'm just reading straight through the way God intended. <sup>1



1</sup> I'm sure when I get to the end of this book and attempt to read the chapter notes I will have no idea what they are referencing. I expect I'll complain again.

For quite some time now I have been whinging about lack of shelf space. (I would never complain about too many books...) The other Saturday I was walking to the bathroom and looking up when an idea hit me - maybe we could line the hallway with shelves. It would be above everyone's heads, we're not really using the space except for a candle holder and framed art.

I talked it over with Monkeys, and he actually liked the idea. A tape measure, a trip to Lowe's, 20 feet of six inch pine, some cool iron worked brackets, some white paint, and WOOT! Monkeys did an outstanding job with the shelves, and I intend to take pictures, but the paint is still dripping. I did the painting, which explains all the dripping. Tomorrow we start uploading books! Yay!!

Anyone want a candle holder?

That Amazon guy was on the Daily Show tonight - he laughed almost the entire time. It made me happy to hear so much laughter.

Argh. I feel embarrassed over the programming class, darn it. I will be glad when it is over. Thankfully Monkeys seems to be understanding it. I was trying to make the homework assignment for chapter four to be much more difficult than it was. I'm trying to make myself feel better by telling myself I didn't have these problems with chemistry, Spanish, astronomy, etc. Plus, I really do think if we had an in-class course instead of distance learning I'd be doing much better. She has high praise for her teaching skills on RateMyInstructor and has high praise from coworkers, so I know she is a great teacher. I really think it is the format and my paranoia. All we are doing is reading the chapter, writing out a glossary from the chapter terms in the back of the book (each chapter we submit our "glossary" as one of our assignments), typing up notes to submit to her to show we are taking notes, and answering specified questions in the textbook or on a worksheet. Oh, and taking quizzes. So far I've gotten hundreds on all the assignments, but haven't actually gotten any specific feedback - so i don't really know if I am doing the problems correctly to earn a hundred or earning the grade just because I did all the work. I also don't know what about my work is correct but could be done more efficiently or effectively. I usually send her one email per chapter asking her to look at how I am solving one of the problems - along the lines of "is this a correct assumption" - and she usually writes back saying it's okay or offering a clarification which I use to go on and do all the problems, but I worry that my emails are tiresome or stupid. I have a new mantra now - "Not getting parameters and global variables from reading a textbook does not make me stupid." Repeat that fifty times. Sigh.

Honestly, the homework assignment in the textbook *was* confusing. Even Monkeys didn't understand it. He was afraid his interpretation was too easy and thought it should be more difficult, too. It's just he didn't actually *make* it more difficult like I did. In fact, her email back to him actually thanked and praised him for coming up with a simple solution and said it showed he actually understood the concepts... Of course in addition to being very proud of him, I thought it showed a stark contrast to the not so simple solution I sent her earlier today, which made me feel even more dumb.

Yoga and Catechism are going well, at least!

Finished the OOTS book McAmason lent me. MCAMASON YOU ARE AWESOME AND THANK YOU FOR LENDING IT!
On the Origin of PCs (brilliant name, huh? I love puns)

Started First Among Sequels (Thursday Next) that Jim*the*Librarian lent me. It, too, is chock full of puns. (woot)
Jim*the*Librarian is not on LJ so he will not know whether or not I think he is awesome.

I also started the collection of Flash comic books that Magnet5 gave me for Christmas. Magnet is probably thinking "well, that took long enough" :) It will take even longer to finish - it is a HUGE book. I'm very excited about it, however, because it has a lot of early stories.

To say that this freedom is "situated" is to acknowledge that we're all born into a world already brimming with buildings, ideology, poems, commerce, dental hygienists, mythology, bacteria, and hats."

I finished Batman and Philosophy but don't feel clever enough to write about it. It did turn out to be more of a book about Batman than a book about philosophy, but I'm not disappointed. Even though I meant it as a joke, my favorite chapters really did turn out to the be the ones comparing Batman and Superman.

Think about it like this: Superman is a demigod trying to earn people's trust. As such, in his dealings with the public, he has to downplay his distance from them. Therefore, he acts like the Boy Scout, and everyone (with a few notable exceptions) loves him. Batman, on the other hand, is an ordinary human trying to do extraordinary things. He has to create a myth around himself that serves as part of his armor. ... Batman must likewise distance himself from the citizens he protects. It's not enough for criminals to find Batman mysterious -- everyone has to, or the jig is up. Naturally, this creates a lonely, isolated life that is in large part self-imposed.

They had chapters on who is better and on how each of them views friendship (Superman along Aristotelian lines and Batman more like Nietzsche). There was a great argument that Batman is the better "superhero" because he knowingly puts himself into danger and potential death with every deed whereas Superman goes into things knowing he is impervious and unlikely to die; therefore, Batman exhibits greater bravery, and bravery is "superhero trait."

Furthermore, Superman can depend too much on his powers and not on ingenuity. He can underestimate people because he is so much more powerful than others, and he never uses all his strength or abilities against someone because he would do more damage than needed. (My bad summary.) Anyway, the point is Superman would hold back and Batman would not. Also, Superman wouldn't want to hurt a friend, but Batman could (they say). Consequently, in a fight Batman would win. This amused me, because I know people can come to blows over this type of Hero1 versus Hero2 discussions.

There was also a neat Tao-esque chapter discussing, among other things, the effect of Batman's shadow. As Lao-Tzu wrote, "The use of the pot is precisely where there is nothing. When you open doors or windows for a room, it is where there is nothing that they are most useful to the room." Nothingness can be more important than substance, which Bruce uses to "strike fear into the hearts of criminals," as he likes to say (endlessly, I'm afraid).

I just finished The Philosopher At the End of the Universe (philosophy explained through science fiction films) by Mark Rowlands. Overall, I enjoyed this book. Today I started the book Batman and Philosophy (The Dark Knight of the Soul) and just within the first chapter I saw a bunch of familiar terms and names, so I'm happy for the review. I'm really glad I read PAEU first as I think it was the more "explaining philosophy" of the two books, and I think it will help me with reading the Batman book. The Batman book reminds me a lot of the Physics of Superheroes - which was a surprisingly difficult read in which I learned as much about comic books as I did about physics. I think I will learn more about Batman than I will about philosophy. That's okay, cuz I loves Batman. (There is a chapter called "Why Batman is Better than Superman")

Anyway, the writing style for The Philosopher At the End of the Universe was kind of odd. He was extremely conversational in tone (with occasional swearing) which was kind of fun, but he constantly repeated himself. I mean he would say the same thing twice, without even putting any new content in between. He barely rephrased the sentences. I would read the same sentence, repeated over again with a slight rephrasing. Sometimes he would repeat a sentence without even rephrasing. Sometimes he would repeat a sentence with the change being suddenly it was in italics. Mostly he would just say the same thing over again. It was at times frustrating, but at the same time it seemed to beat the definition into my head, so I opted to read it over and over instead of skimming.

( some attempt at reflection )

( If you are curious - here's the book's content list: )

I finished reading Chapter 2 of the programming book, am 12 pages out from finishing Hodgman's Areas of My Expertise, and finished the Barenaked Ladies biography (EDIT) that the most awesomest person in the universe D'Toaster (/EDIT) gave me for Christmas; all three books have appendices. DID YOU KNOW?? I'm not sure if this is sheer coincidence or a sign of things to come. I do know I shall be watching the skies tonight, my friends.

Oh - another coincidence - this whole Squirrel thing Colbert reported on ties in nicely with Hodgman's book. Hodgman has a giant section on the various types of squirrels. I liked that section much more than the 700 Hobo names. But then, I'd rather be a squirrel than a hobo so my preference is not surprising.

Anyway, one of the BNL appendices is about road games they play. They spend a lot of time traveling, so have created new games or modified classic games. One of theirs is called Slint - where instead of using city names you use band/muscisian names to take turns shouting out bands that start with the same letter the other person's band ended with. Yeah, I did a bad job explaining that. If I say "Yes," you say "Sting," I say "Guns N Roses," you say "Supertramp," I say "Poe," you say "Eagles," I say "Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs," etc. As you can see, loads of bands end in "S" (Beatles, Monkees, GoGos...). So one road trip Ed said a band ending in "S" and Tyler spent over an hour trying to think of an "S" band because so many had already been used. He was mocked and taunted. He finally said "Slint" and everyone insisted that wasn't a real band. He gave some odd fact about their bass player, which garnered more insistence he was making it up because as we know from Balderdash the more unique the detail you put the odder the answer seems. The next afternoon Ed found a Slint CD on his amp (or something) with a note from Ty saying "Lick my hairy a$$, Slint *is* a band." Apparently Ty had gotten up early before the show, found a used CD shop, and sought out a Slint CD. Ever since then, their game was called Slint. Monkeys and I played it on the way home the other day, and it's actually quite a lot of fun! We played it for nearly two hours straight, and it really made the trip fly by. (And Monkeys even worked in "Slint.")

I'm up to issue 512 of Order of the Stick - Yay! I am so in love with Elan. I want desperately to play Quest or DnD or something so that I can be a bard. Despite all my OOTS reading today I have still have managed to do three loads of laundry, wash some dishes, pay bills, clean the master bathroom, practice tap, and get some stuff up in the attic. All and all, not too bad. Of course, my to do list was a lot longer, so I shouldn't be too pleased with myself. I still have to read chapter two and do the homework, do some grocery shopping, catch up on emails, and loads more housework.

Instead, I will babble a wee bit about Mom's birthday. She was hugged on behalf of all who emailed birthday wishes. :) I'm so excited about how much Mom loved her birthday present. I'm slowly getting her the entire set of Midsommer Murders. Well, I also got her some old Ms Marple movies. She was quite surprised. :) My dad is a big fan of the Midsommer Murders, as well. Normally I get him books, but his face lit up as much as mom's when she opened her presents, so I'm thinking I might switch to the shows for him, too. That way, it's kind of like getting presents for *both* of them all at once. Anyway, we haven't watched the Marples, but we have watched a bunch of the Midsommers, and with each episode I'm more impressed with the series. Monkeys likes it, too, so that's really nice. All four of us can watch them together. Oh, and we also got to call my grandmother, who has the same birthday as Mom. Gram turned 90, so she was getting LOADS of phone calls that night. She said she was stunned by how many bouquets and cards and calls she was getting. Really, she should have been stunned by our off-key singing. It was awful. OH - but later Monkeys and I played uke/mando for Mom. Thankfully we were on key for that.

There's a commercial on tv for the movie Confessions of a Shop-a-holic. I don't know what they movie will be like, but the book is actually quite funny. I laughed out loud (and quite loudly) on multiple occasions. I believe I even forced someone to listen to me read a few portions of the book that particularly amused and forced at least two other people to borrow the first book. There are maybe four books in the series? I don't know. I have read three, so I know there are at least three. The Manhattan one was hysterical, too, but I don't remember the third. Anyway, didn't mean to write about that - I was intending to get back to work, but the commercial distracted me. (Confession of a LJ-a-holic)

Fin.

About three weeks ago our Catechism topic was Mary, and one of the Catholic Update's had a quote by Sojourner Truth (Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.). That awed me. Fast forward three weeks to yesterday when my parents came up to take me lunch. They come up every Thursday, and it is always the same routine. They always get here way too early; Mom always waits in the car with her book; Dad always waits in my office breakroom with his book; and at 11:00 Dad and I walk out to the car talking about whatever he's reading. Yesterday it was a book on famous speeches. En route to the car he asked, "What do you know about Sojouner Truth?" Of course, thanks to my Catholic Update, I spouted out that one quote. His eyes got big as saucers! He didn't expect me to know anything. I love impressing my dad!! Of course, I immediately confessed how coincidental it was that I knew. We had lunch; we ran a mad-dash Christmas errand; and we got back to the campus with three minutes to spare. Dad insisted he be given the chance to read the entire Sojouner Truth Ain't I A Women speech to me. So Mom and I sat in the car eating DQ Blizzards and f r e e z i n g while Dad got more and more animated and expressive. The speech is truly inspirational, and I pasted it below because everyone ought to read it. But it was hysterical hearing *my dad* yelling "Ain't I a woman?" as he emphatically beat on the steering wheel, getting louder and more emphatic with each repetition, and my mom's immediately followed pleas of "Vic, not so loud! It’s embarrassing!"


Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? (member of audience whispers, "intellect") That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.html

I finished Roots of Desire and have moved on to Hiding in the Mirror, a nice layman level book on string theory by Lawrence Kraus. My opinion of Roots of Desire hasn't changed. ( boring rambling )

Normally every year I make a resolution to read fifty books and attempt to log them. Normally I screw it up and lose my logbook. It occurred to me it would be hard to lose LiveJournal... so instead I just forget to write stuff down. Alas.

I’m reading ROOTS OF DESIRE: The Myth, Meaning, and Sexual Power of Red Hair by Marion Roach.

I’ve finished the first section called RELIGION and have just started the section called SCIENCE. The last section is called SEX (which makes me nervous, as I'm rather a bit of a prude sometimes). I am a third of the way through the book, and while I do intend to finish it, and I am interested in reading it, something about this book is leaving me unsatisfied. It feels like an infomercial to me. The author keeps telling me that she is about to tell me something, but never quite does. It is also a bit like being swept out to sea, her text is carrying me along buoying me onward with comments suggesting what is coming next. I feel like it is missing a summary or analysis of what has been covered before moving on to her next point or image. I am stopping periodically to reflect on my own, but whenever I do, I’m disappointed by how little was actually covered. I feel like the entire first 100 pages could have been said in just twenty or thirty pages if she had not been trying to build it up so much. (For example, it felt like I read page after page of her talking about her trip to witch camp or her own personal history as a redhead with a witchcraft connection, but I only got to read a few passages about the Salem witch trials. Plus, her basing the trip on a the well-known adage All redheads are witches. meant nothing to me as I have never heard that phrase before, casting this entire line of her research into a questionable status for me.) I expect self-promotion in self-help books (memory improvement, vocabulary development, public speaking guides) where the program creators are trying to convince you how well the method works in addition to teaching you the method. She is not talking about a method, however. I was expecting her to discuss the history of red hair genealogically, the physiological aspects of being a redhead, and famous red heads and their impact on how red hair is viewed by society. While she has laid the groundwork by saying she will discuss these areas, not much has actually been said. Then again, much of the book is her process of self discovery, so perhaps I am glossing over too much of her personal life issues in my desire for more historical and statistical references. I am not anti-case studies or quantitative research, but in this case it was not what I was expecting, and I do not yet trust the author.

I actually had a similar infomercial/rip tide feeling with The Radioactive Boy Scout, and that feeling passed, so I’m hopeful this reaction to ROOTS will pass, as well. (BTW Radioactive Boy Scout was a great story. I highly recommend it.)

Also, because so much of my identity has been tied into being a redhead, I had extremely high expectations for this book. I thought perhaps I would learn a lot about myself and my place in the pantheon of redheads throughout history. I often wonder if brunettes or blondes carry so much of their identity in their hair color. For me, it is an integral part of my being. My first email address was DCMRed (for Don’t Call Me RED) as a protest of the familiarity people take with redheads. I still use that for one of my email accounts, but I have also adopted MadLadyRed, not as a concession of defeat in allowing people to call me Red, but as a reflection of my pride in being a member of such a small population. I have found in talking to other redheads they share a lot of my same feelings about life as a redhead and experiences of being a red head. Did you know that mothers of redheads often collect redheaded items? For example, whenever my mother bought a doll or painted a picture of a person, it was a redhead. I’m curious if this will get mentioned in the book.

What has been mentioned so far is that Lilith was a redhead. Her redheadedness has been used to explain her sexuality and her independence as compared to Eve. This is really neat, except that Eve is also depicted as a redhead, so why is she subservient? If they both had red hair, it cannot be the hair, right? She also says Cain, Esau, David (sent Uriah to his death), and most importantly Judas are all depicted as redheads. In so doing, she cites a real schism between popular opinion on redheaded women (sexy sexy!) and redheaded men (not so much). She also believes the idea of promiscuous/quasi-demonic Lilith and the traitor Judas shaped that popular opinion which was reinforced throughout history via religion, art, and literature. The few references she did give to Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, Dickens, were really interesting, but I would have liked more. I need more evidence to form a conviction. There weren’t very many historical references given either, although she did at least trace several redheads throughout the British monarchy. Still, any biblical, literary, and historical reference has been quite interesting. Likewise, any comment on how society views redheads, how those views were formed, and how they are changing, intrigues me.

She does make some good points about how everything must be viewed in the context of when it was written, and she has made some neat connections for me – including the connection to clown wigs. I am sure I’m being overly critical because up to now I had been reading mainly medium level astronomy, mathematics, and physics nonfiction, so I have been away from the squishy sciences for a bit. This book is probably just intended for a casual read or possibly for titillation and was never intended to be some great treatise on redheads. I would definitely be interested in such a book if anyone knows of one to recommend! In the meantime I will glean what I can from this one. I love collecting odd bits of trivia (good or bad) about redheads, red hair, and how we are viewed.

We have switched out of Cinema Appreciation to Computer Programming & Logic. Somehow, this is not as exciting for me... I just found out my church class will meet on Thursday nights, however, so we had to pick a different college class so as not to conflict. Monkeys ultimately wants to take a Java programming class, so we are now doing its prerequisite distance learning. On the bright side, it means we won't miss any classes going to Dragoncon. On the down side... I'm taking a programming class distance learning. This enrollment does not bode well for me.

I am looking forward still to Tap. At least that doesn't conflict. I've been reading A Concise History of the Catholic Church as a kind of preview for the church class. At 603 pages, it does not seem very concise. I would hate to have a copy of the Really Rather Verbose and Wordy History of the Catholic Church.

The fact that I actually pondered for about a minute over whether to use my Izzard Technophobe icon, my St. Michael the Archangel icon, or the College icon I stole from tennich worries me a bit.

OMG and after watching the Foxtrot to Feeling Good on So You Think You Can Dance I want to delete everything and use my Waltz icon and rave about how amazing all four finalists are. Wow. But the lift in that Foxtrot may be the highlight of the night for me.

EDIT - I want a sonic mallet.

This is pieced together and plagerised from a weirdly transcripted interview of Cokie Roberts talking about her book Ladies of Liberty (found here http://www.archives.gov/about/archivist/conversations/cokie-transcript.pdf)


After the War of 1812, Dolley Madison had worked with the women in Washington to establish an orphans' asylum because there had been many orphans left by the British invasion and so Louisa goes to this meeting of the orphan asylum trustees and is told that they're soon going to need more space because "Congress had left many females in such difficulties as to make it probable they would beg our assistance" and Louisa says, "What are you talking about?" and the answer comes back from the trustee "The session had been very long. The fathers of the nation had left 40 cases to be provided for by the public and our institution was the most likely to be called upon to maintain this illicit progeny."

There were 40 pregnant women left behind as Congress goes home to its wives and Louisa Adams is writing these letters to old John Adams, who's home in Quincy.

Abigail had died by this time, and she's trying to amuse him and so she discovers this shocking fact.

Then she says to him, "I recommended a petition to Congress' next session for that great and moral body to establish a foundling institution and should certainly move that the two additional dollars a day which they have given themselves as an increase in pay may be appropriated as a fund toward the support of the institution."

Our power was out for about four or five hours today. Thankfully it was coolish outside because of the overcast skies or the flooding (it went back and forth between the two) and the wind blowing helped to keep the temperature down, as well, so even though we had no A/C it never got hot in the house. At one point the wind was so wild that I got really afraid and stood in the hall for a little bit. My husband, of course, went outside to watch the trees. After being assured it wasn't a tornado I gave up and went outside, too. It was really pretty.

I finished Number: the language of science ... , and while I did enjoy it, it certainly got a bit above me mathematically. Still, I quite liked most of it. My favorite parts were the idea of number sense, Gematria, and the many controversies and arguments as mathematics grew and defined itself. If only I knew how to do superscripts; I would love to share my favorite section from the book. I'm going to try... There is a formula: e/\i*pi + 1 = 0 that has actual mathematical use but was loved metaphysically because it can be called the mystic union "in which arithmetic was represented by 0 and 1, algebra by the symbol i, geometry by pi, and analysis by the transcendental e." All that math and I liked the crazy mystic symbology. Oh, also loved that in the "further reading" section the authors recommended Simon Singh. :)

**EDIT:** Down in the commentszarathud posted the equation with superscript as it is supposed to look. Yay! **end EDIT**

The other day I made a bunch of St Michael the Archangel icons. I want to make a nice cross and a nice nativity scene, too. ( the actual artwork were so beautiful )
But I wanted to try anyway.

And my reunion was pretty cool. I didn't see the people I most wanted to see; with the exception of two people, my best friends from high school didn't attended. But I did see three people I really enjoyed in classes even if we didn't hang out outside of school. I was really excited to see them. I also saw a couple I didn't know well in school but were friends with someone I dated in college, so I got to catch up with them. I got to see someone I was in college classes, and we swapped email addresses so I'm hoping to keep in touch with her. Best of all, I got to get better acquainted with someone I knew but was more friends with my friends than with me. I wish I had known him better in high school; he was really cool. He married someone who graduated two years before me so there was lots of catching up. He and Monkeys hit it off, I think, which was really nice. Anyway, the gatherings were nice but way too noisy, I was still too shy to converse with people, and I wish I had been braver and able to talk to the slightly familiar faces. Still, I'm glad we went. I'm even more glad that eight of us cut out early and went to Basken Robbins for ice cream and easier conversation!

Since tonight was cancelled (which was actually a blessing as I got really sick when I got home today) I thought I'd dedicate tonight to homework... but no. I'm watching BookTV. Well, darn it, there was a cool presentation on SpyCraft and we got hooked. That's over and they just did a quick interview with the author of a new book called The Year of Living Biblically (review here). Both Monkeys and I were intrigued and amused by the interview; it sounded like a great book. I had gotten as far as starting to write down the title so that I could look into buying it when the interviewer started talking to the author about his earlier book: THE KNOW IT ALL!!! Which is still sitting here beside my laptop. I loved that book. I should have recognized the author, AJ Jacobs, because he came across in person exactly as he does in text. Plus I should have recognized the writing style as his new book follows a similar design to the one I'd read. For the Know-It-All he spent a year not only reading the Encyclopedia Britannica but also meeting with real know-it-alls of all ilk to better understand the concept of "intelligence"; for this new book he spent a year trying to follow every rule or law in the Bible and spent time with various religious groups to understand their views on religion. The interviewer asked about how his family handled living with him as he wore his hair and beard according to religious law, built a hut, and attempted whatever else the Bible prescribed. His comments about his wife's endurance of the year and about how he partially did this for his son (especially knowing what I know about the birth of his son from The Know-It-All) were particularly funny. My favorite was when he said that his wife is insisting his next book involve a year of rubbing her feet. I like that idea. I would buy a copy of that book for Monkeys for Christmas.

EDIT: My favorite review of the book:
Review:
"Seeing that most people violate at least three of the ten commandments on their way to work — even people who work from home -— says a lot about the scale of A. J.'s feat. The fact that you need to buy six copies of this book to unlock the code to save all humanity...well, that's just pure genius." Ben Karlin, co-creator of The Colbert Report" and co-author of America: The Book

On another note - I was so excited tonight to spring my new haircut on everyone. So now you'll have to wait a week. :) Miss you all.

Okay, thanks to iGoogle I discovered a really cool artist named Edward Monkton. I love him! I love his little hearts and stars and scribbles. I love his bright colors. I love his adorable line drawings. I love his cute little critters with occasionally unnerving comments. They are indeed interesting thoughts. Occasionally creepy, occasionally thought provoking, occasionally heartacheingly sweet.

The INTERESTING thoughts of Edward Monkton

Samples of my three favorites I found on google...


I'm still enjoying Numbers but I had to take a break to review multiplication and addition of radicals. I also had to look up the word "surd". I'm sure I never learned that ... but maybe. Crazy how much you forget. I can hear myself reading "lalalalalala" in place of reading a4+2b3 + 7p2 + q = 0 or whatevers in the text. I was debating reviewing imaginary numbers before continuing; however, my goal for this book isn't to learn/relearn math but to share in the joy of it's discovery (or deduction) so I decided to plunge forward regardless. I will figure it out on my own as I go. If numbers can be transcendental than so can I.

This was fun to read. I think it's cool Tennant is dating Peter Davidson's daughter so I don't think it's "ew" like the article says. I don't think they mean "ew", either, I think they just want the wordplay.

The Doctor Dates His Daughter From 'The Doctor's Daughter

By John Scott Lewinski June 03, 2008 | 4:03:03 PMCategories: Sci-Fi, Sex, Television



From England comes a report that puts the "ew" in sci-fi "news": Doctor Who star David Tennant is currently dating Georgia Moffett -- the actress who portrayed The Doctor's daughter in the Who episode of that same name.

Normally such gossipy kiss 'n' time travel news is better left to check-out line tabloids or Larry King, but there's such a bizarre pseudo-incestual, mobius strip of intertwining coincidences here that they almost create a sci-fi story on their own.

Moffett is the daughter of Peter Davison, who played The Doctor's fifth incarnation. So, she's a Doctor's daughter playing The Doctor's daughter. She's also the first Doctor's daughter who played The Doctor's daughter to date The Doctor.

Davison appeared with Tennant himself in a special Who episode last Christmas, "Time Crash." That yuletide story was written by new show-runner, Steven Moffatt. So, Tennant is the first Doctor to date the daughter of another Doctor -- having just appeared in a story with that paternal Doctor. See, Tennant met the father (Davison) of his new girlfriend (Moffett) on an episode written by his new boss (Moffatt).

Young Moffett's roll in "The Doctor's Daughter" is not the first time a previous lead actor's descendant has appeared on the show. David Troughton, son of Doctor No. 2 Patrick Troughton, appeared in Doctor No. 3's "The Curse of Peladon" in 1972. Strangely enough, Alice Troughton directed "The Doctor's Daughter" with Tennant and Moffett, but she bares no relation to Patrick -- so she's not a Doctor's daughter.

If you're scoring along at home, that's four Doctors, three Troughtons, two daughters, a Moffett, a Moffatt and a migraine.

Image courtesy DavidTennant.com


From this site Wired Magazine: Doctor Dates

I am reading Number...the Language of Science and highly recommend it. I'm only on chapter 3 and it has become my favorite science book I've read thus far.

When I bought it I read enough of the cover to know the principle of the book (how the concept of number evolved from the beginnings of time to the 20th century) but I did not grasp until after the preface that it was written in 1930. I suppose the quote on the cover "This is beyond doubt the most interesting book on the evolution of mathematics which has ever fallen into my hands. - Albert Einstein" should have given me a clue.

Anyway, the date of origin isn't that big a deal when you are looking at the birth of number and number theory but two things have struck me so far. His disregard for binary (the book predates computers, binary got a one paragraph mention about it's use in calculation machines - LOL!) and in chapter three "number lore" there's a mention of Fermat and his infamous margins with the implicit "still to this day has not been solved dun dun dun..."

Otherwise the origin of number words and concepts is so totally fascinating everyone needs to read this book.