Chris and I were in a Barnes & Noble the other day, looking at computer books while we killed time before a movie, and I realized that Amazon has completely ruined me for normal bookstore shopping. It’s not that I have any particular fondness for the company or the site itself, but in the space of a couple years they’ve successfully convinced me that it’s unreasonable to pay list price for anything, especially if I don’t get to read reviews of it and similar products before buying. Two of the books I was interested in go for $45 each list, and both of them are $30.50 each on Amazon (with free shipping). But I’m still probably not going to buy them, because it turns out that there’s another book on the same topic that has better reviews. While I’m still happy buying from places like A Common Reader (their entire catalog is essentially reviews), I can’t imagine buying a book I don’t know anything about from BN or Borders.
This has been one of those weeks where I’ve been working on a bunch of different tasks and projects, and while I’ve gotten a lot done I haven’t really finished any one thing in particular, so it still feels like I don’t have anything to show for it. This is the reason I often choose stay up all night when I’m only half done with a site - I’d rather finish it and be able to cross it off the list than do a reasonable amount of work and go to bed. However, I’m in the incredible second week of Sinus Disaster 2004, so I’m still low on energy and messed up from the meds. If only I could breathe through my nose.
Just a quick note for those of you who frequent #caoine: the channel will be moving to SlashNet over the next day or so. All you have to do is use irc.slashnet.org instead of irc.caoine.org, and all should be well.
Although it’s not yet available for preorder on Amazon, my friend Al Piacente’s book will be coming out next month. I’ll be posting more about it when it’s released, but I thought I’d mention it now that the publication date is definite. It’s a meaty read for anyone interested in political philosophy, but you don’t have to be a philosopher to get into it - it’s an extraordinarily accessible approach to American politics and government, and I think almost everyone I know would enjoy it. That probably means you would, too!
This morning I finally got around to gathering all of my text files, scraps of paper, and old notebooks that have been doing a half-assed job of substituting for an address book for years, and I dumped everything into OS X’s Address Book. While all the data entry was definitely a pain in the ass (most of my contact lists consist of first names and telephone numbers - which Jen is this, which Dave is that?), it was very much worth it. Now everything is stored in one place on my G4, and I’m using iSync to keep it synchronized with my iPod, which can replace the notebook that I used to carry around with me just for numbers and addresses. And I like the way Address Book interacts with Mail, which I recently started using for my NYU account (while I still have it). So as long as I never have to find and copy or type all of that contact information ever again, I’m a happy camper.
The cold of last week didn’t turn into a tonsil thing this time around, but it did turn into a bizarre sinus thing that left me partially deaf for a few days. It’s not yet a sinus infection, but the unfortunately named Dr Turnoff has me on some kind of crazy medication anyway because apparently it’s likely to become a sinus infection. And the crazy sinus medication keeps me nauseous and jittery and unable to sleep, so I’ve had a real dandy weekend. But I’m told it should be better by Tuesday, making it a mere week and a half that I’ve been unable to breathe in any conventional manner.
While I was visiting my folks in Massachusetts a couple weeks ago, I hit some garden stores with my Mom and brought back a windowbox full of little plants, which now seem to be flourishing. It’s a little hard to tell in the photos, but (from left to right) there’s mint, rosemary, lemon verbeena, and catnip. The little purple flowering plants here and there are Mexican heather.
The only thing I didn’t really like about Gmail was that the beta version didn’t work in Safari, so I had to run Firefox whenever I wanted to check my mail. But now it does work in Safari! If I could only find time to clean out my caoine.org inbox, I’d be all set.
