Bookshelf:

Recently Reviewed:

• Vernor Vinge et. al., True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier

Recently Read:

• Joanna Russ, The Female Man

Currently Reading:

• Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity

Next Up:

1. Julian May, Jack the Bodiless
2. A. K. Dewdney, The Planiverse
3. Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers
4. Lisa Carey, In the Country of the Young
5. Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana
6. Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
7. Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead
8. Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life
9. Howard V. Hendrix, Empty Cities of the Full Moon
10. Tony Daniel, Metaplanetary

LiveJournal

It seems like everyone's doing it: Everyone's got a LiveJournal. Of course, I've already got this journal, but I decided I wanted to get one myself just to play around with the technology and see what I think. And maybe find that it can fill a role which this journal doesn't. I'm not sure what that is, but who knows. It's not like I need to make a plan for everything.

So anyway, here it is. If I keep it up for a while, I'll probably put a link to it on the front page of this journal. If you feel like checking both of 'em, feel free. (I'll probably cross-link from the LiveJournal to this one but not vice-versa.) But don't kill yourself. This one is my "real" journal, because I have complete control over it.

Actually, the main motivation for me to set up the LiveJournal is to use the Friends feature, and to be able to post comments in other peoples' journals using my own account. That's not such a bad thing.

I could quibble with some details of their user interface, but overall it's not bad. Usable. I might try using one of their clients sometime. Who knows.

Here's a book to avoid: The Female Man, by Joanna Russ. I knew it was going to basically be a sort of feminist manifesto going in, but I had expected it to have a story, plot, and characters, or at least a semblance (even if poorly executed) of them. But really the characters are stereotypes, and there's no story or plot at all. And large sections of the book are nothing more than extended screeds.

Whether or not Russ has points to make, and whether those points are valid or not, are irrelevant. This isn't a novel. It's a collection of, I dunno, vignettes, essays and screeds. It's shocking, but hardly compelling.

I can imagine it having been new and strange when it was first published, but that was 30 years ago. It feels horribly dated now, at least to me. I can't recommend it at all.

I never did relate my funny Newton story from two weeks back to you:

Back when I was putting the chicken wire up around my porch, to keep the cats from trying to slip through the fence in case they thought there was something they could jump to, I left the door open so the cats could join me. And they did. Now Newton likes to chew on leaves that fall on the porch, so I swept the leaves off the porch first. (I also need to scrub it clean, but that's another story.)

I also have my dwarf orange tree up there now, in its container.

You see where this is going, right?

So at one point I turn around, and there's Newton sitting in the container, trying to chew on orange tree leaves. The goof. I shooed him away.

I eventually moved the tree to the other end of the porch (near the door). And on Tuesday morning I was sitting on my porch and reading for a while before work (a benefit of getting up early on mornings I don't go to the gym). I let Newton out with me, but he kept trying to eat the tree. Bad cat! Eventually I closed the screen door and left him inside. He's going to have to learn to behave if he wants to come out with me. Especially since I want to get more container plants to cultivate on the porch.

Stuff I need to do over the next month or so:

1. Take my car in for an oil change.
2. Finally call the State of Wisconsin to learn the proper procedure for amending my 1999 part-year income taxes.
3. Get a new dentist and make an appointment.
4. Find a general practice physician and make an appointment for a physical.

If I can do all of these by the end of the summer, that would be fantastic.

I'm sad to report that Who bassist John Entwistle died today, apparently of a heart attack.

The Who, as some of you may know, are one of my absolutely favorite bands, in large part because Pete Townshend is, to my mind, one of the greatest songwriters in rock music. But Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon were both seminal musicians in their fields. Townshend also pioneered the use of electric guitar feedback and synthesizers in rock music. Vocalist Roger Daltrey was no slouch either. Rumor has it that they recorded a new studio album in the last two years, but have been uncertain whether or not to release it.

I got to see The Who play live in 1989 in Boston. They were fantastic. I feel lucky to have seen them. Entwistle was only about 60, which is twice as old as Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile was when he died of a heart attack last week, but still awfully young, it seems.

He'll be missed.