Migrating...

Heading south tomorrow, to Florida for a wedding. We'll be back on Monday, so most likely no blogs till then (unless the hotel has some public computers.) We shall see.

Tally Ho!

Sandwich of confusion...

Today, I had a sandwich from the faux-Subway eatery on campus. I've worked here at SPC for 7 months, but I hadn't gotten a sub from this place yet. (I'd usually go to the real Subway right off campus if I had a hankering for subbish goodness.)

I was tempted today because they had a buffalo chicken sub, and I'm a sucker for buffalo chicken. I asked for no blue cheese, and they said, "We don't do blue cheese, we do ranch." No way to the rancho, I say! I'm not a big condiment person, so any gooey food product generally stays away from me.

So, I take my sub (with lettuce and green peppers) back to my table, and dig in. I then discover that there's bacon in the sandwich.

Buffalo chicken and bacon.

Interesting.

It actually was okay, I just didn't expect it. I'd order it again. Although I might actually ask them to hold the bacon, as I try to avoid a lot of heavy salted meat products. It's my way of being healthy...

In total other news, while in Florida, this Saturday, we're going to have a lunar eclipse! I hope there's good clear sky to see it...

I'm probably about 100 pages from finishing Cell, so Brian, you better get on the ball! It may be a plane finisher, but I can't see not being done with it by the time we reach sunny Florida. It's a good read, and just gut-wrenching in some spots, which I always like about King's writing. He really does know how to get to a reader emotionally, in very simple ways...

More about that once I'm done with the book.

NP: Adrian Belew - Hot Zoo

A New Start...

I'm beginning to get tired of my one word subject titles to these blogs, so, I begin again. If there's a relevant one word title, I'll be happy to use it. If not, then life moves forward.

I received my cell phone in the mail today. After a bit of a chore on ye olde landline getting the new doo-hickey activated, it is now working well. I've put some numbers in it already, and Sue and I were being adorable texting back and forth from our phones, as we sat next to each other on the couch.

I still think I'm going to keep it off most of the time, and use it for brief calls more than anything else, but we shall see how usage develops over time.

There's a Dana Gould bit out there, where he talks about the banality of most cell phone calls:

Guy In Store: Yes! It's amazing! I bought a comb! For two bucks! I didn't realize that they were so cheap. What was that? Yes, a comb, I'm NOT KIDDING!!!

Et cetera...

Is reading a comedy bit as interesting as listening to it? Discuss.

It's interesting seeing the comments on Cell. It's very readable right now, and I'm enjoying it. Although, I want to know what Tom did for a living. I don't think it's been mentioned yet. Or if it was, I missed it...

I agree with Queenie about King's endings sometimes falling flat. My friend Lou and I have discussed this. King likes to whip out a miraculous ending a bit more often than I'd like. I can take it in The Stand, as that's totally about Good vs. Evil, but in other places, it seems a bit rushed. I think his newer books don't suffer from that as much as his 80's-90's output did, but there are still aspects of that approach in his writing.

Although, he did get the ending of the Dark Tower series right, and that can make up for a lot in my book.

I managed to get tickets to The Police for Sue and myself this morning, for the Giants Stadium show. Granted, we're in nosebleed land in the upper tier, but there are really only two kinds of seats that matter, those inside of the venue, and those outside. And, we're in, baby!

The upper tier were also the cheapest seats, so that worked in my favor. If the middle tier pricing wasn't $90, I might have been willing to do the middle pricing, but $180 for two tickets to a rock show seems a little steep for me. The highest price was $250 for a single ticket, and that's just too much.

Genesis should be announcing their North American tour soon. I'm willing to pay a bit more for those tickets, as I'm a bigger Genesis fan than I am of The Police. Also, I'll be able to pre-order those tickets through the Genesis website/message boards, and not pay $100 to join, like The Police were asking for to join their fan club.

NP: Tony Banks - An Island In The Darkness

Books!

I finished the book I was reading, "The Ghost Map," by Steven Johnson. It's a book about a cholera epidemic in London in 1854, where it was finally discovered that cholera was transmitted through tainted water. Doesn't sound like much of a story, but Johnson does a good job of outlining the actual process of the individuals involved, which makes it a compelling story.

Like a lot of non-fiction books I read, I skimmed over the final chapter, as those chapters tend to be a lot of the author making modern relevance to the story told in the previous pages. What I read of the concluding chapter I enjoyed, but I can get the meat of it by picking and choosing what looks interesting to read.

So, I picked up the book that Brian mentioned in a previous blog post comment, Stephen King's "Cell." Starts right off with a bang, in Boston, and I'm already 100 pages into it. I like books where I actually know the locations the author is writing about. King sets the start of the book on Boyleston Street, right near the Boston Common. I thought, "Right near the Mister Softee ice cream truck," and what do you know, the truck gets a mention... Truth in writing, right there...

I may finish it before leaving for the Florida trip on Thursday, we shall see how quick of a read it is.

And it's snowing lightly outside, for you weather nerds out there...