band names from life…

Potential band name: Lola at the Bible

Origin: On a recent visit to the Library of Congress, my pal Rakes and I were tagging along with a tour group. The leader was going to take the group over to see the Guttenberg Bible (which thankfully has nothing to do with Steve Guttenberg) but he needed to see if the previous group had cleared out of the way: “Let me just see if my colleague Lola is still over at the Bible…”

7 unrelated things

1. I’m coming off a 2 week Christmas vacation. I haven’t gotten that much time off for the holidays since I was in college. Even when I worked for the university, I still only got a few days off, despite the fact that the students were gone for damn near a month. Vacation is good.

2. I was right about Smells Like Teen Spirit (see previous post for details…)
3. It’s cold outside. Now, I realize that cold is a relative concept and many of my yankee/ex-pat friends will not cry tears for my Floridian winter, but the high today is only supposed to be 47 or so and it will be down into the teens tonight. That’s cold around these parts. Although it is sunny and blue skies abound, which beats dreary, rainy cold.
4. Did you know that the University of Central Florida in Orlando is the 7th largest university in the U.S.? That doesn’t seem right.
5. Lynne Spears is releasing a parenting book? Through a Christian publishing house? Words fail me…
6. There’s a new version of American Gladiators scheduled to premier this week. My guilty admission: I loved that show. Actually, I will generally watch any of those competition type shows…World’s Strongest Man, lumberjack games, Pro Bowl Skills Challenge…I’m really not discriminating. I blame too much Battle of the Network Stars and Laff-A-Lympics in my youth.
7. I should have double good luck these days. Not only did I eat my Hoppin’ John yesterday, but I also remembered to say “rabbit rabbit” yesterday morning. Of course, now I have to go knock wood so I don’t jinx it…

Painlessly Reading the Classics

So I discovered this really cool thing the other day…reading books via email. Daily Lit will send an easily consumable chunk of a book to your email at an interval of your choosing. Check out some info from thier website:

Why read books by email? Because if you are like us, you spend hours each day reading email but don’t find the time to read books. DailyLit brings books right into your inbox in convenient small messages that take less than 5 minutes to read. This works incredibly well not just on your computer but also on a Treo, Blackberry, Sidekick or whatever the PDA of your choice.

How long does it take to read a book? That depends on three factors. First, on how many installments are in the book (shown when you browse for books). Second, on how frequently you choose to receive emails. Third, on how often you read more than one installment (by using the “send me the next installment immediately” feature). So here is a typical example. I am currently reading Dracula, which has 187 installments and I am receiving installments on weekdays, i.e. 5 days/week. So at most it will take me 187/5 = 37 weeks. But when I am on the train or waiting, I often read more than one installment, so I usually wind up reading about 10 installments/week. This means I will finish Dracula in about 19 weeks or 5 months. If that seems long to you, try something shorter!

It’s really quite a cool concept. You don’t even have to register or anything. Most of their available selections are of the classic Lit variety, many of which fall into the category of “I have a degree in English Lit and am alleged to be a well read person and I can’t believe I haven’t ever read Moby Dick or whatever so don’t tell anyone and blow my cover.” Now I can tackle a great work in tasty bite-sized morsels consumed right at my desk (while on a break, of course). I started out easy with authors I already like: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise and Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. Anyway, thought I would spread the word to the 2 people who read this blog. Enjoy.