Kindle on the Web

Amazon silently released their Cloud Reader web app, whereby you can read your Kindle books online. There's also a Chrome app for offline access. Cool!

Via: Engadget, VentureBeat, and Lifehacker.

Book TV!

I love cable.

This book looks like it'd be decent. The guy took a 14 foot boat along the same trail as Lewis & Clark. He was a good speaker. Anyways, it's on the list...

While I'm on the subject of cable... I think EC would like this show.

Esmerelda!

I had a pretty nice copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I got it from this little bookstore in Terrell, Texas. For some reason which evades me now, my family and I went to Tyler, Texas (of Toadies song fame). On the way back, we stopped at a strip mall in Terrell. I found this little bookstore. I didn't recognize the name, but the store had 3 or 4 other locations. I have a habit of buying books on trips. I don't like souvenirs, and I don't vacation well, so I suppose it's a compromise. It gives me something to read on the way back, and a way to remember the trip. I bought THND in Terrell. I bought Sister Carrie at the Baylor bookstore. I bought Lucky at an airport.

The point of this is: I can't find THND now! I thought I brought it to Chicago. But I don't see it anywhere.

Bored

I was restless last night. After dinner I went downtown. There were so many people, and so many unfamiliar with the city. Families would pass by the Marshall Field's and see the large trumpets and the big television display and marvel at it. That façade is so common to me; I've been at that spot often. The experience has tarnished for me. It reminds me of a quote:

I do not wish to promote any morality, but to those who do I give this advice: If you wish to deprive the best things and states of all honor and worth, then go on talking about them as you have been doing. Place them at the head of your morality and talk from morning to night of the happiness of virtue, the composure of the soul, of justice and immanent retribution. The way you are going about it, all these good things will eventually have the popularity and the clamor of the streets on their side; but at the same time all the gold that was on them will have been worn off by so much handling, and all the gold inside will have turned to lead. Truly, you are masters of alchemy in reverse: the devaluation of what is most valuable. Why don't you make the experiment of trying another prescription to keep from attaining the opposite of your goal as you have done hitherto? Deny these good things, withdraw the mob's acclaim from them as well as their easy currency; make them once again concealed secrets of solitary souls; say that morality is something forbidden. That way you might win over for these things the kind of people who alone matter: I mean those who are heroic. But to that end there has to be a quality that inspires fear and not, as hitherto, nausea. Hasn't the time come to say of morality what Master Eckhart said: "I ask God to rid me of God."

Downtown, I first went to Borders and browsed for a while. I spent a while reading Sandra Day O'Connor's book The Majesty of the Law. I would've bought it but for the long cashier lines. I recommend it.

Then I decided to go to a movie. I wasn't sure what was playing, but I knew at least the new Pride & Prejudice was out. I wasn't in the right mood, so instead I chose Ice Harvest. Ebert & Roeper gave it two thumbs up, but I think their judgment is very questionable here. It reminded me a great deal of Catcher in the Rye: angst-ridden, juvenile, and never really going anywhere. It was a mediocre film, not worth the money, but better than most films I'd expect in a mainstream theater.

The movie theater was a coup however: I learned Tristan & Isolde had been made into a movie! I was thinking just the other day that someone should make Tristan & Isolde into a movie. High time! So there are a few movies from this season I look forward to seeing at some point in time:

• Pride & Prejudice


• Tristan & Isolde


• The Libertine


• Duane Hopwood

After all this excitement, I came back to feed the cat. :)

My favorite quote

Although overly idealistic, I've long liked this quote:

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence--even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "you are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

I'm bored so I'll ramble...

I need to see a good movie. One that I haven't seen before. I had an idea a long time ago to visit one of the Landmark Theatres in Chicago. However, that requires an investment of time and effort. Seems like that's in short supply.

In a similar vein, I may have enjoyed the ice-skating event tonight. However it seemed like it'd be cold and I was a bit out of it. On the way home I ran into Anne and Keith. Anne and Dani will be around for spring break, as will I. Possibly others will as well. We will have to do something.

I changed my fiction to Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House. I can finally see whence Elizabeth got her name. It should be (slightly) more cheery than my previous choice of the Death of Ivan Ilych which I am currently abandoning. That book could well have contributed to that Black Thursday I had earlier this quarter. I didn't feel like coming in, but I did, because a day is not the same without seeing all my first year friends. And I started to read DOII, but II had died and his friends didn't care. They thought about their obligations and what they would have to do. I mean the death seemed to be beginning to have its effect at the point I got to, but the (realistic) phase where it wasn't quite real yet, was depressing. Anyways, I'm sure if I continued in DOII, it at least wouldn't continue to be depressing for that reason. Tolstoy always seems to convey a realistic human feeling... On a similar weird/related note, for some weird reason, I find the "On Star" radio commercials moving...

Oh, and I should probably ramble about math for a bit. I am supposed to be doing that 16 hours a day. It's boring. I do it all the time, and I get only a bit of it ever written up, and so on and so on. I always feel weird writing these things, because people will read them, and it seems like my entries seem depressing, but it's just a perpetual state of ennui.

One thing however which is nice, and happy and so on is my friends. Yay. We've celebrated two birthdays (each twice :)) in the past two weeks... The most memorable part about the dinner sunday aside from overdoing it with the green habanero sauce, was a weird conversation about porn. And Deepam &c. picked on me a bit. That was less pleasant. But I had a good time I guess. I liked the Georgian food better than the Mexican, but such is the state of things. This is probably unintelligible to most people (i.e. those who weren't there)...

Mike was/is considering another place. And that gives me occassion to think of the program if it were less social. I don't think it'd be bearable ...

Anyways, the cycle goes on, the phoenix dies and rises alive again to live another 500 years...

(no subject)

After reading pessimysticism's recent entry, I think I should read some Calvino... or any fiction really. I noticed a conspicuous absence, that of Tolstoy, in his entry....

Anyways, last night bowling was fun. (Unfortunately) a lot of people left after the first game. But me and my peeps played a rousing second game. I got two strikes in a row and as I went up to make my next shot, the lane broke. We waited and it got fixed, and I of course did not get a third strike, and then it broke right after my shot, we waited some more and changed lanes and so on... In the end, we had fun (modulo a little waiting) and got bowling for free (modulo the shoe fees). Everyone owes Mr. G $2 or about.

Tonight we shall go see "Bowling for Columbine", a theme weekend if you will.

Meanwhile, I think I shall visit the office soon (noonish?) see if anyone's there, and maybe read a little fiction...

I need better reading material

"Four males die by suicide for every female, but at least twice as many women as men attempt suicide." (from The Neuroscience of Suicide in Scientific American)...

So it would appear that men are once again better at getting things done ;).

On that topic, got very little done today... And I ripped my jeans big time. So one less pair of 'longjohn-compatible' jeans as Nora Elizabeth says. Nora Elizabeth doesn't like us calling her that. I would have a poll as to what people prefer, 'Nora' or 'Elizabeth', but only paid users can do that. Maybe we'll get rjyoung to. I think Nora is an excellent name, and from an Ibsen play, how awesome. She must have childhood issues like the ones that prevent Kate from playing foursquare. At least it's 'Elizabeth' with a 'z', choosing 'Elisabeth' over 'Nora' would simply be unconscionable. (and who knew unconscionable was spelt with an 'o').

Meanwhile, did not visit the office today, so no Bert watch, keep watching for tomorrow's exciting edition.

Oh, and also I can't find a piece of paper that I wanted to find. A few weeks ago a pipe burst or something, water in the living room, and moved a lot of stuff. Anyways, I thought I had this piece of paper somewhere, and can no longer find it. Pipe was fixed in plenty of time for the folks' visit.

Overall a lackluster day. No o's in lackluster, finally something to be thankful for.