Saturday, March 24, 2007

moments of horror!!!

You know that moment of horror when you see your cup of drinking water tipping haphazardly toward that favorite piece of electronic gadgetry? Exhilarating, but only when the momentary toppling is averted. In this case, it was. Regardless, though, it reminded me that soon I will be having to replace my aging laptop. Ol' Beleraphon (yes, I still name my computers after Greek and Roman mythological figures, shameful). We've had some times, this laptop and me. It's travelled with me to multiple countries, across this land, has been a partner in creating oh so many wonderful things. It's small, relatively light and usually up for whatever. What else could I ask for in a laptop? Well, I mean, it is a little slow these days. Slow as in when I type, the words lag behind my actual typing. This does not work.

So, as mentioned, the time is approaching when I will head on down to the ol' Apple store and pick up a new machine. I think I'm leaning pretty heavily toward the Black Macbook. It should do the trick, and it's not terribly expensive.

It's an exciting time at the moment. I just returned from a trip overseas (it was jolly), it's the week of the local film festival, it's educator savings week at the bookstore and the days have been decently pleasant, if not dry and pollen filled. Trip photos, interesting films, books and decent, non scorching weather - a few of my favorite things.

Lately I've been reading books that were clearly intended for children. Part of me feels silly doing so, but the writing (in these particular books) is very concise without being drab, and is free of excessive adverbs, something I've been struggling with lately (overuse). After I finish this particular book (OK, let me just admit what it is, the 2nd Artemis Fowl book, Eoin Colfer, you're great) I should probably dig into the stockpile of books I've picked up and haven't had time to really dig into. Lets see, now, there's the interlinear translation of Canterbury Tales which I've picked at (I suppose that's what I'm destined to keep doing with that), a book written by one of my English teachers from years back, a book written by my cousin, "Through A Glass Darkly,' by Karleen Koen, "The Last Kingdom" by Bernard Cornwell (saw ads for his newest book "The Northern Lords" all over the train stations in the UK, decided to give the series a shot), and, like 20 books in my eReader which I've been putting off reading. Ehh, that's a stack. It's a good thing I enjoy reading, I suppose.

Next nagging writing habit to work on: Needless Contractions, Capitalization and Commas.