Asymptomatic

Starting in September, which is right around the corner in case you hadn't noticed, there is a series of conferences that have entered my radar as something that might be edifying for me to attend. There may just be too many of them.

Podcamp Philly is the first of these, on September 6th and 7th. Like each of these conferences, this one has a theme. Being that this is a podcamp, the topic is "new media". I've been following the PANMA list for a year and a half and I'm still not sure what anyone really means when they say "new media", but I think it has something to do with blogging and podcasting and stuff like that.

Later in September (20-21) is Blog World Expo in Las Vegas. I'm waiting to hear more glowing reviews of this event from last year's attendees. This is a pretty expensive conference for blogging, and I wonder who the target market really is: bloggers or blog integrators. I think it's the latter, which it might be nice to pitch Habari at, but I'd like to get real users, not SEO people and themers. Maybe that's just me. Still, it would be nice to hobnob with the big players....

Over the past weekend, we took the usual summer pilgrimage to Johnstown. This time, Berta's sister Therese was in the process of moving, so while they packed up some of their things, I watched the kids. This turned out not too unpleasant. During the time going out and while the kids were entertaining themselves amicably, I was able to do some more reading.

When last Pat as in town, he loaded up my Kindle with a few sample books. I started reading one by Vernor Vinge called "A Fire Upon the Deep". It was both interesting and strange. We also started listening to an audiobook prequel to the Tales of the Otori trilogy, "Heaven's Net is Wide", by Lian Hearn.

A Fire Upon the Deep is, as I said, strange. It's been a while since I've read true space sci-fi, and this certainly qualifies. It will be difficult to explain some of the many layered characteristics of this book, which set to establish axioms by which Vinge's world operates....

Over the weekend, I visited Columbus, not just to hang out with skippy at ComFest and buy too much crap at Origins, but to attend and lead a session at PodCamp Ohio.

The side dishes to this entrée are actually better than the meat, but the meat was the point of the dinner, so that's what I'll talk about here. I'm all about focus here. Focus.

I showed up right on time for the welcome session on Saturday and checked in. I hadn't been able to show up for the Friday night meetup because of the previously mentioned "side dishes". I checked in and was shown to the "Speaker Lounge", marked off by signs with martini glasses (with olive!). After a brief welcome from another couple of session leaders in the lounge, we all shuffled down to Room A for the introduction.

I'm not going to do a play-by-play of the rest of the day, because that's already feeling tedious. Let me cover briefly a couple of sessions I did attend, and my overall impression of the camp. more

This post has very little to do with cats, except that they've been rampant distractions while I've been reading lately. They attacked a box of Rice-A-Roni in the pantry, leaving little noodles all over the floor, and also shredded a volleyball with a soft foam exterior. The cardboard scratching things are still used - I think it's just a matter of getting in there and clipping claws. But enough cat news.

I've finished reading a few books recently. The first book is Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore. Practical Demonkeeping is about a demon named Catch (what a preposterous name) who eats people, and his master, Travis, visiting Moore's fictional town of Pine Cove - the setting of many of his books. There, Travis seeks out the device that would free him from the demon that "serves" him, and Catch seeks out a new master that would free him from Travis. Of course, the interaction with the townsfolk leads to much drama, which is the crux of all of Moore's books.

I liked Practical Demonkeeping in that it was light and entertaining. It's certainly not the best of Moore's books. I preferred You Suck and A Dirty Job, as well as the Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. Still, it was entertaining. Not as many of the characters carry over in this book, and I found myself missing Theo and Molly from The Stupidest Angel. Man, I've read a lot of Moore, haven't I? Another author I'm beginning to think I've read plenty of is Philip Pullman....

My Kindle arrived today while I was watching Riley drive his electric Jeep around the cul-de-sac island. Since he refused to park his Jeep to go inside, I tore open the box right there in the driveway, and carried its contents up to the circle to get acquainted.

The Kindle is an electronic book. It has a paperback-sized screen with a small keyboard below, and large buttons on the sides. When the device is on, it reads just like any paperback book except that when you want to turn the page, you just press the button.

Several special features of the Kindle make it a pretty unique product. I admit that this device is going to be a problem for me because it's just too good....