Asymptomatic

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....

On my trip to Paris I lost the book that my boss loaned me, On Intelligence. Not too bright, eh? It was written by Jeff Hawkins, the guy who invented the PalmPilot, and was all about his thoughts on how the mind worked. I read a good portion of it on the train into Philly, and my opinion is that he really hasn't thought it through well enough yet. From what I read, there's no proof that any of what he says is true.

So after I lost that book (I forgot to pick it up after I laid it down at the currency exchange counter), I bought a new book to wait out the time. A novel called Reflex by Stephen Gould. It wasn't too bad. more

I got suckered into reading this book by the woman at the book store. I told her I was going on a vacation and that I wanted a good selection of books to take with me for entertainment and relaxation. She asked what sort of genres I liked to which I replied that I enjoyed, among some scant few other things, science fiction. She proceeded to suggest The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell, as something I might like.

It turns out that The Sparrow is about a group of Jesuit priests (and a couple of their friends) who go off to an alien world to learn what there is to learn. That doesn't seem like my ballyhoo, and it isn't, but that's just a simple description. For the main character, Emilio Sandoz, it's a journey to discover the depths of God and faith. more

When I was younger, I received a book of fairy tales. Think Brothers Grimm. I don't remember that the stories were particularly horrifying; on the contrary, they were probably dulled at the edges like most Grimm books for children are. But the book did eat at my psyche for a very specific reason.

Somewhere near the back of the book was the story of Pandora and her box of evils. I recall being a fan of Greek myth in my youth, and I don't really thing that the story itself had anything to do with the misgivings I had for the book, but you never know.

No, what had me truly spooked was the woodcarving image that was printed on the page near the pandora story. It depicted a little girl opening a box, from which many dark evils fled....