-We have some really beautiful weather recently. While today wasn't as warm as it has been, it was certainly still a very beautiful day.
-I am now 4/20, which might be restated as 1/5, in this year's Roll Up the Rim to Win contest. So it seems that I am actually doing much better than expected. I would have to drop to 4/36 to be where one would expect to be, and then below that to be doing worse than average. So maybe this year hasn't been quite as much of a wash as I was thinking it would be.
-I am not sure quite what it is, but our post Underlining Fail seems to be quite frequently hit with spam comments. Though we have more of these in recent months than we have ever had before, this one post seems to attract the majority of them. I am always somewhat teased when I see that we new comment only to find out that we have once again been spammed.
-For the past two nights I have had my sleep disrupted by what I presume is a mouse in the wall between the two bedrooms in our apartment. The ruckus was so loud last night that both Rebecca and I were basically unable to sleep for more than an hour at around 4:00 AM. The worst part of all of this is that it almost sounded as though the little guys were chewing/tugging on some of the wiring in the wall.
Tonight I reported the problem to the superintendent's husband, who indicated that he would call an exterminator tomorrow (or throw down a few glue traps if he had them). Both Rebecca and I are really hoping that we end up with the exterminator rather than glue traps (which won't be anywhere close to the problem).
-We are down to our final few bottles of Club Soda. Apparently 56 liters of Club Soda doesn't last all that long.
-Today I had my last class for the term. I still have a few things to take care of before my 'summer' starts. Of course, it being summer means that instead of classes to attend each day I will have reading to attend to. Should be fun.
-One of my department's senior professors retired last Summer, though is only now being thrown out of his office. To prepare for the move he is getting rid of many of his books. I was able to pick up a few that should be relevant to my thesis research, as well as a few that relate to personal interests. The most noteworthy of my picks, at least from the standpoint of my place of birth, was Smallwood: The Unlikely Revolutionary by Richard Gwyn (I am presently part way through Gwyn's biography of Macdonald). Oh, I also picked up a copy of Creighton's biography of Macdonald (and to think that just yesterday I had a conversation with a friend in which I claimed to be better at reducing my acquisition tendencies than I had been in the past).
Showing posts with label free books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free books. Show all posts
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
A Few Quick Notes 188
-Though things started off poorly today, by mid-morning we were in the midst of a rather fine day. Again, we had clear skies and reasonable temperatures. As far as I am concerned I can deal with the crappy, overcast mornings if the afternoons and evenings were always this nice.
-As I was preparing my lunch this morning I noticed that we were out of carrots, and peppers. While in past months this wouldn't have been too much of a problem, I am presently in this midst of a quite the vegetable surge. So for the first time in almost a month I didn't have to prepare vegetables with the rest of my lunch. On the consumption end this was also a little frustrating, a few carrot sticks would have gone quite nicely with my sandwich and piece of gingerbread.
-It seems that I missed the first episode of the Gordon Pinsent obituary show. More troubling is that I may have completely misunderstood when it was to air. It now looks as though I was 12 hours off the scheduled time. Even worse that just missing the show or the correct time is that I have now learned that it is likely that the show will only be broadcast during the work day, making regular listening almost impossible.
-Last night my parents, sister, and I played Pictionary. My parents played on a team against my sister and I. More than ever before it seemed as though there were a ridiculously large number of all-plays. It seemed that we could hardly go a turn without an all-play hitting.
Even worse than the large number of non-category specific all-plays was the one that Kirsten and I were stuck on for about 30 minutes. We couldn't seem to catch a break. Do any of you know how hard it is to draw 'hangover' for a 12 year-old girl? Another one that we were hit with, 'box cars,' was particularly hard considering that we haven't had trains in this province for longer than Kirsten has been alive.
Not surprisingly, we were smoked. I am not sure that we even made it half-way around the board. I guess my desire to exchange Cranium for Pictionary as the family game isn't quite about to happen.
-At about 2:00 PM today Kirsten called to see if I was free to go to Mount Pearl. At first I wasn't exactly sure what they were talking about, particularly as I was then at work and would be for the next few hours (and I knew that they knew this). Eventually I was able to piece things together and confirm that they were in fact just about to head to Mount Pearl, and seemingly thought that I could just drop work and take the trip out with them. They didn't seem to quite understand that being at work means that I can't just take off with no notice, even if I will eventually have to head to Mount Pearl at some point this summer to get a new driver's license photo taken.
-For a second Thursday in a row my weekly ultimate game will fall on a Thursday. Though I am likely in a minority, Friday would really be preferable to this. Furthermore, this is likely to be a hard fought game against one of the more experienced teams (More Cowbell) in our division. Hopefully we will be able to pull out a victory.
-As I was preparing my lunch this morning I noticed that we were out of carrots, and peppers. While in past months this wouldn't have been too much of a problem, I am presently in this midst of a quite the vegetable surge. So for the first time in almost a month I didn't have to prepare vegetables with the rest of my lunch. On the consumption end this was also a little frustrating, a few carrot sticks would have gone quite nicely with my sandwich and piece of gingerbread.
-It seems that I missed the first episode of the Gordon Pinsent obituary show. More troubling is that I may have completely misunderstood when it was to air. It now looks as though I was 12 hours off the scheduled time. Even worse that just missing the show or the correct time is that I have now learned that it is likely that the show will only be broadcast during the work day, making regular listening almost impossible.
-Last night my parents, sister, and I played Pictionary. My parents played on a team against my sister and I. More than ever before it seemed as though there were a ridiculously large number of all-plays. It seemed that we could hardly go a turn without an all-play hitting.
Even worse than the large number of non-category specific all-plays was the one that Kirsten and I were stuck on for about 30 minutes. We couldn't seem to catch a break. Do any of you know how hard it is to draw 'hangover' for a 12 year-old girl? Another one that we were hit with, 'box cars,' was particularly hard considering that we haven't had trains in this province for longer than Kirsten has been alive.
Not surprisingly, we were smoked. I am not sure that we even made it half-way around the board. I guess my desire to exchange Cranium for Pictionary as the family game isn't quite about to happen.
-At about 2:00 PM today Kirsten called to see if I was free to go to Mount Pearl. At first I wasn't exactly sure what they were talking about, particularly as I was then at work and would be for the next few hours (and I knew that they knew this). Eventually I was able to piece things together and confirm that they were in fact just about to head to Mount Pearl, and seemingly thought that I could just drop work and take the trip out with them. They didn't seem to quite understand that being at work means that I can't just take off with no notice, even if I will eventually have to head to Mount Pearl at some point this summer to get a new driver's license photo taken.
-For a second Thursday in a row my weekly ultimate game will fall on a Thursday. Though I am likely in a minority, Friday would really be preferable to this. Furthermore, this is likely to be a hard fought game against one of the more experienced teams (More Cowbell) in our division. Hopefully we will be able to pull out a victory.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Take a book, Leave a Book Box
Several years ago Nithum and I, while in St. John’s, came across a box in a house that encouraged people to either take or leave a book. Before moving into our apartment last year we thought about establishing a box of our own, though because of space restrictions this did not occur.
Now that we have moved to a significantly larger apartment we finally have the space to establish such a box. The box was seeded with a few discards from the collection that I acquired through frequent visits to the McGill book sale free book box. The problem with the seed books was that most of them weren’t very good, which explains why they were being given away for free in the first place.
Fortunately, today I was able to find a fair number of classics for free. The newly available books are:
-Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
-Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
-Dracula by Bram Stoker
-Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
-Lord of the Flies by William Golding
-The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Now that we have moved to a significantly larger apartment we finally have the space to establish such a box. The box was seeded with a few discards from the collection that I acquired through frequent visits to the McGill book sale free book box. The problem with the seed books was that most of them weren’t very good, which explains why they were being given away for free in the first place.
Fortunately, today I was able to find a fair number of classics for free. The newly available books are:
-Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
-Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
-Dracula by Bram Stoker
-Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
-Lord of the Flies by William Golding
-The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Free Books
As I have mentioned before, occasionally at McGill one will find a free book box near the Redpath Library. This tends to be one of the highlights of my day. I have found all kinds of good stuff there.
One of the things about this box that I like in particular is that I am willing to pick up all kinds of things that under normal circumstances I would not consider buying. I have picked up some John LeCarre spy novels, some J. D. Salinger, some Dickens, among many other things.
Yesterday, I was pleased to find an Oprah Book Club selection and a copy of The Merchant of Venice on my way to class. As I was returning from class I came across the weekly Wednesday jackpot, several full bins of free books.
After just a few minutes of searching through these bins I came across a book whose title and cover page I thought that I recognized from an episode of Wonder Years. The book in question is Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex – But Were Afraid To Ask (EYAWTKASBWATA) by David Reuben.
Once I returned home after class I started to flip through EYAWTKASBWATA, as I too have questions that I am afraid to ask. I immediately surprised to find some of the chapters titled as they were. It seems that “Frigidity,” “Male Homosexuality,” and “September Sex” are chapter titles that I wouldn’t expect to find in a book published today.
More importantly, the content was something that I didn’t really expect to find. Most importantly, this guy has never heard of Viagra. His entire “Impotence” chapter needs to be re-written. Another chapter in need of a major re-evaluation is the one on “Male Homosexuality.” In this case there are too many problems to point out here. I would only recommend reading it as a historical document representing the mood of the 1960’s and certainly not as an information source. If one is gay this book would make one more afraid to ask than before.
Hopefully the quality of today’s other two finds will be higher.
One of the things about this box that I like in particular is that I am willing to pick up all kinds of things that under normal circumstances I would not consider buying. I have picked up some John LeCarre spy novels, some J. D. Salinger, some Dickens, among many other things.
Yesterday, I was pleased to find an Oprah Book Club selection and a copy of The Merchant of Venice on my way to class. As I was returning from class I came across the weekly Wednesday jackpot, several full bins of free books.
After just a few minutes of searching through these bins I came across a book whose title and cover page I thought that I recognized from an episode of Wonder Years. The book in question is Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex – But Were Afraid To Ask (EYAWTKASBWATA) by David Reuben.
Once I returned home after class I started to flip through EYAWTKASBWATA, as I too have questions that I am afraid to ask. I immediately surprised to find some of the chapters titled as they were. It seems that “Frigidity,” “Male Homosexuality,” and “September Sex” are chapter titles that I wouldn’t expect to find in a book published today.
More importantly, the content was something that I didn’t really expect to find. Most importantly, this guy has never heard of Viagra. His entire “Impotence” chapter needs to be re-written. Another chapter in need of a major re-evaluation is the one on “Male Homosexuality.” In this case there are too many problems to point out here. I would only recommend reading it as a historical document representing the mood of the 1960’s and certainly not as an information source. If one is gay this book would make one more afraid to ask than before.
Hopefully the quality of today’s other two finds will be higher.
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