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Mo's mom had a pretty decent rule for her kids: if they didn't like a book they had just started, they had to read 50 pages, and then decide to give it a rest or not. I've tried to adopt the rule for myself, though upping it up to 100. And the current book about to get the axe is "100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I can tell it's a pretty good book, but it's just not catching for me...the characters are a little interesting but I have trouble sounding out their depth.

Sometimes you can come back to a book though. I think I had to be through a few unrequited loves before "Great Gatsby" made sense to me, and now it's one of my favorites.

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Video of the Moment
I got a piehole on the front of my head. Cool bit of music and image.

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Survey Question of the Moment
So, in an effort to get the comments feature moving again, as well as hoping to get a few new views...I mentioned Memorial Day I need to figure out what if anything I should do car-wise. I do have my eyes on those MINIs...they seem cute, and easy-to-park, reliable, not unreasonably expensive, and women seem to dig 'em, and those are 5 of my most important factors right there. A new car would definately take a chunk out of my new house money--and that money represents the bulk of my long term savings thus far, I don't want to feel like I'm squandering it. But still...

Heh, this Sunday I was stuck (and sun burning, I realized later) for 4 hours in downstate New York as my very capable Uncle Bill replaced an alternator fan belt (that had popped on the Tappan Zee bridge) on his '91 VW Jetta. It shoulda been more like an hour job, but the underhood arrangement was pretty dang unfriendly. That reminded me that I'm not really equipped for life with an old car, though I do have hopes that the Civic has quite a number of years of reliable life left in it.

I also need to figure out to do with my old car. Blue book or whatever, I'd likely get around 3K for it as a trade-in, and they'd probably sell it for 5K or so...that 3K is small enough that I'd like to do something better with it. My first thought is giving it to my cousin Ivan, who'll be starting to drive soon. It just seems like it would be a big boon in high school, and I would've loved to have a car rather than borrowing the family minivan. On the other hand, I know some adults with more real-world problems and transportation issues could possibly use it...including one friend who was enquiring about buying it. Complicating the decision, I've already mentioned it as a possibility to Ivan and his family, so it might be incredibly bad-spirited to back out without a really good reason.

So I dunno. Apologies in advance to people who might be cursing me and thinking "oh, poor baby, got a bunch of money and doesn't know how to spend it". I have been very fortunate with this and I want to balance being a good steward of my good fortune with not being a joyless stingy bastard.

Thoughts or suggestions?

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Quote of the Moment

The Germans have done for consonants what the Hawaiians have done for vowels.

Guitarist Leo Kottke was introducing his song tentatively titled "Gewerbegebiet" ("Trade Area", according to Google's Language Tools) at Prairie Home Companion in OGNJ.