Category — Mental Sampler

I have expressed a lot of feelings about the Macmillan e-book rules/embargo since it went into effect; mostly on social media but, clearly, also on my blog. My feelings about the whole thing intensified through the lens of COVID-19.

I love libraries, and I’m continuing to use paper books from libraries. But e-books are the perfect solution for not passing along the virus. You can check out the books from home. You are only touching your device. If you can’t afford to purchase books, it keeps reading free (except for taxpayer dollars) and safe. Which is what libraries are all about––making sure everyone has access to knowledge.

Which is why I’m irate that Macmillan hasn’t announced that they’re stopping their library buying restrictions for public health reasons. I’m aware that librarians could just as easily end their embargo, but doing so wouldn’t fix the problem because the restrictions would still be in place. Libraries could get one copy of a book vs. no copies of a book.

So that’s my rant of the day. I am really frustrated and disappointed in Macmillan for so many reasons, but this is the one pissing me off this morning.

What is making you cranky?

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Speaking of books… Sophie Hannah is one of my favourite writers, and she announced a contest in the latest edition of her newsletter. Guess the end of her latest book and win a signed proof.

I WON!

It’s not one of her usual mysteries––it’s nonfiction––but it is a puzzle. It’s called Happiness, a Mystery: And 66 Attempts to Solve It. It comes out in May, but her office said that they’re sending the copy now. I cannot wait to read this. And yes, I will have a review of it as soon as I read it in my regular monthly review post. Because I know I’m going to love it from the tiny snippet she included in the newsletter. And because she’s Sophie Hannah, and her books are perfection.

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I really like the Dixie Chick’s new song, “Gaslighter,” but it made me sad when I thought about how the last song (I think?) about her marriage was “Easy Silence.” How things went from this to this.

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I skipped Mental Sampler 17. It jumps from 16 to 18. I wonder why.

My Mac laptop has started to insert an extra space in random spots. So nine out of ten times when I use the spacebar, it puts one space. But one out of ten times, it puts two spaces. It is really frustrating. And it means I need to constantly scan everything I write for weird spacing.

Has anyone else out there had (and solved) this problem?

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Yesterday, I drove to four stores to find a tube of my cinnamon-flavoured toothpaste. Once upon a time, this toothpaste was everywhere. Now it is pretty much nowhere. I’ve thought about switching to mint, but life is too short to give up a toothpaste that makes me happy.

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The twins just wrapped up their final middle school book battle. Their school has a book battle team, and they compete against other schools in the county in a giant book trivia fest each spring. So they have a year to read dozens of books as a team, and then they go and compete against other schools who have read the same books.

They’re thinking of expanding it to high school, but if they don’t, their book battle career is over.

I kinda sorta wish I was on a book battle team and that we went to book competitions. Does this exist? Like everyone gets the same list of books to read, and you have several months to prepare and drill each other on facts. And then you get together for a trivia competition that pulls the questions from those books.

If it doesn’t exist, would you join if I started this and the battle was online?

We just started watching Downton Abbey for the first time (sans Wolvog because he didn’t find the idea of a period drama appealing) and… why didn’t any of you tell me how good it was?  You all let me miss its entire run.  We love it so hardcore that we call watching it, “Spending time with our Castle family.”

The ChickieNob and I cannot stop ourselves from looking up spoilers, so we know a large chunk of what will happen in the series, but it doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.  In fact, it’s making me race through the episodes because we’re so eager to see it all play out.

New life goal: visiting Highclere Castle.

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I am also beyond excited for the new season of Daredevil.  I love Matt Murdock, and I’m so excited to see that Kingpin is back.  (At least, I’m assuming he’s back since they featured him in the teaser video.). Is anyone else watching?

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I posted about this on Facebook, but it sparked a bunch of interesting side conversations.  ChickieNob and I were at a red light and two moths having sex landed on the windshield.  You may be asking me how I know the moths were having sex.  I guess if you have to ask that question, you’ve clearly never see moths making love.

It was like the squirrels all over again.

I ended up squirting the moths with wiper fluid, and they were stunned for a moment but then flew off, still having sex IN THE AIR.  Life goals.

It’s been a while since I’ve dumped out the contents of my brain like this but we need to talk about FORTUNE TELLING TEA CUPS.

I just found out about fortune telling tea cups, which are made for people like me (people, let’s say, unable to spot the acorn shape in soggy tea leaves) to read their fortune.  They are so pretty.

Image: Malcolm Lidbury via Creative Commons license

You can buy them, but I thought it would be so much more fun to make one as well as my own booklet for interpreting the tea leaves.  I could go to one of those paint-your-own pottery places and make up all my own symbols.  This feels like a brilliant plan.

Right?

OH!  Or I could make it like a Magic 8 Ball tea cup, with sections connoting common Magic 8 Ball answers like “yes” or “no” or “concentrate and ask again.”  In that last case, people would have to keep drinking tea until their leaves clumped on a definitive answer.

I see no flaw in this plan.

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I’ve been listening to Gimlet’s new podcast, The Habitat.  It’s about the experiment that NASA did to troubleshoot issues that could come up for astronauts going to Mars.

On a remote mountain in Hawaii, there’s a fake planet Mars. Six volunteers are secluded in an imitation Mars habitat where they will work as imitation astronauts for one very real year. The goal: to help NASA understand what life might be like on the red planet—and plan for the day when the dress rehearsals are over, and we blast off for real.

It is so interesting, especially because I would be a terrible candidate for this type of experience.  I’d be a terrible candidate to go to Mars AND I would be a terrible candidate to go to fake Mars.  So I’m fascinated to listen to other people living out this scenario.

Is anyone else listening?

I went to see a performance of Our Town.  Even though I’ve seen the play many times, I still started sniffling when George and Emily went out for the ice cream sodas.  And I was full-out wailing by the time we got to the cemetery.

I know some people think Our Town is maudlin and others think it’s obvious, but the former has no heart and the latter has no sense.  “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”  I am typing this post and this moment holds no weight because I have no clue what will happen next.  That is what makes life so heartbreaking; that we have no way of really absorbing life.  That most minutes bounce off our skin like oil meeting vinegar.  How many times on a normal day do you tell yourself to take a moment to marvel at the world around you?  I can tell you how many times I do that every day.  Zero.  Because Emily is right: humans are blind.

When we got home, I heard ChickieNob speaking in the kitchen with Josh.  “It was so loud.  I looked over because I thought dozens of people were crying.  But it was just mum.”

Because it’s that sad.

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I got what just may be the coolest surprise gift ever.  I went to get the mail and there was a package.  I was expecting a small envelope with a thumb drive for work, but this was a huge box.  And it had a scary picture on the cardboard.

But I opened it because I’m not that bright, and it turned out to be the coolest littleBits set!  It’s their new Code Kit.  You can build the project using the littleBits and then program it using a drag-and-drop, Blockly-like coding language.  It transmits the program wirelessly from the computer to the project.

I haven’t gotten a chance to build anything yet because the twins stole the box from me.  But I’m totally going to build Linus his very own electronic guinea pig friend with a LED face!  Because that won’t freak out my guinea pig at all.  Though I suppose I should do something more productive with it like take it to our coding club and have the kids get to try it out.  But first, an electronic guinea pig!

I don’t like the sound of this at all

Thank you, littleBits!