I’m back from walkies, showered and shaved… it’s nice go step out in the morning, after (or during) a light rain, before the sun has come very far up and started dropping heat all over the place.

Saw something that I’d not seen for years… a 2-baby stroller… (being pushed by a mommy who was in amazing shape, all the baby feeding fat was gone…unless it wasn’t the mommy. the things I assume.) 2 twin babies, about 6 months old apiece having a great time being slowly rollerbladed around the mainway. A cooing baby will always bring a smile to my face. Things like that makes me wonder all the more about people who don’t like kids…isn’t fondness for tots sort of hardwired into our nervous system? Even me, a pod, and a male, thinks that babies are adorable. The “insult” of being called a breeder by those that choose to not have kids is kind of silly, I think.

Codex sampleI notice that in the community they’re making mention of the Codex Seraphinianus and I’m astounded that it’s selling for so much now. I own a book that sells for $1000! (and it’s not even written in a tongue one can understand) I got it back in the early-mid 80s, right when it first came out… one of the first things I bought with my library paycheck.[1] It’s a beautiful book, and I should bring it out, and read through it again. Nice illustrations, and a good head shaker. No book should cost a grand.[2] If I had a good scanner, and the willingness to destroy my copy, I’d make a pdf out of it, and post it on my website… I wonder how many copyright laws that’d infringe? The book’s out of print… I’d like for more people to see it. It does look best as a tome though… they’d have to print it out, and bind it on nice paper to get the full effect and feel. Some of the images would make lovely desktop wallpaper, too.

I wouldn’t put this as my favorite book of all time, but it certainly would make for a wonderful coffee table piece (now, all I have to do is get the coffee table. The downside is… do I want to leave a book that is so costly laying out where Newt or some brutal can get at it? This is one of the perils of owning something expensive, and fragile. Maybe I’ll just sell it on Ebay…But I like to think that it’ll make a nice addition to my library, one day, when I have one. How do they say it? Possessions own you, as well as you owning them.

Trying my hand at footnotes… I think I prefer parenthetical statements, but I didn’t want to disturb the flow of writing. easier to put a number there, and come back to it later. 🙂 Um, am I being ignorant, or am I right in wondering why anyone would use the html command CITE when the italic command is only one letter?

[1]

an extravagance, bought when I was still living under my folk’s roof. That same paycheck paid for my personal phone line, too…not for social calls,per se, but to connect to BBS’s and Fidonet at 110/300 baud. gah…so long ago… I can read faster than 300 baud. No graphics saved for ASCII. Note to self, do an entry about my old BBS, run on an Atari 800, 4 floppy drives, and a 1200 baud modem, later that year. The Name? The Halls of Gladsheim. compared to today, like writing on cave walls
[2]

Well, if you want a rare first edition, that’s fair…but what about folks that don’t want to collect.. just want to read the book? this is my big gripe about comic books too. I don’t collect books as an investment. I collect ’em, because I’ve enjoyed reading them, I’m a pack rat, and have invested some emotional worth in them. Books, never read, in a vault. that’s perverse.

word of the day – stoic

stoic (STOH-ik) noun

One who is or appears to be indifferent to pleasure or pain; unaffected by emotions.

adjective

Unaffected by pleasure or pain.

After the name of the school of philosophy founded by Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium (c. 340-265 BCE) that one should be free of passion and be unaffected by grief or joy. From Middle English, from Latin stoicus, from Greek stoikos from stoa, the porch where Zeno taught. (The Stoic school taught that virtue is necessarily good and that objects of desire are morally ambiguous.)

not to be confused with Zeno of Elea, (ca 495-430 BCE) Greek philosopher who formulated paradoxes that defended the belief that motion and change are illusory , or Xenos greek for stranger.

With that, I’m off on my walk!