Your Sunday Funny

Reading: It's Like Words For Your Brain

I love to read. Always have. In a sort of nerd Le Mans, I tried to read 20,000 pages of books during a high school summer vacation. That's fifty 400-pagers in ninety days. I fell well short of that mark. But still I'm rarely without a book on my bedside table. Here are my observations.

Recent completions
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer - Weird LDS hystery (that's a historical mystery...I just made that up.) Krakauer wrote one of my favorite book of all time, Into the Wild.
The Night Stalkers by Michael J. Durant and Steven Hartov - A string of helicopter adventures. Good, not great.
The know it all by AJ Jacobs - Man reads encyclopedia and writes about it. Creative, if nothing else.
The Google Story by David Vise - Thought it would be as good as The Perfect Store. It wasn't.
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson - In work currently. Already an outstanding find.
Heart of the Storm by Edward L. Fleming - See The Night Stalkers above.
Cocaine by Dominic Streatfeild - The definitive book on coke. Tedious at times, but overall a nice heady high.

I like to read non-fiction, only because sometimes the truth is truly stranger. And secretly I have wondered how reading as an adult is any more intellectually stimulating than a PBS special. Here's why.

Amazon has some great recommendations, especially listmania. But once I find my book, it's off to the Phoenix Public Library. Free books at the click of a button. Lavar Burton would be so proud.

What About A Nice Walkie Talkie?

We wanted out of our Verizon Wireless contract, and there has never been a better time to exit. The Consumerist has a script that will lead you to freedom. I can attest that this works like a charm. After eighteen minutes, our accounts were cancelled without penalty, saving us $350 in early termination fees. Can you hear me now?

I think Verizon has great coverage, but our 15 minutes per month of "I'm on my way home now, do you need anything at the store?" calls weren't worth $80. Virgin Mobile, here we come.

Your Sunday Funny

We have too many cats and we watch too much of The White Rapper Show.

Just Another Happy Day

I'm not really a gun guy and I'm certainly no marksman. To date, my military firearms training has consisted of shooting a Sig off the fantail of a ship at bags of trash. Incredibly, I was able to qualify on the M9 today. And I ate an MRE for lunch, which was surprisingly tasty. I'm practically in the real Army now.

Here Comes The Sun

Minus the tv antenna, the electrical pole, and our neighbor's roof, today's sunrise reminded me of my blog header.

I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore

My alma mater holds the proud record of graduating more American astronauts than any other undergraduate institution in the country. It has now earned the distinction of graduating more crazy astronauts than any other school.

Mrs. Spacely wore adult diapers so that she wouldn't have to take bathroom breaks on her fifteen hour drive to eliminate her rival. That's determination. Diapers on a Shuttle mission: acceptable. Diapers at Mardi Gras: acceptable. Diapers for a long car drive: crazy.

Terror Emitting Diodes

The only cartoons I watch are The Simpsons, Little Einsteins, and Dora the Explorer. But thanks to a panicky public and an obviously overzealous police department, I now know about Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The mooninite voice sounds like the Microsoft text-to-speech translator. Special thanks to Boston PD for keeping me hip.

I predict the ATHF craze will fizzle slightly faster than Gremlins.

Your Sunday Safety Tip

Sign from some flightseeing operator. But seriously, it's a mess to clean up.