I just completed the audio edition of Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman. The more of Hillerman’s books I read (well, listen to), the more I come to appreciate the quality of his writing. In addition, this novel passed my mystery novel test: I had no idea about the solution to the mystery before the protagonist, Jim Leaphorn, figured it out.

I finally finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this week. I lost interest in the middle, but it picked back up again toward the end. Well written as usual, but I found it a little contrived in places. It’s really hard to say whether J. K. Rowling’s writing has changed or whether my interest in the series waned. Enjoyable nonetheless.

We bought a new lawnmower a while back. After describing our needs to the Home Depot salesman, Katie and I asked him what it would cost us. He replied, “Well, it depends on how much you want to invest.” Katie and I were both taken aback by that answer. One of us stammered something like, “Well, I don’t want to think of it as an investment at all. We just need the cheapest lawnmower that meets the needs we described.”
Today, I read this Ask Metafilter comment. Now I realize that the salesman was probably just misusing ‘invest’ to mean ‘spend.’ I had never heard that before.

On Friday, sixteen families in our neighborhood rented a party barge together and had a good time out on Lake Travis. This was my favorite photo from the day:

Don’t gossip about one coworker to another co-worker via instant message!

This afternoon, I wanted to say something less than flattering to coworker #1 about coworker #2, but because #2 was on my mind, I double clicked on his name in my buddy list instead of #1’s, and I sent the snide comment directly to #2. Doh!
Fortunately, my comment wasn’t terribly bad, and coworker #2 is generally good natured and understands that this kind of thing happens, so the damage wasn’t too bad–this time.
Not like the time I wanted to make a comment about my boss and made the same mistake.

Tim Wise offers a harsh rant based on an overheard conversation: A God with Whom I am not Familiar.

You blessed your chimichanga in the name of Jesus Christ, and then proceeded to spend the better part of your meal–and mine, since I was too near your table to avoid hearing every word–morally scolding the people of [New Orleans], heaping scorn on them for not heeding the warnings to leave before disaster struck. Then you attacked them–all of them, without distinction it seemed–for the behavior of a relative handful: those who have looted items like guns, or big screen TVs.

Go read the whole thing.

I just upgraded MovableType (the software I use to maintain this blog) to the latest version, 3.2. I had been leaving comments and trackbacks turned off on my posts, due to spam. Now, I’m going to turn them on with new posts, since the new version of MovableType offers several options for catching spam messages and pings.
Feel free to comment away!

This Washington Post article gives some insight into why many poor people didn’t evacuate New Orleans before hurricane Katrina hit.
In particular, this comment caught my eye:

“It’s hard to just get up and go when you don’t have anything,” Jermaine said. “Besides, everything we know is in New Orleans.”

Many years ago, Katie was a semester-long substitute teacher in a high school special ed class. Many of her students were bussed from the poorer parts of Austin. After spring break, she asked her students where they had gone. She was shocked to learn that not only had most of them not gone anywhere, but that many of her students had never been outside Austin.
Guess I should add that to John Scalzi’s ‘Being Poor’ list: Being poor is never having been outside your hometown.

I just completed the unabridged audio edition of Waiting by Frank M. Robinson. This thriller explores an interesting premise, but the execution is lacking. The motivations and thought processes of the characters are particularly inconsistent: the protagonist completely misses some obvious connections, yet makes other connections long before they are clear. But, as a thriller, I guess it fulfilled its most basic function: I was eager to get to the end to see how everthing was resolved, even though I was not too thrilled about getting through to the end.
Oh, and an additional minor annoyance: the reader of the audio book frequently emphasized what I thought was the wrong word in the sentence.

This show’s thesis:

In the programme, which looks at the causes and treatment of poor reading, at least three academics call into question the value of separating those with difficulty in reading into dyslexics and “ordinary poor readers”, when the treatment is the same for both groups.
Experts say many children are being diagnosed with the condition to save embarrassment over their reading skills and in order to get extra help at school.

This show interests me, not because I believe that dyslexia is a myth–I have no opinion in the matter–but because I have little doubt that the diagnosis is sometimes used for exactly the reason given above.
Too bad this show is airing in Great Britian, not in the US.