Category: Ramblings

Towel Day 2023

So it’s Towel Day 2023 and I really have nothing prepared. If you’d like to scroll back in this website, there are nearly 800 reviews. Some are good, some are bad, and some are downright embassing in their enthusiasm. I make no apologies. When I really love something, I REALLY love something. 

” Haven’t you been reading?” you might ask. I have a little. I have a frightening stack of TBR books just waiting and silently judging me. I added two books to the pile last night after attending a bookstore event. I buy the old favourites: John Sandford, Lee Child, etc… and am several books behind in each. Thankfully my Dad makes up for it by reading each new release by these authors and several others usually the week they come out. 

I have read books that I could review. That I WANT to review but life has caught up. I recently helped organize a Jane’s Walk festival in the County where I live and my day job is high demand and deeply stressful. The most hurtful thing to my reading life is that I now go to bed several hours earlier than I did when younger. 

To tie in to Towel Day, when I read it’s Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, or (yes) Douglas Adams. I need that clever humour to decompress. That’s what Douglas Adams is to me. An author with a wit that I never could posess but that I find wholly satisfying. He was an escape from a restrictive religious upbringing. My mom didn’t (and doesn’t) read so couldn’t imagine pre-screening her children’s books so never did. Lucky for me. Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy was perfect to read under the covers with a flashlight and I read it over and over again. Even now, it is the one book that I take the time to reread from time to time. I watch the BBC show which I have on DVD at least once per year all the way through.

Douglas Adams was a man that lived the dream by working with the pioneering humourists of his age and lending his genius to so many mediums and dying simply far too young. He was a man that died in his prime because he was always in his prime. My life has been and continues to be a quest to find authors that have a similiar brillance.

I will be back to writing reviews sometime soon but in the meantime when I need some light and happiness, I will turn to Douglas Adams and cherish his work and life.

 

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Upcoming Podcast – The Doors of Heritage by Amherstburg History

 

Hough House at Fort Malden. At varied times administration building, asylum and now museum

Do you love history? No matter where you are in the world, this podcast focused on the history of a small town in Essex County, Ontario may be for you.  Amherstburg history is Canadian/American history. 

Amherstburg, Ontario is located in southwestern Ontario on the banks of the intersection of the Detroit River and Lake Erie. The cities of Wyandotte and Monroe, Michigan can be seen from the waterfront and it’s the home of Fort Malden which was established in 1796. On the outskirts of the town is the site of the first casualties of the War of 1812 as well as the bloodiest battle of Prohibition (between a small band of Canadian farmers and the Coast Guard). Amherstburg has also long been thought to have the busiest outlet for the Underground Railroad due to the narrow and fairly calm waters (I learned this at the very informative and interesting Amherstburg Freedom Museum formerly known as the North American Black Historical Museum). Amherstburg is mentioned in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Continue reading Upcoming Podcast – The Doors of Heritage by Amherstburg History

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A&Es Cancellation of “Longmire”

The Internet is in an uproar over the cancellation of the A&E show “Longmire” over the Labor Day weekend. A quick glance at the A&E Facebook Page shows hundreds of posts featuring #LongliveLongmire and #BringbackLongmire. T.V. guy Jim Colucci said during his television report on the Frank DeCaro show (OutQ Gay Radio – Sirus XM 106) Tuesday that A&E has a long history of releasing news they know won’t be popular on holiday weekends. Colucci also mentioned that “Longmire” was the network’s highest rated scripted show.

So what led to the cancellation?

Continue reading A&Es Cancellation of “Longmire”

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Digital vs. Paper Textbooks…

Recently the local library in the town where I work announced that they had bought 15,000 e-books and intend to eventually go completely to a paperless format. Is that realistic for a library? They boast that there will be no hold lists for books, patrons will be able to just check out what they need to their e-reader but what about those valuable research texts on which kids rely to do term projects?

What about textbooks in general? I don’t know about you but when I attended University, textbooks were a big cost. I’m not surprised to see in the flow chart below from Onlinedegrees.org that some people choose not to buy books. Is a copy of Norton’s Anthology REALLY a $300 cost to the bookseller? Is this not another way to make education inaccessible.

Check out the information below. I found this chart fascinating.

 

 

Continue reading Digital vs. Paper Textbooks…

Categories:Education, Nonfiction Reviews, Ramblings
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Rabid Reader’s Rambles #3 Part 2 – The Disconnection Continues

Lisa Ray has issued anbeer-and-bread apology for her use of working class in the pejorative on the Top Chef Canada Facebook page. You can read that apology here. She does acknowledge that it was a poor choice of words—one which fans note got beyond the editing bay to air—but qualifies her apology with the idea that while she sees in hindsight the use was a mistake it was, in fact, what she meant. Ray elaborates that it was a luxury challenge and the contestant in question missed the mark. He produced an “everyday meal”. Or, in plain speaking terms, something the average Joe would eat and thus not elevated to a more educated palate.

Why not just say that and let it stand? Why go the step further? I said in the previous post that I was really offended by the browbeating they gave young Danny Smiles, arguably the nicest chef in the competition. Turning up ones nose is one thing but demanding someone else to turn up their nose as well is another.

 

Continue reading Rabid Reader’s Rambles #3 Part 2 – The Disconnection Continues

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Rabid Reader Rambles #3 – the Disconnection of Media from Consumer

drunken-noodles-pad-kee-mao-thai-foodReaders of this blog will know that I am an avid consumer of all things media. What you may not know is that I am a sponge for reality television. Not in the sense of rose distribution but if it’s a skills based show – like Top Chef Canada – I will be watching it. That is, until last night.

 

 

 

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My Kindle – A Tragedy

My_Kindle I was one of those people who took a long time to go to e-books. How could I possibly get the same experience with a piece of plastic? Would I have the same connection? After seeing the wealth of ebooks that are not at the $40 price point I was paying in Canada for hardcovers, my cheap soul decided that maybe e-books and I were meant to be. I downloaded a .mobi reader to my Blackberry and, sad to say, from that moment on was hooked. I loved being able to have all the lights off and to sit in silence and be alone with my e-book. Which e-reader to buy? The choice was easy, I have had problems buying books from Barnes and Noble (as I’m in Canada) and friends had complained about Kobo, so Kindle seemed the obvious choice. November 2011 when the plunge was taken, I bought a Kindle Keyboard (touch screens should not be allowed. Fingerprints drive me insane) and my soulmate and I were finally together. Together forever—or so I thought.

 

Continue reading My Kindle – A Tragedy

Categories:Ramblings

Rabid Readers Rambles #2 – Book Burning

Book Burning

 

Book_Burning

A women’s group in the UK plans to burn the novel [easyazon-link asin=”0345803485″ locale=”us”]Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy[/easyazon-link] because they believe that the novels “encourage domestic violence and send the wrong message to women.” (Click link for Globe and Mail article). I haven’t read the novels. I have heard that they’re a story of redemption for a controlling man who falls in love with “vanilla” and so beautifully written that the love story can’t help but shine through. I have also heard that they’re poorly written, entry level erotica. What I don’t get is buying a book to burn it. How does that hurt the author? She’s now sold a book she wouldn’t have sold otherwise just for a demonstration of displeasure. They are asking for book donations from women who have read the series but now see the light—I can’t imagine that getting them more than a book or two. Indie authors must be lining up everywhere to read and see what that author did to not only get the publicity of the burning but to also sell a book to each and every protestor who wants to burn one. Marketing score!

 

Continue reading Rabid Readers Rambles #2 – Book Burning

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Rabid Reader Ramble #1—Richards Apologizes to Jagger

Here’s the problem with being famous – if I say someone is a jerk, no one cares. Who am I? My opinion may interest me but not anyone else. If Keith Richards says that his band member is an uptight, controlling prick, the world takes notice and every media outlet looks to throw a further wedges between them so that the every drop of interest can be wrung from the ashes of what was maybe a good thing or maybe not so that when the apology comes, it can be hard to find

Blazoned across the headlines of page 345 of our local paper (that may be an exaggeration) this weekend was the headline “Richards Apologizes to Fellow Rolling Stone, Jagger.” The apology was for comments that Richards made in his 2010 Memoir “Life” about Jagger. As a reader, I kind of saw Richards looking at Jagger as the “Man” in a sense. The person making all of the decisions and pulling all the puppet strings but, in reading, you wouldn’t want those strings in Keith Richard’s hands. Keith Richards at that time (and maybe still) was a hot mess. The sense was of rebellion against authority but when you’re the bad boy band that’s probably not the image Jagger wanted of himself out in the media no matter how true. According to the media, the band’s rift over those comments was of such seriousness that their 50th Anniversary Tour was in jeopardy. Or was it? It’s a good money making opportunity, would they have just gone on with it.

Richards’ is quoted in the article as saying, “As far as the book goes, it was my story, and it was very raw, as I meant it to be, but I know that some parts of it and some of the publicity really offended Mick, and I regret that.” (Read more here). It was extremely raw and in my review I lauded him for that, and I don’t believe here he’s saying that what he said wasn’t what he felt, but that he’s sorry that it hurt Jagger’s feelings. When is an apology not an apology? When it’s an “I was just being honest.” LOL

At the end of the day, Jagger accepts the apology and life moves on for this band. The last sentence in the article cites a groundbreaking upcoming documentary about the group to be released in September. Will we see some of this rift play out? Let me know because I’m opting out of this one.

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