Speaking of trucks

Friday, May 4, 2007

My grandpa used to say "Speaking of Trucks" even though nobody had been speaking of trucks. This was a way of changing the subject, and I plan to use this mercilessly.

So the For those of you who don't know already, there is a marvelously interesting site called Astronomy Picture of the Day. That one is worth popping on your desktop.

Books on tape

So one of the mottos in my household is "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing". When I read somewhere that it is a good idea to occasionally stop listening to the radio in the car, I took this all the way and did not have the radio on at all during the commute. Makes for better driving and fewer commercials.

A recent requirement to actually commute by car led me to try Books on Tape, which are now Books on CD. I had started with "Omnivore's Dilemma" which, among other things, asks the question "Where does our food come from". The short answer for many of us is "You don't want to know". But a very enjoyable book.

So the next book I picked up is a mystery book ("Echo Park", i think). I am now firmly convinced that there are issues with this idea of Books on CD. For example, today is Friday, and the drive home brought the story to the point that the main detective, Bosch, has pretty much figured out the mystery. Now, I won't be in the car again till Monday morning. So do I spend the weekend in suspense? Or do I make a trip to the grocery store. On the other side of Chicago. Or do I bring the CD in the house and pop it into the CD player. This kind of defeats the purpose of listening while driving, as clearly this will take time from something productive. Like reading a book.