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Mar. 6th, 2012 08:30 amI couldn't get to sleep last night. I laid there and my mind was on the spin cycle. Nothing fretting me or anything like that, i just couldn't get my brain settled until nearly midnight. I know that probably doesn't sound all that late for that kind of thing but it is for me. It was a long day, too. I got home from work, slapped a peanutbutter and jam sandwich together, went out, cleaned off the car (borrowed mom's) and drove to get my nephew who then came with me to a doctor's appointment. He did that because he wanted to use the car today. There was the usual 40 minute wait, got done what i needed doing and got home by about 8. Watched Corrie, did a few things and went to bed to read a bit. That usually settles my head down but for some reason it didn't. Ah well. Burny eyes and lots of caffeine today.
The transit strike continues. What a nuisance. Their latest trick was to hold up the road crews and snow plows and salt trucks yesterday for 10 or 15 minutes as they were leaving the depot. Yeah, that's going to help their cause. All the public outcry in the media seems to have died down. I think people have realized it's not doing any good. Nobody in charge on either side seems to care, being more involved in their own agenda than conceding that transit is an essential service. People are losing jobs, losing time at school, not able to get to appointments and both sides are holding the public hostage. Both sides have dug their heels in and not budging. Council meets again today behind closed doors to get an update and discuss the situation further and a couple of them have now come out in favour of binding arbitration but the mayor says no way. Why should he bend? The City is saving a bucket load of money even taking the losses due to the fares into account. Many of the university tuitions here include an extra charge for a school year bus pass. I wonder if any of the students will get a partial refund? Not likely.
My ereader has been giving me grief for a little while, the computer doesn't seem to want to recognize it past the first minute or so. This happens on my work computer too so it's the ereader, not the puter. I bit the bullet the other day and went through the factory reset process. That resets your settings and erases all the books from the ereader. Then you have to plug in and the desktop application reinstalles the ereader's latest operating system and all your books from the Kobo site are reinstalled. I then went through the rest of my stash, copied on the other ones i wanted include what i was reading and had to open all the ones i had on the go and return to the page i had last been on (i'd made a note). Most of the bookmarks existing were a little out of date because i hadn't synced it to the desktop program for a couple of weeks.
It seems to have done the trick though i did get an error copying a group of books to it, but i think the problem was one particular ebook that was very large and perhaps the ereader didn't like it. It seems to me it was the same title as has crapped out in the past and i wonder if that had corrupted something before. I haven't tried it again since so I hope the reset took in spite of that. I can always do it again if need be.
I usually load about 30 books on in addition to all the ones Kobo insists i should have on it even if i've finished them. I delete them, Kobo keeps putting them back on so I'm just leaving them now. I think if i delete them off the Kobo library it might work though i've done that in the past and it seems to keep finding them and replacing them.
2012 books, my full review behind the links.
22 Lady John - Madeleine E Robins
A red headed heroine and a Regency romance. I don't read these often but i did enjoy this one. Apparently this is an older book but it must be newly released electronically. I got it through a member giveaway on Librarything.com. It doesn't seem to be for sale electronically on amazon at the moment.
Review here.
23 War of Nutrition - John Beresford
This is a book by a good friend of mine. It's a thriller centered around a corporation that's released a food supplement that was being tested but before it was fully tested and the results are disastrous. There's a race on to expose them while people are dying all over the world in the meantime.
Book is available on Amazon for Kindle and other ereader formats from Smashwords.
Review here
24 From Dead to Worse - Charlaine Harris
Another in the adventures of Sookie Stackhouse and the vampires. More of the same but I do like the books. Light, easy reading.
The transit strike continues. What a nuisance. Their latest trick was to hold up the road crews and snow plows and salt trucks yesterday for 10 or 15 minutes as they were leaving the depot. Yeah, that's going to help their cause. All the public outcry in the media seems to have died down. I think people have realized it's not doing any good. Nobody in charge on either side seems to care, being more involved in their own agenda than conceding that transit is an essential service. People are losing jobs, losing time at school, not able to get to appointments and both sides are holding the public hostage. Both sides have dug their heels in and not budging. Council meets again today behind closed doors to get an update and discuss the situation further and a couple of them have now come out in favour of binding arbitration but the mayor says no way. Why should he bend? The City is saving a bucket load of money even taking the losses due to the fares into account. Many of the university tuitions here include an extra charge for a school year bus pass. I wonder if any of the students will get a partial refund? Not likely.
My ereader has been giving me grief for a little while, the computer doesn't seem to want to recognize it past the first minute or so. This happens on my work computer too so it's the ereader, not the puter. I bit the bullet the other day and went through the factory reset process. That resets your settings and erases all the books from the ereader. Then you have to plug in and the desktop application reinstalles the ereader's latest operating system and all your books from the Kobo site are reinstalled. I then went through the rest of my stash, copied on the other ones i wanted include what i was reading and had to open all the ones i had on the go and return to the page i had last been on (i'd made a note). Most of the bookmarks existing were a little out of date because i hadn't synced it to the desktop program for a couple of weeks.
It seems to have done the trick though i did get an error copying a group of books to it, but i think the problem was one particular ebook that was very large and perhaps the ereader didn't like it. It seems to me it was the same title as has crapped out in the past and i wonder if that had corrupted something before. I haven't tried it again since so I hope the reset took in spite of that. I can always do it again if need be.
I usually load about 30 books on in addition to all the ones Kobo insists i should have on it even if i've finished them. I delete them, Kobo keeps putting them back on so I'm just leaving them now. I think if i delete them off the Kobo library it might work though i've done that in the past and it seems to keep finding them and replacing them.
2012 books, my full review behind the links.
22 Lady John - Madeleine E Robins
A red headed heroine and a Regency romance. I don't read these often but i did enjoy this one. Apparently this is an older book but it must be newly released electronically. I got it through a member giveaway on Librarything.com. It doesn't seem to be for sale electronically on amazon at the moment.
Review here.
23 War of Nutrition - John Beresford
This is a book by a good friend of mine. It's a thriller centered around a corporation that's released a food supplement that was being tested but before it was fully tested and the results are disastrous. There's a race on to expose them while people are dying all over the world in the meantime.
Book is available on Amazon for Kindle and other ereader formats from Smashwords.
Review here
24 From Dead to Worse - Charlaine Harris
Another in the adventures of Sookie Stackhouse and the vampires. More of the same but I do like the books. Light, easy reading.
(no subject)
Feb. 16th, 2012 02:01 pmThe strike continues. The union offered to go to arbitration but the City said no. It would cost too much (i.e. arbitrators tend to favour the union). They offered the union another conciliator but the union said no. More of the same, they said. Neither side intends on budging over a major issue, how the work is scheduled. Everyone loses.
It's nice that i can work a flexible schedule and take Friday off at least. My drive is taking some time off later in March though, so I hope the strike is over by then or i'll have to scramble to find another ride. Plenty of time yet.
I had to give up on a book, The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coehlo. A bit too Good vs Evil and philosophical/preachy for my taste. I decided to try one i had to read in high school to see if it really was as dull as i thought it was then. Tastes change and i might not find it so bad now. Madame Bovary by Flaubert. Yeah, i know, i can see you shudder. I've only got a little way into it and the language/translation isn't difficult to read. Sometimes i find pre-20th century books are a bit tricky to get my head around the language and style of writing. It was why i couldn't be doing with Dickens. He annoyed the hell out of me.
19 Belle - Leslie Pearse
This is a historical romance/fiction about a young woman who has been raised in a Victorian/Edwardian brothel in London near Covent Garden. She witnesses a murder of one of the girls and is later snatched and sold into prostitution by the murderer. She ends up being sold on to a brother in New Orleans. The story follows Belle's adventures and ups and downs for 2 years. More of the review here.
It was a fairly good book, easy to read, pretty standard and predictable for the genre. Not "Wow Great!" but not bad.
20 - Half Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
In Paris During WWII, a talented young trumpet player was taken by the Nazis. His band member, Sid, watched it happen. over 50 years later, Sid and his oldest friend, Chip, head to Berlin for a music festival celebrating the talent of that young man, Hieronymus Falk who, it seems, didn't die during the war after all. The book tells the story of the jazz band members at the beginning of the war years in Berlin and Paris and what happens to them both later at and after the festival when Chip and Sid find Hiero in Poland. The book is told from Sid's point of view and explores themes of jealousy and guilt. None of the characters are particularly likeable but the story is really well told and you feel you're right in the thick of it.
21 - I also read Grimm's Fairy Tales, i've never read the originals, or if i have, it's been so long i don't remember. They are quite grim aren't they? It's interesting to see how they have been expanded, "loved up" and changed to the wholesome, much lighter stories that we know today, thanks in part to Disney.
It's nice that i can work a flexible schedule and take Friday off at least. My drive is taking some time off later in March though, so I hope the strike is over by then or i'll have to scramble to find another ride. Plenty of time yet.
I had to give up on a book, The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coehlo. A bit too Good vs Evil and philosophical/preachy for my taste. I decided to try one i had to read in high school to see if it really was as dull as i thought it was then. Tastes change and i might not find it so bad now. Madame Bovary by Flaubert. Yeah, i know, i can see you shudder. I've only got a little way into it and the language/translation isn't difficult to read. Sometimes i find pre-20th century books are a bit tricky to get my head around the language and style of writing. It was why i couldn't be doing with Dickens. He annoyed the hell out of me.
19 Belle - Leslie Pearse
This is a historical romance/fiction about a young woman who has been raised in a Victorian/Edwardian brothel in London near Covent Garden. She witnesses a murder of one of the girls and is later snatched and sold into prostitution by the murderer. She ends up being sold on to a brother in New Orleans. The story follows Belle's adventures and ups and downs for 2 years. More of the review here.
It was a fairly good book, easy to read, pretty standard and predictable for the genre. Not "Wow Great!" but not bad.
20 - Half Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
In Paris During WWII, a talented young trumpet player was taken by the Nazis. His band member, Sid, watched it happen. over 50 years later, Sid and his oldest friend, Chip, head to Berlin for a music festival celebrating the talent of that young man, Hieronymus Falk who, it seems, didn't die during the war after all. The book tells the story of the jazz band members at the beginning of the war years in Berlin and Paris and what happens to them both later at and after the festival when Chip and Sid find Hiero in Poland. The book is told from Sid's point of view and explores themes of jealousy and guilt. None of the characters are particularly likeable but the story is really well told and you feel you're right in the thick of it.
21 - I also read Grimm's Fairy Tales, i've never read the originals, or if i have, it's been so long i don't remember. They are quite grim aren't they? It's interesting to see how they have been expanded, "loved up" and changed to the wholesome, much lighter stories that we know today, thanks in part to Disney.