I have been in a book club (The Best Book Club Ever!) since August 2010. I have always been very good at buying books, but not so good at reading and finishing them. The BBCE! has changed that for me.
I have been busy taking Personal Financial Planning classes at UCLA Extension the past couple years. I enjoy the challenge, but did not realize how time consuming the courses would be. Reading a 900-page textbook in 12 weeks is not an easy task. So for BBCE! I started "cheating" by listening to some selections on audio books. I figured it wasn't really cheating if the book was unabridged.
I enjoyed Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible" on audio. I had read it several years ago, so I thought an audio listen would be okay. One narrator doing five southern accents gets on one's nerves after disk 8 but I don't think the book lost any impact in translation.
Around this time, Border's Books shut down, limiting my book buying options. A tragic moment in book history.
Our next book, "The Lost City of Z" by David Grann, was a true, gripping account of '20s explorer Percy Fawcett who was obsessed with finding a city in the Amazon. I realized I was missing out on intricate maps and pictures of Fawcett and his crew by being exposed only to the audio book.
I finally broke down and bought a Kindle Fire for our next selection, "A Wild Sheep Chase," by Haruki Murakami. I was thrilled by how easy it was to download the book from Amazon. I greedily downloaded several free public domain books too for my portable library. After carting my 10lb textbook around I was giddy.
But a funny thing happened at BBCE! with this book. There is one section of the book where a character talks inrunonsentenceslike this. I was sure my Kindle was messed up and I was a little pissed. I checked by friend's hard copy and saw that was indeed intentional. The Power of Print, example one. Another friend listened to the audio, so she didn't experience this at all! She also missed out on the one random strange drawing in the book. We all had different experiences reading that book via hard copy, ebook and audio.
What else is being lost in the translations between the printed page, the audio book and ebook? Are you getting the full story?
Monday, April 30, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Password Implosion
I like to think of myself as somewhat creative, but if I have to think of one more password I may implode!
I thought I was clever when I first started using the internet. I loved David Mamet's "The Spanish Prisoner." I knew enough to use my childhood pet's name as a password if I ever opened a Swiss bank account.
I joined Facebook like millions of other baby boomers and was thrilled to connect to my grade school classmates from Penn Yan, NY. I only lived there from Grades 2-7 and had very little contact with them for the past 30 years. I had already resigned to the fact that joining FB made me out my age, but the payoff with connecting to everyone I have ever met was worth it.
I panicked when a friend innocently commented, "I remember your dog Penny when you lived on Hillcrest." OMG, not only did she nail my Swiss bank account password, but also my mythical "porn" name, Penny Hillcrest!
Then I started to wonder how many of us have the same passwords. If you lived in a certain place at a certain time, I'll bet we liked the same restaurants and TV shows.
Since then, I have (and no doubt, you have too) gone through dozens of password naming configurations and log-ins. And quite frankly, I can't keep up anymore. I don't remember what point in time I logged in with that device on that website with that clever password. I only have three pets, I can't keep up!
I'm sure there is an App for my problem but I can't remember how to log into it. Are you having the same problem?
I thought I was clever when I first started using the internet. I loved David Mamet's "The Spanish Prisoner." I knew enough to use my childhood pet's name as a password if I ever opened a Swiss bank account.
I joined Facebook like millions of other baby boomers and was thrilled to connect to my grade school classmates from Penn Yan, NY. I only lived there from Grades 2-7 and had very little contact with them for the past 30 years. I had already resigned to the fact that joining FB made me out my age, but the payoff with connecting to everyone I have ever met was worth it.
I panicked when a friend innocently commented, "I remember your dog Penny when you lived on Hillcrest." OMG, not only did she nail my Swiss bank account password, but also my mythical "porn" name, Penny Hillcrest!
Then I started to wonder how many of us have the same passwords. If you lived in a certain place at a certain time, I'll bet we liked the same restaurants and TV shows.
Since then, I have (and no doubt, you have too) gone through dozens of password naming configurations and log-ins. And quite frankly, I can't keep up anymore. I don't remember what point in time I logged in with that device on that website with that clever password. I only have three pets, I can't keep up!
I'm sure there is an App for my problem but I can't remember how to log into it. Are you having the same problem?
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Mystery Date Memories
A brief clip last week on Mad Men brought back a long lost memory that may have had more influence on my love life than I could have imagined. On the show, Sally is watching TV (black and white, but interestingly remote-controlled) when a commercial comes on for the Milton-Bradley game MYSTERY DATE.
Ten-year old girls dreamily played the game taking turns opening the door for their mystery date. Would he be a dream or a dud? The boys in the game were at least 18, if not older, setting us up at an early age for the unattainable or just plain creepy. Not sure if my memory serves me properly on all the guys but I think they were: a skier, beach boyfriend, bowler, doctor, the biggest prize of all: the white dinner jacket clad model. Then there were the duds: a geek named Poindexter and a painter.
Granted, the savvy young player could rig the door handle to insure success. But one character trait I still uphold is honesty, so it was hard for me to cheat, especially at that tender young age. It wasn't the winning or losing that struck me all these years later, it was the horror of liking one of the duds when your girlfriends (and 60's society) clearly did not approve! Did this message follow me into my later dating and non-dating years? Deep-down, I am still waiting for the white dinner jacket clad dream to show up at my door. With my luck, he is now in his seventies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHsQpTbQ9Uo
Ten-year old girls dreamily played the game taking turns opening the door for their mystery date. Would he be a dream or a dud? The boys in the game were at least 18, if not older, setting us up at an early age for the unattainable or just plain creepy. Not sure if my memory serves me properly on all the guys but I think they were: a skier, beach boyfriend, bowler, doctor, the biggest prize of all: the white dinner jacket clad model. Then there were the duds: a geek named Poindexter and a painter.
Granted, the savvy young player could rig the door handle to insure success. But one character trait I still uphold is honesty, so it was hard for me to cheat, especially at that tender young age. It wasn't the winning or losing that struck me all these years later, it was the horror of liking one of the duds when your girlfriends (and 60's society) clearly did not approve! Did this message follow me into my later dating and non-dating years? Deep-down, I am still waiting for the white dinner jacket clad dream to show up at my door. With my luck, he is now in his seventies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHsQpTbQ9Uo
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