I have a number of things to talk about on a number of subjects, which could all become posts on their own, I suppose, except I'm lazy and plan to only hit "post" once. So please mind the mess; I assure you, the mind from which it stems is far messier. :-)

After my recent post on The Bat!, Victor was kind enough to post about the new features in Outlook 2003, and suggested I take a look. I may do so at some time in the future. For now, The Bat! is my best buddy. But in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, I should also include a link to Anil's recent rant about all the good things about Outlook (thanks to Stacey for the link).

Cory Doctorow's in town, briefly, and plans to do a book signing at Bakka next Saturday. He may not know me from Adam (well, Eve, really, I suppose) but I plan to be there regardless, and finally get print versions of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (one of the best sci-fi books I've ever read) and his new Eastern Standard Tribe as well. I'll post a followup should anything amazing or interesting happen.

Speaking of really excellent sci-fi books, I have fallen head over heels with Robert J. Sawyer's writing, and yes, I know I'm a little late coming to the table on that one. I read Calculating God two years ago, and last year picked up his Neanderthal Parallax series (Hominids, Hybrids and Humans) and wow. Really, really great stuff. I also recently plowed through End of an Era in a weekend, and it's also fantastic. He is now added to the really elite list of authors whose books I'll pick up without even reading the back cover first.

I also have to brag briefly. Well, I don't have to, but I want to. I see it as some of the best evidence I've had yet that this Internet thing is a virus, and anyone can be infected. Happily, it's a pretty benign (some might even say beneficial?) infection. I did try for, oh, over a year to infect a good friend with the RSS bug. She would just sort of shake her head amusedly at me and state she preferred visiting the web sites so she could see the designs. But recently, under really strenuous peer pressure, she caved and signed up for Bloglines. Two weeks later, she has over thirty feeds of her own to monitor, reads it every day (in between cursing me - *laughs*) and best of all, is sending me links via email she thinks I'd like. Or even better, sending me to her del.icio.us to find new things she's snagged that day.

Another RSS success story. :)

posted on 2004.03.21 at 10:59 PM

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