Day: June 7, 2011

Categories Nothing Much, Politics

Addicted to what now??

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Go and read Marko’s post:

I’m not addicted to oil. I’m addicted to being able to drive into town on my own schedule. I’m addicted to being able to haul home a week’s worth of groceries with two little kids in tow without having to wait for the fucking bus with eighty pounds of filled plastic bags in my hands. (That’s disregarding the fact that I live out in the sticks, and the nearest bus stop is four miles away, which is one hell of a hike with the aforementioned two little kids and week’s worth of groceries.)

And that pretty much sums it up.  Ok, I don’t have kids, but public transportation doesn’t run anywhere CLOSE to where I live, sure I could bike to the closest stop, but it’d be an hour ride one way, then, since the public transportation system here sucks, it would be a couple hours on the bus to get where I’m going, and considering what winter looks like here its rather not an option between November and April.  Rinse repeat for the ride home.  Sure I could put baskets on the bike to carry stuff, but again, there’s no where that close to ride too.  Closest pharmacy (that carry’s some groceries at a high price) is a 15 minute drive away, closest grocery store is a 20 minute drive in the opposite direction.  And yes, thats DRIVING, in a CAR, mostly at speeds of 55mph.  Ok true it was my decisions to buy a house in the boonies, but the closer in to the city the more cramped you are, the smaller the house, and the more it cost so that didn’t make sense either.

They get around to making an electric car that I can charge off a wind turbine or solar panel in less than 8 hrs, that’ll run more than long enough to not only get me to work and back but also run some errands in between,  THEN I’ll buy an electric car.  In the mean time even the hybrids are so high priced as to be ridiculous and don’t get THAT much better gas mileage then my Caliber that I bought for about 1/2 the price of the hybrid!

Categories Books

Books I read

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I kinda started this a while back while talking about the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.  Thing is I read so many different sorts of stuff that its a little hard to keep track of occasionally.  A wander through my Amazon wish list is a perfect example of this.  There’s some 30yr old westerns, a bunch of Louis Lamour reprints, urban fantasy everywhere you look, a good dash of sci-fi, mysteries, some recipe books, some stuff on how to live off the land…..and thats just the books, it doesn’t include all the other STUFF that makes it onto the wishlist there.

David Weber is a very good author, and if you even sorta like sci-fi you’ll like at least the earlier Honor Harringtons (for more info see my previous post).  I do think though that he may need to stop writing for a bit, all his main charactors, no matter which series, are turning into a version of Honor, rather drastically.

Since I’m on the topic of sci-fi though…..how about Mike Shpherds Kris Longknife series?  The story of the proverbial “rich brat” off to make a name for herself in the military….or is it?  Kristine Longknife learned at a very young age that life hurts, and that addiction is even worse, but when she tries to escape the family legends by joining the military she discovers that the legends have their own skeletons in the closets, and just how legends are made after all.

I suspect (though its not on the books anywhere) these might have been written for the older teen age group, but they’re an enjoyable read all the same.  Kris tumbles into some frustratingly painfull situations only to discover that some relative pushed.  Her escapes are wonderfully dramatic, but she’s going to run out of planets eventually.  By book 8 I admit to having become a bit bored with the standard formula, but not so much that I won’t go find number 9 when it comes out.