Babblative

When I was younger my parents would read to me every night before bed, ten or so books then they’d leave them with me so that I could look at the pictures. I’d try my damnedest every night to squeeze as many readings as possible, but in spite of my very determined 3 year old self they resisted. The solution was clear: Learn to read.

I was one weird kid, I dreamed of being able to read to myself. Books opened up a whole new world where you could go anywhere and do anything. It might sound corny, but it’s true. Goofy, Pooh and Cinderella lived on in books past their movies and television shows. It was, and still is to some degree, a magical world and all I wanted was to be a part of it.

Of course, it’s easier said than done. So I’d pretend to read books, just holding them and looking at them, occasionally turning the page so that I’d look like a sophisticated young lady of the world. That wore thin pretty quickly, though, so I settled in and with my parent’s help I learned how to read.

By the time I entered puberty I had amassed a collection of around three thousand books. That’s not counting the ones in boxes and piles in my room, the basement and scattered around the house. I was fortunate enough to have the exclusive use of a small coat closet in the hall as my personal library. My father built the shelves out of skids and didn’t sand them. I got many a splinter from those shelves. And you know what the crazy part is? I miss them and that little coat closet.

It truly was an awesome feeling having your own library. You can organize them however you want, read them whenever you want and… well that’s it.

Back then I’d burn through huge amounts of books, one was never quite enough. The same is true of today, I’ll check five or six books from the library and finish them all to the tune of a book a day. Of course, they aren’t exactly what you’d call heavy reading, they’re romance novels.

(That’s not saying they aren’t any good, they are good! They’re the chick flicks of the literary world.)

I think that my problem is that I have a safe zone. I like romance, it’s happy and safe and familiar. Give me a nice HEA (Happily Ever After) and I’m in bliss. However, the sad truth is that I’m not really learning anything from these books and even though I love them, it’s time to branch out and explore other interests.

So I’m turning to you guys, what would you recommend?

A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm.

The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial, and the rift had not been well studied.

A new study involving an international team of scientists and reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the processes creating the rift are nearly identical to what goes on at the bottom of oceans, further indication a sea is in the region’s future.

I wonder if Tumblr cuts the posts off in the feed. Let’s see…

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If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you’ll be able to see the posts I liked on Tumblr. The theme is Papercut and you can even have them yourself!

Just found this blog in my Google Reader recommendations, this was the post that made me decide to subscribe.

In the above video Pat Robertson asks the question, “What’s gonna happen if someone preaches a sermon: ‘Homosexuality is a sin. Here’s what the Bible says. Here’s chapter and verse.’ And all of a sudden, somebody leaves that congregation and goes up, beats up on somebody who is a homosexual. Does that kick back on the pastor? Is he now guilty of a hate crime?”

Well, depending on the chapter and verse, yes. If the pastor spends a Sunday screaming about Leviticus 20:13 (“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”) and then one of the congregation slips out to the nearest gay bar and opens fire on the patrons, the pastor’s hate speech is a direct influence and a direct cause of the attack. And now there is the legal power to prosecute the pastor for his part in the attack.

Classic Cartman.

Halloween used to be a huge thing. Everyone got dressed up to wander the streets between 6-9pm and beg for free candy. The streets were always jam packed, no one ever drove their cars unless they had absolutely had to, and there was always lineups to get candy.

Not so now. Now the streets were practically deserted, hardly anyone came out to get free candy and hardly anyone was giving it out!

Halloween just isn’t what it used to be.