Better Than Starbucks discussion

Or, alternatively, tell us what you are reading and what you think about it.
uplandpoet started this discussion 2 months ago. ( edit | reply | permalink | delete | lock thread )
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tapbirds
tapbirds (edited)
Oh my gosh. That has to be one of the worst play on words I've ever read. I loved it!!
posted 2 months ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
uplandpoet
uplandpoet
Thank you!
posted 2 months ago. ( edit | reply | permalink | delete )
uplandpoet
uplandpoet
I edited the title to be better grammar, if not a better joke
posted 2 months ago. ( edit | reply | permalink | delete )
mef
mef
Jan--you weary?
posted 2 months ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
uplandpoet
uplandpoet
Wearing
posted 2 months ago. ( edit | reply | permalink | delete )
mef
mef
Where did the BTS Challenge for 2015 go?! It dropped so far off the map I have to do a search to find it.
posted 2 months ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
mef
mef
It seems to be back. Thanks, Up, if you did that.
posted 2 months ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
uplandpoet
uplandpoet (edited)
Just had an annoying experience. I added 800 words to my story. When I went to save it, my laptop froze. I have been having laptop issues but this time it would not restart. Took it to the geek squad. They spent 5 min and said your motherboard is dead you will spend less money getting a $300 computer. I found a dell for $179, $190 with tax, trying to set it up now. I guess I will just have to rewrite those 800 words. Glad I put the first 2000 on the blog!!!
posted 2 months ago. ( edit | reply | permalink | delete )
Karin
Karin
Good thing! I totally deleted a novel I was working on about 10 years ago and am so angry with myself now. I have thought about getting software to see if I can get it back, but the computer is 13 years old, so who knows how fragmented it might all be now.
posted 2 months ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
uplandpoet
uplandpoet
I have the first 3200, including the 2100 I had and much of what i lost and a little more is now up on the blog
posted 2 months ago. ( edit | reply | permalink | delete )
Beginnings
Beginnings (edited)
Hi Up,
Definitely annoying-thank God you can remember what you wrote-I sometimes have difficulty with exact reiteration-usually it comes out different than the 1st time, which is not necessarily a minus.
I'd rather type on an IBM electric than be on a computer when writing, as I am too paranoid about computer hackers-it might as well be the wild, wild west in computer land.
posted 2 months ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
uplandpoet
uplandpoet
paranoia is a bear. my wife suffers from it. I seem to have a total lack of paranoia, which she finds as impossible as I find her condition, but we laugh and make it work.
posted 2 months ago. ( edit | reply | permalink | delete )
Beginnings
Beginnings (edited)
Is it considered paranoia if you predict and are right on the mark? Nah. I don't think so.
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
uplandpoet
uplandpoet
no, if you are correct, then you have foresight, you were the one who said paranoid. my wife's fears are rarely realized except for the self fulfilling kind.
posted 1 month ago. ( edit | reply | permalink | delete )
Beginnings
Beginnings
Yes you are right Up, I did say paranoid, however generally speaking this is what a person with foresight is considered unless it is after the fact. For instance, the tornado in Calif. -the day before I saw tornado clouds in San Diego and was/am completely discombobulated as to how few people could or would admit to seeing tornado clouds. Truth be known I have been crazily knowing this tornado story would hit home (Calif.) yrs. ago.
Then again, my perceptions are not always on the mark. It seems as if I am constantly and repeatedly searching for items in the grocery store-yet if I sense/see a certain type of cloud or weather pattern I can predict with what seems to be a 2nd nature. Climate change may have certain types of people surviving while others perish. If you have trouble finding the cereal at the grocery store time and time again, please don't worry you still may have what it takes to survive- :) Very counterintuitive-yet remember so is mother nature and the weather-the cereal aisle not so much.
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
Beginnings
Beginnings (edited)
"Gun for Hire" authored by : Graham Greene and a few other books. Maybe I am reading this as an insight to our present day gun violence? Not sure exactly why I am reading except the book piqued my interest.
posted 2 months ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
mita
mita
Greene is one of my favorite authors, have not read this one. Would love to know what you think of it Beginnings.
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
tapbirds
tapbirds
I concur, Greene is excellent. I, too, will await your thoughts on this work.
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
Beginnings
Beginnings
Hi Mita and Taps,
Twentieth Century Fox's Research Library has a first edition copy of the book "This Gun for Hire" authored by Graham Greene
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
Beginnings
Beginnings (edited)
The author of the book "Tornado Hunter" Tim Samaras is now dead. Tim died , along with his son Paul and good friend Carl who was driving during a tornado hunt-Tim Samaras death made the cover of National Geographic. Thought to mention Tornado Hunter as it is relevant to our recent tornado or gustnado which touched down in Calif.
My review from yrs. ago: “The chapter I remember best was Chapter 8 "The Man Who Road The Thunder". A Lt. Col. William Rankin has to emergency eject with a parachute through a super cell thunderstorm. " A super cell storm is the rarest and most dangerous of storms..one that usually produce tornados. In a crippled high-performance, high altitude aircraft, sweeping up past 47,000 feet, only a few thousand feet from the dividing line between earth's atmosphere and true space, you don't waste time on personal thoughts. You're much too busy fighting for your life."
Another chapter was about lightning photography and how Tim purchased a camera at a U.S. govt. auction, which was previously used in the 1960's to film nuclear blasts. He had his friends at National Geographic replace the film with digital. No easy task since this camera was made up of 87 cameras and weighed in at over a ton.(his wife refused to store it inside their house)
I also learned a little interesting book trivia, the novelist Vonnegut's brother Bernard is a renowned meteorologist. If you would enjoy living vicariously through especially curious characters and experiencing adventures galore then you have a book you will enjoy. Overall, the science behind the scenes enables the reader to share the more complete and deeper beauty of nature. ”
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
mef
mef
Very sad. Those who live by the tornado, die by the tornado. Sounds like a great read.
posted 3 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
Beginnings
Beginnings
Hi Mef,
I enjoyed reading the book, although I felt as if Mr. Samaras might not be around for much longer-unfortunately I was correct. It is especially sad since his son also died. RIP
posted 12 days ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
Beginnings
Beginnings
Today did a few library Requests from SDCL (San Diego County Library)
1) Half a life : a memoir / Darin Strauss
2) Wild ones : a sometimes dismaying, weirdly reassuring story about looking at people looking at animal
3) The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History Elizabeth Kolbert
Currently more than halfway finished reading the following 2 books:
1) http://www.shelfari.com/books/5987530... (Did not check out-reading while at the library)
2) http://www.shelfari.com/books/48895/A...
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
Beginnings
Beginnings (edited)
Finished Reading:
http://www.shelfari.com/books/48895/A...
http://www.shelfari.com/books/5987530...
http://www.shelfari.com/books/3854336...
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
tapbirds
tapbirds
Sadly, this may be one of my last book reviews on Shelfari.
“River of Smoke” by Amitav Ghosh ★★★★
“River of Smoke” is the second novel in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy. Passengers of three ships converge on Canton China’s infamous “Fanqui-town” (foreign enclave): the Ibis (slave ship bound for Mauritius), the Anahita (opium trading vessel), and the Redruth (horticultural nursery ship). The timeframe is early 19th century and many of the historic characters figured prominently in events leading up to the First Opium War of 1839 (Chinese viceroy Lin Zexu, Sir Charles Elliot, etc.). As with Ghosh’s first novel, “Sea of Poppies,” the reader must pay careful attention to the plethora of supporting characters to avoid confusion. However the effort is richly rewarded by the sense of being an eyewitness to gripping historic events that impacted multiple continents. The prose is a colorful mix of “pidgin” and English, the former being the bargaining language that put all nationalities on an even playing field. Sadly, most of the bargaining was for a drug that devastated China, as well as the drug’s source in India. This trade provided much wealth for British companies, who hypocritically argued for free trade of a narcotic that was illegal in Great Britain. I appreciated learning more about this era, as well as about the main character’s Parsee faith (Zoroastrianism). However in the end, the novel was mostly about “Flowers and opium, opium and flowers!”
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
Riddley
Riddley
This is on my shelves, in fact I think I have all three. I must get around to them soon. I'm always intrigued by how history shows western nations to be often extremely criminal in their dealings with the rest of the world (and each other when the opportunity arose) but still feel justified in claiming some sort of superior morality, and even worse, a pride in the power they once held. The opium wars are a real case in point, Britain flexing the naval power they developed in order to steal the cargoes of the Spanish and Portuguese ships which were developed to help strip the wealth of the Americas....
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | delete )
mita
mita
As always Ghosh provides us with an extremely well researched work that brings alive this dubious trade and the cost to the lives of millions in China and also in India. The Parsees of Bombay who are or have been by far the most philanthropic community in India had their fair share of wealth coming in from this trade. The house of Tatas being the foremost.
posted 1 month ago. ( reply | permalink | d