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Well I was sick the last few days, and looking for some way to pass the time (yes, I suppose the stack of medical journals would have been one way…).

Anyway, I decided to sort through some e-books I had downloaded from Project Gutenberg, and try to find a good reader for them – both on the PC and my Windows Mobile Smartphone. I’d been down this road before and found Microsoft Reader to be OK, once I converted stuff to .lit format… but that conversion was a bit tricky. Seems the plug-in to do it isn’t compatible with Office 2007.

So I stumbled upon Mobipocker Reader, which I’d heard about before but never tried – and the companion Mobipocket Creator.

They’re actually pretty easy to use, will automatically convert from most formats. For those it won’t convert, I tried out Stanza – which is quite popular for Mac & iPhone apparently. The only hiccup I had was that if I converted directly to mobi format in Stanza, the resulting file would crash the reader on my phone. So, convert to text first, then use MobiCreator to convert to mobi format, and voila!  The advantage is I can add a cover art image this way, too.

Is it just me or is xkcd getting better lately? It’s uber geeky but hey, I laugh. This panel is even more appropriate with all the “Twilight” hype out there (it’s even sunken its fangs into one of my wife’s friends…)

xkcd – A Webcomic – Troll Slayer.

Yet another one of my favourite authors passed away – Robert Asprin. Been a tough few months, with Robert Jordan passing away not too long ago, as well. :(

RA was a hilarious author; I loved his Myth series and his Phule series. I never did read Thieve’s World – I’ll have to look it up now, for sure!

It was with sadness that I read Kurt Vonnegut’s obituary this morning. He was a bizzare and insightful author whose books always made me think. To him, I say Kurt is up in heaven now. (Read the link, the context makes the point. :P )

BoingBoing has a great collection of remembering Kurt stuff, including an interview he did on the Daily Show. [Local Cache]

Well, this sounds about right:

Your results:
You are Apocalypse

Apocalypse 66% Green Goblin 64% Lex Luthor 63% The Joker 63% Mr. Freeze 62% Dr. Doom 58% Poison Ivy 58% Magneto 58% Riddler 50% Mystique 48% Dark Phoenix 47% Two-Face 40% Catwoman 39% Venom 36% Juggernaut 32% Kingpin 30%

You believe in survival of the fittest and you believe that you are the fittest.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

(via Pharyngula)

As usual, there’s too much out there to write in depth about. Here’s the latest, in point form:

• Weirdly illustrated children’s book about where babies come from. You really need to check it out! It’s brilliant… and a little disturbing. (Via BoingBoing — translation of the german here.)
• Disneyworld is fingerprinting all visitors. For ‘ticket fraud protection’. But you know, if the FBI wants that data to save us from so-called terrorists, of course we can give it to them.
• Here’s one for my significant other: A gnathograph, some sort of weird tooth-measuring instrument from the 30s. Looks like something out of a Clockwork Orange… (via BoingBoing)
• Apparently we aren’t even allowed to bring pens onto an airplane now. Must be the ink — the 1 mL of liquid might be explosive! Although Live vibrators and Plastic explosives are OK. (Via BoingBoing)
• Stoner SMSes cop by mistake — and gets pulled over, searched, and arrested. Which is why you don’t let cops search your purse, expecially if you have drugs in it. In this case, telling the cop via text message that you had drugs might make the search legal, but you could still argue that. Check out FlexYourRights for info re: police stops. (Via BoingBoing)
• US Government seizes A man’s life savings in a “drug search”. He’s never charged with anything, but they refuse to give the $124,000 back. And it’s not a police state? (Via FlexYourRights.org)

*Whew*! I think that’s enough for now… don’t you?

Well, Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan has been diagnosed with amyloidosis. This is a sad, sad time for all of us fans who were hooked on the series from the 80s… :(

Ah, how I remember jesting with my friends that he’d croak before he finished his “trilogy” (now on 11 books and counting). Looks like the ultimate of ironies is going to happen…. :(

More comments on dragonmount, and on digg.com.

I went to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe last night with my GF. It was pretty much what I expected — my thoughtful girlfriend recently bought me the whole CS Lewis collection and I got about halfway through the books before deciding they were much too childish for me. I read them all in grade 4 or so — you know, we were reading ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ in some gifted / advanced reading class and I liked it so much I read the entire series before out group finished that one book… yeah I was such a bookworm.

Anyway back then I thought it was a fun story, but now parts of it really annoy me. The whole biblical idea of man being somehow innately superior to all other creatures being the main one. I mean, seriously, a bunch of kids just shows up in your country, which for hundreds of years has been oppressed by a cruel, heartless, witch, and you all willingly give your lives because some prophecy claims they will free you? I guess they must be REALLY desperate.

Not to mention that said kids clearly have no idea how to use swords / fight battles / etc. That centaur general in the movie could’ve owned all those baddies and was slain in two seconds by the witch. As if that kid had any chance — she was playing with him.

well, anyway, back to waiting to hear from the last few schools re: my CaRMS interviews…