Today..

It's ellen_kushner's birthday.

I don't know Ellen Kushner, except I know she writes like a dream and she has written one, maybe two, of my favourite books ever. (I am thinking of Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword.)

So I raise an imaginary rapier in salutation, and wish Ellen Kushner the best of times - and continued creative brilliance.

Twelve Sharp and counting...

I felt exhausted yesterday. Exhausted, stressed, worn out, even burned out. Every time I looked around at work someone was asking me do so something else and to do it now if not yesterday. I got home wishing I could just sleep for days....

So after supper I lounged on my bed with Twelve Sharp, the new Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovitch.

Ranger is an important part of the action. Woo. I like Ranger.

I read about three-quarters of the book before falling asleep at an embarrassingly early hour, and all the sense of stress and exhaustion were gone.

Book therapy. Gotta love it.

The United States...

I had great fun with this test, failing third grade repeatedly till I got it right. Which was a great learning experience - I don't think we ever actually covered all the states in the U.S. in school; or perhaps I was simply absent that day.

Some were easy - mostly, the ones I've been to. There were a few surprises. I learned that I had no idea on earth where Idaho was and simply learned it because it was the last one left after I'd done all the others. I thought I had no idea where Kentucky was, but as soon as I looked, I know; same with Alabama. I note that Hawaii and Alaska are missing.

I'm going to do this again tomorrow, and maybe I'll actually get it without a lot of fumbling and guessing.

I'd like to do it with the states of Australia and the counties of England. No point doing Canada; I know the provinces (yes, we covered them in school while the poor American kids were doing all those states), and there aren't enough of them to be a challenge. Not even in grade three.

The World...

As if it wasn't bad enough that I was playing with the U.S. states long enough to learn them - yes, even Idaho - wijsgeer send me this link which has me puzzling over which is Macedonia and which is Croatia and which isn't and I find it unutterably addictive. I wasn't too bad on Europe - would have done better if the countries would only stay in the same places as they were when I was in high school. I was hopeless on the Caribbean. Spot on with Canada and the U.S., but then, if I hadn't been practising the U.S. diligently today I wouldn't have done nearly as well.

BSG and other serious matters...

It looks to me as if Battlestar Galactica's third season is starting in the U.S. tonight.

And it's starting in Canada tomorrow night.

Which means I'll have to avoid reading my friend's list tomorrow, in case of spoilers. Or at least I'll have to be very, very careful.

I already inadvertently stumbled on a spoiler for last week's Veronica Mars, which I haven't had a chance to see yet. No big deal, but still something I'd rather not have done. Actually, it really piqued my curiosity. But I'd still rather know nothing till I see it. Nothing! (And no, the spoiler wasn't on LJ, it was on a mailing list.)