Oh yeah, August

Currently Reading: Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

So here we are, August. CC's back from Manila, things are moving at a decent pace at work, not too busy, not too boring. You think I'd be in a better mood as I sit down to the computer to post a blog entry this week.

So, what's got me all fired up this week? The weather for one. It's hot. DAMN hot. It's Texas hot. Hello, Texas? Yes, we have your weather. Please come pick it up and take it home. Seriously, this is how I remember summer being all the time and you know what? I didn't like it then either :-)

Just walking down the stairs to the truck is enough to make you break out in a drenching sweat. And don't get me started on the climb UP. Then picture all that with your arms full of groceries or similar shopping bags. Oh yeah, it's August alright. Thank goodness this sort of thing doesn't last very long.

And just for the record, I haven't gotten spoiled by cooler summers. It really IS hot here. Today it's going to be 99 or 100. Tomorrow, 101, Thursday, 101 then it may cool down to a brisk 97. All of this combines with the usual Memphis humidity. Lordy you'd think with it being this hot, some of that moisture would burn off.

You've also got to remember that we don't have the best air conditioner here in the apartment. I'm not really sure how high it's rated but it can't be rated for anything bigger than our current 1100 square feet. Honestly, I'd be surprised if it was supposed to handle THAT much space. Right now, running the usual appliances, central air on, the coolest I can get this place in the middle of the day is 85. Were I at work, I'd be obligated to shut everything down and move the dogs into a cooler part of the store. Seriously, we don't let it get any higher than 80 back there.

Because of our AC, I broke down last night and went out and got a window unit for the bedroom. I can mostly function in a warm space during the day but I have a hard time sleeping when it's this hot. I get restless and sticky. So I drove over to Target and picked up an AC to keep the bedroom cool. Funny thing is, I wasn't the only one who had that idea. When I got there they had only two left. Just two. Didn't matter what size you wanted, they had two. Now they have one :-) Like I said, it's a bit warm lately.

Now, you might say that it was a waste to get a window AC. It's only going to be this hot for a few weeks. I should be able to tough it out, blah blah blah. Yeah, well I slept good last night and after I finish this up, I'm going to have a shower and take a nap in my nice COOL bedroom. Maybe watch some TV when I wake up. Far as I'm concerned, that little AC is worth every penny we paid for it :-)

Speaking of sleeping, I had my sleep disturbed Monday night. Caught some sort of stomach virus and it really messed me up for a bit. Don't worry, I'll spare you the gory details. Besides, I'm sure at some point you've had a stomach flu or food poisoning or something like that. You know how it goes. Come to think of it, I'm still probably running a little slower than usual right now. Then again, that could be the heat.

All of this awful weather really does add to the whole Dune experience. I'm reading the Dune books again, admittedly in the wrong order, not that it matters. I read the last two in prelude to that awful new one that came out. After I abandoned it, I decided to go back and read the rest. Needless to say when the book describes someone dealing with the heat, I can really FEEL it :-)

Tomorrow is Thursday. Yes, I know, that much is obvious. Who cares right? Just another hot Thursday in August right? No, not quite. You see, tomorrow starts PRE-SEASON FOOTBALL! Ok no, again, not quite. It actually started over the weekend with the hall of fame game but unless you get the NFL network, you didn't get that game. Just as well, that game usually sucks anyway. Tomorrow night though, Dallas plays the Colts! WOO HOO! I can only hope, for their sakes, that they're either playing indoors or someplace where it's not as hot as it is here. You could seriously injure yourself playing in weather like this. Hell you can injure yourself just walking down the street in weather like this.

Speaking of injuries, why didn't anyone bean Barry Bonds before he broke the home run record? Seriously, you'd think someone would have done that by "accident" before he got it. Whoops! That pitch just slipped right off my fingers. Sorry Barry, didn't mean to slam a 90 mile an hour fastball into your knee. Darn, looks like that one might end your career. Aww shucks.

But nope, didn't happen. Why? It's bad enough the single season home run record is in question. Let's face it, even back when Mark McQuire and Sammy Sosa were going head to head for the record we all had to wonder about it. These guys sure do look a whole lot bulkier than they did a few seasons ago.

Maybe we should have TWO sets of records. One for the juiced players, one for the non-juiced players. Then again, at this rate the only non-juiced players are the ones coming in from Japan. You can tell they're not juiced. Same with some of the others actually. All you have to do is look at them when they stand next to one of the juiced guys. Remember, baseball players are NOT supposed to be built like linemen.

Ah well, I'm done with my rant. I'm hitting the showers and having a nap. Stay cool everyone. September is right around the corner!

Odds and Ends

Currently Reading: Dune by Frank Herbert

I'm no longer going to bother reading any of the new Dune books. I've tried the first of each series and ended up giving up on them right at about the same point. These latest two books (of which one has been released) were supposed to be based on an outline by Frank Herbert that was discovered in some safe deposit box by his son but after reading the first 150 pages or so and reading the outline of the plot, I'm finding that hard to believe.

I didn't really care that much that the son was going to do a whole set of prequel books. So long as he didn't mess with the original, fine, no problem. I didn't find them very well-written and they really weren't very complex in plot. In all I would rank them as average. Maybe if you liked that sort of book you'd want to read it but otherwise, nothing in it really jumps out at you.

Towards the end of the series though, he started messing a little bit with the original. Or rather, his version started running into consistency errors with the original. Characters that were clearly alive in the original series had already been killed off in the prequels leaving some readers scratching their heads. Oh they tried to play it off by saying that the one in the original series was a clone (of which there are many in the original series) but the problem with that is the clones weren't introduced until the second or third book. Oops.

Still, didn't really bother me because I never put much stock into the prequels. They were supposed to tell the backstory of the novels, most of which is already told in the novels themselves. These books were just fleshing things out a little.

Then this new series came out and, as I said, it was supposed to be based on a long-missing outline. I'm guessing that's a very loose term "based on." Yeah, it was based on that outline in the sense that it has chapters and characters, sure. Or maybe there really wasn't anything IN the outline at that point and the outline needed fleshing out.

What it looks like they're doing with the two new books is trying to link everything together. And while I can understand the need to do it, it's really like trying to nail the back end of a rusted out Ford onto a new Cadillac. They just don't match and I don't mean purely in style. The characters suddenly have different personalities. Minor details are over-looked. The plot, well, it doesn't move very much and when it does move it certainly doesn't take off in the direction the other novels were heading. They couldn't even keep it to one book (which would have made two trilogies linked by one bridge novel). They attempted (or were forced to) stretch everything out to make it all fit together.

So, my advice, skip Hunters of Dune and the soon to be released Sandworms of Dune. Instead, just fill in the blanks after Chapterhouse yourself. It's certainly going to be better than what Brian Herbert came up with.

Baseball's All-Star game is coming up next week. If you're a fan, you'll want to check out all the action on the MLB site. If you're not a fan, better make plans to rent some videos or take in a movie that night :-)

People spell names weird down here. There was an article in the paper about a kid in Arkansas who got killed. His name was DeAuntae. Yes, just like that. No, you're not supposed to translate it, that's supposed to be in English. He's not "Of the Aunt" or "the Aunt". That's the family's attempt to produce Dante or at least make it seem more fancy. Worse, apparently they called this kid Tae Tae. If you're from the Philippines, go ahead and laugh. Just try not to spew coffee all over your keyboard when I tell you that the headline in the paper that day was FAREWELL TAE TAE. For the rest of us who do NOT speak Tagalog, roughly translated, that headline reads FAREWELL POO POO.

Slow week in the grooming salon because of the 4th of July. Sunday I had a total of two dogs. Monday I had no appointments scheduled. Fortunately we had quite a few walk-ins, otherwise I'd have gone nuts from boredom. Things will pick up over the weekend though. It as kinda nice having a few slow days after all the heavy work we had leading up to it.

Time to get back to summer things. Enjoy!