If you keep up with me and my life- you would know by now that I read. I read a lot. You wouldn't think it considering the amount of other things I do. But I read voraciously. I don't think many people believe me when I tell them how much I read.

There are days I read upwards of four books. Not little novellas, books- at least 200 pages. I'd say on average I read about 500 page a day. Some days I read closer to a couple of thousand. I must admit that I also read manga and visual novels. I count these pages differently than others. I use about a 20 to 1 ratio on those pages. 20 visual novel/comic/manga pages to one regular page. This way, when I read 25 200-page volumes in a sitting, I don't really think of it as many pages.

When I started working, it was hard for me because I discovered my reading time evaporating away from me. It wasn't that I was really busy or anything, it was that if I sat in my cube reading a book, I would most likely be accused of being lazy and not getting my work done (despite the fact that I had already finished it or was in the middle of a timed experiment or something). Also, a reading habit can be an expensive thing. Now, I am comfortable with my local libraries, which saves me incredible amounts of money. However, funding for most public libraries is minimal and getting the new books- or even the type of books I like to read can be difficult. Usually there is a wait time on the books or I have to have them shipped in from other libraries.

So, trips to the library often end in me settling for a sack full of books just to get me through to the next time I need to get another sack full of books.

Also, books take up a lot of space. Space for books is always hard to acquire. You can only have so many book shelves in your house before you have room for no more. So, I try to keep only the books I know I will read again or my favorite selections. It doesn't help that I'm a hardback junkie. Hardbacks take up much more room than the paperbacks. I have started to try to buy in paperback to minimize the space used by my favorite books.

All of these factors make it hard to be a bibliophile. And I really am a bibliophile.

Then I discovered the digital book. Digital books are small- burnable onto cd/dvd or thumb drives and portable. So very portable. I can carry hundreds of books with me in my pocket- literally.

There are drawbacks to the digital book. For example finding books in digital format can be hard. But, not as hard as you might think. While the Microsoft Reader itself sucks- they are very good about providing books to it. With the very nice ABC Lit converter I can suddenly have books in any format I want.

Hell, I'm even willing to purchase books in digital format. Without the cost of paper, shipping and bookstore upkeep, they are generally fairly reasonably priced.

Anyway, none of that is important. What is important is the fact that I have been contemplating my reading habit. Why am I a bibliophile? What has drawn me to this past time. I would say hobby- but the point to which I have taken it is not hobby, but obsession. It is a habit- like smoking or coffee or heroine.

I find connection with the characters in books and with the thoughts of authors. At times, the people in the books I read seem almost more real- more palpable than the people around me. The people in books get more of a rise out of me than the person sitting on the other side of the grey walls that surround me. Sometimes I get the distinct impression that the people on the other side of the walls are nothing more than mist or smoke- set to dissipate at the slightest touch. Like a smoke ring or morning fog.

It is not that they are impenetrable to me. It is that there is no real substance to most of the people around me. Yet, in the books I read, there is substance to the people in them. There is thought and meaning and observation and simple lines of something solid.

This is not to say that I think all people lack substance. It is like in the clouds of fog and mist and smoke that are the people drifting around a few walk through them as solid masses. But, these people don't always gravitate to each other. To say that they did would be fiction. The people of substance are not drawn together.

I want to think that if I saw my favorite authors and artists I would be able to see them as people of substance.

I can't say every book I've read I've made a connection with. There are a good many that I haven't. Some I consider simple brain popcorn. You eat it up, but it has nothing to really offer you save for an hour or so of feeling full. Other books are like a seven course meal- I don't enjoy generally seven course meals. Too much to take in, too much to eat- each course set in front of you in an orderly fashion as if to say, "Now it is my time. Eat me." No matter how small the portions on a meal like this, I'm either left feeling stuffed and bloated and irritable or sallow and unsatisfied and starved. It is very rare to find a seven course meal that lays itself out perfectly for your palette. It takes a skilled person and someone with whom has substance in your line of sight to find it. The books that match your palette perfectly in the seven course meal are to be savored and enjoyed only on occasion so you do not ruin them.

For me, a book should be like eating breakfast in the afternoon. Simple, satisfying, a little bit of everything to pick and choose from. To quote one of my favorite authors in his first book: "Brimming with the aroma of life, that coffee was." That is what a good book is- the cup of coffee with breakfast that flavors the meal with the aroma of life.

There are books out there that affect me more than people do. I can empathize with the characters in them more. I can understand them. From these books I tend to take more meaning than I do from experience. Sometimes it is a simple line or a phrase. Something that catches me and strikes me. Some of the lines to me serious harm- others tear down what I am only to build it back into something I should be. It's not inspiration so much as change.

I read and find myself in a constant state of change.

Maybe that is why I am a bibliophile. Because I thrive on change. In a world where things are predictable and easy to see through; where people are clones of one another; this change in me allows me to keep going. It allows me to feel new things. I experience things based on my change in philosophy and ideas. I look at things in a new way trying to fit them into the new view.

Growth Change Chaos

This animates me. So I read on, constantly looking for things that will change me and make me feel.

Things that will paint me another shade of grey in a world of mist and smoke and fog and white.

So, Shitty Blog Club is apparently back and in style or something. It has a new look for the main blog, for the forums, I would guess that the radio show has a new look too if an auditory thing can have a new look.

I, am not in style.

I never will be in style.

I will, however, hopefully be an official shitty blogger again.

Go me.



I am proud to be shitty.

In honor of the newly revamped shitty blogs club- a flash from the past: shitty haiku. Because everyone knows how I love it.

The Shitty Blogs Club
Is Back. Is Stylin'. Is Crap.
Fuck, how I hate it.


Alright, that one had a bit too much malaise and angst in it. But fuck it. This is a shitty blog, not a good one.

Back in college we had a school paper. Of course we did, I mean what college doesn't have a school paper? Our paper was called Paydirt. It was a terrible paper. We printed it on the cheapest paper possible and sometimes there would be months when we didn't even have an issue.

I wrote articles for Paydirt. This isn't really special, anyone could write articles for the paper and get them in. It was a Science and Engineering school- they were desperate for anyone who could put together a complete sentence. I had a regular column- for which I got paid 50$ a month. (Hey, I was in a very poor town and 50$ was a lot.)

Now, I know what you may be thinking. Wow Utopia! What sort of insightful things did you write for your paper? Did you write about school politics? Literature? Local events?

I didn't write anything that cool.

I wrote the paper's horoscope.

It would take me about an hour or so to put them together, then another hour to write and proof read them. I used a pseudonym- not even a good one. I was Queen of the Sparkle Bunnies. I chose that pen name because I think Horoscopes are hippie crap. Astrology and college paper horoscopes are unrelated in my mind. I was not going to take the time to put together a star chart for every sign every month- fuck that.

I made them up.

I am convinced this is what most people do who write horoscopes. They read that the moon or whatever is traveling through Scorpio and then make something up in relation to it.

What I did to make them up was probably a little bit different from what my fellow charlatans did to make theirs up. I would take out my trusty tarot cards and draw three cards for each sign. The deck I used was actually not tarot, but rather a deck called the Pages of Shustah. It was a good deck- probably the best I've ever had to be honest. I no longer have it because my dog decided I didn't need it anymore and chewed up half the cards. Then using those three cards, I would write about what that sign should expect that month.

The creepy thing is my horoscopes were accurate. Remarkably accurate. More accurate than they had any right to be considering the minimal amount of effort I put into them. I have been pondering those cards and looking for another deck to replace them and from what I can tell, the cards were part of some cult that has long since vanished. I miss those cards.

I have been looking into getting a new set of cards of the tarot variety- I have a couple sets, but neither one of the do it for me. I have also been working on trying to put together my own set. My set has six suits of Minor Arcana and the Major Arcana. The six suits are: Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Spirit and Chaos. I like the symmetry of that- each suits has another that opposes it and one that fuels it. I have also been pondering the Major Arcana. To be honest, I wouldn't have been even thinking about the major arcane had I not read Mister Crowley's ramblings discourse on the deck.

From Crowley's view of tarot, I moved on to some historical readings and then Phil Hine (who endlessly amuses and provokes me to thought). After Hine, I read some fiction- The Tarot Trilogy by Peirce Anthony. That got me thinking even more about the evolution and change of the tarot- specifically the Major Arcana.

But, I digress.

The point is, I used to write trash. I wrote accurate trash, but even that is still garbage.

As above, so below.

This too is trash.

And possibly a lie.

Hail Eris!

So, I find myself in a quandary.

I have been invited to play a division up in my soccer league. So, I could be playing in Division 2 which is a bit more competitive and has better players than the division I am currently in which is Division 3. Division 3 is purely recreational.

Over the summer, I basically played on a Division 2 7v7 team. They invited me to join them for the regular season.

Now, my quandary is this: I like the women on my Division 3 team. I like the laid back feeling we have when we take the field. I like that we don't really care much if we win. I don't like that it is a struggle to get a full team to show up to our games. I don't like fielding 8 or 9 players in an 11v11 game. Also, I want to play better. I know I am capable of being a better soccer player, I just need to be around people who are better. As it stands now, I am probably one of the strongest people on my current team.

The Division 2 team would give me the chance to work on improving my game. I would get a better work out. And I could count on us having at least 11 people show up for a game. However, I don't like the unsportsman-like behavior of some of the girls on the team. I don't see the need to shove someone off the ball if simply a step in front of them will suffice. I don't see the need to clip someone's ankle if I can just outrun them. I don't talk back to the ref, I take both bad calls and good calls in stride. I don't like resorting to those petty, childish games of "I'm a tougher bitch than you are". I don't need to prove who the tougher bitch on the field is.

I know I can take a hit. I know I can outsprint most of the other woman on the field. I know that when the opportunity arises, I can take a shot from mid-field. I don't need to grab the girl's shirt who juked me- it happens, I just rebound for the ball. I don't need to slide tackle someone from behind and take them down if they get past me, I'll just push a little harder. I don't need to yell at my own team mate if they weren't covering their man in the precise second that she scored a goal. I don't need to take my frustration out on our keeper.

But, I do want to play some higher level soccer than I currently am. Higher level soccer doesn't mean more aggressive soccer. It means smarter, faster, more skillful soccer. It means connecting those passes, it means a good one touch, it means give and go, it means smart use of the field and the talent on the team.

Playing Division 2 would mean that I would have to apply myself a bit more to my personal training. I would have to run more and probably lift weight with more focus. I'd have to improve my endurance. None of that is a bad thing, I'd just have to make myself.

So, it is still a quandary.

So, apparently there is a Presidential Election this year here is the good ol' US.

There was sarcasm in that statement of course. I have been following the election season since it began a ridiculously long time ago in the primaries sometime in the middle of last year. Bloody asinine.

Now, I could tell a little story about why I hate McCain on a personal level. Or blather on about my other personal views and opinions on Obama. But, you don't care what I think.

I don't even know if I care what I think.

Unless I hear it out of the mouth of the candidate themselves, I'm just not going to believe what people say about the candidates- sorry- presumptive candidates. Either one could drop dead before we finally get to the conventions.

For fuck's sake. There are already ads scattered about TV, the radio, the internet and we haven't even officially chosen our candidates yet. And it is my bad luck for living in a "Battleground" State. I can't honestly tell one candidate's commercials from the other.

That's not entirely true. The Green Party had their convention and chose their candidate: the very local Cynthia McKinny. She was my local government representative before she went nutbar and hit a security guard with her phone and lost her seat in the most recent elections, so I am quite familiar with her. But we all know that the Green Party doesn't count. Nor does the Libertarian Party. Nor do any of the other parties. I think we can all look back and blame financial mogul Ross for his fickle nature in ruining any chance we may have had to have more than a two party system.

I have actually been contemplating what some of the other parties in our country could do to promote themselves. They could have a primary. They could go out and register people to vote, get some media attention (mostly because it would be strange and unusual), they could have debates.

Think of how much attention the primaries got this year simply because it was such a close fight. Hell, even people who weren't Democrats were paying attention and picking sides in their primary. Now, put that kind of a frenzy into another party. Pick a couple of people who are in some way different- maybe a homosexual, a Hispanic, a jew, a muslim, an intelligent American- something that would get them attention while everyone is saying that they aren't giving them attention for it. Then, maybe we would have some attention on a party other than Republican or Democratic. Maybe we would be able to take another step closer to a true democracy (or in our case a true republic).

I am just ready to go out and vote already. I have been ready for 8 years (give or take a few months).