on book nerdery

At work on Thursday night, one of the librarians called me over to look at an ad in a magazine. "Who does that look like?" she asked, and immediately I saw that it was a girl who used to work at the library, who moved to Edmonton to be with her manfriend. We discussed how likely it would be that it was her and decided it might be possible. It was an ad for shredded wheat and showed her all dolled up in bed and a guy sleeping beside her. The librarian made a comment about the ad not being very realistic because the guy looked too old for the girl, and she showed the other staff member who was sitting at the desk. The staff member glanced up at the picture and said, "Oh no, he looks homosexual," and continued on with her work. We started howling because it was so out of the blue, that she would immediately think the ad didn't work because the guy was gay rather than too old. It was also funny that she could assess the sexual orientation of someone so quickly despite the person in the photo being "asleep."

I've been reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Snuff" and have found a couple of things worth noting:
1) It claims Rem Koolhaas did porn before his architecture career took off.
2) It makes a reference to a type of mainstream people who made HD win over Blu-ray for high-definition technology world domination. This, of course, is not accurate, since Blu-ray is the chosen winner in that competition. It's weird he would make reference to something that wasn't yet decided at printing, choosing the one he thought might win, only to choose wrongly.
I find the book interesting, though am not quite at the Nancy Pearl limit, so could change my mind in 3 pages. I had been reading "The dirt" by Motley Crue, but found some members completely unreadable and haven't gone back to finish it yet (coincidentally, I happened to stop at page 50). It's due today, so I might have to get it again later.

The one book I have out that I'm really looking forward to is "The River Cottage cookbook" by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. This is the one I wrote about a month or two ago, with the instructions on when to kill your chicken. It's a massive book, almost 450 pages, 7 of those the index, and has fantastic photos. It will be a lot of reading, but I'm pretty excited about it. I have to start prioritising the books I have out, as they keep piling up and I never seem to get through all the ones I sign out. You'd think, with all this free time now, I would be reading like a mofo, but I have the odd reading day and that's about it. I think I might start reading on the walk to work; yesterday I walked and read, and got through a nice chunk of the book. The stretch between Quebec and Expo is pretty safe, so long as I can keep myself on the sidewalk.

I find it weird that I look at indexes now to see how well they're done. I still haven't gotten the 1975 edition of "The joy of cooking," which is the best cookbook index ever written, but also haven't been looking very actively. Perhaps I can put that on my summertime to-do list. Items so far on the list:
- find a good condition copy of the 1975 edition of "The joy of cooking"
- read "Infinite jest"
- have high tea in a sundress
- visit Victoria for a day trip, during rose season if possible
- plan a trip in late fall
- go to Osoyoos and eat as much fruit as possible
- make sun tea
- eat fish and chips beside the fishing boats
- walk in grass barefooted
- look at stars
- find sea glass
- sew some skirts and/or dresses
- ride the elevator up to the top of a high building