I was in a very bad mood when I woke up this morning and my mood got even darker when I glanced I at my books-waiting-to-be-read pile.

I like to read something while I sit down with my cup of tea in the morning and since I let my Newsweek and Economist subscriptions lapse I have had to revert to old-fashioned books. Apart from the delightful Francis Crick biography, I have bounced from book to mind-numbing book - UML Distilled and The Innovator’s Dilemma and several other books that I should be reading. My arm went numb just reaching for the pile.

I had started reading the first three chapters of The Innovator’s Dilemma about 5 times before and, after I convinced myself that reading the whole book would be a lot like reading the first three chapters another 5 times, aborted the effort. I decided that life was too short to be reading books that did not enjoy and in the mood I was under, I really couldn’t face another chapter of Working with Legacy Code.

The quirky cover of that tractor book that Richard had lent me a couple of weeks ago caught my eye. I read the first paragraph…

Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.

Just what I was looking for! I got about half way through the first chapter before I had to leave for work. When I arrived here I glanced at the reviews on Amazon. All the reviews gave it either 5 stars or 1 star. Perfect! As Kathy Sierra says, if everyone has a strong opinion about your work - they either love it or hate it - you are probably onto something. Even better - the lovers found the book hilarious and the haters found it depressing (Angela’s Ashes, anyone?).

I can’t wait to get home now! It had better live up to my towering expectations!

I can’t get the hang of the blogging business. Is it better to leave comments on their blog or write a counter-blog of your own? Maybe you should blog then comment on theirs with a link back to yours? But what if they have trackback turned on? It’s all so confusing. In the end, I decided to comment on Aaron’s blog and reproduce it here.

Kevin said…

I watched the Star Wars movies in order. I thought Episode I was pretty good but went downhill after that.By Episode IV it was like he ran out of ideas or his budget for cool graphics was all gone or something.

Aaron didn’t enjoy it as much as I did…

Last night I watched Star Wars Episode 1. The movie really isn’t half bad except for three things.

… but at least we agreed that the first one was best.

In my RSS feed this morning, I have three blog entries from otherwise normal-seeming people who suggest that maybe it’s somewhat unusual to invade foreign countries without a really good reason. There was mine, of course, and Ron’s - it was Ron who gave me the courage to blog about a dream - and Scott’s (I was going to blog about what big balls Condi Rice has after seeing her on Meet the Press, but Scott has that covered). The other two were a little more subtle than mine - but, then, I am an extreme moderate.

Such a happenstance reminds me of that September morning a few years back when I really, really wanted to do something but there was nothing I could do. I had a brain flash. I found the huge Stars and Stripes in the back of the cupboard and went to hang it outside. I felt just like that dude in the Tony Orlando song when, on his way home from prison, the whole damn bus is cheering because there are a hundred yellow ribbons.

Maybe I am not the only moderate?

It was a warm, balmy evening last night, so Georgina and I decided to go out on the town. We got all dressed up in our finest rags - Georgina wore those long, dangly diamond earrings - and set off from our room in the residential hotel where we live determined to have a grand old time. We saw loads of people we knew on the stairwell on the way down to the lobby. There was that dude who was in my class in the 4th year at Chis & Sid and a few guys from the navy but the first people we spoke to were Aaron and his girlfriend (who was that girl?) who were both naked under their open trenchcoats. As far as I recall, this was the first time that I had ever dreamt about Aaron and it was definitely the first time I had seen him naked.

We quickly noticed that everyone was naked under their trenchcoats but this didn’t trouble us in the slightest. We were determined to have a grand old time.

When the barman at the restaurant where we stopped for a cocktail explained that it was National Naked Under a Trenchcoat Day, we were a little bit disappointed that we hadn’t known but we were having such a fun time that we soon forgot about it. This was the first time we gone out on our own in, like, forever.

When we returned to the hotel, the trenchcoat people were still there and we stopped to share some gossip. As I walked up the stairs chatting with Marty, I heard a huge cheer from behind me. Georgina had removed all her clothing and tossed it to me with a wink and a smile. I was so proud! Proud like the time I watched my new wife go skinny dipping on a deserted Jamaican beach while I kept a look out and watched the sun rise. “Looks like she is having fun!” said Marty as we continued up the stairs. When I turned back to admire my wife one more time, she had disappeared!

I looked everywhere for her, searching frantically from room to room. “Have you seen Georgina? Have you seen Georgina?” “We thought she was with you”, replied her shocked mother (she shocks easily).

I set out into the dawn of a deserted London to look for her. London had, of course, turned into a demolition site by now and the roar of the bulldozers and the tattered remnants of the wind-blown porno mags made my search seem very poignant. With my heart in my weary boots, I wandered from street to street angrily kicking aside the discarded bus tickets until - “Beep! Beep! Beep!” - the warning alarm of the reversing bulldozer transformed into the even sadder tone of my alarm clock telling me it was time to get up and go to work.

What a sad, sad start to the day.