Reading List

...which is to say, books I've read thus far in 2006.  The mountain of books to be read is much too lengthy to include here.

...basically just a list for my own information...

The Carousel Keepers, Carrie Papa
The Celestial Steam Locomotive, Michael Coney
Worldwired, Elizabeth Bear
Fire Sanctuary, Katharine Eliska Kimbriel
Pretender, C.J. Cherryh
Will in the World, Stephen Greenblatt
Skeletons in the Zahara, Dean King
Dead to the World, Charlaine Harris
Dead as a Doornail, Charlaine Harris
Saturday Night at Moody's Diner, Tim Sample
Fruits Basket, Volumes 8-13, Natsuki Takaya
Uglies, Scott Westerfield
Pretties, Scott Westerfield
Narbonic, Volume 3, Shaenon K. Garrity
Murder with Peacocks, Donna Andrews
Murder with Puffins, Donna Andrews
The Man Behind the Iron Mask, John Noone
It Happened in Maine, Gail Underwood Parker
Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees
Blood and Iron, Elizabeth Bear
The Unstrung Harp, or: Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel, Edward Gorey
Dragon's Eye, James A. Hetley
Poison Study, Maria V. Snyder
Firestorm, Rachel Caine
The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner

Bad Tech Day

In order to escape the Yoke of Tyranny(tm) and avoid the Train Wreck that Will Be Microsoft Vista, I have determined to migrate my business over to Linux. I already use Open Office to write with, and it doesn't matter a fig to me what OS I use to access the web and fetch my email. There are, alas, some Windows programs that I do still need, so I intend to preserve XP and do a leisurely migration.

There being plenty of room on my hard drive, I thought I'd just make a partition, install Freespire, and do the dual-boot boogie.

It all seemed so reasonable.

Except that Freespire can't make partitions its own self. Not a problem. kinzel had an installation disk for Xandros Business, which is capable of making partitions, so Plan B was to install Xandros, let it partition the hard drive, and then install Freespire over it.

...except that Xandros professed itself unable to resize the Windows partition (thus freeing the needed real estate for itself), reported Error 8004, and recommended me to look to the health of my hard drive.

Back in Windows, I swept, and checked, and defragged; and finally tried Xandros again -- with the same result.

To which I say Argh. And Gah. Plan C is to buy another box and a switch, but these toys are not funded under the current budget.

So, I am disappointed.

But, wait! There's more!

Somewhere in all of the sweeping, checking, defragging and failed installs, XP suffered a minor bout of amnesia and swore it had never seen my back-up drive in its tiny life. More, it refused to admit the poor Maxtor to the house, much less offer it a cup of tea. It was all very trying.

Nothing I could do would make XP acknowledge the existence of the back-up drive. It occurred to me at last that the drive might simply have expired, it being no longer young. So, at great personal risk, I unplugged the power cord from under the desk, pulled the USB plug and walked Maxtor into kinzel's office, where his computer, after some time and an infusion of chocolate, was persauded to admit the Maxtor and even to fondle its files.

Back to my office, more excavations under the desk -- and viola! XP now acknowledges as how I have K drive after all.

So, after several hours of intense labor -- I'm right back where I was when I sat down at the computer this morning and discovered that 9 Chickweed Lane wasn't answering the phone.


To balance things out a bit, I am pleased to report that Kit Jimenez has at last triumphed over her in-house teleporter.