The blog seems to loading as quickly as it used to. I was very worried about the old bloggie for awhile there.

I've been on a reading rampage, trying to get caught up to my reading plan for the year. I read two books that I really liked. I finished "The Girl in Hyacinth Blue" by Susan Vreeland. The story reminded me of the movie, "The Red Violin", and there was a similar story line which was kind of weird.

Then I read Octavia E. Butler's book, The Parable of the Sower. The book started to freak me out because it features an apocalyptic vision of a future California ravaged by drought and an unbelievable economic depression.

It's like Bulter looked into the future, and saw one possible future for the golden state and fictionalized it into a novel. Scary, scary stuff!

The book was published in 1995, and now in 2004 you can see the seeds of the world she created in the book beginning to sprout. I just hope it doesn't get that bad.

I went to the library and borrowed the next book in the series, and have already started on it. I hope she keeps writing more for this series.

I feel good that I'm reading again. I got so behind in my monthly reading schedule because of all my stressorama with my job. One good thing about commuting to work every day on the train is that I can read a book for about 20 minutes going to work, and 20 minutes again coming home.

I can't really read "heavy" books on the train because the time is too short for me to concentrate on the story, but fast good reads make for great commuter reading.

I borrowed Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the library to read on the train. It's a small enough paperbook that it fits into my purse, and it's a good commuter read.

My stupid portable cd player/radio/tape player ate on my favorite tapes! God I hate that! Oh well. I have buy another boom box anyway for my living room, since the very old one I have doesn't play some of my cds anymore. I'll put the old boom box in my bedroom and get a new boom box for the living room.

One of these days I'll buy a proper stereo, but I'm like what's the point if I can't blast it loud because I live in an apartment building with overly sensitive neighbors. The neighbors in my old building used to call and tell me my boom box was too loud.

Loud? How load can a small boombox get? Those peple were such freaks, but they were related to the one of the people who owned the building so it wasn't like I could get into a stereo war with them.

I need to do some serious electronic shopping. I need a new TV, a DVD player so I can join Netflix, a new vcr, and now a new boom box. There goes the extra vacation money from my old job.

My crazy blog. It wasn't loading right, and I think one of my counters had upgraded and changed their code. Once I deleted the code, the blog loaded as instantly as it did before Friday.

What a pain! I never used that counter anyway, so I'm not going to put it back.

My blog is still loading slowly. I don't know what to do. I've emailed Blogger about the problem, and still no fix. I was one of those fools who decided to upgrade and pay for the blog as well, and yet I'm the one who seems to have the most problems. Every time there's a problem with Blogger, I'm affected.

What a pain! But Blogger is free now and I guess you get what you pay for. If I hadn't upgraded and paid, I wouldn't mind so much. But now I feel like Blogger is punishing me because I was once a paying customer.

That's a little backwards and ridiculous isn't it?