For the story? Without rereading I can only give three. For the audiobook version by Digivox, read by Andrew Morely? 0. Flat 0.
The orator is so monotone and lacks the ability to pause between speakers that it's one long ramble. Excluding the third disc (The letter monologue) it's difficult to follow. I could glean the story and generally who was speaking but it was like following someone with a thick accent. I'll probably read it in print to fill in where I couldn't grasp the moment appropriately from listening. The story seemed great, but the delivery is poor.
I've had WeyrCat.Com for... longer than I should admit. Over a decade now. My Dad got it for me as a birthday present and I've been taking up cyberspace ever since. I've used GoDaddy for as long as I can remember and when my previous free hosting fell through I picked up some GoDaddy hosting (great deal 4.99 a month!) Now, last month (approx) I bit the bullet and put a redirect on my DotCom to kick people over into my Blogger, since I simply haven't had time to keep up with the ways the Internet demands pages be built and photos be hosted. I do most of it through Google services now (Picasa, Blogger, etc) but I hadn't turned off the hosting.
A GoDaddy rep just called me to let me know I was being billed for something I wasn't using and offered to cease the payments. She says that often times people will do something like I did, or simply stop using their FTP, yet continue to be billed. How nice that a company, that could have stayed quiet and let me be auto-billed, pulling in money for nothing, to call me and let me know. I've dealt with companies before that actually REOPEN old accounts to start billing you from them again (ahem, Wells Fargo) and GoDaddy goes out of their way to make sure I'm not spending more than I need to.
I pitch them when I hear someone talking about needing a site or hosting, and this is why. Great business practices, great customer service, great service period. I've never once got off the phone with a GoDaddy rep and been irate. That speaks volumes.
Not bad, as far as short self-helpers go. Some were things that made me go "Yea, this doesn't apply to me." Some made me think "I knew this, I really should start doing it." And for some, I took notes. I like the research references at the end of each Point.
You know that song, Christmas Eve Sarajevo? If you don't know the name you've probably heard the song anyway. I recommend this vid to refresh your memory.
Well Husband remembered that Trans Siberian Orchestra (the group commonly known for the tune) plays here in Florida every December, and thought he remembered that his granma had always wanted to go. SO, we called her up, invited, her, bought tickets, and two days later, drove 2.5 hours to get her, then 3 hours to Miami, and then did the whole thing in reverse. It was awesome.
We had dinner at the Chili's at the Port. Chili's is Chili's but the view was wonderful! We watched the sky go from day, through twilight, and into night. The whole marina ended up lit by colorful lights, and then was made even brighter by the boats decorated for an upcoming boat parade.
After dinner we walked the short distance to the concert hall. We were a couple hours early and pretty much just hung out until they let us in. Some of the buildings were "dressed up" for the holidays. I couldn't get a good picture of the blue building covered in snowflakes, but I did get one of the interesting Town Hall looking building lit up in solid blue.
The show itself was fantastic. There were two halves, the first was the 'Christmas' music we were expecting, including the Christmas Eve Sarajevo that I'm sure was the only song some of us had heard previously. The second half was stuff from their "upcoming album." It was all very good! Except for the bum song. It just.. wouldn't... end. Shane decided it might be a bet among the bandmembers somehow. Everything else was fantastic! The LASER lights were neat, if not a little scary. They had some triangular video screens throughout the show that became DRAGONS for a song, complete with fire. My favorite part though? The violinist. Ever seen a head-banging violinist? How does he PLAY like that? The whole band (except for the seated strings section, courtesy of Miami's own Symphony) ran around the stage like, or because they are, rock stars. SO COOL! I didn't get a whole lot of photos because I was too busy rocking out to Beethoven. Srsly. Granma Irma loved it! And was very happy that Shane mistakenly thought she had said she wanted to go!
If these are showing up right, the first is a blue but empty stage. You can see the triangular light boxes they flip and twirl around. The second should be LASERS! The third, my favorite pic, shows the violinist rocking out down front. They ran all across the stage and even up on some floating walkways. So cool.
Dragons. Hard to see, but that's because they're spitting a giant FIREBALL at the audience. These guys rock classical music so hard. Irma leaned over and whispered (shouted) "Beethoven could have no IDEA!"
Best. Concert.
Edit: 12/20/2011 Just found this YouTube account that vid'ed most of the concert, in case you want to see how AWESOME it was :D Here is his YouTube. Christmas Eve Sarajevo Requiem (You'll know it when you here it.)
Now I'm just listening to the whole thing over again. :D
BAD Blogger! BAD!
You'd think with a fancy shmancy smartphone and a netbook and NO MORE SCHOOL that I'd have time to update my wee blog. Well you'd be partly right. My phone is doing this odd thing where the screen shuts off randomly. I hear it's a "Pocket Detection" error, but I seem to have no way to rectify it. To be continued...
Final grades were posted, and I'm rather proud of myself. I should be, I wracked my brain cells the last couple months since going to part time. Here, my dear readers (meaning me, and maybe my dad and Granma hehe), are the results:
-Biodiversity: A. (Made 92% on the final!)
-Biodiversity Lab: A.
-Chemistry I: A. (Made a raw 83% on the final, which was curved to 95%)
-Chemistry Lab: A-. *My calculations said I'd end up with a 89, and they don't round. Someone did!
-Biostatistics: A. Busted my butt on that final presentation, and got an A. WEE!
-History of Civilizations: A. I BOMBED the final with a 72%. I got a 95% on my final paper.
By the time finals were over I had secured my classes for the next semester.
Chem2 and lab. Physics1 and lab. German1. Interpretation of Poetry ( my last creative expressions and GRW.) Six classes again, but I'll start this semester at part time so I shouldn't need to 'catch up' midway through. I was able to get a digital version of the Physics text for both 1&2, so with the digital text I'm reusing for Chem2 I've saved over 400$ that way. Good, since the online homework system for Physics will cost 95$ itself. Yikes.
That's it for school until the second week of January. I'm keeping busy by not keeping busy, and fun reading Heinlein and Ornithology, an Ecological Perspective. We also have backpacking planned (and went to a concert! More on that later!)
PS! Husband got all A's too, but that was a given :P
My husband had this and loved Maddox's stuff when he was a little younger, and while some of it was... riiiiiight, as soon as I shut off the part of my brain where my IQ was stored it was actually kind of amusing. Couldn't really read it all in one sitting, so I read a page or two while on the toilet. Captive audience, you see. Some of it was kind of funny, aaaand some of it kind of meh. Not sorry I read it, but glad I didn't pay money to do so.
The audiobook version is read by Spider Robinson. He's not monotone per say, sometimes he sounds very natural, but, in the end it doesn't matter. Heinlein's story is so interesting that I don't hear the orator anymore, I simply see the story being played out. I LOVE the mini-lectures. He's always sure to explain the physics of what's going on. I love that. In classic Heinlein fashion it ends without a "true ending," though everything is wrapped up neatly. I love that too. Let's face it, Heinlein was a great writer, and this is a great book. :)
