h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think I have The Upinashads too.

Yep, I have various translations of the Tao Te Ching, the Tao of Physics and The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet. And the obligatory Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Zen and the art... I really must buy another copy of that. I thought I had The Tao of Pooh, but it's not there. Oh, yes it is And The Sayings of Confucius. Plus the second part of a series called The World Without and the World Within by someone called Theodora Thompson which I picked up from a book market in Manchester many years ago. I'd dearly like to get hold of the first part.

Actually, I can't swear that either the Tao of Pooh, or Zen and... is still on my shelf. Those are two books I've purchased repeatedly over the years as the were often loaned out and never returned. I'm pretty sure Tao of Pooh is still there, but I actually doubt Zen is.


I actually take seriously what books are on my bookshelf. There's a quote by Heinlein, I believe, that I can't seem to find by search now, that states something along the lines of "If I ever want to really know a person quickly, I just take a look at their bookcase."

There are a few authors who's books I'll still buy in hardback rather than Ebooks just because I want them on my shelves, as part of some description of my SELF.

Which is actually quite pointless since I haven't had a guest in my home in years and those that did come by back then never looked at my bookcases.

Visitors to Fort Gosho are also few and far between, which is something I don't mind too much, or at all really. It takes a lot of pressure off, not having to keep the place *too* tidy, but in the event someone does come over, especially on a whim, it can be a bit nerve-wracking trying to make the place look presentable in a hurry

And yes, I will have visitors during SXSW. If you live in Austin it's pretty much a certainty.

I think a visit to either Half Price Books or the charity shop is in the offing. I really don't need all those massage/anatomy books any more, nor The Beginner's Guide to Shotokan Karate because I won't ever be doing that again. And there are several novels I bought off the dollar shelf at Half Price which I'll never read again.

I'm envious of the slide rule! My bookshelves are very similar, I have to admit, except that there is more Tintin than Dune. I'm trying to build a complete set of Asterix and Tintin.

Now I just need to teach myself how to use the sliderule.

Whoever thought that black would be a good colour for a hob was wrong. Utterly, irrevocably, obviously wrong, and they really need to go back to whatever design college they attended and start again.

I don't think anyone else in this building uses hot water. I can only recall one time in the four or five weeks I've lived here now that I've turned on a hot water tap and got hot water almost straight away. Every other time, for showers, washing dishes, doing hand laundry, it takes about a minute of running water down the drain before the hot water makes its way through the pipes from the boiler to my tap.

There are ten apartments in the building, all one-bedroom, and I know that some of them are, like mine, occupied by one person, but others have two occupants, so if there are say, 15 people living in the building, I'd expect there to be certain times of the day when there's a good chance of hot water being run in more than one of those apartments, such as in the morning when people are getting up and showering, or in the evening when people are preparing dinner or washing the dishes. It's been that way in other similar multi-occupancy buildings with communal hot water that I've lived or stayed in.

But it doesn't seem to work that way here

Maybe the lines are run separately nearly the whole way to each apartment. They might do this to have all the individual units' meters at one location.

Or maybe the water in the lines just cools off faster than you expect.

I know I'm usually surprised at how quickly after running hot water I get tepid water out of my lines.

You could be right. I'm in the middle of washing a pair of work jeans. I washed them in hot water, rinsed them in cold, and by the time I needed more hot water for the second wash the water in the hot tap was cold again.

It does seem a bit inefficient though to run a separate pipe from the boiler to every apartment in the complex, especially since places like this would have been as cheaply as possible. A pipe to each building that splits to the individual apartments seems like a much better arrangement for cost-cutting.

And whoever thinks that putting a bogroll holder in a place where you have to turn more than 90° to get at it is also utterly, incontrovertibly, hopelessly wrong.

Ugh, my parents built theirs into the wall behind the toilet. They don't seem to mind, but I'm thinking about buying them one of those free standing bogroll holders. I think once they try it, they'll appreciate it.

Behind?

Well, the wall is behind the toilet. The roll is at 4:00 - 5:00.

Anyway, it's awkward and after you tear a strip, the remainder hangs to the floor.

Update.

You may remember that after the smoulder (I won't call it a fire because there weren't any flames) they gave me four months in this one-bedroom apt. at the same rent as my studio apartment. I had every intention of going back to the old apartment because I thought this one would be too expensive when that deal ended, and just because I liked the old one.

Well, I shan't be moving back into my old place after all. Today I got the 60-day notice of lease renewal from the office. The (market) rent on this (one-bedroom) place isn't going to be as much as I thought. What's more, having spoken to the manager just now while I was paying this month's rent I found out that since they've put new appliances in all the apartments in that building the rent has gone up... a lot. Like, more than the new rent on this place. That's right, a one-room studio flat of 350 square feet is going to cost more than a 700 square-foot one-bedroom apt. In the same complex.

Bob bless market forces. They are, after all, the best way to price things, right? Of course they are

Still, at least it means I don't have to move again, carry everything back to the old place and arrange for all the services to be changed again, but now I need to buy a bed. And find the extra money for the rent, and for the bigger electricity bills.

But on the other hand, the walls in this apartment aren't that generic white - they're a pleasant grey colour which accentuates the pictures very nicely The leasing company offers a range of four colour schemes you can have (at a cost) if you want, but, curiously, this grey colour isn't one of them

On the other other hand, I'm going to have to continue dealing with those bloody Victoria's Secret catalogues belonging to the previous tenant (and all the other crap of hers that I'm getting because she didn't get her mail redirected ), and the kitchen in this place is not so much to my liking.

But on the other other other hand, I've got a fantastically sunny south-facing balcony on which to grow more cacti. Ooh, ooh, and tomatoes

Ok...

I think I'll get some flan plants too...