Ideating

I have already complained about the crappy free newspapers handed out after work and forsworn both of them. They suck. The last thing I need after a stressful day at work is to get all het up about some Q-list celebrity with her bits circled and arrows pointing to it. Anything that uses "lollipop heads" and "muffin tops" to describe people is firmly out of my literary pool. But tonight I grabbed "The Epoch Times" which is a newspaper with actual words. And no celebrities. But lots of interesting things about the world at large and useful information, such as the fact that stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar. The leaves can be ground up and used in place of sugar in coffee and tea. Where do I sign up? I'm so glad to have adult reading material on the Tube instead of furtively picking up leftovers and pretending to be disinteredly amusing myself. The sad part is it's only free on Wednesdays, but, hey, another reason to love Wednesdays!

I also read an article that said over 30% of Britains read a book every day. And apparently someone invented a machine ("the Espresso" -no, really) that can store 2.5 million books and spit one out on command for less than 2 cents a page. Price: $25,000.

The other star in my day occured when I stopped at the library and caught the word "Temeraire" out of the corner of my eye. HMS Temeraire being, of course, the ship that saved Victory's bacon at the battle of Trafalgar. I took the book out of the shelf and read the first paragraph on the back, which described what seemed like a fairly standard naval book. This is what the second paragraph says: "The war tearing Europe apart is not fought upon land and sea alone, for battalions also fill the sky. And the fiery death they bring has little to do with gunpowder-it comes from the very guts of the beasts they are flying: DRAGONS."

Damn. I don't even want to read it. I just want to contemplate the potential awesomeness of this book. I'll let you know how it turns out. Dragons and ships. Damn.