I have been rather lazy since returning from Wildwood and have not done any writing all week. Instead I have been spending my time taking an inventory of my book collection. I have 8 bookshelves–including sf magazines–and I have tallied slightly less than 3 of them so far and I am already over 1,000 books. When I finish I expect the tally to approach 3,000 books and sf magazines. The important question is: why do I save all those books? I have already culled several hundred of them from my collection, the ones I have no interest in ever rereading, so apparently the reason I keep them is my dream of someday rereading all of them. But even if I could increase my reading pace to one book/magazine per week, that would take me 60 years to reread every book, assuming I never buy another new book ever. Optimistic as I might be about my health in the future, it is highly unlikely I will both stop buying books totally and live for another 60 years.

My music collection is not nearly as extensive. I inventoried it previously and the total is slightly below 1,000 cds and tapes. I listen to music whenever I am working on the computer which, when I am not at school, approximates five hours per day. Assuming I retire at some point in the future, and assuming an average tape/cd is 60 minutes long, doing a little math (no sarcastic comments here ☺) tells me I can listen to 5 cds/tapes per day, requiring a total of 200 days to listen to my entire collection. That’s less than a year.

Keeping the above statistics in mind, it seems fitting to mention the following:

Currently listening: to my entire Beatles collection, starting with Meet the Beatles (the English version) and going through the two Past Masters. If you have not listened to the Beatles in many years (or decades), now is a good time to do so again. I think you will be surprised at how good their music actually was.

Currently reading: Larry Niven was one of the finest storytellers in sf from the mid-60s through the mid-80s, but in the years since he has mostly written collaborative novels with Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes and Brenda Clough. Flatlander is a collection of his sf mysteries about Gil “The Arm” Hamilton, good stories if you want a break from serious, character-driven fiction. And what-the-heck, a good mystery is fun occasionally.

Wildwood is a wonderful place, and we had a great time last week in the ocean, in the condo pool, on the boardwalk, lots of eating, visiting nearby places such as cape may, stone harbor, and the cape may county zoo. I would have stayed there forever if i could!

At night we watched the Olympics, which are very enjoyable in spite of NBC doing an absolutely terrible job of their coverage. Here is my list of the ten reasons NBC’s coverage of the Olympics basically sucked:

1. They talked through most of the Opening Ceremonies as if anything they had to say was more important than the musical accompaniment;

2. They continue to belittle countries which are not political allies of the U.S. They even have the nerve to comment on nations’ human rights abuses, when the country NBC represents has kept people imprisoned without warrants for several years, as well as torturing prisoners;

3. They are so prejudiced towards American athletes, that they blatantly root for them. This is definitely not the Olympic spirit but merely another opportunity to impress everybody with America’s superiority over other poor nations;

4. The coverage of gymnastics was incredibly prejudiced. Whenever an American gymnast did not win the gold medal, the announcers claim they were cheated. And they spent so much time attacking the Chinese girls for being too young which, in my opinion, is totally irrelevant to competing in the Olympics;

5. Al Trautwig, the main gymnastics commentator, knows absolutely nothing about gymnastics, and acted like an ignoramus much of the time. He took every comment his sidekick made and treated it as gospel, repeating it over and over and over. I cannot believe NBC cannot find anybody brighter than Al Trautwig;

6. I despise NBC’s us-versus-them mentality. The Olympics are about each person representing their country the best they can, while NBC really believes that whenever an American athlete does not win the gold medal or–heaven forbid!–any medal at all, they somehow let down their country;

7. NBC loves to humiliate anybody who loses by zooming in with the camera to watch them cry, or interviewing them with questions intended to make them break down even more;

8. Interviewers ask the most inappropriate questions of their subjects. I applaud Jeremy Wariner for saying that at one point and walking away;

9. Michael Phelps is not the second coming of Christ. If NBC worshiped him any more than they did they would have had to declare themselves a religion;

10. There was too much bikini volleyball coverage for what would have been a minor sport if the participants were not half-naked. How many other sports were ignored so we could see so much cheesecake in prime time?

Before I go on a week’s vacation, I will leave you with these questions that Sneha tagged me with:

Where is your cell phone? Right on my desk where it always lies since I rarely use it
Your hair? I don’t know where the heck it is either!
Your favorite thing? Books, music, and food (in that order)
One thing you hate? Arrogance
Your dream last night? I sleep so soundly I never wake up in time to remember a dream
Your favorite drink? Hot chocolate
What you’re not? Self-confident
Where you grew up? Arcturus 3 (third planet around the star Arcturus)
The last thing you did? Took my daily walk
What are you wearing? A cool tee shirt showing a pack of wolves
Your mood? Relaxed
Missing someone? Almost always, but different people at different times
Something you’re not wearing? a hat, an overcoat, a watch
Favorite store? Borders
Like someone? Many people (the question is do they like me in return!?!)
Your favorite color? Blue... no, red... arghhhhhhhhhh!
One word you overuse? All right (that’s two words but they’re a matched pair)
Wrap gifts? or Gift Bags? Gift bag. I’m not big on ceremony

In each of the following categories, name one item or person you particularly enjoyed or respected. I am not looking for “best” or “favorites”, just fond memories. My choices are included with the categories:

MOVIE: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
TV SHOW: M*A*S*H
MUSIC CD: TO OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN’S CHILDREN, by the Moody Blues
SF / FANTASY BOOK: BRITTLE INNINGS, by Michael Bishop
HISTORICAL FICTION: A DREAM OF SCIPIO, by Iain Pears
MYSTERY BOOK: DAUGHTER OF TIME, by Josephine Tey
NONFICTION BOOK: WILD SWANS, by Jung Chang
COMIC BOOK / GRAPHIC NOVEL: WATCHMEN, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
ITALIAN FOOD: Lasagna
NON-ITALIAN FOOD: Paella
LIVING STATEMSMAN: Al Gore
DECEASED STATESMAN: Thomas Jefferson
LIVING WRITER: Robert Silverberg
DECEASED WRITER: Roger Zelazny
LIVING MUSICIAN / SINGER: Richard Thompson
DECEASED MUSICIAN / SINGER: John Lennon

The Olympic opening ceremonies are usually spectacular, and this year was no different. Zhang Yimou is a great movie director with a fabulous sense for visual scenes–if you’ve never seen Raise the Red Lantern, I strongly encourage you to do so–and he outdid himself in these ceremonies.

However, as I have complained in the past, NBC’s coverage left something to be desired. The announcers, including the insufferable Bob Costas, continued to talk through many of the ceremonies, including one of the songs, and he and his pompous co-host belittled numerous countries whose main flaw seemed to be that they are not political allies of the United States. They even had the nerve to berate countries for not living up to what they consider the “Olympic spirit,” when their divisive comments were anything but representative of that spirit.

What is particularly annoying is that whenever the announcers mentioned China, they inevitably mentioned some flaw in China’s behavior or politics. Somehow, I do not remember them feeling obligated to say such things about the host country when the Olympics were held in Atlanta.

NBC is also very biased towards American athletes, rooting them on to win as many medals as possible against all those lesser other countries. How is that representative of the Olympic spirit? Frankly, their attitude makes it easier for me to root for Italian athletes first, and Chinese athletes second. For various reasons, I have a fondness for China, and I am very happy having Italian heritage. I realize that my connection to Italy is tenuous at best, and I am not so self-deluded as to consider myself Italian. I was born and raised in America and I am two generations removed from Italy. I do not speak the language at all, and my sole experience in Italy was two weeks during which I felt sadly like an American tourist rather than a son of Italy visiting my homeland. I definitely envy my students who were not only raised in Italy or China or India, but who retain close ties to their country and its culture. At least when they root for their countries in the Olympics, other people do not consider them some kind of traitor.

After a certain age, birthdays serve no purpose except to remind you that you are getting older. I do not feel much older than I did when Andy and Mark were born, and I was in my mid-30s then. Where have the years gone? *sigh*

Last night we finally saw The Dark Knight and it was very faithful to the Batman comics. The personalities of Bruce Wayne, the Joker, and Harvey Dent were very well done, and I definitely intend to reread the classic graphic novel The Killing Joke, by Alan Moore, sometime soon. I recommend it to anybody who enjoyed the movie.

I have been playing Scrabble at Facebook with Marwa and Wenjing, and while the games have been fun, being friendly with two of my favorite former students is an absolute delight.

I am very unhappy with the presidential campaign. Eight years ago John McCain was the best of the candidates, and he took the high road against George W. Bush’s smear campaign in the Republican primary. Now McCain is using those same dirty tactics against Barack Obama, while supporting the disastrous war in Iraq and changing several of his positions to appeal to right wing voters. He would have been a fine president in 2000, but now all he offers is four more years of the deceitful and arrogant Bush-Cheney years, so I intend to vote for Obama in November. The current administration has damaged this country considerably, and we definitely need a change.

Summer vacation is now in its second half, which is always a bit unsettling since I have gotten used to the easy schedule and lack of stress. While I have not accomplished all that I have hoped to do, that would be an impossibility unless I wanted summer to be as busy and stressful as the school year. But I still have 5 weeks to get things done.

Currently listening: The Band is one of the great rock and roll groups, and all of their firsts four albums are highly-recommended. But I am listening to To Kingdom Come, a two-cd set of their finest music.

Currently reading: Steven Saylor is a great writer of historical mysteries, and his epic Roma tells the story of Rome from its origins as a trading village to the early days of the empire. Both as history and as storytelling, this is a fine book.