And Hurricane Irene is done with us; Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin

Well, that's over. I pray that the hurricane isn't as dire on the rest of it's path as has been predicted. There will be a lot of damage and flooding but hopefully nothing monstrous. We were on the edge of it here with winds of 60+ mph and you try sleeping in the top corner room of the house during that. From 12:30 to 3:00 it sounded like an invading force roaring down the street. It had shadow trees blowing across two of my walls, disappearing momentarily when the power went out, coming back to dance around my room again. For 2 1/2 hours I listened to tree branches bounce off our roof and slam into the front and back yards. Just when I might be falling asleep there would be a reverberating bang from across the street. Then a huge gust of wind would smash into the windows by my head causing them to rattle and creak. Seriously, I've never liked sleeping through wind storms. You know the kind of surreal thing? Through it all the cicadas never stopped chirring.

This was similar to Isabel only the majority of that happened during the day. That time I watched a movie and did my Spanish homework. A 10 foot dead limb fell off a tree in the backyard and skewered the deck. It sounded remarkably like a javelin. We had to get a neighbor to help us break it up. We live up a hill so we have an incredibly remote chance of flooding but the neighborhood further north was underwater. People were out of their homes for months.

There are six or seven large branches that have come down this time but nothing a little effort and a handsaw won't take care of. Our cars are plastered with wet leaves but there's no damage. Except the inside door handle that broke on my car yesterday but that has nothing to do with anything except old age.

I read Boris Akunin's Murder on the Leviathan. It was all right; a very quick read. It was something of a homage to Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie so the format was a little stale but it was interesting. Each chapter was from the point of view of different characters. An entire household is coldly murdered in Paris and the evidence leads the leading inspector to suspect a group of first-class travelers on the ship Leviathan. As such, he gathers them all together in one of the salons so he can keep an eye on them throughout the cruise East. The group consists of a bunch of stereotypes. You have the pompous British Indologist, the eccentric Englishman, the honorable inscrutable Japanese, the boring doctor and his dull wife, etc. Erast Fandorin, the protagonist of this series, never has a chapter from his perspective. He is only seen from outside and while this can be a good tactic it doesn't quite work here. The other characters have their little national quirks and they show their bigotry towards members of other countries and consequently come off as being rather snobbish/spiteful but Fandorin is basically perfect except for his slight stutter. This is annoying and worst of all, boring. The Japanese is the only other character who manages to not seem incredibly petty but I noticed that Akunin is a translator of Japanese so I assume he has more respect for that nationality. Of course, the Japanese man praises the Russian Fandorin for being above the rest of the cast and being able to better appreciate Eastern sensibilities and having the ability to think more clearly. Ew. Fandorin was much more interesting in the first book where his sterling qualities were set against his naivete and enthusiasm. I'll read other books in this series but I really hope he goes back to first person and sticks to countries he knows.

Now I'm almost finished reading A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong. I like this author and the other books in the series about chief inspector Chen but this book is basically about a land deal corruption case, and even with a couple of murders and a scene change to the U.S. thrown in, that's very difficult to make interesting. However, it has it's moments and it has been a good book to read during a storm. The one thing I find really funny is that when the Chinese Writer's delegation goes on their tour across America they only eat Chinese.

First Earthquake!

Well, that was exciting. By which I mean kind of scary. Tornado warnings? Uncommon but not unknown. Hurricanes? A little more used to that. Blizzards? I can deal with those as long as the power isn't out too long. Heat waves are old hat. But earthquakes? No I don't think so.

I didn't even know what it was at first. I thought a truck had crashed into a building or something had exploded because that is far more likely, but it went on too long. I moved to a doorway because I remembered hearing that was what you're supposed to do. Plaster was falling off the ceiling and everything was shaking like the building was about to take off. Nothing fell over at work but when I got back home several things had fallen off my shelves. My dad said the dog had been startled but nothing was damaged.

The students all rushed out afterwards to call their families. I had to coax one woman out from under the study table. Like me, the majority of them are from areas that don't get earthquakes. Fortunately the Pharmacology exam was over and there weren't anymore classes. The school closed about quarter to five. We're back open today though, which the Anatomy and Physiology students are probably a little disappointed about. Their exam is at 10:00.

The thing that makes this so much more freaky to us here than, say, in California is the rarity of the occurrence. We don't have earthquakes. Some blowhards in the paper are saying, "People are stupid. Earthquakes are normal here and everyone should know how to deal with them." Sure, minor quakes that feel like a truck passing by, where people sleep through them happen here. I've never felt one. But they happen. This was on a different scale. This hasn't really happened in living memory. If you have no experience with something so unnerving and your teachers and elders don't either and so haven't taught you about it, you have no set way of dealing with it. There are many people who come to this area who can't properly deal with humidity. We try to help them because not being able to can be dangerous to their health. What would be useful is advice without the attendant snobbery.

Exciting things happen so rarely. Which is another part of why everyone is all abuzz about this. I sort of want it to happen again as long as nothing gets damaged.

And done; Video tutorial attempts

I've finished The White Lioness. Everything I predicted came true, only the assignation almost wasn't thwarted because of an obnoxious combination of bad luck and incompetence. Seriously, if Wallander was as good at his job as he's supposed to be, half the things that went wrong could have been prevented. Starting with keeping the rest of his colleagues in the loop and following up on important reports to make sure they were received and understood. For all my bitching about it I will read another book by Henning Mankell. I mean, obviously he's a good writer, capable of putting together a plot and creating half-decent characters, it's just that this particular book suffered from age. Or something. These events would have been much more exciting to think about at the time they were written, when Apartheid was being dismantled and the black majority had a chance to have real participation in their country's governance. Twenty years later and the book's ending message of hope is more melancholy considering the AIDS epidemic, the failure of the economy to take off and the rising rate of crime. For a look back at what was this book has it's place, even if the man who wrote it was Swedish and not South African.

I'm attempting to create my first video tutorial at work. I don't have a microphone yet or a quiet place to record so captions are going to have to do for this first one. This is just a test to see if I can use the software.

This is a test or most of the 500 pages is padding

I don't think I can spoil The White Lioness considering the author does a pretty good job of doing it himself so I'm not going to worry about it.

Mr. ex-KGB agent and the evil South African racists have this weird fetish for talking about how ruthless and cold they are. It's grown to cartoon villain level proportions. Seriously, even without the eeevil plotting and reminders of how much they love stomping on others and murdering innocents I would buy them as not particularly nice. For crying out loud, they're attempting to assassinate a man who represents the hope of their country so they can plunge it into civil war in order to justify further repressing the black majority. You could show them happily playing with a puppy and the possibility of bloody unrest would still be lurking in the reader's mind. There's no need to show them kicking the puppy as well.

Anyway, Wallander is something of an example of informed ability. The author and the bad guy keeps saying how clever and talented he is but I just don't see it. Yes, he does a bit of solid investigating but most of his discoveries are through sheer luck and plot contrivance. Mr. ex-KGB agent wonders how Wallander could ever have discovered and followed him again and I'm like, you just blew up his fucking apartment and abducted a man from it at gunpoint, he didn't have to look very far. Wallander continues to act in a disordered manner by not bothering to tell anybody what's been happening because apparently only he can bring things to a satisfactory conclusion. Or so he keeps insisting. Because none of the others understand what's going on. Of course they don't! You haven't told them jack! If you told them who they were supposed to be looking out for maybe your daughter wouldn't have been kidnapped! Telling someone to tell someone to watch your father's house is a lot more effective when the people on watch know what they're doing there.

The section that I just read ends with one of the detectives asking, "How will it all end?" Well, my guess is the daughter doesn't die, Nelson Mandela doesn't get assassinated, and Wallander's amazing ability to stumble into the right scene will save the day.

The White Lioness by Henning Mankell; I need a new computer

I read the first Kurt Wallander book Faceless Killers a while ago and I rather liked it. The juxtaposition between his competent professional and pathetic private life made for a different read. It was a fairly straightforward police procedural and it wasn't a page too long. So I was a little put out to see that the third book in the series is the size of a Jo Nesbo thriller.

So far I don't dislike The White Lioness. The writing and the individual scenes are entertaining but the book as a whole just doesn't do it for me. My biggest problem is that Mankell spoils his own book for you. Going in you know right away, from the book cover and the first chapters, that there is a plot to kill Nelson Mandela (this was written not long after he was released from prison) and that the final planning stages are taking place in Sweden. A real estate agent is killed because she took a wrong turn and ends up near the house the Russian and South African involved in the plot were hiding out. The murder is completely senseless because she hadn't actually seen anything but it serves to show what a ruthless idiot (more on that later) the Russian is and to get Wallander involved.

So, practically from the start we know who killed her and why. We know what the bad guys are up to and what their motivations are. We also know Nelson Mandela isn't going to get killed which lets the air out of the over-arcing plot. Mankell spoils things in the middle of the book too. He writes a scene where he lets you know the aftermath of a plot point and then goes back to tell you how it came about. I already know what the result is going to be so there's no real suspense.

The bad guys are basically pure evil. Racist bastards with no human feeling who kill in cold blood. There is no attempt at showing them as real people. I think Apartheid was terrible as well but the people involved were still human. I got tired of the one-note evil bad guy when I was 12. Unless you're going to go the whole hog and show him as a James Bond style villain with a fluffy cat and a laser gun, don't bother. The only one who's different is the South African hitman who became a murderous asshole because Aparthied made him do it. Sorry! Not a good enough excuse for becoming a contract killer. Most people who faced the same discrimination didn't, after all. But Victor is obviously someone we're supposed to somewhat sympathize with and I just have difficulty buying it.

The Russian ex-KGB agent (because there had to be one) is presented as cold and professional, murdering a woman for no reason other than she asked him for directions. This is what brings the police into the story. If he had pointed out the right road to her and sent her on her way everything would have been fine. Killing someone is a great way to bring attention in your direction. Blowing up your house leaving the police to find a Russian radio transmitter and a South African gun? An even better way of bringing attention to yourself. Committing a bank robbery and shooting a cop with the same gun you used to murder someone else? Congratulations! You've hit the trifecta of stupid! What will you do for an encore? Excellent choice, sir. Raid a bar patronized by Africans and then leave the tear gas canisters you used in the apartment the cops have traced you to. And for your prize, I predict you will be killed before the end of the book. How this man ever survived as a KGB agent is anyone's guess.

I'm only half-way through the book. The stupid hurts a bit but despite all these points (including the sentimental thread through the story about how Sweden is changing and crime is getting worse which is linked (possibly unintentionally) to an influx of foreigners) it isn't bad. It's a mess but taking it in small chunks and reading other things in between makes it all right. It just isn't much of a thriller or a police procedural.

Chinese Letter by Svetislav Basara; textbook rant

I finished Chinese Letter by Svetislav Basara. Wha-huh. I'm not sure there's an actual plot and nothing really happens. Definitely not for everyone. Guy rambles on and on about existence and fearing death but wanting to kill himself. He has been ordered (probably by imaginary people) to write a statement of about 100 pages and he writes down whatever occurs to him. There's conversations with his mother, his sister's marital woes, the neighbor girl's shenanigans, his visits to his pathologist friend, and lots of introspection. The main character is obviously insane and this is the reason for his crisis. His very existence causes him pain but he cannot bring himself to end it. It's a little funny, a little obnoxious, and a little unnerving. I didn't not like the book. That's really all I can say for it.

Now for a small rant on textbooks. Textbook publishers are parasitic asshats who make a living feeding on the earnings of a captive audience. They are part of what's making it so hard for anyone not supported by well-off parents to get a higher education. They deserve to be pressed with their own product. Preferably an introductory medical-surgical nursing book; those things are huge.

I have 4 editions of Karch's introductory pharmacology text and I decided to look through the first chapter to see if the older editions would still be useful for the students and I made a (not so) shocking discovery. They are all the same. Oh, they changed the font and re-designed the diagrams and charts but the information is practically word-for-word. A few paragraphs were given a couple extra words or a new sentence but not in such a way as to add content. I then looked through Jarvis' physical examination pocket companion for 1997 and 2008. Again, identical. All of the paragraphs were identical except for maybe a few words every couple of chapters. Nothing that added content. If the nursing diagnoses (listed in a little box at the end of each chapter) hadn't changed in the intervening years there would be no need for a new book at all.

New editions every year or two also means that students can't easily go out and buy a used copy of the text assigned which is what I did as an undergraduate. (Of course I studied art history. Less new information really.) If the class the year before used edition 8 and this year they are assigned edition 9 there goes your opportunity to buy something cheaper.

Now, I understand the need for new texts, especially in fields where information is regularly updated, but the changes being made do not justify the amount by which they raise prices. These texts cost $100 - $150. How are poorer students supposed to afford this? When a student comes in looking for a book to study from I just give them an older (by maybe a year or two) edition with a warning. They don't care; many of them are working with families to care for and they're just glad to have something to help them in their studies. I don't care because I know all the relevant information they need to pass their class is there.

I'm going to do a comparison of some of the other texts. I have some that date back to the '80s. (No, they are not on the shelf for the students.) I'll look at them next to the newer editions, from the past 5 years, to see what's changed.