(Debby)
The public library has been out of order and under construction for the past 2 weeks, my computer died dead, my week-old mobile phone was stolen out of my bag on the streets of downtown Nairobi, and my Federal Government Economic Stimulus check was put through a shredder by a very charming 3 year old. And happily, none of those things are Tragedies. Just annoyances. Really annoying annoyances.

So, deprived of the library and feeling nostalgic, I re-read The Dark Tower series. Um, I think it has pretty good characters, and a good story arch. And Stephen King writes in a way that is easy and enjoyable to read, and now I'm going to take those books to the used bookstore at the fancy mall and get a big hunk of credit (hooray!) and I might even buy that massive tome on modern African history so I can finally figure some things out about this continent. So that's good!

And you know what makes me appreciate Stephen King? Reading "The Da Vinci Code". Which I'm about 2/3 of the way through. You know, people talk about that book - people saying it's thought-provoking, it's false, it's part of the Muslim agenda to throw Christians from the path of righteousness (seriously, i've heard a couple people make that claim)....people never say: Oh, the Da Vinci Code? Not a very well written book, eh?

At least, I'm finding the writing really stilted, and the literary devices used very awkward, and the characters totally unconvincing. Maybe that will all dramatically change in the last 1/3 of the book. But in the meantime, I'm kind of annoyed. And using a crappy desktop computer at work and having to use the webmail version of my work email.

I think I'll go home and read some Murakami and eat some chocolate.