I am trying to be a better reader

Over the weekend, I added to my collection of books. I say collection of books like I have a Scrooge McDuck style bin of them, which I, sadly, do not. I have maybe 20 on my bookshelf, unless you count text books. The two that I bought were Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut and Dracula by Bram Stoker. I just finished Cat's Cradle today, and I recommend it like I would recommend whole milk. (Which, by the way, I slipped and went back to after a noble experiment. It made me understand what it was like when smokers finally go back and have a cigarette after quitting for a few weeks. It was glorious. It was scrumtralescent.)

I was introduced to Vonnegut by my old roommate. He had a surprising appreciation for culture both high and low -- for example, his favorite movie was probably Death Race 2000, yet he frequented the ballet. (Interesting fact: He had a box of movies, in which was a copy of the original Batman. I thought he had stolen my copy, but he did not; it turned out we both owned the Adam West classic. He also hated Catcher in the Rye, as I did, so we got along famously. I really don't know in what other context famously works like that.)

Anyway, I didn't really appreciate Vonnegut that much at first. Breakfast of Champions was pretty dang weird. I really liked Sirens of Titans, though. Cat's Cradle is definitely worth your time.

The real reason I started to write this post, though, was that I wanted to say how awesome Bram Stoker's name is. Bram. Stoker. It sounds made up. I could see Javier Bardem playing a character in a movie named that, kicking ass while being awesome. Bram. I want to name my kid that.

The most important question ever

The other day was my roommate's birthday, and his girlfriend made him a cake. I haven't had a piece yet, but I plan on having a piece of that tasty confection later this evening. With a big glass of milk and possibly some chocolate/vanilla ice cream. The presence of cake in my apartment, though, did raise a serious question that probably will never be solved: Cake or pie?

Now, both have their upsides. For example, cake -> frosting and pie -> crust. Cakes have all sorts of variations like from extremes like devil's food to angel food. It's really too bad that the Irish haven't provided us with their variant -- the banshee food -- but it would probably just be Guinness poured over soda bread. That doesn't really sound all that great, actually. Pies also come in all shapes and sizes, but are typically dominated by fruit, which is probably for the best.

Here is a list of the three best pies, in order: key lime, pecan, and apple. All others are inferior. I know somebody's going to say "You are committing a sin leaving out pumpkin!" I did it on purpose, because I think it is unnatural to make a pie out of a squash. Is there a zucchini pie? There's a zucchini bread, and there's a pumpkin bread, too. No summer squash pie, either. Mostly, though, I don't like pumpkin pies. And if you take a bite out of a pumpkin pie and a key lime pie and you prefer the pumpkin, honestly, you can keep your pie opinions to yourself. Graham cracker crust + key lime pie = scrumtralescent.

Cake, though, also has some pretty nice qualities. When it's fluffy and moist, it's pretty good. Also, a glass of milk complements the taste of cake so much, that's definitely a plus. Milk is so good that anything that makes it better is pretty good in my book. Most pies don't have that quality. The frosting is really the linchpin of the whole thing. I have to say that if the frosting is good, the cake probably wins. However, if the frosting is weak, the whole thing falls apart. It's like a really good defensive baseball team with crappy pitching, which I guess is the New York Yankees. The pitching is so critical that it doesn't work out right without it. That's the answer to the question.

Tree people get up early

This time of year, it's cooling down nicely, so I like to sleep with my windows open. After all, it's fall in South Carolina (the Men of the Square Table won't let you say "autumn"), and even though the leaves haven't started changing yet, it's definitely getting to be a rather nice temperature outside, as opposed to the outrageous scorching that the summer usually gives us. Reminds me of home, really. The only bad part is that women start putting on more clothes, but as I've said earlier (not on this blog, though) women wearing winter clothes pull it off pretty well. (Don't forget: I am a Floridian at heart, and this mid-50s low-60s weather is winter weather in my mind.) I can't say I really get why winter clothes work that way, but there is no question about it. It's a good look for them, and I applaud them for it.

So I've taken to sleeping with my window open, because the fresh air is nice and it will save on the AC bill. I get the go to sleep to the rhythm of the crickets and a nice breeze, without having to deal with the start and stop of the air conditioner all through the night. I had to break out an extra blanket, but all in all, it was an excellent system; I was spending less money and being more comfortable. It was scrumtralescent.

There's just one wrinkle. For some reason, a developer has decided that this part of Central needs to have no more trees. I suspect they are going to build something, but it's a little hard to tell since it's not particularly stellar land on which to build. Nevertheless, they are tearing down trees all around us, which wasn't a big deal until this morning. You see, immediately across the street from our apartment was a small collection of woods and trees and what not. These trees were slated for execution. That wasn't really a big problem for me until they started removing them this morning at 7:30. I mean, good Lord. Even though this street is not predominantly college students, it is still a college town and it should be illegal to operate machinery before 9. They can do it until 2 am if they like, but starting before 9 or so is a bigger tragedy than the Hindenburg and Ricky Martin combined.