I had intended to post this a few days ago, but both Jeffrey and I have had the flu, so mostly I’ve been using up whole boxes of tissues and groaning. I swear this happens every time he goes on a business trip—something about air travel and sitting in meetings all day with lots of people results in illness.

Oh, and before I get started, the latest book reviews are of Barbara Weltman’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business, Third Edition and John Stark Bellamy II’s Vintage Vermont Villainies.

Okay, I admit it, I’ve been saying for months that I had no interest whatsoever in playing Eve Online. In my defense, I really did have no interest in the parts of the game I had heard about in people’s blogs: wild & crazy pvp, corporate espionage, etc. Then, about a week ago or so, my husband started poking around and looking at the trailers and information on the game and convinced me I should try it with him. Within 24 hours we’d both gone from the trial account to buying a subscription. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this is the most fun I’ve ever had with an online game, and I honestly believe I could play it for years without ever getting tired of it.

You should really know before you start that Eve has an incredibly steep learning curve. There’s a LOT to assimilate and learn, and plenty of details that aren’t entirely obvious. However, there are some things that make this process decidedly easier:

• Assume the first character you create will be a throwaway character that you use to learn how to play the game. That way there’s no pressure to ‘get it right’ and you can be a bit relaxed about figuring out what you’re doing.
• USE THE DAMN TUTORIAL. Seriously. It starts up automatically when you begin, and you need it. No, really. You need it. People are constantly asking questions in the rookie help channel that are answered very clearly in the tutorial. Besides, the various tutorial missions and such will also give you a better ship and other bennies, so they’re worth it. I repeat: USE THE TUTORIAL. If you don’t, no one will want to answer your questions, believe me.
• That said, there are plenty of questions that aren’t answered easily in the tutorial. If you get confused by something, try these suggestions:
  • Muck around a bit. Experiment. Play with the UI and see what you can do. There are few tragedies you can’t recover from with a little time, and if you took that advice about considering your first character disposable then you really won’t lose anything at all. This game is not designed for folks who need their hands held through everything.
  • Right-click. Most things can be found or done by right-clicking on a relevant item.
  • Explore the UI. There’s a ton of tabs and panels that present an incredible amount of information. For example, if you want to know how much money your character has, it might make sense to check the tab labeled “wallet,” yes?
  • If those don’t work, ask on the Rookie Help Channel (RHC), to which you are automatically subscribed for your first 30 days of play.
• If you ask a question on the RHC, be patient. If no one answers you after a couple of minutes, try again. There are literally thousands of people subscribed to the channel at any one time, which means that text tends to fly by. It’s extremely easy for people to miss your question.
• Use the Eve resources available on the internet. I highly recommend Eve[geek] for information on everything from ore to agents, and the incredibly robust and featureful EVEMon, which helps you plan out your skill progression.

Anyway, that’s about all I have the energy for today. Tomorrow: why I love Eve Online.

…for Madeleine L’Engle, a woman whose writing has touched so many of us. Her books are highly unusual and amazing, and I was surprised to find out they’ve actually been banned by religious conservatives in many places. I love L’Engle’s take on this:

Ms. L’Engle, who often wrote about her Christian faith, was taken aback by the attacks. “It seems people are willing to damn the book without reading it,” Ms. L’Engle said in an interview with The New York Times in 2001. “Nonsense about witchcraft and fantasy. First I felt horror, then anger, and finally I said, ‘Ah, the hell with it.’ It’s great publicity, really.”

She was an author of truly unique books, and she’ll be greatly missed.

Above link and sad news found at Dolce Bellezza. Thank you for sharing.

The Superfast Reader tagged me to do a book cover meme:

Go to the advanced book search on Amazon, type your first name into the Title field, and post the most interesting/amusing cover that shows up.

Since she used ’superfast’ as her search, I figured I could use ‘errant’ as mine. And lo, it turned up this fabulous cover:

I really think I couldn’t have asked for better!

Anyway, for some tagging. I’m going to tag Kailana, Stephanie, Booklogged, and Sherid.

Recently I was visiting Broken Toys and came across a link for The Guild Name Generator. Every time you load or refresh the page it generates 100 random guild names for you. My favorite so far? ‘The Beer Knights’! (Although I think ‘Lords of the Eclectic Ebay’ comes in a close second.) The whole thing is hosted on Nick Yee’s site, and I think he has the coolest-looking homepage I’ve ever seen.

Meanwhile, I’m whipping through that review copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business, Third Edition—about 3/4 done. Should have a review up Monday or Tuesday.

And oh, yes, I’ll definitely have a few thoughts on Eve Online this coming week…

Mages are not vending machines

Here’s today’s Booking Through Thursday:

Okay, so the other day, a friend was commenting on my monthly reading list and asked when I found the time to read. In the ensuing discussion, she described herself as a “goldilocks” when it comes to reading–she needs to have everything juuuuuust right to be able to focus. This caught my attention because, first, I thought that was a charming way of describing the condition, but, two, while we’ve talked about our reading habits, this is an interesting wrinkle. I’d never really thought about it that way.

So, this is my question to you–are you a Goldilocks kind of reader?

Do you need the light just right, the background noise just so loud but not too loud, the chair just right, the distractions at a minimum?

Or can you open a book at any time and dip right in, whether it’s for twenty seconds, while waiting for the kettle to boil, or indefinitely, like while waiting interminably at the hospital–as long as the book is open in front of your nose, you’re happy to read?

I am absolutely NOT a Goldilocks kind of reader. I can read virtually anytime, anywhere. I can read for five minutes or five hours in an uncomfortable waiting room. I can read while I mine ore in Eve online. I can read while I wait for water to boil or my coffee to finish brewing. I can read in the two minutes while the microwave heats something. I can read in front of the active TV, while listening to music, or in silence. I can read at night or in bright sunlight, indoors or out. I can even read with a squidgy cat on my lap trying to get in the way. The only problem is that sometimes I get so caught up in what I’m reading that I lose track of what I’m waiting for or supposed to be paying attention to…

Speaking of books, today’s review is of Samantha David’s I Married a Pirate, while yesterday’s review is of Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads.

As of 9/5/07, in no particular order:

• “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business,” Barbara Weltman
• “Whole Grain Breads,” Peter Reinhart
• “I Married a Pirate,” Samantha David
• “The Painted Messiah,” Craig Smith
• “Thirteen,” Sebastian Beaumont
• “The Gift of Rain,” Tan Twan Eng
• “The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to the iPhone,” Damon Brown
• “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hybrid & Alternative Fuel Vehicles,” Jack R. Nerad
• “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pizza & Panini,” Erik Sherman
• “The Great Country Inns of America Cookbook”
• “EatingWell Serves Two”
• “The Princes of the Golden Cage,” Nathalie Mallet
• “The Red Lion Inn Cookbook”
• “The Perennial Boarder,” Phoebe Atwood Taylor
• “50 Hikes in Maryland”
• “Girls,” Bill James
• “Crusader Gold,” David Gibbins
• “Vintage Vermont Villainies,” John Stark Bellamy II
• “Boundless” (ebook)
• “Mocha,” Michael Turback
• “Hot Drinks,” Heiss & Heiss

I’m currently reading I Married a Pirate, and we’re making recipes from Eating Well Serves Two and The Great Country Inns of America Cookbook. I think we’ve made enough recipes from Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads that I’ll be reviewing it sometime this week.

19 21 books (just after I first wrote this list I got today’s mail with two more books!). I’ll try to bias my reading & reviewing to result in those books that aren’t out yet being reviewed before their publication dates so you’ll have advance info on them.

This weekend we went to the annual Maryland Renaissance Festival (for the third year in a row), and I feel that I learned some very valuable lessons there. The faint of stomach might want to skip this list.

• If you’re on nausea-inducing antibiotics, reconsider that plan to go to the renfest no matter how beautiful the weather is. (”No, I feel great, it’ll be good for me!” *shakes head sadly*)
• If you’re on said antibiotics and go to the renfest anyway, do not eat the heavy fair food such as the greasy (if quite yummy) Scotch Eggs.
• If you eat the Scotch Eggs, do not then go home and later top them off with a serving of mint chocolate ice cream just because it’s comfort food and so you mistakenly think it might settle your stomach.
• Mint chocolate chip ice cream tastes much better going down than it does coming back up.
• When all is said and done, make sure you’re at least in the middle of reviewing a most excellent whole grain bread cookbook so you’ll have something light and healthy to settle your stomach with over the rest of the week. Who knew oat bran bread could be so good?!

And on that note, here’s a review of the last of my library books. Tomorrow or Thursday I’ll post an updated list of upcoming book reviews: Robert Masello’s Bestiary.