I just discovered that Blogger has a "Stats" page that tracks all sorts of things about readership of each blog on the site. According to the stats for this blog, the majority of readers are in California People of Windsurf U.S. and Romania, as expected. But Blogger claims to have also received hits from the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, France, and Singapore. I assume those are not actual readers, but rather Web-trawling bots of some sort hoping that I will post my Social Security number (335-26-1424) or my ATM pin (1337) so they can steal my identity.
Whoops!
But if by any chance there are actually people hitting this site from any of those countries, please allow me to say: BONVENIGI!, and please don't judge America based on me. Judge us based on George W. Bush. And the shitty, shitty USCIS.
Book reviews from my first month in Romania:
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson: Worth reading, but not as good as the other books of his I've read. It's got the same Stephenson quirkiness and the same "Wow is this guy way smarter than me" wonder to it, but the story doesn't really go much of anywhere. It's first in a trilogy, I think, but even so it should stand on its own. It's not bad, but it's more of a weird slice-of-life thing than a real story. B-.
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel: Holy smokes, what a book. Io gave me this after her friend Emilene (who loyal readers will remember as a recurring character earlier in this blog) gave it to her. Outstanding book. It's best if you go in totally cold, as I did. Don't read anything about it. Don't even read the back of the book! Just read it. If during the first part you think "OK this is interesting and decently written but mostly a bunch of wooly-headed hippie claptrap," just keep going. I promise it's a good book. A+.
When I googled "Quicksilver Stephenson" for the book cover, this image of Twiki from Buck Rogers was on the first page of Google hits. So I am including him here.
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