On the subject of reading, and this is a serious question — is anyone able to explain to me, a moderate enjoyer of Neil Gaiman's other books and of dark fantasy in general, why everyone seems to think Stardust is so great? (Yes, I have read it. At a sitting. Then went "eh".)

In other news, I got over my skin-crawling horror of the unaccompanied spoken voice sufficiently to be able to listen to podcasts, so I have acquired some mp3s with the explicit intention of getting my languages usable again. *eyes Der Zauberhut and several native Astérix titles on bookcase at home*

This should be good, if I can stick at it. I've basically not used any of them, except in the ordinary day-to-day way, since GCSE — before that, in Latin's case — and while in the modern languages' case I'd passed the fabled little click point at which they say one irrevocably gets the hang of them, my vocabulary's withered and I haven't spoken them aloud in all that time. (Also have a diaphragm-clenching horror of speaking aloud to native speakers, so this little exercise is of necessity purely for myself.)

Because the nearest books to hand are quite amusing, I'll lift this meme from Thad:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that 'cool' or 'intellectual' book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag five people, if so inclined. (I'm not)

Teach Yourself Allaire ColdFusion in 21 Days¹ by Charles Mohnike and Mews by Herm Baskerville were about equidistant (one on my desk, the other in my backpack) so let's do both. MIXED TOGETHER.

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Buggerall religion-related in the news today, very few interesting stories of any stripe and (amazingly for a Friday) not even very many funny animals. Though I did see an underwater pogo man, which is too silly for even me to include.

Chinese gamers are enjoying taking pot shots at corrupt officials

(and their anger is well-placed)

And the prize for today's quirkiest headline goes to:

Serbian minister joins horse row

Oh. Wait. No. No, it doesn't.

Interesting 'personal story' sort of thing here. It reveals some snippets of life in the UK, and Tehran by comparison.

More video options for overseas BBC news readers. Hmmm! I still wonder how they sort out who is overseas. IPs etc are nowhere close to foolproof.

So, okay, let's try that out with today's cutest animal story (video)...

*squees* Lookit the baby knowing the digger's there to help! Lookit grabbing the bucket to pull itself up! Eeeee!

Japan cash windfall creates dilemmas

Brilliant. Someone foists some money on you and you hand it in to the police. Respect, I say — quite seriously!

'Witchcraft' arrest in Mozambique

Best warning sign ever.

By the way? I totally lied! There is no such thing as too silly! Underwater man on a pogo-o-o-o! (video)

In fact it's quite refreshing to watch something with no commentary, just the sound of the water.

I'm a great believer in minimising unwanted sensory input. There's no need for every package to present a precisely-engineered wall of sound and visual stimulation. It's bland and dumbed-down and attention-span-eroding.

There was a tv advert a few years back that simply showed a fish tank full of swimming fish, with only the noise of the bubbles and pump, for up to 30 seconds. The slogan (for 'Celebrations' chocolates) that appeared silently at the end was "Celebrate a few moments of peace and quiet" or similar. Quite! That sticks in my mind to this day as an example of superb advertising. (I was so pleasantly surprised by it that for once I even remembered what the product was.)