Toronto rain keeps pourin' down...

Is why I finished Archer's Goon within twenty-four hours. A Diane Wynne Jones I somehow never read. Mind, there are a bunch of infinitely-confusible-in-my-mind DWJ titles, so I probably thought I had and then it turned out I hadn't. (Have I read The Ogre Downstairs? I don't think I have. But again, unless I read her two or three times I never remember her plots either.)

From which you may see that I like DWJ but find her a tad head-hurty. Partly the twistiness, partly all the stuff left out one is expected to supply. Truly, her books read as if they're only sixty-six per cent there and random chunks of text are just missing. AG however is almost straightforward, and the twists were predictable in a confused way-- as in, it's DWJ so there must be twists so what's the most likely one ah hah.

But it makes for a change from the stuff I've been reading, and change was what I wanted. Should probably tackle The Fall of the Kings again. Only a straight diet of English reading always makes me feel two dimensional, but padding it with manga just makes me feel futile. Unless it's 100 Demons. So maybe I should go puzzle out those confusing stories in vol 15...

(cries)

Truly, what did I ever do to technology to make technology hate me so much? Had it with Open Offce and this pixellating monitor. 'I shall go write on my old computer!' which is in the front bedroom now. Having seen a little light burning inside it even when it was switched off, a few weeks back I unplugged the power bar that the computer and monitor are plugged into. I plug the bar back in and depress the on switch on the computer. Nothing happens. Odd. I press the monitor's on switch and the little light appears. I plug the computer into the lower socket on the wall. It won't turn on. I plug it into an entirely different outlet. It won't turn on. Is the cord plugged into the computer properly? Yes. It just won't turn on.

If it doesn't rain tomorrow I shall go look at second-hand non-widescreen, non-1440x900, non-16:10 flat monitors; and I shall insist on seeing what they actually look like when attached to a computer, because *this* stupid sucker sucks. (Really-- surely I shouldn't have to boost gamma to 100% to be able to see cat macros and post secrets? At which point all the ordinary text is bleached into unreadability.)