I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the dumbest things. Here’s the problem: through sheer serendipity—we occasionally receive random audiobooks at the day job—I have acquired copies of both the new William Gibson and the new Steven Pinker on disk. (Of course, if you followed me on Twitter, which at the moment I am enjoying but which no doubt I’ll tire of soon enough, you’d know that already.) My initial reaction was the traditional Happy Dance, but since that moment of wild ecstasy I’ve been trying to figure when, exactly, I’ll listen to these puppies. The problem is my already full and rich listening life which is satisfied by my regular set of podcasts. Between Lopate and Wait Wait and This American Life and a couple of others, especially the guilty/inane pleasure of the endless episodes of WDWRadio, I have more than enough for any one week. I listen when I take my morning constitutional, and I listen in the car, and that adds up to about an hour and a half a day. But I acquire roughly 9 or 10 hours of material a week. 5 * 1 ½ < 9 or 10. The average audiobook takes about 20-30 hours of listening. Which means either that I have to take the long way to work, or give up listening to something, not to mention that there are times when one just wants to hear some driving music. Now, of course, I could read either of these books in the traditional fashion, but that would mean cutting into that universe of finite time. On the other hand, I can read faster than I can listen, and there have been a couple of times when I’ve switched over in the middle of an audiobook to it’s Gutenberg analog just to get the damned thing over with. Anyhow, you see my dilemma. There are worse dilemmas one could face, no doubt, but so it goes. If you see me on the street and I refuse to remove my earbuds, now you’ll know why.
Curiously enough, even though Bump registration hasn’t begun, people (of the non-O’C persuasion) are already campaigning for extra slots. Jeesh! I’ve pretty much decided on V LD and Pfffft in the high school and novices at the grammar school. I get about 33 rooms at the HS, plus I can turn over much of the library to Pffft, and that should do it. That assumes that we’ll get 100 or so novices. If the number of novices is substantially smaller, I can do Pfffft at the grammar school. It’s hard to tell what that novice number will be, since this is the first time out. I’m estimating about 40 Pfffter teams, based on last year plus the TOC bid. Maybe more? Who knows. When I officially send out the invitation I’ll ask for a quick response at least with a sense of numbers, to begin pinning this down. Anyhow, I’ll finalize the invitation tomorrow. I also need to update a lot of other website stuff. I want everything to be neat and clean when the new season begins. First general meeting will be Tuesday, the 11th. I have, however, realized that some topic brainstorming is necessary between now and Yale, and have set up a couple of early chezzes to address both LD and Pffft. With LD, it all seems so set in my mind, having done this topic in depth not that long ago, but I doubt if the Sailors share my mind-settedness. As for Pffft, I have to admit that I know nothing about this topic, and I look forward to finding out something. Anyhow, next week we’ll start revving up the chez engines. Whether Pip will be willing to give up his chair for the proceedings is another question altogether.
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