1998 Christmas List
Dear Friends,
1998 was a good year except for heavy teaching. 1999 promises to be even better, with
a new young Rasmusen due to arrive February 9. Helen and I discovered items 2 and 11
below just in time. As usual, my list is not in any particular order.
- 1. The IBM 560E Laptop
Computer. $900. IBM
really does have a well-crafted computer. It's worth buying from
them, Dell, or another top-name maker, I've decided. Get a laptop
like this one by web auction, short on features but weighing only 3 or 4 pounds and from
a good manufacturer.
- 2. The Nikon Coolpix 100 digital camera. $100.
They stopped making this, but look for something similar: a
100-dollar camera with few features but small in size, using a quick
card connection rather than a cable, AA batteries, and good for
portraits.
- 3. Two brewpubs: the Upland Brewery,
350 West Eleventh Street, Bloomington,
812-336-BEER, [email protected], for good food and drink both; and the
RockBottom Brewery #9,
10 West Washington Street,
Indianapolis,
317-681-8180,
downtown Indianapolis next to the new mall, which has
good red ale and crayfish pizza. (GONE IN 2003)
- 4. Why We Get Sick,
by George Williams and Randolph Nesse. 1996, 290 pages,
$10.40. As Dawkins says in
his blurb, you should buy an extra copy for your doctor.
Examples of ideas: People with infections shouldn't take iron
because it helps the bacteria more than them; the appendix can't get
smaller by evolution because a smaller appendix can get blocked and
infected more easily; fevers have their uses, or they wouldn't show up as a symptom.
- 5. Trapdoor Cave.. This Monroe County Cave is not very impressive,
but it has one good feature: it is even easier for beginners than Buckner's.
- 6.
Come to Grief , by Dick Francis, 1995, 368
pp. $5.59. Yet another first-rate Dick Francis novel-- one of
his best, I think, though I read it in one long day of plane
flights. This one is about an ex-jockey detective who finds that a
popular friend of his committed terrible crimes.
- 7. The Ides of March , by Thornton Wilder,
1948, 191 pp. $19.57. A novel in document
form about the last year of Julius Caesar's life. There is good Plato
imitation, and good characterization of Caesar, Pompeia (his
wife before Calpurnia), Cleopatra, Clodia, and Catullus. The only
disappointment is that the story peters out, with no catharsis at all. The
documentary form makes the presentation jagged anyway, tho, with
lots of back-and-forth in chronology, so the lack of an ending does
not matter as much as it would otherwise.
- 8. The NedStat free
webpage counter. This is fun to put on your webpage, because you can see which countries
people are visiting you from.
- 9. Molecules, by P.W. Atkins, 1987. $18.95.
He takes a molecule, shows a picture, and in the English plain style tells
interesting things about its chemical properties and everyday uses.
- 10. The Blue Letter Bible,
a website that lets you search the Bible, see both Greek and Hebrew
interlinear, and access various commentaries and dictionaries.
- 11. The
Irfanview32 graphics viewer,
a freeware program by Irfan Skiljan, a Bosnian programmer living in
Vienna. He has the gift of writing good software, and I prefer this to any other editor
for JPG and GIFF images. I found this
and other good freeware at the Nonags website,
at Www.nonags.com.
- 12.
Why You can Never Get to the End of the Rainbow and Other
Moments of Science , by Don Glass, 1993. $8.76. A
little paperback consisting of short, 2-page columns on neat
scientific points, as explained on a local radio program.
Some Other Good Things of 1998: The
Super Rica taqueria in Santa Barbara;
the Textpad text editor; the Realplayer sound player and Web radio; the South
Griffy Neighborhood Association; mice with wheels;
Kirin Kyushu Beer Nodogoshi---The best Japanese
beer by far, and very special--quite lagery, very fizzy,
not too flavorful, and malty; Bloomington Area Birth Services birth class-- by
home birth midwives and doulas, but quite sensible; the North University Park Church in
a shopping center in Los Angeles next to USC; the Drudge Report.