Losing Sleep » Personal

I Love Paperback Sci-Fi

Chris — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:20:27 +0000

The other day I picked up Sun of Suns: Book One of Virga by Karl Schroeder. It’s good, really good. It’s sort of a Flash Gordon meets Victorian England/Steampunk in a no gravity bubble. This is really beside the point though. What I really wanted to talk about is my love of the Mass Market Paperback. One day during the summer between 7th and 8th grade I wandered up to our attic because I was bored. Up in the attic I found my father’s bags of paperback sci-fi novels. I think I was up there for 6 hours before I finally came up for air. I had always been a reader but it was that event that not only got me hooked but also had me forever addicted to sci-fi. To this day flipping through paperback books reminds of a warm dusty attic and the smell of old paper. I also forgot how nice paperbacks can be. I’ve been reading a lot of trade paperbacks which are about the size of a hardcover so I haven’t had the luxury of a Mass Market Paperback. Mass Market paperbacks are small enough to fit in your back pocket. You can carry them around with you and pull them out whenever you have a moment to read. Sometimes I think that sci-fi is meant to be read in a paperback format. There is something about the genre that fits nicely on those 4″ x 7″ pages.

I Have Senioritis…

Chris — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:01:31 +0000

I go to work every day and I work hard. I come home and I take care of my kids and help my wife with all the housework and stuff. After the kids are put to bed and the house is cleaned up I am supposed to do my work for my graduate class. I don’t. Instead I sit on the computer and do stuff or watch TV/movies or read a book or play video games. I do everything EXCEPT my school work. I am extremely unmotivated. I have senioritis.

I was going to post a picture of myself laying on the couch playing video games but I can’t muster up the motivation to do it. I can barely motivate myself to publish this post.

Rios the Librarian

Chris — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:48:39 +0000

This is an homage to The Librarian from Terry Pratchett’s Diskworld Novels.

Seriously, I think being either a gorilla or an orangutan would rock. You’d basically have 4 hands, not to mention a 400 lb. gorilla can sit wherever he wants.

You Never Know When Someone is Going to Die…

Chris — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 00:30:28 +0000

¹I may seem happy on the outside but actually I’m really a morbid guy. Death always seems to be on my mind (especially since my kids were born). It’s probably one of the reasons why I love Six Feet Under and Dead Like Me. I’m not depressed, in fact now that I think about it I am a pretty happy guy; I’m just always thinking about my own death, or the death of my wife or kids or parents. I’m constantly facing my own and others mortality. Every time I cross the street I picture myself getting hit by a car. If I’m going down some stairs I can feel myself falling down them and breaking my neck. When I look at my children I can see them falling down stairs and lying dead at the bottom. You would think that I’m a nervous wreck but actually I’m not, I think I’m pretty relaxed. We are all going to die one day, hopefully later rather than sooner, hopefully peacefully rather than painfully. I think about death to come to terms with my and others mortality. I don’t want to die and I hope my consciousness continues for a very long time (or forever) but one day this life will end and who knows what will happen afterward. I try not to fear death and instead embrace it and prepare for it.

This is all beside the point, what I was really aiming for was the fact that I always tell my wife and kids that I love them. Whenever I leave the house I give them kisses and hugs and tell them I love them. Whenever I’m on the phone before I hang up I tell them that I love them. If we are angry or upset I try to make up with them before I leave and tell them that I love them. I don’t ever want to leave my wife and kids without letting them know that I love them because they could be dead before I get a chance to see them again. I want to know that if the last time I saw my wife and kids was really the last time I ever saw them, then at least it was happy and I told them that I loved them.

Photo by elisapadilla.

Our Car Was Broken Into.

Chris — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:51:34 +0000

¹ A couple of days ago our car was broken into. I wasn’t even sure what happened at first until I got into the car and took a look around. When I opened the door my first thought was “my wife really left the car messy” (she usually uses it). I climbed into the car and then really noticed that something wasn’t right. The cassette tapes that usually sit in the center compartment were tossed all over the place, the glove compartment was pulled open and tossed, everything was basically pulled out of place and tossed all over. Then I noticed the broken window. The little triangular window on the rear passenger side had been smashed (I later found out that this is the quietest window to break). Nothing was taken except our little change tray that contained maybe 50 cents in pennies and nickels. This is the 3rd time our car has been broken into and I’m trying to figure out if there is anyway to prevent it. We never leave anything in our car of any value (unless you count the baby seats) so it’s not like it’s worth the thieves time or effort. I have a couple of ideas:

Leave the doors unlocked. That way the thieves can just open the doors and take a look around without having to smash windows. Drawbacks, my wife raised the valid concern that a homeless person might sleep in there, or a drug user might climb in for a place to use their drugs, or a prostitute might use it (we’ve heard some crazy stories).
Put a sign up that reads “There is nothing in this car of any value. Please don’t break our windows.” I really doubt this would work and may even invite some mean spirited people to smash the windows because they are mean.
Get a car alarm. This is really not worth it. Car alarms are basically a joke. Nobody pays any attention to them and thieves are so quick that they are gone before you have a chance to call the cops.

Sigh. I guess there really is nothing we can do. This is the price we pay for living in the city. I’m not leaving though. I love living in the city.

P.S. The picture is not of our car. It’s another poor guys car (see footnote). Same kind of car only the smash was on the other side.

Ouchi by Rick Audet.

Ethics and Video Games…

Chris — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 03:01:48 +0000

I like video games. I like video games a lot. If I wasn’t married with kids and in grad school I would play them a lot more. My wife understands my love of video games and lets me play them. She will tell me when I’ve played enough and that it’s time to stop, and I will. I play video games for a couple of reasons:

They’re fun.
They can be intellectually stimulating.
It can be cathartic.
It’s escapism.

This doesn’t mean that I’ll play any game. I play games as escapism, so why would I want to play a game that closely resembles the real world? Take for example GTA (Grand Theft Auto). I’m sure it’s a fun game and I’ve had people tell me that it’s a fun game but I really don’t want anything to do with it. For me GTA mimics reality too closely. Other people can play it all they want. A good friend of mine who I would trust my kids with plays GTA and that’s fine. I don’t believe that it’s corrupting (and if it is then that person has bigger problems) I personally just don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t mind violence (God of War I & II). I don’t mind gore (Resident Evil 4). I don’t even mind dark subject matters (Silent Hill II). I guess it just really bothers me when a game mirrors reality and what is being played could be real. Then I’m a little bothered.

What Are My Boundaries of Disclosure?

Chris — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 19:37:40 +0000

Over at Information Wants To Be Free Meredith has an interesting post up about The Boundaries of Disclosure. It stems from another blog post that gets a little personal. I’ve been thinking about what I will say and won’t say on this blog and I’ve decided that I’m going to treat it like a conversation. If it’s something that I would say to a random person during a conversation, then I will blog about it. If it’s something that I wouldn’t say or would only say to a close friend or family, then I won’t blog about it. We all have different limits of disclosure and we all have different reasons for blogging, different people are going to reveal different things about themselves for different reasons. Me, I don’t want to reveal that much, just enough to get my point across.

Photo: “Boundary / Fence” by PartsnPieces. Image link.

Divide and Conquer

Chris — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:36:44 +0000

Does it make me a bad parent to say that I like my kids more when I have them one on one rather than both at the same time? I feel guilty feeling about them in that way, but one on one is always so much more relaxed. I’ve noticed that my children act like microphones producing feedback. When one of them is agitated or upset, the other one picks up that energy and amplifies it. Then the first one picks up that energy and starts amplifying that, ad infinitum. Of course this works irregardless of what type of energy it is, happy, sad or angry. My kids crack me up and I have a blast with them, but I sometimes feel like time spent one on one is more productive, like that time is worth more. I try to spend one on one time with both of them equally (if I spend too much time with one over the other then I feel guilty because I’m neglecting the other one). I feel guilty about a lot of things.

I’m Such a Bad Blogger…

Chris — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:42:39 +0000

I’m such a bad blogger. I had such good intentions when I started CPL Patron but then I ran out of things to write about and I didn’t seem to have time (or I was procrastinating) to post and it just kind of fell by the side. I just didn’t get into the habit. So I’m going to try again only this time I’m not going to be so ambitious. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. This time I’m not going to focus on a real specific topic, instead I’m going to write about anything I want to. What I’m trying to do is get into the habit of blogging. Michael Stephens once told me that blogging is a great way to improve your writing, which is one of things I would really like to do. If people read this blog, that’s great. If nobody reads this, that’s all right too.

I’m going to try to post a couple of times a week but we’ll see how that goes.

About CPL Patron (which is no more)

Chris — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:15:38 +0000

If it’s not obvious from the name, I am a patron of Chicago Public Library. I love CPL and I am constantly trying to find new and better ways to use its resources to their fullest. I have also found myself frustrated by certain aspects of its functions and services and feel that there is definitely room for improvement. My hope is that employees at CPL will read this blog and a discussion will ensue about what practices are currently working and what practices could be changed or implemented to improve services. I am also hoping that other patrons will read this site and say to themselves, “Hey! That’s a good idea!” and request those services from CPL, or give CPL that pat on the back it needs every once and while. Buy your local branch librarians a gift or bake them some cookies. (It’s good to be nice to your local librarian.) If you are also a CPL patron please send in your stories (good and bad) and suggestions and I’ll be sure to post them up on this blog.

A little background about myself:
• My name is Christopher Rios
• I live in Chicago
• I’m a CPL patron
• I’m a graduate student in library science at Dominican University.

I hope this blog leads to an open and amicable dialogue.

Email your comments, stories and suggestions to crios42(at)gmail(dot)com (cplpatron@gmail.com this was the old blog).

I am not employed by nor a representative of Chicago Public Library. All opinions expressed here are strictly my own.