Minion is tired...

(Just a little humor to get us started)

So it's been a long couple of weeks -- the people I *know* who read this already know about last weekend and what a mess it was. The good news is: My life goes back to normal today! Well, normal-ish, anyway. I mean, my AC is still broken, my car is making some funny noises, and we can't afford to fix either of those situations, BUT. The kids are all in school, no one is sick or in the hospital, and the rest should be fixable by next week, so. We're good.

On the other hand, I think my kindle has bit the dust: I've been charging it, and... well, you know how they have this little light on the bottom next to the place where you plug the cord in, & the light is orange when it's charging & green when it's fully charged? Well, the light is green. But the screen is just showing a big empty battery & won't budge from that. Which, I mean... I don't exactly *mind*; it's not like I really USE my Kindle that much. I just don't like it, for whatever reason. I'm not really sure I can explain all the reasons, but it just doesn't work for me. I much prefer my Sony (which, sadly, is probably pretty close to being D-E-D dead also, but since they've stopped *making* them I need to find somewhere where I can play with a variety of toys & see if I can find one I like. I tried a nook last time I was at B&N & it didn't quite work for me somehow. I am picky, I know.)

Anyhoo...the primary reason I own two reading devices is that one is mine-all-mine and the other is a combination of I-hate-Amazon's-DRM-but-love-the-freebies, I don't want to buy my sons their own ereaders for at least a couple more years yet but it's convenient to have a couple of ereaders with appropriate books on for when we're stuck waiting somewhere & they run out of things to do, and... well, there are a couple of other reasons. Like, I want to read something *right now* & the pub will email it to my kindle so I don't have to go through the rigmarole of finding cords & hooking up the sony to the laptop & downloading & blah-di-blah. Instant gratification. It's a Thing.

On another, but vaguely related, note:

I've found that several books that I've enjoyed over the last several years are being re-edited and re-released. I'm...not entirely sure how I feel about this, honestly. They seem to vary from "a few minor typos & continuity errors fixed" up to "completely revamped, with 20,000 new words!" and almost all with a new publisher (& sometimes the old publisher is simply not in existence anymore, which means if something happens & I want to redownload, I'm outta luck). But I'm in this position of trying to decide whether it's worth spending my meager book allowance on, essentially, rebuying a book I already own. Many times it comes down to "Did I love this book enough that I'm going to search it out so that I can read it again?" Of course, part of the problem is that when I see a title by an author I love, if it's a re-release, I immediately check to see if I already have the original version. When I do, I want to read it, RIGHT NOW PLEASE, but I also need to decide first if I'm going to want to repurchase & read the newer version -- if I *do* then I probably shouldn't re-read just yet.

It's not like buying yet another copy of Redwall (because between my kids & myself, we've reduced two copies at least to fluttering loose out-of-order pages) or Good Omens (because I lend it out & never get it back, or DH loaned it on his last deployment & lost track of who had it, or I just like to throw a copy in periodically when we donate stuff to care packages going overseas).

I do kind of have something particularly Cherie-related that I'm dying to re-read but can't because it's hopefully going to be seeing new life soonish with a new publisher but I can't remember if that is public knowledge yet or not...