Else what's a heaven for?

It's a good thing Julian was super-excited and super-organized for our trip, bc I did a rubbish job of prepping. ( Books I sorta almost read ) but I'm glad I did, because otherwise I'd've had absolutely no idea who San Marco was.

We started Friday in the campanile, getting an aerial view of the city. Then we took a quick walk around the basilica itself. I wish I'd known more about the Fourth Crusade before we went, bc otherwise the reliquary is just a creepy room full of bones. I'd also have known to wonder if the art we saw in the Treasury was Venetian or Byzantine; probably the latter, I guess. Both Julian and I were much more impressed with the gilt work we saw than by the paintings in the Academia. About a particularly exquisite crystal Virgin Mary, Julian commented, "It blows my mind that by the fourth century, they could make that, but they didn't know how to draw a nose." I think it was Roger Crowley who talks about how the basilica was a combination of propaganda and treasure house, displaying all the loot stolen from fellow Christians. ur doin' Christianity wrong.

Next was the "Secret Itinerary" tour of the Doge's Palace, mostly a ploy to avoid the line into the site, but also filled with amusing factoids about the Council of Ten and Casanova. I'm surprised Julian and I didn't spend more time talking about the Republic's philosophical impact on the Founding Fathers. Instead, we discussed what kind of play party we'd throw and whether the strapado stand would be a good place for a suspension *facepalm* Also, I'm beginning to suspect I like first millenium Islamic architecture, although I like the Venetians' interp better than, say, the Alhambra, so when I am queen, my palace will probably bear a distinct resemblance to the Doge's Palace.

Julian had to work, so he missed Museo Correr, which is one of the coolest museums I've ever visited. ( a private collection from a unique time ) It'd be a great place to take a clever tween.

We had Friday night dinner in Il Ghetto at L'Anice Stellato. ( delicious )

Despite doing everything you shouldn't, I ran pretty fast in this morning's race: I had milk with my morning coffee (a mistake I haven't made since my second ever race, back in 2003, which was also the last time lolitasir ran with me *sniff*cry*); I didn't pick up my race # bc I'm a rebel like that; I was way overdressed; and I was late leaving for the race, which meant I had to trot to get to the starting line, burning precious energy. d'oh! Beautiful day for a run, which meant lots of casual runners, clogging up the start. I'm sorry, but if you have to walk on the first (admittedly quite large) hill, you shouldn't be starting with the 8-min milers.

Anyhoo, I ran 8:41/8:49/9:01/8:30, which was 5 seconds off a dubious personal record. So, awesomeness! esp. since I've never come close to that time in any other 4 miler. (They are usually ~36mins.) I blame my fast start on this hottie redhead I was chasing - I lost her in the middle of mile 2 and you see what happened starting there. And the fast finish I blame on how aggravated I was by the people wearing Obama bumper stickers on their race shirts. Who the hell changes their vote based on a sticker somone in a race wore?? When I am queen, these people will be banned from voting. I thought it was interesting that I saw 2 runners wearing stickers and 5 bystanders with Obama posters - but none for Clinton in her "backyard". How embarrassing is it to lose your own state in the primaries?!? I was much more impressed with the folks wearing football jerseys - it was the Gridiron Classic 4mile after all - although the guy with the Jets jersey was clearly confused.

Actually, the Obama supporters were out in front of Fairway too and all over town. Speaking of embarrassing, I seem to have spent less on groceries in Chinatown (a pound of shrimp, 3 boxes of blueberries, and a bunch of asparagus) than I did on a teeny jar of face stuff at Lush. Oy.

When I am queen, any author who has ever written anything I liked gets free total tech support forever, bc I can't think of a worse waste of time than authors mucking with their computers when they could be writing stories for me! When the queen's not happy, nobody's happy and I needs my fix. Unfortunately, even without the computer problems, it looks like John Ringo isn't writing anything for me anytime soon - he's not planning on writing any more Keldara stories, he'll get to the Princess of Wands sequel when he gets around to it, and he's waiting on David Weber for the Empire of Man sequel. I guess that last might be good news, bc I didn't expect any more of those books, although really, I think the series is done. And, y'know, I'd rather have another Honor Harrington book than an Empire of Man book. I think.

Speaking of things that get my goat... it's bad enough when the same author is published across different venues, such that I can't get any more Sarah Hoyt books from Baen, but when books frm the same series aren't available? gRAWR! The Lark & The Wren is in the Baen free library, but the rest of the trilogy isn't available on the website at all. TEASE!

It was interesting to look for my original review of Princess of Wands and notice that I complain about running out of stuff to read regularly. Since I've read nearly everything I want on the Baen site, I started using Fictionwise. Unfortunately, not only are they much more expensive - most of their books are $7.50 for "paperbacks" and what the heck does that mean if you're reading online?, but they also have quite a few that are priced comparably to hardcover, which is absolutely ridiculous for a book I'm reading on a computer - but they also don't have all their books in a choice of formats. So for example, I was considering buying Parasite Rex (which pretty much would've guaranteed that I'd never sleep again) and The Privilege of the Sword (genderbendy chix! yaay!), but neither was available in .pdf form. boo.

I was going to write a whole vampire-y post over the weekend, but I forgot. I finished all of Kim Harrison's books. They were entertaining, but the last book was ridiculously bad. ( spoilers ) On an amusing note, after reading five books of a witch angsting about white vs. black magic, I choked while watching Buffy episode "Dopplgangland" and hearing Willow say, "I like the black arts...I-I-I'm always ready to work some dark mojo. So, tell me, is it dangerous? [no.] Well, could we pretend it is?" Which is why I will never watch all the Buffy episodes. Still, this is the best quote evuh (this week at least) from a tv show: "In my world there are people in chains, and we can ride them like ponies."