Less Book-Buying For Now.

Seeing as my country's government sees fit that me and wife starve to death, I don't think I will be buying more books in the near future.

We were amongst the crazy people stuck in last night's crazy jam and spent an hour and half in the car in what usually is a five minute journey to the local petrol pump.

Government says that they'll be reviewing the petrol price again next month. Not looking forward to going through that crazy rush to the pump again. Maybe next time I'll just resign myself and sit at home while muttering how cruel our PM is. Or read a good book. Or both.

Anyway it all boils down to having less money to spend on books. Which makes me sad.

For those curious, I am currently reading:

Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses (interesting at first, but gets a bit tedious towards the end. Surprisingly I like the parts with Mahound more...I guess that might reflect something in me?)
Jorge Luis Borges's Ficciones (very, very good; but not something to read in the LRT in the mornings...it's too heavy. His writing I mean, not the book. The book is light and easy to carry around.)
Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita (I had grown a little bored with Satanic Verses so I wanted to read something different...and I picked this up. I was reminded what irony was when I discovered that this had been the inspiration for Satanic Verses. It's still a good book though but maybe I will try to pick up a Murakami or an SF book if I want something totally different.)

Comments

Lesson: Commemorative Covers are Lame.

Well, I got the first day cover that commemorates the 35th anniversary of the establishment diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Except that it's not a first day cover, it's a commemorative cover, which is a slightly different beast. I guess I should read the news article properly next time! The difference between the two is that first day covers are specially-designed envelopes stuck on with specially-designed stamps, and marked with a specially-designed postmark. A commemorative cover is a specially-designed envelope... and that's it. All in all, it's an unremarkable affair, especially if you're used to well-designed first day covers (not that Malaysian first day covers are well-designed... but I digress). Oh sure, a commemorative cover has a stamp printed right on to it but that's just like an overglorified aerogramme. Lame. On the whole, what a disappointment. I haven't been collecting first day cover

HOWTO: Get Rid of Silverfish

The bane of every book collecting person: the Silverfish. DUN DUN DUNNNNN!!! How to get rid of them? If one book has been infected, place it inside an air-tight plastic bag along with some silica gel desiccant. The silica gel is important to get rid of moisture, because you will now place the sealed plastic bag with the book in it inside the freezer. Leave it in there for a couple of days so that those bugs catch their death of cold. If you're feeling particularly paranoid, (like I usually am) feel free to leave the plastic bag in there for a week. If they're not dead, then you might likely have an infestation of zombie silverfish , which is out of the scope of this blogpost. But what if a whole colony of silverfish decided to invade your whole bookcase? Then you have to make sure you're ready for war. Place a generous amount of silica gel (or if you can find it, diatomaceous earth) behind your books at the back of the shelves so that moisture levels remain low.

Send me to Clarion West! - My crowdfunding effort.

I just launched my crowdfunding page to help fund my Clarion West trip on GoGetFunding and I am nervous as heck. Anyway here's a link . Any help or support much appreciated even if it's just to share the link around. Thank you so much!

Ted Mahsun

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