Buy One, Get One Free; One For The Missus And One For You And Me. Or, Books I Read This Summer.

That's right, two fer a dollar. I just thought I'd go on to prove even further how dreary life on vacation on a tropical isle can be by not only posting twice in two days, but by quickly sharing with you the three books I've read this week because there was nothing better to do than sit on the beach and read. Ho hum. If you're as bored as I am, read on, because obviously neither one of us has anything better to do.
The first one was a pleasant surprise; who knew that Nick Cave could write? 'And The Ass Saw The Angel' is a pretty gritty southern gothic (of course it is) novel, and for those of us who love bashing on fundies, it's a tasty treat. I swear I didn't know that when I picked it up. I just thought, Nick Cave wrote a book now? Huh. I want one. And it's really good, too. I'm a little confused about the ending, so perhaps I will have to re-read it one day, or better yet have a conversation with someone who has read it and does understand it. I also read Thomas Pynchon's 'The Crying of Lot 49', because ever since I read 'Infinite Jest' by David Foster Wallace, I've been dying to read 'Gravity's Rainbow' by Pynchon to which it gets alot of comparisons. But 'Gravity's Rainbow' is hugeongous, although not as big as 'Infinite Jest', granted. But I wanted to read something slightly smaller by Pynchon first, just to test the water. And so after reading 'Lot 49', I am definitely queueing up 'Gravity's Rainbow'. Pynchon is hilarious, labrynthine, and ingenious.
I saved my most eagerly anticipated read for last: 'Mathematicians In Love' by Rudy Rucker. Have I said how much I love Rucker? I'm sure I have. Actually it's funny; if I had read Pynchon before I posted about Rucker a few back, I'd have said something inane like: Rucker is a mix of Thomas Pynchon, Douglas Adams, a hyper-perpindiculate writer to Philip K. Dick, and something else all his own because no one else has ever done that. All that being said, 'Mathematicians' isn't his best, I think. So carry on and start with 'White Light', but eventually 'Mathematicians' is still totally worth it. It's about what happens when two friendly competeing mathematicians love the same girl, and then discover a proof having something to do with wave functions and predictive systems or something that allows them to put their talents where their other brains are. Fantastic.
So you see, I've got lots of time on my hands. Today I did a little bit of spelunking; there's a really big cave in the middle of the jungle and I got a guided tour. I saw a HUGE cave spider. I got this picture, of course:

Bigger than my hand but not Shelob-size. Also bats, and those stalagmite and stalacite thingies. It took about two hours to crawl through the whole thing. Nifty, but no eye surgery. Then I went on a longtail boat tour of the mangrove mudflats they have on the island here... saw a bunch of fiddler crabs and monkeys. Fiddler crabs are pretty.

I even saw a mudskipper, which I think I got a little too excited about, because I got a lot of funny looks. But you know, Muddy Mudskipper! From Ren & Stimpy!... Right?
Anyway, out of sheer ennui, tomorrow I'm going scuba diving again. Ho hum hum drum.