043: Favorite things IV

I'm retiring the "My Favorite Things" lyrics-as-subject-line gimmick.  But here's this week's roundup:

Space (...the final frontier)
This week, I saw the Hubble IMAX movie at Omnifest and PBS aired the final part of the BBC series on NASA (The Space Age), all of which made me 1) wish I weren't so bored by math, so I could be an astrophysicist, and 2) want to play that old Magic School Bus in Space computer game.

eBooks
While they don't smell as nice as real books, I've been reading ebooks since I was granted permission to use what was supposed to be my grandfather's Christmas gift, a Barnes & Noble Nook (he decided it was too techy and new-fangled).  My local library has a fairly good selection and B&N offers a free ebook every Friday, so between that and Google Books I'm amassing a fairly good collection -- and I haven't spent a single penny on 'em yet.  One of the best things about an e-reader?  You can read novels with straight up embarrassing covers without anyone seeing the awful cover art, so the people on the bus need never know that I'm reading Regency-era romance novels.  WIN.

Hats
I have a wide-brimmed fedora and a bowler that I am forever trying to work into outfits without looking like a total tool.  I have yet to succeed, but I admire people who do.  Also, I'm trying to talk myself out of thinking straw boaters are cute, because I don't want to end up buying one I'll never wear.
  
Tim Tam cookies
Pepperidge Farm brought Australia's Favorite Cookie to us a few years ago; naturally, it caught my eye in the Target cookie aisle because the cookie and I share a surname.  Only available from October-March each year, Tim Tams are essentially chocolate-covered sandwich cookies, but they must be made of the dreams of unicorns or something because they are ridiculously delicious.  At first I laughed at the people who would hoard them in March so as to have a supply that would last until October, but now I have become them.  There are seven packs in the drawer of the desk at which I am sitting at this very moment.  And I'm seriously considering taking a blogging break to eat one.  Or three.

Egypt
It's been a fascinating situation in Egypt for the last couple weeks, and the international response to Mubarak finally stepping down has been fantastic to watch.  My mother went to Egypt in the 1980s and I used to look at the photos when I was a kid and think it looked like the coolest place ever.  Hopefully, someday, I will be able to make the trip myself.  In the meantime, congratulations on the first step to a new age, Egypt.