E-readers

I am a bit bemused by e-readers, these 'electronic books'. Forgive me a moment but to me a book is something you hold in your hand and feel the pages. I love the smell of books - sometimes musty (when borrowed or 2nd hand) or fresh when bought brand new. I love reading the back cover for a little description of the story within and the critical reviews of this adventure yet to be discovered.

I cannot understand how e-readers will ever take over from a real, honest to god book. You cannot loan an e-reader book to a friend nor can you donate it to a local hospital or give it to a charity shop.

Real books however can be given on loan with the knowledge that the recipient may love the story as much as you have. A real book can be donated to your local hospital library or charity knowing it will again bring joy to someone else.

These plastic/metal 'electric books' cannot be shared in the same joyful way. Now do not get me wrong I am not a technophobe quite the opposite. I took to my iphone with joyful ease and love my laptop, facebook, twitter, blogs and online gaming (I don't play very often however). I often play xbox kinect with my 8 year old son and use youtube to get workouts to try at home.

All I can say really is give me a real book any day, mark the page with a book mark or leave it upside down open on the page - a real page not a screen that may be difficult to see in sunlight. If I drop my book on the floor it will not crack or break the worst that might happen is I loose temporarily the page I was on, I locate same and off I go again. Nor will it be pron to technical glitches or freezing or any other gremlin that may decide to invade an electronic device.

Long live real books!!!!

This is the Helix Nebula......beautiful.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Su (University of Arizona)

This is being dubbed the eye of God and you can see why. This is beautiful. 680 light years away from us. This is the Helix Nebula.

MotoGP Rossi

This for anyone who doesn't know is Valentino Rossi. He is one of the best (possibly soon to be the best) MotoGP rider.

I started watching MotoGP quite a few years ago with my then boyfriend now husband. At that stage Rossi was not in the MotoGP races he was working his way up. He fought in the saddle against Max Biaggi and other such brilliant riders.

The reason I love Rossi is his determination, he never gives up. I have often watched a race where he starts from way back on the grid maybe 13th or even worse 21st. This is never an issue as a fan I don't watch and think 'oh no he doesn't stand a chance'. I watch and I think ok this is a race and sure enough by the end of the race he will have beaten all his rivals on the corners.

If there was ever a rider who understood how to use his breaks in a corner it is Rossi. Watching him go into a corner and not break until the last minute is fantastic. Last year against Casey Stoner he beat him fantasticly in a corner and in my opinion Stoner spat his dummy out of the pram. Stoner has a bike with great straight line speed but to win a MotoGP race you need more than raw speed.

So until the 12th of April in Qatar I cannot wait. 'COME ON ROSSI'

Space & Me

I have recently become very interested in how the Universe was formed and how we got here. It might surprise some (it surprised me)that of all the things I could be interested in this is it. Well there are others but at the moment I am in awe.

We have Hubble (http://www.hubblesite.org/) out in space capturing images we have never seen before and giving scientists from lots of different fields enough data I'm sure to keep them going for their lifetime and probably their kids lifetimes too.

As I am only staring my blogging life there will be much more to follow. I am currently on the Hubble site looking at images and all I can say is wow. If we were shown images like this in our class rooms when we were in school we would have been blown away....maybe we would have more of our children interested in the universe.

My son who is nearly 7 has seen the images online I have been looking at and is fascinated. Obviously he has no concept yet of how big the universe is nor how long it has been around but he will get there.