The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

[Poll #867366]

This is based off an acutal conversation I've had in the past week, mind.

So, I now appear to have electricity and a functional computer (both rather lacking over this past weekend), but not a working phone. Oh, I have a dial tone, and it'll ring if somebody calls, but I can't actually complete a call, incoming or outgoing. Needless to say, that's made internet access - challenging. To say the least. Not nonexistant, but...close.

Yay?

Because I don't have nearly enough books to read, I just went on another Bookcloseouts binge. I was looking for the new Sharon Shinn book, but I should know better than to darken their electronic doorstep even with the best of intentions.

( *twitch* )

I...I...I had a coupon! That I used a couple of (dozen) times!

I'm told that there are people who can make small, fairly frequent orders to The Bad Place. I...am not one of them. I think I'm as addicted to buying books as I am to actually reading them...

Lots of short fiction in there, which makes me happy. Also Tulipomania, which is quite possibly the prize of the lot. Lots of things gone from my Amazon wishlist, yay!

Now, to find the time to read them all...

Here was nothing grimy or faded, indeed. On the contrary, the room was of dazzling brilliance and beauty, for it was lined throughout with an exquisite metal that resembled translucent frosted silver. The surface of this metal was highly ornamented in raised designs representing men, animals, flowers and trees, and from the metal itself was radiated the soft light which flooded the room. All the furniture was made of the same glorious metal, and Scraps asked what it was.

"That's radium," answered the Chief. "We Horners spend all our time digging radium from the mines under this mountain, and we use it to decorate our homes and make them pretty and cosy. It is a medicine, too, and no one can ever be sick who lives near radium."

Oy...