Audiobook finished

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by H.K. Jenisin

Very interesting world. I'm not really fond of the "round the campfire storytelling" mode of writing, but it's a good story anyway.

Twenty Four Thousand Miles

As an aside, I had a flat on, um, Thursday I think, slow leak. Patched it Friday morning, found that the Schwalbe Marathon that was on there was paper thin down the middle, so I tossed on the remaining Top Touring 2000 that E.O. gave me a couple of years ago (one of them self-destructed). It's doing well but it feels like it's filled with concrete in comparison to the Marathon. I think it's actually skinnier even though they're both theoretically 32s.

I didn't find what caused the flat, since I rode on it for at least 6 miles after noticing that it was going flat, it probably just came out. But since I'm not using that tire anyway, I guess it doesn't matter.

Odometer: 24006 duh

New MP3 player

I managed to nab an 8GB Sansa Fuze, used but in like-new condition on eBay for $30 shipped. Excellent. My old one has been BADLY abused over the years, between me dropping it (severely) several times, keeping it in very dirty pockets, dropping it in water once, and keeping it in bike jersey pockets where it gets sweated into. It's held up incredibly well, better than any other player I've had, and I have never had or used a player that's in any way better for playing audiobooks. No touchscreen players need even apply at all since I can't use them without looking or even taking them out of my pocket, which I consider essential. It's also as good as anything I've had for music, and plays a variety of formats including protected WMA (for DRM-laden library audiobooks).

My Fuze has held up better than I could have expected but it is starting to act a little wonky. I *think* that the problems it's having are all related to dust and/or salt (from sweat) inside, and it's possible that it will be revived by opening it up and giving a good cleaning (I suspect there's a TON of dust and crap in the spin wheel and I know the USB connector is dirty) but it won't last forever and I want a backup.

I have a new battery coming for the old one, the original is down to about 6 to 8 hours (instead of the original 16) so at some point I'll crack it open and see what I can do to revive it.

I actually am now using RockBox on the Fuze. There's not a thing wrong with the stock firmware, but RockBox has a feature where it will boost the speed of playback up to 235% without changing the pitch of playback. This is AWESOME for audiobooks. I find that depending on the reader I can crank it up to about 180%, which typically gets them close to my print reading speed (I am NOT a fast reader, though I'm improving).

From a usability point of view, RockBox takes some getting used to but the feature set is worth it for me.

Book finished

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold

Why yes, I am working my way through the Hugo nominees list.

Speaking of, IMO this book isn't Hugo material. It's OK, but just OK. I suppose Vorkosigan fans are insatiable and may vote it in anyway, but there's nothing new here, and really not even very much suspense or mystery to speak of, and no compelling new characters either, just mostly the same old walking through a story.

I haven't read more than about half the Vorkosigan books, the last one before this chronologically was Mirror Dance, so this is the first really post-military Miles story I've read. Maybe I just miss that aspect.