Books and Anticipation

The trip to Finland is approaching. On the 15th we fly to Helsinki, stay there for a night and drive to Tampere where we'll stay until 29th of October and fly back home. One more week to go and the arrangements for trainings are running. My calendar isn't quite completely booked, but it is full enough to make me happy. Whatever rest hours or days I get will be well needed.

I even have a gig for a Saturday! Some people are so dedicated that they work the whole week and on weekends they train to become even better at their work. An admirable attitude, as long as some of the weekends remain free for resting, too!

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In comics, the mini collection "Lady Constantine", a spin-off of Hellblazer John Constantine and his ancestral grandmother, was a delightful surprise! The graphics were clear and colorful, the story had a clear logic and all the right elements in it. Even a familiar face made an appearance!

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Couple of books arrived today. The previous package from Amazon.com I had to go and get from the customs, this time the package arrived at home. I cannot understand the logic behind. Maybe it has something to do with the monetary value, maybe not. Anyway, the customs package contained "Code Reading" and "Code Quality" by Diomidis Spinellis and "Handbook of Walkthroughs, Inspections, and Technical Reviews" by Daniel P.Freedman and Gerald M. Weinberg.

Today I received "Peer Reviews in Software" by Karl E. Wiegers and "High Quality Low Cost Software Inspections" by Ronald A. Radice. Slowly my professional library is reaching the size it used to be at Nokia. Some of these books I haven't even read yet.

I decided to start with "Code Quality" because it seems to be closest to my own current subject. I should try to not let it influence me too much. I am often influenced much too easily by books. Sometimes I think I believe everything I read. Then again, that's what a writer should hope from his readers. The readers are entitled to their own opinions and should of course think about what they read, but when the writer has enough expertise and is able to communicate his meaning, the writing should be worth believing and not to be ignored lightly. If a statement seems wrong or inconsistent or illogical or irrational, maybe you haven't given it the benefit of the doubt and thought about it enough.
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This week we watched a film at home on Tuesday instead of going to the cinema. There's nothing interesting running in English so we had to skip it. Instead we watched "The Cat Returns", a Japanese animation. It was really good, even excellent. The characters were extreme, but believable and the plot twists, too. There was humour and sudden strange unexpected comments sometimes, which kept the whole thing interesting. The black and white cats playing secret service agents to the King of Cats were hilarious. With the black suits and white collars they looked exactly like you've seen in countless Hollywood films. They walked upright on two legs and kept throwing too eager cats away from the King's carriage. Very funny. Here's the Wikipedia entry.

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Apparently, tomorrow we'll be attending The Late Summer Night Barbeque Event. That should be fun.