Marmaduke

Over the last couple of days, I have been reading two pretty funny books. One was called “The Last Human” by Grant Naylor and is a continuation of the Red Dwarf television series that has aired all over the world from 1988 till 1999 and I believe it has spawned a couple of movies as well. The books are better than the TV show, but probably only because I have seen the TV shows and can put faces to the characters. Both the show and books can be very funny. Not always of course, but mostly. The second book I have been reading is “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls” by David Sedaris. David Sedaris is a very funny writer and you can find him reading his own works on Youtube, but you should read them yourself.

 

I have been reading from my ereader because it is compact and can hold a lot of books. Every so often I just have to plug it into the computer so that the battery can charge up, and if by chance I have found another book then I can upload it at the same time. I know there is a battle raging between readers of ebooks and the readers of “real books” but personally I can’t see the difference. Yes, I love the smell and feel of books and it is nice to have something tangible in your hands when you pay money for something. The “real book” people will tell you that ebooks are the reason small community bookstores are closing down. Hog wash! They were closing down before the advent of ebooks, it is due to economics. The big stores can buy in bulk and make deals with the publisher which the small fry just can’t do.

                                                 

Ebooks are the future, just as digital music is the future and digital movies will soon be the future. We can’t stop it so we may as well roll with it. There will always be books around, but more for the specialty market. Well, that is my opinion anyways.

So, I was at the coffee shop with my ereader enjoying a quiet coffee and reading this very funny book. The ereader was sitting flat on the table so only the people at the table next to me could see that I was reading. Everyone else in the coffee shop saw this older guy with a beard staring at the table top and every now and then he would start to laugh. He’d calm down for a while and then laugh again, sometimes he had to dab the tears away from his eyes. Now and then I would look up to see people looking in my direction and I would give them a smile and shake my head in what I thought was shared mirth. It didn’t occur to me until I got home that they had no idea what I was laughing at.

 

I remember seeing this old guy on the streets of Toronto when I was growing up, every now and then he would burst into laughter and then bang his head against a building until it started to bleed. I asked him if there were anything I could do to help once and he started to curse me out and eventually spit at me. I always wondered what it was that he found so funny. Probably that mornings Marmaduke cartoon.