I'm going to buy me all kinds of candy.

I passed the halfway point in Lucifer's Hammer today and I now find myself carrying the book around from room to room so that I can read a sentence or two while I'm in transition to the next thing. Yep, Larry Niven's got his hooks in my amygdala. So when I went to Half-Price Books today to buy a 2017 calendar, I couldn't resist poking around to see what other Larry Nivens they had on hand. And I spotted one called Playgrounds of the Mind which at first looked lame . . . kind of like a Portable Reader with short works and excerpts from longer works . . . but upon closer examination it turned out to be much cooler than that. More along the lines of Isaac Asimov's Opus books, with personal reflections preceding the stories or excerpts, that kind of thing. I read a little piece that pre-ceded an excerpt from Lucifer's Hammer and was immediately charmed. And even though I really have quite enough books to last me for the rest of my life . . . and even though I'm in the process of divesting myself of many of the books I already have . . . I went for it. I'm going to resist starting it at least until I've finished Lucifer's Hammer, and maybe even a little bit longer than that, as I still need to get back to The Magic Mountain . . . and to Jerusalem . . . . But sometimes you just can't resist biting the apple, you know? At least I learned my lesson about not going ahead and buying something that I see and want at Half-Price, 'cause that almost never works out in the end.

BTW, while searching for the lyrics to the Clint Holmes song "Playground in My Mind," I found the song listed on one website with the title, "World's Worst Songs." Oh, yeah.