Sunday, June 28, 2009

Twinkies, Paint, and Toothpaste

When I was at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky last week, the tour guide was talking about the various minerals on the walls of the cave. There is a mineral there that is in Twinkies, Paint, and Toothpaste, though I can't remember for the life of me which mineral it is. The tour guide said that they asked the Twinkie people why it's in there and that the Twinkie people said it's what gives the cream filling the fluffiness.

I'll never think about Twinkies the same way again, though I do love them :)

Friday, June 12, 2009

Audio Books

The Nashville Public Library has downloadable audio books! They use two different services, Overdrive and Netlibrary. So far I've only used Netlibrary. This service doesn't allow the listener to burn CDS but does allow for downloading to a computer, MP3, etc. At first I wondered how they could restrict the burning of CDs, but then I realized that the book is one giant file. It doesn't fit onto a CD. The reader has to agree to delete the file after the 3 week checkout period. Overdrive does allow CDs to be burned but the file stops working after the checkout period.

I'm already halfway through my second book. I recently bought a treadmill with built-in speakers, so I've been taking my computer downstairs and just running a chord between my laptop and the treadmill so that the book plays directly off the nice speakers. I like the added motivation to exercise.

I love libraries :)