Booksmart.

I'm pretty sure Alex is going to have a rough morning today, but that isn't the point of this post.

Alex and Vilde are moving soon. That's pretty sad, but from adversity come the best ideas: Vilde and I are thinking of starting a virtual book club. Maybe 5 or 6 people in different locations reading the same book every month or two and then having some electronic discussion thereof. I'm thinking of the way discussions like that work on http://www.slate.com, when they post email threads between a few discussants on whatever topic is relevant. But you know, such a thing could also easily work as a collaborative blog. We'll have to think about which format will work best, as I'm sure people are already doing this and some media probably work better than others. In every other respect I see this working as a normal book club, with participants taking turns selecting books and some range of interests and backgrounds among members so that we end up reading stuff that we might not otherwise have found. Suggestions/thoughts/ideas?

Item one: Update the TiVo.

I have today and tomorrow off in addition to Monday, so I'm trying to decide what I'll do with my time other than the usual running and reading and loafing around. We only discovered we were getting the days off late Tuesday night, so there wasn't enough time to really plan to go anywhere, and Chris has to work today and tomorrow anyway. Even if I end up just powering through and finishing Anna Karenina, it will have been a good couple of days. I'm happy to have the break.

So, any great suggestions for stuff I should really do? You're not allowed to say unpacking. What do you do with your days off?

Grillable.

You say mahi mahi, I say dinner. Sunday night is rapidly becoming grill night in our household, and tonight I wanted fish. It turns out that almost every night I want fish, so I'm not sure what that's worth, but last weekend's outdoor cooking debut is opening up a world of possibilities in grilled seafood (and corn, and asparagus, and who knows what else). Not sure how I'm ever going to go back to autumnal food.

It's Cameroon National Day, Charlie Brown!

I read today that Axl Rose and Tommy Hilfiger got into a fistfight at some bar. No, I wasn't reading The Onion. I was reading the AP news wire.

Tonight we went to a Cameroon National Day celebration. It turns out that food and drumming from Cameroon are pretty ass-kickingly good. I could have done with less of the inaudible slideshow and more of that drumming, in fact. But it was fun. Who knew that the Renton Senior Activity Center was such a happening place to spend a Saturday night? I'm really glad we went, and not only for the fish.

Edam all up!

This coming weekend is the Seattle Cheese Festival! I like cheese.

http://www.seattlecheesefestival.com/

Last year we tasted some really good stuff, lots of local cheeses from the Pacific Northwest among the selection. You can see the list of vendors on the website above. When we last went, we ended up buying a bunch and were well in cheese for some time to come. I hope for a repeat performance this year.

Any good cheese puns?

I don't want your money, honey, I want your love!

Not sure if this is what Transvision Vamp had in mind:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002977636_women07.html

A study out of St. Andrews shows that as women earn more and develop their own careers, they are starting to value physical attractiveness over wealth as filtering factors in choosing a mate. The more a woman earns, the less she values her partner's wealth. Go figure! Having your own money makes you rely less on other people's.

But seriously for a minute. Our traditional cultural values of attractiveness have meant that in terms of desirability to the opposite sex, women peak around 30 -- forget the 22-year-old stereotypes for a minute and look at the actual ages where supermodels are most successful and actresses get their best roles -- and men peak closer to midlife, when they've had enough time to be successful in their careers. Is this all changing? It may become less common, but the reality is that there will always be some unattractive wealthy men and some superhot but impoverished women and there will always be a market for trophy wives. The real change is that now you might start seeing more trophy husbands too.

Is this progress or regress?