Scott Tyler's Blog

I just finished reading all of Jane Austen's novels.  She only wrote six, and they are relatively short, compared to, say, Charles Dickens' novels.  Still, I did it. 

Other authors I hope to read the complete works of include:

Charles Dickens (still 4 I haven't read)

Bronte sisters (5 unread  3 unread)

George Eliot

Thomas Hardy

D. H. Lawrence

Joseph Conrad

John Steinbeck

Ernest Hemingway

F. Scott Fitzgerald

William Faulkner

And the complete plays of:

William Shakespeare (finished!)

Christopher Marlowe

Ben Jonson

Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus

Moliere

Ibsen, Strindberg

G.B. Shaw

My grandmother used to have a fridge magnet that said, "We get too soon old, and too late smart."   In the past decade I have gotten a lot older, and a little wiser.

I've learned something about people: the way they treat others, is the way they will eventually treat you.  If someone you know is lying to other people, don't think, "Oh, but we're friends.  He won't lie to me!"  Of course he will, and probably already is.  Or if a friend is always talking about others behind their backs, count on it that she is talking about you too.

Credibility, once lost, is almost impossible to restore.  Everyone tells a fib or two, now and then.  But there is a line.  A friend of mine posted a resume which is about 80% fictional.  The 20% which is true might as well be fictional too, because no-one who knows him will believe even that.

It's amazing how self-aware most people are not.  Especially those who have really bad characters.  But almost everyone is blind to their own character flaws, minor or major.  (I, of course, am the exception...) 

The challenge for 2011: Charles Dickens.  So far, I've read 5 of his novels: Great Expectations, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol.  If I read 12 more of his novels (1/month) I will have read ALL of his novels.

So, in 2011 I will try to read:

The Pickwick Papers (Finished)

Martin Chuzzlewit  (Finished)

Nicholas Nickleby  (Finished)

Hard Times  (Finished)

Barnaby Rudge (Finished)

Christmas Books (The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, etc.)  (Finished)

Little Dorrit

The Old Curiousity Shop

Bleak House (Finished, January 4, 2012)

Our Mutual Friend

The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Finished)

Dombey and Son

.

NOTE:

Well, as you can see, I didn't read all 12 of the books on my list, but I did get through 7 of them in 2011, and one more-- Bleak House-- by January, 2012.  Considering most of the novels were 700-900 pages long, I think I did fairly well!

It's a fine day.  One of those days when everyone asks, "How are you?" and you answer, "Fine."

Really... fine.  No problems aside from the problem that it's Monday and Mondays suck.  Life goes on and round and you wonder what's the point and you want to quit everything but its 5 days to the weekend and 2 months to the next holiday and god help me I don't think I can make it that long.

I find myself wishing for a catastrophe.  Just so I'd have something to genuinely complain about.  Just so something would happen that didn't happen yesterday, and won't happen tomorrow.

I find myself wishing I was an alcoholic.  I'm not, and I would never drink at work, but I wish I was and I did.

I hate it when I complain and people offer solutions.  If I wanted advice I'd ask for it.  Complaining is not asking for advice.  I know the effing solutions already anyways.  Who doesn't?  Who ever really got advice that they hadn't already thought of? 

Being bored doesn't mean you have nothing to do.  Boredom and busy-ness are not mutually exclusive.  The most bored I've ever been is when I had a lot to do, but nothing fun to do.

It's just Monday.  It's just work-life.  The slow torturous death by a hundred thousand slivering seconds.  Ennui, nothing more.

A recent article in the New York Times described how entrepeneurs who wanted to start their own restaurants, but couldn't get a loan from a bank, turned to the Internet for investors.  The amount they borrowed in each case was tiny:  less than $20,000 in most cases.  But it's a trend with great growth potential.  What online shopping did to music and book stores, online financing may someday do to banks.

Everyone despises banks, and for good reason, especially after the recent financial crisis.  They charge borrowers high interest, and give depositors almost no interest-- just high service charges.  What if they could be circumvented?  What if you could get a mortgage, personal loan or small business loan from the public?  The borrower could pay lower interest, with more flexibility, while the lender could get a much higher return on their investment than if they just stuck the money in a savings account.   Of course, the risk would be higher, especially for the lender.  But the rewards would be greater, too.

The change is coming.  If banks are smart, they'll get ahead of the trend, and start their own direct loan websites.  If they don't... well, let's hope they don't.  I'd love to see the big banks go out of business.