Liquid Plumbr–Clearing The Pipes

There are just a few things I need to get out of my system. I hate to start a week this way–I think Monday mornings should be all positive and happy as we gird our loins for the days ahead. The sad thing is that my works are all gummed up and I have a few things I need to get off my chest. So I’m going to do that now, in hopes that my well-aired mind will be more productive.

So…here’s what’s bugging me.

1. Garanimal Tech
I’m a Mac Person. I used to be a command-line-interface person, back in the very early days of home computers. I loved the idea behind BASIC and UNIX–that feeling of having a dialog with your machine. It was actually good training for a writer because it taught precision in language; if you didn’t ask just right you wouldn’t get anywhere. But then once everything became GUI (Graphic User Interface), I became a Machead. Macs just work. They aren’t the sloppy bastard children that Windows machines are, jury-rigged to sort of get something done. I do have a problem with Mac, though, and that’s that I’m getting more than a little bit tired of all the animal cracker names. I’m trying to download some shareware (Calibre) and I’m faced with this non-information:

If you are using OS X Tiger or a PowerPC Mac, the last version of calibre that will work on your machine is 0.7.28, available here.

So does a Tiger come before a Panther or a Lion or whatever? Just give me ordinal numbers, numbers that tell me where in the set my product fits. Thank you.

2. Naked People

You cannot go into a McDonalds or a gas station without a shirt and a pair of shoes. Why, then, can you be all over my Kindle? Seriously, but seriously, I am so beyond tired of seeing naked people on book covers. I’ve written about this before, but it came up again last week when an author friend revealed his latest cover. More mantitty, more sexy dude trying to draw in readers. I don’t mind sex in books, actually. But I mind using overt sex to sell books. When I see shirtless men, scantily-clad women and naked couples in an embrace I feel like the publisher is treating me like cattle. They aren’t trying to appeal to me with story, with artwork. They figure that sex sells and so they’ll draw me in with the oldest trick in the book. I’m now boycotting all naked people covers automatically.

3. Changing Cover Art on Amazon

I didn’t mean for this all to be about books, because I realise I’ve been talking about books way too much lately. I’m like a girl with a crush on a celebrity when it comes to books. (“Things that rhyme with Cory”) But it’s a good topic that lets me ponder things without veering into polireligiocontroversial subjects. And anyway, this is a huge bother for me. I’ve been getting all my books on Kindle for several years now; when the book’s cover art changes with the latest edition, Amazon changes the cover art that my Kindle displays as well. This means that instead of the lovely, simple, enticing Game Of Thrones cover I started with two years ago I now have to look at the HBO Series Tie-In cover. I know it’s weird and all “get off my lawn” crazy grumpish, but I like my books to look like books–not ads for movies and TV. I wish there were a way for Amazon to let you pick your cover art.