Book meme

Tagged by LL, I will do the deed since I LOVE to read.  So...

I am at sea and the nearest book happens to be my work bible.  Seismic Data Analysis: Processing, Inversion and interpretation of Seismic Data, written by the one and only, the master and all-knowing God of Geophysics, Oz Yilmaz. Page 56, 5th through 8th sentences:

For example, migration moves the spatially aliased frequency components in the wrong direction and generates a dispersive noise that degrades the quality of the migrated section.

How is spatial aliasing avoided?  Compare the sections in Figures 1.2-8 and 1.2-9. Both have the same frequency content, 6 to 42 Hz.

Yes, well, if you were me, that passage would send chills down your spine.  The effects of spatial aliasing on migration can be devastating.

And on to seven weird book facts about me.  What's weird, anyway?  I read like a heroin junkie shoots.  By the way, does that sentence date me?  Should I have said coke fiend, or meth head?  Whatever.

1. I read for pleasure at about 2000 words per minute, or faster than Evelyn wood, who made a living teaching speed reading to the masses.  With the average paperback novel having about 440 words per page that's nearly 5 pages a minute.  If it's a really good book, I'm at 5-6 pages/minute, easy.  That is, by the way, with nearly 100% retention.  I took a college reading class in high school and was tested for this stuff.  My first assignment?  Extrapolate all the tables and graphs designed to measure our progress, so that they included my reading speeds.

2.  I read everything.  Books, manuals, cereal boxes, labels, patent numbers, license plates, serial numbers, encyclopedias, dictionarys, addresses, you name it. I've consumed 4 different encyclopedia sets, 2 dictionarys, cover-to-cover and read the bible, twice, as a novel.  It's like an addiction and if I don't have book in front of me, the electrical information printed on the transformer of my rechargeable beard trimmer is like methadone.

3. 90% of my reading is still Sci-Fi/Fantasy.  Sci-Fi just does it for me.  It's one thing to tell a story, it's quite another to tell a story and build an entire world, or universe and fundamental, physical laws that it lives in and must obey.  I've got a soft spot for Roger Zelazny's Amber series (some of the first Sci-Fi/Fantasy I've ever read), but Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn series is probably my all-time favorite.  You just can't beat something akin to Foundation meets Dawn of the Dead for sheer entertainment.

4. There are several books and series of books that I have read more than 20 times.

5. I rarely read single books due to the amount and speed at which I consume them.  I always look for a series.  Another reason to read Sci-Fi.

6. At age 6 I could not read a word and began first grade as the worst reader in the class.  The best reader happened to be a rather cute girl I fancied.  Before the school year was up, I had read the complete set of encyclopedias at home, was light years ahead of everyone in the class and the girl was mine.  It only takes the proper motivation, I guess.

7.  I have a rather deep belly button, which you've seen up-close if you've been reading since I shattered my sternum.  It collects an enormous amount of fuzz.  I've been known to use it as a bookmark, in a pinch.

And for the librarians who have put up with me over the years..

8.  I read every single book in my elementary and jr. high libraries.   I was banned from checking out books in both before leaving those schools, due to the number of books I lost:(  The same thing happened with my public library after my fines topped 300 dollars one year.  I used to skip school to sit in the library,ing read and I've also gotten, drunk, high, laid and puked in a library.

There, more than you want, or need to know about me and my books.  I hate to tag people, but I happen to know that Blondie is quite the reader and she's turned me on to a couple of wonderful books so I'll tag her.  Consider yourself tagged, Blondie.