Letters to Myself

I'd not mentioned this before (keeps slipping my mind), but: we got a robot. Or as they're packaged now, an iRobot, formerly known as a Roomba. We have named him Joe:

He does a reasonable job in keeping the downstairs clean. Ian thinks he's a bit noisy, unsurprisingly (he is basically a vacuum cleaner, after all) and the cats find him curious. They're probably wondering why he keeps running into walls, which is how he maps out where the walls are (Ian's not wondering, because he asked and we told him. The cats just weren't listening). Once he knows that, he doesn't bump into them anymore, he slows down as he approaches them. It's interesting to watch. Best of all, once he finishes the area he's set to clean, he goes back to his dock to recharge.

He does not pose well, unfortunately.

Reading: Sword and Sorceress VII, edited by the late Marion Zimmer Bradley. Found this on my shelf, and realized I'd never read it. So I am. Interesting to see the names in there I recognize (Hi Vera!).