first of all, thank you all for the kind thoughts you sent my way earlier. This is a very strange day for me, very emotional but also unpredictable. I took the day off work because I really didn't know how I'd feel and whether I could cope or not. I've been okay. A bit melancholy I guess, but okay.

I did spend quite a lot of time today trying to keep my mind active, not to focus on things, I did a little bit of graphics work this morning for rileysaplank (I haven't done anything more since then Andy - sorry); I coded a bit more content for the new site and tried to get the php elements to work properly (I'm almost there with that); and I read the Da Vinci Code. I'm not that impressed.

I studied linguistics and semiology, I've been fascinated with symbols and symbology for years and you'd think this would be a book that I'd be all over. Kinda. I giuess. Except... there's a lot of importance given to translations and word games - the whole Sangreal/San Greal/Sang Real thing - but some of the translations are really awkward. Not any of the important plot device translations, just the average conversations with the french police for example, just shows a lack of research I guess.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, it revealed a whole lot of fascinating stuff - the revelation about Da Vinci's Last Supper blew me away to be honest - but it just felt... like a let-down.

*shrug*

It's an okay read, if you like that sort of thing, but get it from a library or borrow a friend's copy. It's not really worth buying.

(and just as I was choosing an icon for this post I realised I had the perfect one in place already...)

Edit I knew there was something else that irritated me about the book. There's a stereotyped librarian in there (the first thing she's described doing is making tea for crying out loud, just put her in a twinset and pearls and have done with it!) who runs a database search for a search string containing six keywords. It takes 15 minutes. What the hell kinda database was she running the search on? I run search strings of up to 50 keywords on a weekly basis and if the whole thing (for eight strings) takes longer than five minutes then I'm doing something very wrong.

Gah!