Beauty and the Beast...

Friday my computer contracted a virus so bad that I had to do a complete system recovery. It kind of sucked.

Now I have all the work of getting a new computer to where I like it, without actually having a new computer.

On the plus side, even though the system recovery deleted iTunes from my computer, it didn't delete my music files, so I haven't had to do any work as far as recovering my music library. That's nice. Of course, I still have to go through and redo my ratings for songs and find album artwork for many songs. That's kind of a drag. Oh well.

Money has been kind of tight recently, and I've been trying to watch what I spend it on. Of course, when money is tight, this is when Borders sends me 40% off coupons in my email. That's the one coupon I can't ignore. It's just too good a deal. On top of that, I recently earned $5 in Borders Bucks, which I would need to use by the end of the month anyway.

So I went book shopping.

I didn't really expect to find anything I really wanted. I was wrong. At the Borders at the north end of University Avenue I found the Starman omnibus. A very nice hardback collection of 17 issues of the very highly regarded Starman comic book series published by DC Comics. I've wanted to read this for a while, and with my two discounts I managed to save $25 off the cover price.

Now I know what I'm going to be spending my "extra" money on for the next while. I know there are at least 3 volumes out, and a total of six planned.

This is an absolutely beautiful work of literature. And I haven't ever used the word beautiful to describe a comic book before. I don't think I've even used it to describe any sort of book before. It's that amazing.

Normally, when I read a book, I blaze right through. I read really fast, and it annoys me sometimes. With Starman, I find myself slowing down, savoring the words written on the page. Enjoying the emotions. I haven't been moved to tears, but it wouldn't surprise me if that happened a couple times down the line.

How's that for a jump? From something I've never read to being my favorite comic book series.

I can't wait to read more.