Day: July 28, 2010

Night Mare

On By Michel McDonaldIn BooksLeave a comment

I’m having a nightmare, or really, I’m about to start reading Night Mare, the 6th installment in the Xanth series by Piers Anthony.

This next book begins with a character that was in the previous book, Ogre, Ogre.  Mare Imbrium along with 2 other night mares rode the trio out of the Void and took her payment of a half soul.  Here is the synopsis from the back of the book.

“The Nextwave of barbarian warriors was invading Xanth from the north, ravaging and destroying as they advanced. But Mare Imbrium had her own problems. Ever since she had gained the half soul, the night mare had begun to mishandle her job of delivering bad dreams. Now the Night Stallion dismissed her, exiling her to the day world with a message for King Trent: “Beware the Horseman!” She had no idea of what that meant. But that was the way with prophetic warnings, nobody could understand them until it was too late. Then she met the Horseman. And she discovered that one who would ride a night mare was a master of bit and spur, and not a man to surrender her. For the night mare, it began to be all a horrible nightmare!”

When I read the previous Xanth books, I read them little by little over time, some days I only read 1 chapter per day and other days I skipped reading.  I was into the books but not that much apparently because they made me sleepy.  But when I read Ogre, Ogre I was able to commit myself to reading more than 1 chapter per day.  In fact, I read the first chapter maybe in February then gave up until recently when I read the entire book in 3 days.

If I can read the entire book in 3 days then I have a feeling that maybe I can read half of the next book today and the other half tomorrow.

I only have 4 more Xanth novels in my queue, although there are 32 available for sale, I don’t own any of them so they are not all in my book queue.  I do plan on buying more but for now I have other books to read.

If you have not read the Xanth novels you are missing out on some great adventures.

Does Reading Cause Body Odor?

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, HealthLeave a comment

This morning I woke up, had breakfast, got in the shower then went about my day. I got on the computer, read email, did some work then had some free time to read the rest of my book “Ogre, Ogre”. That was the bulk of my activity.

When I went to watch some TV, I noticed some odd odor. I smelled my armpit and it was awful. I wouldn’t normally talk about my body odor but in this case it was unusual and unexpected and I didn’t know why it was happening so I did some research on why.

Apparently body odor is not caused by sweat alone. Everyone has these bacteria that live in certain body parts like the scalp, feet, groin and underarms. According to this site “The odor is mainly caused when the bacteria, growing on skin decomposes the sweat .” Well, I didn’t sweat and as I stated I had just taken a shower and used Degree deodorant which normally blocks any and all odors.

Here is a quote:

“While the eccrine glands are found all over the body, the apocrine glands are found in high concentration in the underarms and groins as well as in the glands. These apocrine glands are mainly stimulated by the worries, fear and tension. It is the secretion from apocrine gland which is generally decomposed by the bacteria and consequently it results in unpleasant body odor. There are several anaerobic bacteria like micrococci and coryne bacteria that decompose the odorless sweat to produce an unpleasant odor.”

You know that the saying “you learn something new every day” still rings true. I did not know that “worries, fear and tension” would ever be the reason I have underarm odor. I always thought that came from sweating.

But what was causing me to worry? The only thing I can think of is that this book was causing me to have more emotions than normal. Meaning I was so enthralled in the book that it was causing worries, fear and tension. I was fearful when Smash the Ogre was fighting the other ogres and when he was fighting the demon and that was also causing some tension. I don’t necessarily think I had fear because I know that every book ends happily ever after so I knew they would be fine.

You know now that I think about it, when I was reading all 7 Harry Potter books, at the end of the day I wreaked to high heaven and had to take showers when I finished reading. I never even thought about why. Now I know.

Maybe if I continue reading I’m going to have to buy some more Degree in bulk. Maybe they might come out with a Degree for readers instead of just Degree for Sports.