Well, it's that time again, time for a public post. No solicitors.

I spent the early part of the year reading relatively little, and the later part reading a bunch, thanks to my newfound friends at http://www.goodreads.com . My favorites in bold.

The Dragon Waiting - John M. Ford
Rats: Observations on the History... - Robert Sullivan
Arc d'X - Steve Erickson
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
The Debt to Pleasure - John Lanchester
Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett
Lost Japan - Alex Kerr
The Roads to Sata - Alan Booth
The Ghost Map - Steven Johnson
A World at the End of Time - Frederik Pohl
The Santaroga Barrier - Frank Herbert
The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes - Mark Frost
Hokkaido Highway Blues - Will Ferguson
Sixty Days and Counting - Kim Stanley Robinson
Pictures from the Water Trade - John David Morley
Island of the Sequined Love Nun - Christopher Moore
The Ladies of Grace Adieu - Susannah Clarke
Rollback - Robert J. Sawyer
Sarah Canary - Karen Joy Fowler
Why I am Not a Christian - Bertrand Russell
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Tours of the Black Clock - Steve Erickson
Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman
Elvenbane - Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey
The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith - Josephine Saxton
Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
The Pesthouse - Jim Crace
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa - Karin Muller
Speed Tribes: Days and Nights With Japan's Next Generation - Karl Taro Greenfeld
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
Confessions of a Yakuza: A Life in Japan's Underworld - Junichi Saga
The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon
Bad Monkeys - Matt Ruff
Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology - John Kessel, ed.
The Terror - Dan Simmons
Fiskadoro - Denis Johnson
God is Dead - Ron Currie, Jr.
The Areas of my Expertise - John Hodgman
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field - Kary Mullis
Flyboy Action Figures Comes with Gas Mask - Jim Munroe
The Children's Hospital - Chris Adrian
The Raw Shark Texts - Steven Hall
Axis - Robert Charles Wilson
Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, PA - Renee Jacobs
The San Veneficio Canon - Michael Cisco
Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick - Lawrence Sutin
Bridge of Birds - Barry Hughart
Making Money - Terry Pratchett
The Life and Death of Planet Earth - Donald Brownlee
Soldier of Sidon - Gene Wolfe
Stranger Things Happen - Kelly Link
Fatal Revenant - Stephen R. Donaldson
Forever Peace - Joe Haldeman
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - Max Brooks
Gentlemen of the Road - Michael Chabon
Schulz and Peanuts - David Michaelis
Old Man's War - John Scalzi
Mister B. Gone - Clive Barker
The Japan Journals - Donald Richie
Confessions of a Mask - Yukio Mishima
The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby

geez, i read a lot this year.

As for my favorite, it's hard for me to choose. The Hughart book was surprising and wonderful; the Wolfe was awesome (but all of his books are awesome, and this was a sequel). The Murakami I've already quoted in my userinfo. Ultimately I have to go with The Children's Hospital because out of all these books I think back to it at least every other day. Also, I hope someone else other than myself will read the damn thing.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I now have my 2002 book list. As always, the best are in bold.

( Read more... )

This will be the fourth year, not counting my now-nonexistent lists for GothicPlanet, in which I have made up a list of the best books I read this year. As time has worn on, I've learned that I mostly do this for myself. Such is life.

( Read more... )

Some might say it's a tad early, but I have some free time and nothing else to talk about.

Herein you will find a list of everything I read this year that I can heartily recommend to everyone. I have emboldened the cream of the crop. I read a lot of good non-genre fiction this year, it seems.

The Sleepwalkers - Arthur Koestler (nonfiction)
The Wizard - Gene Wolfe
The Complete Bone - Jeff Smith
An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears
The Book of Illusions - Paul Auster
Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan
Time Out of Joint - Philip K. Dick
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Oracle Night - Paul Auster
Flow My Tears the Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick
Exultant - Stephen Baxter
Venus - Ben Bova
Galileo's Daughter - Dava Sobel (nonfiction)
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson (nonfiction)
Set This House in Order - Matt Ruff
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci - Jonathan Spence (nonfiction)
Mythago Wood - Robert Holdstock
Twisty Little Passages - Nick Montfort (nonfiction)
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
The Third World War - General Sir John Hackett (semi-nonfiction)
The Double Helix - James Watson (nonfiction)
Collapse - Jared Diamond (nonfiction)
Olympos - Dan Simmons
For Want of a Nail - Robert Sobel (semi-nonfiction)
The Demon in the Freezer - Richard Preston (nonfiction)
Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold
Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson
Bloodsucking Fiends - Christopher Moore
and lastly
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susannah Clarke

Most of the really good books came earlier in the year...

I realise that this will sound awfully dour...

I have, throughout my entire life, had the bad habit of either leaving my friends behind geographically or socially. 99 times out of 100 it's unintentional. I wish that I were better at keeping my loved ones nearby. All of you here now, stay close, one way or another. As for the others...

Bryon, Nick, Suzan, Terry, Quinton, David, Asif, Giorgos, Thomas, Charles, Pat, Kate, Markus, Tim, Victor, Katie, Kim, Amy, Beth, Millee, Heather, Jack, Jeff, Lizz, Loren, Madeline, David, Jere, Chelcy, Cat, Marilyn, Jordana, Anthony, Julia, Wes, Deidre, Jamie, Anthony, Mike, Elizabeth, Melanie, Victoria, Agne, Omar, Amy, Chris, and Aaron

I wish you were here.

Sure, let's update my earlier post.

I called my super, who lives in my building too, to complain about the noise.

Apparently my neighbors said it was me... to which I said, 'Well, I went to bed a couple of hours before...'

I'm not interested in further interaction with immature, petty and stupid people (neighbors), but I still have to pack and move this week, so I will do my best not to stress about it. Since I no longer need to SLEEP in my OWN APARTMENT thanks to a loving girlfriend, it's not a big issue, but I feel badly for my cat, who will have to hang out alone at night for a little bit.

If she has food and water and a clean box, I doubt she cares so much.

... I started Dead Souls by Gogol today. Still not much time to read.

I saw Chocolat and Below over the weekend and both were good. Upcoming Netflix business includes more SFU, The Straight Story, and Sister My Sister. rabiderpixie, add me to your Netflix friends list. It is easy! I am awfully opinionated there, as opposed to elsewhere. ;)

An early post, short version:

I had a great weekend, but my weekend ended abruptly at, say, 12:30 at night. My current next-door neighbors were... either pacing the floor in high-heel shoes or bouncing billiard balls off the floor. Somehow I managed to fall asleep.

At 2:30 am they started playing music. (???) I pound on the wall hoping I don't have to actually leave the apt. No change. Pound again. No change. Put on robe and walk down the hall, knock on door. No answer. Knock on door. No answer. Go back, befuddled.

Decided to go to kaiann's place to sleep. Before we leave, she pounds the wall a good pounding since they're jerks and I guess she knocked something off their wall because the neighbor, the one with the scrawny aggro dog, goes apeshit.

I guess that's karma.

I'm calling the landlord anyway today to complain. He likes me; he didn't want me to move. I don't care that I am moving... this is just uncalled for. I don't want to have to avoid my psycho neighbor, but then again, I won't be there many more days/nights...

Today's dilemma - and trust me, it's not an important one.

I won a Marvel Legends Hawkeye figure on eBay. These figures, which normally fit into a USPS Priority Mail box, weigh maybe 2 pounds max. eBay's shipping calculator insists that to ship this figure this way from Indianapolis costs $20. USPS's website, which I find to be reliable, says $5.

So if the seller insists on getting $20 to ship the thing, I'm backing out. I've never, ever had to pay that much to receive similar items.

Not that I expect to find myself in such a situation, but is this something I can report to eBay - sellers gouging buyers on shipping costs?

(it doesn't even cost $20 if you EXPRESS SHIP the figure!)

EDIT: email received from seller; he's okay with shipping regular USPS mail at a lower cost.

It's the 25th anniversary of Pac-Man. Combine that with my quest for a trackball and you get a big urge to post... ARCADE MEMORIES...

I'm at a loss to remember my first arcade memory, but I DO remember Frontier Lanes in Lewiston NY, the bowling alley built on the side of a hill, and the smoky lounge therein, and Pole Position and Dig Dug among others.

I remember Aladdin's Castle in Summit Park Mall, and playing Mario Bros, Gyruss, Crossbow...

I remember numerous birthday parties at Showbiz Pizza Place - including my own - and pockets full of tokens and being on cloud nine for hours. (I also remember losing my retainer, just like in 'Parenthood'. Art imitates life!)

I remember playing Gauntlet with all four people, for hours.

I remember seeing Chiller in an arcade in rural Alabama and being amazed such a thing existed.

I remember sucking at Dragon's Lair. Ohwait, I still suck at it.

I remember watching other people play it.

I remember as I got older I still loved walking into the arcade, drawn in by the siren song of attract modes...

I remember being awestruck at any new game, even the lousy ones. Even Holosseum.

I remember wasting a lot of in-between-classes time at Georgia Tech watching other people play SF2, NBA Jam, Time Killers. Boy, I loved Time Killers.

I remember being unbeatable at Samurai Shodown 2.

Arcades hardly exist anymore. Fat City, Dave and Busters... it's not the same. Too many huge games, too much 'virtual reality', nothing really offbeat and strange. The Manitou Springs arcade is nice, even with the 'elephant's graveyard' feeling I get from it.

I still dream of the ultimate arcade, every year or so. Like in the movies, just bigger.

Feel free to post your own arcade memories! I'm all curious now.

We're seeing a large spike in the incidence of parainfluenza-3, aka the croup, so it would not surprise me if that's what I have. Or had, as I am feeling much better today. :)

I am blessed to have a girlfriend who appreciates my love of action figures, for in addition to having Doctor Strange, I also now have Deathlok (who comes with Galactus' chest). I need to look up Deathlok online, though, as I don't have a single comic of his!

I did not do a lot yesterday, apart from re-entering a bunch of comics (in this case, Green Lantern) into my database. It's slow going but I like this sort of thing.

Lately I have not read much, but I have been plowing away at The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, which is both a history of 16th-century China and the study of a Jesuit monk's mnemonic abilities. Also, The Saxon Shore keeps me busy. I imagine that once I move and settle down, I will have more time to read.

My creeping crud is a fast mover - throat Monday, hoarse voice Tuesday, hacking cough today. I would really love to go home...

I watched Testament last night; I suppose it is an effectsless, makeupless The Day After. Extremely depressing. The DVD comes with a PSA from John Ashcroft, which I skipped when I realised they weren't going to just show a clip and ridicule him.

I gave up on the notion of a serial-port trackball and am pursuing a USB trackball instead. That way, I know it will work, and I can play Centipede / Crystal Castles / Crossbow / other games that start with C. Also '720'. :)

That is what I feel like this morning. I'm sick with something throaty, probably similar to what _asphodel_ described when we saw her at Whole Foods last night. ugh. Sadly, I am at work, because I skipped not long ago and I can still function, just slowly.

We put together Ann's coffee table last night - the one with a duplicate part, which Matthew, the manager of Cost Plus, gladly replaced after removing said part from the floor model in a half-hour fit of unbolting. He also gave Ann 10% of the cost back. That's customer service! We did not do much after that apart from buying groceries, administering to my sicky, and watching Finding Neverland, which was enjoyable. I am also the God of Hanging Curtain Rods.

My landlord tried to get me to stay in my old place with a (presumed) offer of lower rent, but it's too late, and I'm too sick of my dripping shower. :D

There is a Narnia trailer available online. I cannot watch it at work. Everyone go now and find it and brag. I'll understand. :(

This weekend was crazy! Friday was the aforementioned Rasputina show (socks rocked). Saturday we moved kaiann into her new apartment, a venture both great and painful. In attendance: myras_girls, koumori, nassir, fairydarling, erthdic and later on phillbri with the save in the afternoon. Hours of loading and unloading and climbing stairs were capped off first with a madcap race to return the U-Haul on time, and then a trek to Double Daughters for much libation and pizza. hondovious and cobaltamber came by, and we also met up with razour and her friends Amoreena (sp?) and Rebecca, who probably have journals but I don't know for sure.

Sunday we slept til noon. Upon waking, we went on a spree to outfit the new apartment, visiting Cost Plus, BB&B, and Target, spending an unusual amount of 'phantom cash'. I got some crystallized ginger and the Marvel Legends Doctor Strange figure, proving that Target does, in fact, stock ML figures, it's not a myth. This particular series, if completed, lets you make a scale Galactus. I have one arm so far, and I already have a Galactus, but it's 10 years old and poorly articulated ;)

My biggest gripe about the spree is that Ann bought a very nice coffee table at Cost Plus, but once we inventories the parts, we had duplicate doors, making it impossible to even start the table. I hope they let us switch it out for the proper part, considering how much she picked up there.

Today... recovery, of course.

Carnivale is no more. :P

Rasputina rocked my socks completely off. They were faboo. They covered Wish You Were Here, which pleased us to no end. I wanted to hear Thimble Island but since I knew that the encore would have High on Life I just waited for that. Damn.

Today we move kaiann. I must wake up!

I'm groggy and the coffee's not helping!!! Zut alors!

I never did post a real post about the show, so here goes.

For the most part we were in a little group with mikeatchley, mahashel, koumori, twistedoblivion and mentalswitch. The Dolls kicked ass and I was quite glad I shelled out the money just for them. I'm glad the audience (near me at least) were not dicks... okay, not dicks for their set. After that ended we trudged up to the merch area and met Amanda and Brian and although I couldn't hear a word they said I grinned like an idiot. Amanda drew spikey hair on the front just for me. :D

NIN was also good but I quickly got sick of the crowd and their endless wandering, but I guess that's the nature of the beast. I was less excited about NIN than 99% of the crowd, but I still enjoyed myself.

Yesterday I was mad productive - watched Justice League and saw the Suicide Squad (WHICH ROCKED - Captain Boomerang, Deadshot and Plastique versus Shining Knight, Vigilante and Atom Smasher. too. fanboy. squee.), two eps of Six Feet Under, and logged a few hundred comics back into Comicbase since I lost the database file reformatting my hard drive. At least this way I can actually verify what I own as I am strangely missing a few books.

Rasputina tonight. Very excited about that.

The new roommate will be

nassir

Prepare yourselves one and all for a RAMPAGE

I'll comment on the show later. I'm glad I saw people before, people after, and people during... too many to list at the moment.

Early... still processing the fact that I'm seeing Dresden Dolls and NIN tonight...

For those who went last night, about when did DD go on stage?

And for those going tonight, when/where are people meeting up? I have an eye appointment at 3:30, so I can't do anything too obscenely early.

And to think, all this time, I felt my Netflix queue was large.

Never again, now that I can see my friends' entire queues. yikes!

After the aforementioned 'Testament', due up: Below, Suicide Club, Bubba Ho-Tep.

Today: piddle around and get my NIN ticket from Jason

Tuesday: piddle around, give Lisa a ride to Target

Wednesday: NIN / Dresden Dolls, eye appt, get contacts

Thursday: off from work, recover from show, get basket from Jude, go to library

Friday: Rasputina

Saturday/Sunday: help Ann move


Wednesday... very busy, obviously.

I vanished this weekend and consequently had a super great weekend. I saw The Incredibles, Hitchhiker's Guide, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, the last two episodes of Doctor Who, and the new Family Guy, and those who know me well know which part of the show made me SQUEAL with GLEE. (hint: Bill Ratner)

(in retrospect I could watch that one part ten more times)

The only other thing to mention is that at last I won Ultima IX on eBay. I've owned it before, and won it, but I want it again now that my PC can genuinely support the game, as buggy as it may be.

As I wage through the last bits of Gormenghast, my Netflix queue is seeing some movement at last. Nice rhyme, huh. Six Feet Under Season 2 disc 1 first, then The Triplets of Belleville and Testament, which is apparently some post-nuclear apocalypse movie with Kevin Costner. It's news to me, too, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. If it sucks, you'll hear it here first.

Yesterday I helped kaiann score a new apartment, Cap Hill, super nice place with a secure garage for super cheap. We also dropped by Whole Foods and went through desertstarchild's line. :)

This is an advance heads-up comment, but the way things look I will need some help moving PROBABLY on May 28, the day before CDAF. I figure that's better than... well... CDAF Day, or Memorial Day. Anyone with a truck is welcome as I'll have a bulky entertainment center, a sofa, and a queen mattress. (those are the only big things) I'll post about it again, though.

Didn't do crap yesterday. Thought you'd like to know.

Actually, I cleaned and watched another Gormenghast episode, and tried to watch Cradle Will Fall, but realised I don't have the attention span these days and decided to send it back until such time as I can sit still and watch it. In return I will be gifted from Netflix with SFU Season 2 Disc 1.

Lesson learned from Gormenghast: don't get eaten alive by owls.

Lunch with fairydarling today! I almost typed fairlydarling. How cute.

Quickly before bed...

'Howl's Moving Castle' was beyond description. Not as dark as Princess Mononoke, not as innocently sweet as Spirited Away, but better than both in some ways, and utterly magical.

I feel so privileged to have been able to see it... the first time :D

EDIT: The film opens June 10th.

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/castle/