Month: January 2007

Reading 2006

I have been keeping track of which books I have read since June of 2001. Originally it was something I was doing to try and curb my book buying habit. I’d promised myself that I’d only buy a book if I’d read 5 (or was that 10?) that I already owned. It didn’t work out too well – I still bought books despite the agreement. But it did get me in the habit of recording my read books.

A couple of years ago I saw some of my LJ friends had tried to read 50 books in one year. That sounded, to me, to be a noble goal. Now, compared to some folks in my family (mom, dad, my dearly departed Granny) 50 books in one year is a mere drop in the bucket. But it sounded reasonable to me. However, 2004 and 2005 eluded me. I’d get into the 40s, but never reach 50. But then came 2006! Although I never quite managed my 2006 goal of reading at least 30 min every day, I still wound up reading 54 books. Go me!

Before you start picturing me with 1000 page novels and stuff, I will admit that I do read children’s books as well as novels and science books. And yes, some comic graphic novels or the equivalent are present. That I don’t mine – reading is reading and I’m glad to be doing it. I still don’t think I’m doing as much as I’d could. I blame my addiction to City of Heroes for that.

The funny thing is that, despite my great number read last year, I’ve yet to finish a book this year. Whoops! I’m almost done with two of them – People of the Fire by the Gears and a Murder She Wrote novel which is in my purse. And I’ve got a few short reads that I received at Christmas which I might be able to get read before January is over. So I could well get back on schedule. And I’m hoping that, if I ever get my bookshelves started, much less finished, I’ll have even more reason to read. I’ll have a lovely library to read in. 🙂

Rather than include all 54 books that I’ve read, I’ll choose a few to discuss. A few notables: mom has gotten me hooked on a Nora Roberts trilogy, the one with the vampires (The Circle Trilogy) for those of you familiar with her work. She’s still waiting on book 3 from her friend and then she’ll loan it to me. 🙂 Also I was fortunate to not really have any clunkers in the selection this year. Two of them were very dry (in fact, the Quantum World was a book I’d started a couple of years ago and FINALLY finished in August), however.

2006 marked the end of the BBC Doctor Who books with past Doctors, and Atom Bomb Blues was the final one. Rather fitting to end with the 7th Doctor, especially one written by Andrew Cartmel. I enjoyed the books, but it did make me nostalgic for the days when Doc7 ruled the books and clever plots & characters were showing up every month. Thank you Virgin Publishing for keeping the flame burning during the dark times! 🙂

Speaking of the 7th Doctor, if you’d like to see a character somewhat based upon him, check out The Dying Days by Shannon Patrick Sullivan. I will admit I tend to look for roles to cast Sylvester McCoy in when reading books (and other actors I enjoy watching). And in this book, he slipped in perfectly. I checked with Shannon and he admitted that the character was inspired by Sylv’s 7th Doctor. But don’t worry, the character has his own special characteristics too – it’s not a rip off by any means. The novel itself was very enjoyable – a wonderful first novel. I’m hoping Shannon continues with his characters and setting in future novels.

I borrowed Life of Pi from Rachel when I was visiting her & Amy this summer. This is one of those books which I’ll remember for a very long time. Pi Patel is a fun character, which is good because you spend most of the book alone with him and a tiger on a boat in the ocean. The ending was the bit I liked least about it, but others have said that’s the part they like the most.

2006 was also notable for finally ending the Series of Unfortunate Events. This children’s series was entertaining, silly, stupid, and fun. I’m glad there was an End to it. Prolific authors will be my downfall (take a bow Terry Pratchett). Lemony Snickett should probably have his head examined. 😉

Speaking of children’s series, I read more of Philip Ardagh‘s work this year. (I’d been hoping they’d put out more audio books as read by Sylvester McCoy, but it never happened. So I bought the books & read ’em myself.) The House McNally series just didn’t work for me as well as the Eddie Dickens books have. And the second Eddie Dickens trilogy was almost as fun as the first trilogy. But like the McNally books, the third book of the series just didn’t entertain me as much. Not sure why. Maybe someday I’ll figure it out.

Other books that I read this year which I’d recommend to all: The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley (I’d recommend it over the movie), the Nursery Crime series by Jasper Fforde (I’m enjoying those books more than the Thursday Next ones).

So, 2007, let’s see about another 50 books or so!

Why don’t cats get bedhead and other musings…

Today, Saturday the 13th, has been a nice lazy day. Indeed, around 2ish I had a sinus headache and decided to go take a nap. When I got to the bed, the kitties had anticipated Nap Time and were already snoozing on the bed. As soon as I got in bed, they both moved to be closer to me. Awwww.

Anyhoo, we discovered that the bed had become something of a black hole because none of us could escape for over 2 hours. No matter, we all had nice sleeps. And I don’t think they were ready for getting up, but they did anyway.

It was as I was getting up that I realized that I had bedhead but the kittens didn’t. They never get it. Even Leo, with his long fur, never got bedhead. Lucky cats! And it’s not like they ever have to go out in public and embarrass themselves with bedhead. (Well, I wasn’t going out either, so it was all moot today.)

So, have you ever had a time when two of your “fandoms” overlapped in interesting ways? There are times when City of Heroes and Doctor Who overlap. Sometimes it’s just me. “So who looks at a Vortex Core Leonis and says ‘this could be more sonic?'” I ponder every time I see a Sonic Vortex Core Leonis. And I want to say “Are you my mummy?” every time I see Terrance Dobbs in City of Villains.

However, yesterday I had the option to rescue the Hand of Omega. (Or rather, Hand of 0mega – a zero instead of an o.) And since there have been times when I’ve been asked to beat up Davros (or was that kidnap?) I think someone in CoH/CoV might have a passing knowledge of Doctor Who.

I ended up not taking the mission, however, because I hate fighting the Circle of Thorns. In hindsight, I wish I had if only to see if the Hand of 0mega looked like a big black coffin… 😉

Movie Reviews

You’d think that owning over 300 DVDs means never having to go to the rental store. While it’s true that I don’t usually frequent the rental place, I decided to do this on Friday. I’d finally gotten around to renewing my driver’s license (though not as late this year as last time I renewed) and decided I’d pick up some movies and lo mein on the way back. So, what flicks did I rent this time out?

Thank You for Smoking: I had recently purchased the book at a buy 2 get 1 free sale and enjoyed it. Funny and cynical – my kind of humor. I think they did a nice job with the movie, though there were some bits that I missed from the book. It wound up being the second favorite of the batch that I rented.

A Prairie Home Companion: I’m not sure what I was expecting with this movie, but whatever it was, it wasn’t what I got. It was more fantasy than I was expecting and just wasn’t that funny for me. Oh, there were some funny bits, but it wasn’t funny enough… Or something. My interest in the flick kept waning and I spent some of the time playing with my Robopet and the kitties. (The kitties still haven’t figured out what to make of it.)

Checking Out: I’ve been a Peter Falk fan for many years now, so it surprised me that there was a recent(ish) Peter Falk movie out there that I didn’t know about. Of course, as soon as I saw it in the rental store, I had to rent it. (And yes, I’ll admit, if they had it for sale used, I’d’ve bought it sight unseen.) This movie wound up being my favorite of the batch. Falk is wonderfully eccentric (wow – so unusual for him! 😉 Heh). He plays a man about to turn 90 who invites his family and many friends to a huge birthday bash – which he’ll follow up by killing himself. His three grown kids (all with fun dysfunctional relationships) then have to work together to talk him out of suicide. It was funny, the acting good, and I’ll have to find this used at some point… 🙂

Napoleon Dynamite: Students of mine have been recommending this film for some time, but I’ve only gotten around to renting it. Well, as with Prairie Home Companion, it wasn’t all that funny for me. Yup, it’s happened – what my students find funny is not the same as what I find funny… I’m getting old! 🙂

Snakes on a Plane: OK, so I just couldn’t resist renting this. I knew it was going to be silly & far fetched, but I thought “Samuel L Jackson battling snakes?” and decided “Hell yeah!” This film was more like what I was expecting and it was very silly and quite violent. Will I ever watch it again? Probably not, unless I was with lots of friends and we were taking the piss out of it. But I did enjoy the ridiculous violence and swearing.

Apart from movie watching, I’ve wasted far too much time doing f*** all. Hate when I get into moods like this where a little productivity could go a long way, but I don’t actually do anything productive. Ah well, at least I’ll have clean sheets tonight (doing laundry right now at least).

Shangri-La

Back in October, I promised dark_pheonix a photo of Sylv for her birthday. I searched through my collection looking for something unique and just didn’t find “the one.” And as always happens, I eventually forgot about my quest. (Glad I haven’t been picked the find the Holy Grail or anything… Or maybe I have and I’ve forgotten about it…)

Anyhoo, the other day I was looking for a new background for my computer when I sorted through my “raw” scans (huge 600dpi+ files which I haven’t edited yet for wallpaper) and found “the one.” So, I present for dark_pheonix and other folks who enjoy a bit of Sylv, The Shangri-La Doctor!

Bridge Contest 2007

As of Wednesday, school is back in session. I had a lovely time with my family and friend’s this holiday season. Indeed, the folks, Amy, Rachel and I spent Tuesday out shopping. We started with lunch at Sakai, the new Japanese place in Troy. Sushi for all (and some chicken cutlet for dad too). We tried many different types of sushi and rolls and enjoyed it. I love California roll, especially with crab salad, but I also love ebi sushi (steamed shrimp) and various tuna rolls and sushis. We discovered that the yellow tail roll that I got didn’t taste as good as the other items on the table, but I think that was the only real loser of the bunch.

Shopping started at Kohl’s and moved onto to the bookstore in Troy. I spent some of my birthday money there (for Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett and American Gods by Neil Gaiman) and also bought everyone coffee or tea at the coffee shop which is in the bookstore. I had a caramel steamer and it was very yummy. We finished up there and then moved onto the Piqua mall. I returned the leather jacket which I’d received for Christmas but which didn’t fit. Despite checking every store in the mall that might carry one, we just couldn’t find a nice replacement for that jacket. Perhaps mom and I will find one another day out. Still, I was able to complete my birthday purchase by getting The Beatles Love.

When we returned home, we had Wine Time which wound up sating us all for supper too. Alas, I had to work the next day and miss out one some quality A&R time, but I gotta be making the money to buy food for my kitties! So Wednesday morning, I got up bright and early for work.

The full week before Christmas break, my seniors were building bridges using only toothpicks and glue. (They also had Monday & Tuesday of our last half week to finish up.) Yesterday, we tested them. The bridges had to span a 30cm opening and at least hold the bucket. And all of them did that. Then the students were to add up to 15kg (~33 lbs) of mass into the bucket. Normally bridges break before the full 15kg is added, but this year we did have one bridge that held the maximum! Indeed, the girls who built this bridge wound up with the highest efficiency (mass held divided by mass of bridge). It held 550+ times its own mass! Pretty impressive!

I had dad drop off my camera because I’d forgotten to bring it that morning, so I managed to get a few photos in. And since my camera can do video, I tried to video some of the bridges breaking. Alas, my timing was off and I usually ran out of video time mere seconds before the bridge actually broke. (My camera does videos in 15 second segments – and doesn’t record sound.) However, I managed to capture the last two bridges that we tested as they broke. And I have uploaded one of them to YouTube for your enjoyment!

This bridge managed to hold quite a bit before it broke. Off hand, I can’t remember how much, but I believe it was around 7 kg. I was quite pleased with all of the bridge performances. And it was interesting to see the different techniques students had to add their masses to the bucket. As one student said “I think I used more physics to place the masses than I did in building the bridge!”

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, after welcoming in the new year, eventually judiang and I got off to bed. I shut the kitties in with me to allow Judi to get some sleep, but that meant that Linus (I swear, someone must have let him drink something caffeinated!) ran around in my room keeping me & Lucy up rather than keeping Judi up. He settled down sometime after 2:30am and we all fell asleep.

Around 6:30am, I let the kitties out in case they wanted breakfast or to do their business. Linus bugged Judi a little, but then he returned to me and we all fell asleep again. I got up sometime after 9am and made my way next door on the rumor that there would be cinnamon rolls there. The rumor was right!

As folks slowly made their way into M&D’s kitchen, we put HDTV on to watch the making of Rose Parade special and then the parade itself. I peeled potatoes for mashed taters while I watched. I wasn’t worried about missing too much of the parade since my computer was supposedly recording it. But an investigation around noon showed that my computer had just recently rebooted. Crap! So I’ve no idea how much of the parade that I have. I’ll make a DVD for watching later.

Mom had invited her brothers and their families for New Year’s Day lunch (pork and kraut, an Anderson family tradition). But before folks were to arrive, I had to feed Judi and then drive her off to the airport. In fact, we had just finished lunch (first lunch for me) as Aunt Madeline and Uncle Bob arrived. We said our hullos and good byes and I took Judi off to Dayton International. Seeing as she’s currently on IRC, I think she got home OK. 🙂

I returned home and it was still just Madeline and Bob. They were starting on desert, so I started on second lunch. It was just as good as first lunch was. Pork, kraut, mashed taters, and biscuits. Yum!

We decided to teach Madeline how to play Apples to Apples while Bob went upstairs to watch football (or was it sleep through football?) It turns out Madeline has a gift for Apples to Apples. She quickly made her way to the lead. I eventually caught up with her, but she won out in the end. It was during the last couple of rounds that Uncle Doug showed up. Then his wife, Aunt Charlene, and daughter Patty arrived as well. They had 2 of Charlene’s grand-nieces with her. They were fascinated by Apples to Apples and we promised to play it with them after awhile.

Despite mom having a nice new dining room table that could seat 10+ folks, people congregated in the kitchen. It was rather funny. But eventually we congregated in the dining room to play Apples to Apples again. Mom and Madeline decided not to join in, but Patty, Halie (the younger niece), and Uncles Bob & Doug agreed to join in. Some of the funniest table-talk took place in this game. But Halie (with a little help from her sister Sarah and from Rachel) quietly took the lead and eventually got the win. Meanwhile, I only got 1 card in this game. Alas!

The family headed out a little after 6pm and then Amy began making my birthday cake. She had the inspired idea of making cupcakes because they would cool faster and then people could decide whether or not to put icing on and how they wanted to decorate.

After the evening news, we put mom’s new copy of Ice Age 2 on and watched that. With a break first for folks to get supper. And then a break near the end for Rachel & Amy to bring in my birthday cupcakes. They had iced 5 of ’em and put “T” “R” “I” “N” and “A” on them. Then put sparkling candles on ’em for decoration. Despite the best efforts of the three of us, the candles refused to go out until we were nearly passed out from trying. It was quite a hoot. I had the “I” (cuz “I” was having a birthday today) while Rachel took the “R” and Amy took the “A.” Dad had a blank one and mom decided to wait.

After the movie was done, we had ice cream and (for some of us) cupcakes again. We watched Two and a Half Men (which mom and dad watch regularly). And when it was over, I opened my presents.

elsaf got me Volume 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection – yay! Wile E Coyote & catapults! Plus lots of other great cartoons! Judi got me the CD version of Monty Python: The Final Rip Off, which I am currently listening to. Thank you ladies! M&D got me some cash which I might get to spend tomorrow during our shopping spree. And A&R got me The Complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus Megaset. Yay! Plenty of Python and silliness to last me for some time!

So, now I’m 36. Hmmm… So far doesn’t feel any different from 35. 🙂

Happy New Year!

Well, judiang and I are resting up from our successful New Year’s Eve party. OK, so it was just us, my folks, and Amy & Rachel. But it was great fun. OK, so I forgot some things like, say, ice and, say, pop for folks other than me. But I had the ham cooked and was working on the mini-piggies-in-a-blanket when folks arrived. No matter, the folks brought lots of booze with ’em and their own drinks master: Amy.

We had supper and started mom’s (new) DVD of Trading Places. Once we finished eating, we sat and watched the movie to its end. When I started up Serenity, we ladies played Apples to Apples (which A&R gave to mom for Christmas) while dad tried to listen to the movie (unsuccessfully, from what I understand). I was in the lead for awhile, getting 5 cards. But then Rachel sped past me to the win.

Euchre was our next game of choice, but the movie ended and we had 5 minutes to go til midnight. So ABC came on and we Rocked our way to the New Year.

MERRY NEW YEAR!
(Beef Jerky Time!)

We finished the game of Euchre with Judi and I beating mom & Amy. (They say they let us win cuz it was now my birthday. Heh.) Folks then drifted off home and Judi and I cleaned up the place. The dishwasher is now going, Judi’s over in the chair on her laptop and I’m here on the sofa on mine.

2006 is dead and gone. Long live 2007! May it be a good year for everyone on my flist!