The List Fantastic
11 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in nerdishness
NPR just released the results of a call for the hundred best sci-fi/fantasy books according to their listeners/website readers. I am sort of saddened that I’ve only read 15 of the outright books*, and honestly, didn’t like many of them (one of the two Terry Pratchett entries is also the only Pratchett book I have ever sold off).
Of course, it’s hard to calculate just how many to say I’ve read: entire series were granted one entry each, and of those, I’ve read:
- One book in the Belgariad
- Four in the Wheel of Time series
- About 12 Xanth books
- The first Dune
- Every damned Vorkosigan book.
- The Fellowship of the Ring
Sometimes I think I’m just contrarian: even The Last Unicorn isn’t my favorite Peter S. Beagle book!
Helga
03 Aug 2011 2 Comments
I have a spider living in my driver’s side mirror.
She (thanks to Charlotte’s Web, I tend to assume spiders are female) is ugly, brown, and very industrious. When she draws her legs up to her body, the entire assemblage looks like a very small head of Cthulhu.
She is also tenacious: when I first discovered her on Monday night, I took the car on the interstate in an attempt to shake her off. What I ended up doing was taking my spider on a lovely night tour of my city.
I had planned to squash her the next morning, but she was still in the mirror, hadn’t completely covered my door in web, and, most importantly, would make a real mess on any shoe employed for the task. So instead she gets to be called Helga, and I get to feel imaginary bites all over myself every time I look at her or think about her too much.
Headline Of The Day
26 May 2011 Leave a Comment
I saw this on a local news feed. Someday, I’ll remember to make a tag for “things that don’t seem like news”:
Misspent social services funds point to problem
Er…yes?
In Which I Gain A Spine…Then Rant About It Being Broken
12 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
Note: While I could provide pictures, I’m not going to, because my object is not to shame anyone: this is an ongoing problem I have with buying used books online.
Dear Bookseller,
I just received my package from you, and I must admit I’m very concerned for your welfare. This book’s condition was listed as “Very Good.” There may even have been some talk about “minor edge wear.” These words, combined with the condition of the book on its arrival, suggest several possibilities:
- You have recently been through some sort of apocalypse which affects your judgement of such things—maybe the condition of this book, as opposed to the garden ruined by that rain of toads, is indeed “Very Good.”
- The fancy super-sealed packaging emitted fumes, causing you to hallucinate that this was not, in fact, a creased and spine-cracked travesty of a paperback.
- You are totally, totally evil.
I’m not averse to a little work on these things, really: I know I’m demanding. My paperbacks are going to be clear-Contact-papered, after all, and sometimes buying a used book means that I take a Sharpie or some paint and touch up little spots here and there before I preserve it.
I preserve it because, in my cockeyed optimism, I assume it will be good.
You sent me this copy of this novel because you, in your cockeyed optimism, assumed that I was either apathetic, mentally blunted, or visually impaired. I’m no more whipping out a Sharpie for this than I am performing CPR on the mummy of Ramses II, and for exactly the same reason.
…I didn’t punt it off my balcony in a rage, either, though, so there is that.
Am I going to mention some of this in my review? Let’s just say the chances are “Very Good.”
Well, This Could Be a Problem…
19 Jan 2011 2 Comments
in hate, personal, Uncategorized
This winter, I’ve tried to be proactive about that zombie state this time of year always seems to cause in me: I bought a SAD light and a space heater for my office, decorated for Christmas, tried to think of fun things to do in snow rather than just yelling at it out my window like Kirk in Wrath of Khan, and generally gave it my best effort. And a lot of these things have helped, especially the light.
Until today, when I realized that I’ve been much more energetic the past few days than I have lately. The difference isn’t temperature at work, or sunshine (real or false): it’s the temperature outside. Yes, just like my indoor cat floofs up for winter even though it never goes below 65º in his immediate environment, I apparently perk up when the temperature I don’t even spend most of my day in goes up. How the heck can I be proactive about that?
Et Tu, NPR?
13 Jan 2011 2 Comments
I know I can count on Yahoo! for a …unique… approach to word usage, but I expect better from NPR’s book reviews. Instead:
”Writer Mira Bartok was 40 years old when a semi-trailer hurled into her car on the New York Thruway.”
The word is hurtled. “Hurl,” used in formal speech, needs an object: “She hurled an eraser at the book reviewer.”
The only reason “hurl,” needs no object in its slang sense is because it’s a euphemism—that is, used specifically to avoid mentioning the substance you, er, hurl when you hurl.
I’m no stranger to this kind of disappointment with NPR—it seems that eventually, apprise vs. appraise will cause me to lose respect for absolutely everybody in the whole world, until one day I flub it myself and the universe goes up in smoke—but I never expected something quite so gross.
A Conversation That Didn’t Happen
22 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment
You have a fishie!
Yes. Adorable, isn’t he?
What’s his name?
Um…
You named him Jack McKoi, didn’t you?
…Yes?
How ridiculous. Fish don’t even have eyebrows!
Not…Ready!!! (Or Back The #$@! Off, Jack Frost)
27 Sep 2010 2 Comments
I am not ready for summer to be over, and having it end with two days of rain, mist, cold, and general Sherlock-Holmes-out-on-a-fall-evening weather seems particularly cruel.
I can never get warm at work anyway (to the point that mentioning this to any older female relative leads to cries of “THYROID!!!;” given the family history they may have a point, but my weight is fine and my hair remains insanely thick), and it’s much worse when I can’t even sit in a warm car at lunchtime. Now if only I could show this to anyone who wanders by and wonders why I am wearing a sweater and a jacket, using another sweater as a lap rug, and typing in fingerless gloves…
Extreme Napping?!
15 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
I came home from work this afternoon only five minutes late.
It was one of those days when I regret being a sensible and circumspect person, because I’d love to tell you what I did at work all day, and how well it interacted with the phrase (in the initial request) “real quick.”
Alas, all I will say is that I got home, did a few chores, and lay down “for a minute” on my bed.
It is now an hour and a half later. I woke from a long, deep, detailed dream, for part of which my dream-self was in a swimming pool. My eyes are wobbly, and for some reason my actual ears hurt. But the rest of me feels much better!
Lookin’ Voxy In Here!
14 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
In the wake of Vox’s closing, little Twitchery has stretched her jaws and swallowed my entire Villa Grammatica Vox blog.
Also, I may need to lay off the David Attenborough documentaries.
