llcoolvad | Entries tagged with books

Had a weekend, got stuff done. Have unpacked almost everything. Have a big box of hard drives that won't get unpacked for a long time, a box that has jewelry boxes in it along with a few other random things, and a bag of current paperwork left. Everything else is organized and put away. The closet will need more work (still has mom-shoes in the bottom, and have shoved some storagey stuff up top), and I will need to deal with the last few boxes somehow. Maybe I'll get some different under-bed storage and use that. Anyway, it's otherwise done. So yay! Did about five loads of laundry yesterday, put everything away. Weeded some of mom's clothes (somewhat on the sly) and brought two big bags to donate. Even weeded out more of mine. I have so few left, now, it's kinda sad. Oh, also have a couple pictures left to hang. Did most of them, but have to move the bureau to hang these and was tired.

Now, that just means my ROOM is done. Whole rest of the house to go! I also cleaned out the back hall, and put some very old freezer food out for the trash today. Next up will be the pantry, I think. Tomorrow will be mom-laundry day while I work from home. And maybe I will get something done about her cable box. The thing is plaguing me. It doesn't get On Demand, which was the reason I got it for her. It says "Error 7, Call Customer Service" or something. I did, already, and they "sent a signal", but that seems to be as worthless as it sounds. While I have time and patience tomorrow I'll try calling again. Why do cable companies suck so hard? Christ.

Visited the old apartment today now that Patrick has moved in. Looks so different! Just the office is untouched, everything else is totally different looking. I wasn't sad there this time, which is a relief. Gracie seems to be relaxing a little. Poor little thing. A few months ago she has to leave everything she's ever known for a strange place with a stranger, and now she has to adapt again to moving! But she seems ok. Patrick is a good cat-daddy.

SO bored at work lately. I can barely sit still in my chair. My goal was to get moved and settled in before I start looking for work. I guess that's done. I might take another few weeks to relax (plus I have to go see my aunt, and do more tech support there, plus I have a ton of things to do around here), but soon I shall do a full-court press on the job search front.

Down what looks like another pound and a half. Not sure, saw it today, we'll see what tomorrow brings. So that would take me to 65 total lost since July? Something like that. Ate a bit over my calories today, had delicious beef stew (made by mom) for dinner, couldn't resist a second serving. Then had a snack later! But hey! Once in a while is ok. This isn't a race. I've been doing well with the slow-but-steady loss thing, and I can manage like this (hopefully for a long time). Except on those days when I want to buy a two pound bag of peanut M&Ms and just eat the entire thing. Which is most days, honestly. Resist! Keep in mind the compliments. Another today (wore better clothes): coworker Pete said "you're really getting smaller! That's awesome!" and hey, I can just listen to that shit all DAY. So fuck you, M&Ms.

Read a few things so far:
1. The Fifth Witness, Michael Connelly (good)
2. Deception, Jonathan Kellerman (library kindle) (better than the last one but still meh)
3. Eleven, Patricia Reilly Giff (library kindle) (very good)
4. The Silent Girl, Tess Gerritsen (audio) (pretty good, reader was good, too)
5. Dead Sleep, Greg Iles (audio) (Greg Iles is pretty consistently excellent. Even writes women well, which seems to be a challenge for a lot of men. Reader was great in this one, too. Very southern, many voices sounded the same, but she managed to do things with dialogue that many readers don't — she really made it sound like people were actually talking. Some people talk faster, some people talk slower, some people slur words or swallow consonants or whatever. Very good.)

Had a couple days. Val came over and we packed up the upstairs books and CDs, and then P came over and hauled them into the attic for me — 15 boxes of books, and a bunch of other boxes of things like my Sega CD, a VCR, my stereo receiver, and a bunch of other semi-obsolete tech. Even my turntable! He was up on the ladder/stairs to the attic leaning down, and I kept passing him heavy boxes up over my head, then couldn't get them much past my chest after a bit, and eventually felt my arms about to give out. Work them to failure, right? Scary how little it takes.

Woke up so sore the next day! But went over to Mom's anyway to see if I could make some progress there. Managed to get my bedroom mostly cleaned up (she was using it as storage and her closet, so it was filled with clothes everywhere and all kinds of random stuff) and did a bunch of laundry and some other cleaning stuff. Moved the boxes of CDs over there just so I could feel like I've actually done something. Had dinner with P, made him drive because I was just so tired. Today I went back to Mom's, got the rest of the room adjusted, plus more laundry, dishes, etc. There's still some clothes that I will need to move out of the closet, and there's still a huge bunch of stuff all neatly folded that has no home. She has more clothes than any 10 people, and as she put it "I never go out!" so we really need to whittle that shit down to a manageable thing. I'm also going to have to replace the closet clothes rod, as it's now bowing in the middle. It needed a middle support a couple years ago when I moved out but I never got around to it. Now, alas, it is too late. So I'll have to measure and solve that very soon.

P texted me and suggested going to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol after he got out of work, so we did that and it was loads of fun. Jeremy Renner is just awesome, and even Tom was fun to watch. I thought in most of this franchise he was sort of too slick to be actually on screen without sliding off, but in this one he felt a little more, I dunno, interesting. Not that the plot was much more believable, but one doesn't go to M IMP for believable, right?
______________________________

In other news, can't wait to kick 2011 to the curb. I want to natter on and on about just how bad a year it was, but 1. don't want to remind myself, and 2. probably would screw it up and leave out a lot of it anyway, at least as far as current events goes, thanks to aforementioned fuzzy brain. Feel free to apply anyone else's crappy list to my mood. I remember the year started with canyons of snow, snow that had already been around for more than a month by then and already felt claustrophobic. Now it's ending with cold bare streets, which somehow seems very fitting.

I was also thinking about Christmas, and how it sort of is nothing since Dad died and Mom can't deal with it. Maybe I need to make new traditions, perhaps ones that involve travelling to somewhere exotic, or at least different. And maybe warm. Since I am childfree, I could make Christmas the time of year that I travel. I won't be able to do it next Christmas, as this next year has to be all about paying off debt and working as much as I can. But maybe Christmas 2013 will be the beginning of my new Christmas tradition. I will have to think on it.

So yeah. I'll probably do my year-end wrap up as usual, but my heart isn't really in it.
( books list end of year )

Been a stressful week, totally glad it's over. Went to the dentist, doctor, periodontist, got a haircut, got a flu shot, bought some new clothes (more smaller sizes!), friend was sick, mom was cranky, work sucked, periodontist recommended removal of my wisdom teeth, had a seriously low blood sugar event.

Started willfully changing my week on Friday, did a bunch of bill paying in advance. Bought and started taking some vitamins at my doctor's recommendation. Went to my aunt's place today and installed a new printer, moved all her files onto her new computer, installed an anti-virus, updated a bunch of applications, updated shortcuts on her desktop, etc., plus installed LogMeIn so I could work on it in the future without driving an hour. We had a nice lunch, too.

Total weight loss since spring-ish: 50.5 pounds. Anticipating a plateau soon. Been a good week for weight loss, anyway!

( Updated books list )

Hmm. Feel compelled to post, but have not much to report! Haven't been to the gym much at all. My back has been pretty sore, which I've used as a convenient excuse. It's also the reason I haven't been using my CPAP machine. To use it I need to sleep either on my side or my back, and both positions have been causing me pain. On the other hand, I'm not doing much to solve my back pain either, so I am basically just marking time doing not much at all, health-wise.

On the other other hand, I've still been eating better. Still tracking on LoseIt!, still staying under my daily allotments, still losing weight. I'm at the 40 pound mark since the spring, 30 pounds since July. I only lost about three pounds this month, which was a little discouraging, but I am still thinking of it as progress since it's going in the right direction.

Been a little down this last week. My forgetfulness is bugging me. The Red Sox and their giant spectacular collapse is bugging me. My aforementioned slow-motion weight loss is bugging me. Living with Brian has been fine, except I still get sad, so that's bugging me too. I am a lot more reactionary at work, lately; normally I am filtered, and lately I am not. I watched that happen to my coworker when she went through a divorce, and now here I am, trotting right along behind her. Stress is very interesting.

Did a few fun things: Went with Mom to visit my aunt and to diagnose and/or fix her elderly computer. Installed a couple of new CD drives, then determined she really needs to buy a new computer since hers was 11 years old (!). I will set it up for her once it arrives.

Saw "Contagion" — totally my kind of movie. Disease of the week! Gives me scary survivalist fantasies again. Awesome.

Went to a play with P last week — not the best thing I've ever seen, honestly. Could very well be in the running for maybe the worst thing I've seen, actually! The performers were very good (most of them, anyway) but there's only so much you can do with maudlin, unedited drivel.

Watched Doctor Who and enjoyed this week's ep. Love Craig. Why can't Craig be the new companion? He's almost as good as the panda Patrick proposed (there needs to be six-year-old twin British schoolgirls along with the panda, of course! "The panda just peed on the floor, Doctor! And now he's eating the sofa!" THAT would be some excellent television right there).

Watched some bad baseball this weekend. While being stressed about the game, did a lot of unnecessary cleaning. I've taken some Metafilter advice to heart, all about how to get through stress or heartbreak or whatever: clean the bathroom.

"You can take advantage of your time in pain by doing something that would have hurt a LOT before, but pales in comparison to what you're feeling now.

I was in a long distance relationship for a year or two, and there were a lot of goodbyes, and we couldn't afford much phone time, so there was a lot of loneliness and worrying about how to keep the relationship alive. During a particularly mopey period, my roommate said "You know what you could do? Clean the bathroom." I said "that won't make me feel better." She said "It won't make you feel worse, and we'll have a clean bathroom." Whenever it looks bleakest, I clean the bathroom."

So I've been kind of throwing myself into cleaning, more than I usually do. I realized this evening that, if asked, I could lay hands on pretty much any item that I own within seconds. I have vacuumed my furniture. I am organized and tidy. Which is weird. But hey! Productive. (please note: that was not my posting on mefi, either the answer OR the original question!)

My next project is my lifetime of paper. Starting that one this week. Sigh.

( 2011 books list updated within )

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Almost the end of the month, (plus just finished a book), so it's time to update the books list.

( books inside )

I am finding the training to be very easy this time, and the guy to be very nice if a little sad. He's a lot older than I am, and he basically worked for the same guy for 27 years, through many companies. They laid him off, and for his 27 years of service? Got two weeks of severance. Two weeks.

The vileness of corporate America STILL surprises me. For all my faux-cynicism, I am seriously a pollyanna sunshine dewey optimist. People do the right thing because it's right, right? Yeah, not so much. I am now carrying around the burden of this guy's mistreatment. And he wasn't even complaining, really. I mean, he was, but it was in natural conversation. It wasn't like it was this huge burden he was blurting out. Fucking awful.

I need to find a job where I work for myself, where I can limit my exposure to the evil.

So for now, I drown myself in fiction. ( booklist, updated )

Tuesday was Mom's cataract surgery. I have to say that production-line surgery is fascinatingly efficient. The place we went does NOTHING other than eye surgeries, and there were at least five other people in at the same time as Mom. She walked in to the surgical unit at 12:30; walked out at 3:00 with a bandage on her eye, a new tote bag, and a plant (it's a thing they do, I guess); we then went to her doctor's office at 5:00, and by 6:00 she was back home with the bandage off and looking out of her new lens. So speedy! And she said there was no pain, and aside from reaching up occasionally to try to rub it (and catching herself just in time) there's no issue at all. They have her sleep in a plastic eye protector that she puts on with medical tape. And that's it. She's a complete anxiety-ridden hypochondriac, but even she admitted she'd do the other eye when she needed to.

So basically I spent all day doing that stuff with her (which meant I mostly sat around reading and being vaguely anxious all day). Tuesday night I sorted through a few weeks' worth of mail and paperwork and bills and such, wrote checks, clipped coupons, and recycled crap. Wednesday morning I filed it all away. I also brought Mom some lunch, did her grocery shopping, mailed off some stuff, did all my laundry, cleaned the bathroom top to bottom, and did the dishes. AND I made some more progress on my music weeding and organizing. Sigh. I really want one of my projects over with! I watched some tv at night and kept trying to get motivated, but I guess I have a maximum per day I will let myself do.

Today was almost a total wash. I woke up and it was so humid I felt disgusting. Every joint was sore, especially my knees. Hit the 'profen hard, hung around reading the internet until it kicked in. Put away my final load of laundry, then went out for some lunch. Had a free lunch on a loyalty card, so I used that. Came home and slouched around doing nothing much, then Patrick came home and we chatted for a while. Met Brian at the train and we did a quick grocery shopping, stopped at REI, then stopped at Home Depot. Home again, he made dinner and I started digging into PART TWO of my book weeding project from last summer. I had a sudden urge, so hey, strike while the iron is hot, right?

It's now the spring, see, which is when the Friends of the Library lady said she'd accept more donations. And oh yes, have I got stuff for her! I moved all the furniture around in the living room (both so I could easily get to the bookcases, AND so I could have a lot of flat surfaces to put everything on). Last summer I really only weeded the fiction, so now I'm working on the non-fiction. Also when I emptied out my storage unit last year I was focused on regaining floor space and losing boxes, so while I was obsessive about alphabetizing and spreadsheet-ing my fiction, I did nothing at all to the non-fiction. It's basically on the shelves with no order whatsoever, so I'm organizing and weeding at the same time. I have some amusingly ancient high school texts on things like Biology and Astronomy and Oceanography, and while they give me warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia, they are about as much use as my ancient computer texts (goodbye Pascal!). I am tempted to keep my history texts from yore, because I fear the Texas Board of Education and what they're doing to history and social studies, but I can't be the keeper of knowledge for all of mankind, so I think those will have to go, too.

I try not give useless out of date stuff to the Friends of the Library. I use the "Got Books" bins for anything I don't think the library book sale will find a home for. They are pledged to at least recycle anything they can't use. And since they bug me with their veneer of non-profit when in fact they're for-profit, let 'em deal with the rubbish. I dumped a load of elderly computer books and travel guides on them last year.

Ideally I want to have only good books, and books that will fit on the shelves that I already have, and not another line of books in front of each shelf. Additionally, I'd like a couple of empty shelves so Brian can put his stuff on them, too. And I'd like to have somewhere for my puzzles. So I really need to weed this stuff HARD. And I am ready. I dunno if I'll be able to part with the Latin textbooks, but I think I can lose enough other junk to make up for them.

Hopefully I'll get that done tomorrow, leaving me the weekend to find some fun. I'm just not that good at fun. I'm better at this.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Current Location: home

Spent Sunday mostly napping, watching baseball, eating, and ... that's about it. Nice!

Today I did some chores (recycling, can returns, grocery shopping, a few dishes, etc.), and I also did two of the things I wanted to get done this week: I renewed both my BPL and Cambridge public library cards (have to drive to a branch to do so, so I did), and I did a project for a friend involving collecting some files.

Yay! Chatted with

zanzjan on the phone about life, and she pointed me to some local free shredding events. I am excited. Maybe it will motivate me to go through the boxes in my room? At any rate, I have several boxes all ready to go, so even if I do no more I have a goal.

I haven't done any shoe shopping yet. Carrie Bradshaw would be appalled at my slackitude. Tomorrow is Mom's cataract surgery, so I need to be up and alert for that. Maybe shoe shop on Thursday. I want to front-load the misery for chores and unpleasantness so I can relax at the end of the week.

Anyway, so far so good. Not thinking about work, and trying to keep the drama to a minimum.

( updated completed books list inside )

I have been obsessed lately with free or cheap entertainment. I have my Netflix subscription, and I use the Watch Instantly feature almost every day. I listen to Pandora and to Radio Paradise for new music (although this oftentimes leads to a CD purchase, sigh). And around the turn of the year I started exploring cheap reading options. Sure, there's your library. But sometimes there's snow on the ground. Sometimes you want something at 9pm. Sometimes it's just inconvenient to leave the house. So I prefer ebooks. I prefer them in general, anyway. I have way too many dead tree books as it is. I cannot keep overloading my house and stressing my movers.

So over the last few years whenever publishers would release free ebook versions of novels I would usually download them but not necessarily read them, largely due to file format issues, lack of organization, forgetfulness, or just lack of overall knowledge about what I'd need to do so. So I started experimenting, and now I feel the need to collect information in one place.

Stuff I've already used:

2 Kindles: 1st gen & latest gen. Both have been great. Excellent battery life (like weeks at a time of heavy reading between charges), great displays, do everything they should. Earlier one more awkward to turn pages than later one, but later one still not perfect. Can load several file types onto it, including pdfs. Downloading files simple both through the kindle store AND by dragging files onto it manually from a computer. Not the cheapest option, since there's the initial equipment fee, but once you have one there are great buckets of free ebooks out there. Unfortunately when I got my first Kindle the max cost for an Amazon store ebook was $9.99, but the publishers fought that and now some new releases are as high as $14.99. Ugly. And since it's so easy to buy, sometimes it's irresistible.
The Kindle app on iPhone: Been using it since the week it was released. Works great, but only lets you read stuff you purchased through Amazon (purchased does not have to mean at great cost. The amazon store has tons of free titles every single day). iPhone screen small. Can't read outdoors in sunlight. Still, you can't read a book unless you have it with you, and I am pretty much never without my phone. I have done the majority of my reading here, at least until recently.
Stanza on iPhone: I can load any .epub file onto it from my computer through iTunes. Excellent little app, gives loads of flexibility. The .epub format is the most common format for every store other than Amazon so there is oodles of free stuff available here, too.
Overdrive on iPhone: Fairly uncomplicated. App allows you to log into your library system through your library card. I have library cards in three local systems: the Boston Public Library system, the Minuteman network, and NOBLE, so I can browse for ebooks in all three — at least once I renew the Minuteman library card I can. Stupid things expire! Who knew? Obviously library books are free. Even ebooks and audio books.

Stuff I will try: Soon there will be the ability to download library books straight into the Kindle, avoiding the Overdrive app. But from what I've read there will be no possibility of downloading library books into the Kindle app, which is a bummer, and means if I want to read library books on my phone, I'll still need to use the Overdrive app. Not a hardship.

I downloaded three random books today into Overdrive, and it was pretty quick and reasonably hassle-free. Of course I had to dig out my library cards so I could copy the numbers into the Overdrive app, but I'm hoping I only have to do that once. The books only have a 14 day lending window, and you can only borrow up to four at a time, so I'll need to read them ASAP.

Problems: My biggest complaint about the Overdrive library system is that your local library (or the wider system it belongs to) still only buys so many ebook "copies" — which means that regardless of your spiffy instant-download technology, you may have nothing to download, as everything has already been borrowed by someone else. It would be nice if the search interface allowed you to filter by what's actually in stock (as if you were looking at things in the actual library), but it only allows you to filter a specific search (for example, searching for Douglas Adams books) by if it's in stock. I'd like to filter "Mysteries" but there doesn't seem to be that option. So you might end up building yourself a huge hold list and still have nothing to read. I downloaded the three I did largely because out of 200 titles they were the ones actually available. As it was an experiment, that's ok, but as a real world thing that's not how I read! I'd like to choose a title I might enjoy.

Other considerations: The Stanza app requires a tiny bit more tech knowledge / ability to experiment. First you need to get your file into a format it can read, then you need to wrestle iTunes to the ground to transfer your file (and that's only for the latest gen of iPhone. Earlier versions have more complicated ways to get the file onto the phone). After that it's cake, but novice users might have some hassle.

Finally, how do you keep track of all your bounty? Damned if I know. Currently I'm running a spreadsheet of titles including data like what file format I have it in, what device it's on, has it been read yet, and how much I paid for it. This allows me to sort by highest price/not read yet and make sure I'm not wasting the money I've spent. I also use the ebook database/file conversion program Calibre, which I can't recommend highly enough. That allows me to take a non-DRMed version of a file and change it from .mobi to .epub and back again, making it simple to read any file on either Kindle or iPhone. It also allows me to set up libraries, so if I want to have one for my iPhone files, and one for my Stanza (need a different file format) I can, making it easier to find the files when I want to transfer them to read.

Ok, so those are my cheap entertainment hacks and more technical details than you wanted. Any cheap entertainment hacks you'd like to share?

Better today, sorta. Brian got offered a permanent job! Very excited. He can stop searching! He can stop going on interviews! One and a half years. Man. This economy blows. Anyway, it's a good salary, he's doing something that will interest him, and he'll be working downtown. All good!

Work was ok the last couple of days. It always is like that. I get pushed to a breaking point, and then the pressure eases back. I like my Fridays and Saturdays. I like Wednesdays from home. I loathe Tuesdays and Thursdays (for different reasons). Maybe what I need to do is figure out a way to avoid them!

I finished a huge pile of books. That's a virtual huge pile, as in reality I was reading on my phone.

Since Jan 1, 2011:

1. Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child (13th Jack Reacher book)
2. 61 Hours, Lee Child (14th Jack Reacher book)
3. Worth Dying For, Lee Child (15th Jack Reacher book)
4. The Monkey's Raincoat, Robert Crais (1st Elvis Cole book)
5. Stalking the Angel, Crais (2nd Elvis Cole book)
6. Lullaby Town, Robert Crais (3rd Elvis Cole book)
7. Free Fall, Robert Crais (4th Elvis Cole book)
8. Voodoo River, Robert Crais (5th Elvis Cole book)
9. Sunset Express, Robert Crais (6th Elvis Cole book)
10. Indigo Slam, Robert Crais (7th Elvis Cole book)
11. L.A. Requiem, Robert Crais (8th Elvis Cole book)
12. The Last Detective, Robert Crais (9th Elvis Cole book)
13. The Forgotten Man, Robert Crais (10th Elvis Cole book)
14. The Watchman, Robert Crais (1st Joe Pike book)
15. Chasing Darkness, Robert Crais (11th Elvis Cole book)
16. The First Rule, Robert Crais (2nd Joe Pike book)
17. The Sentry, Robert Crais (3rd Joe Pike book)
18. New York Death, Stuart Woods

and I'm in the middle of another Stuart Woods. I am not feeling the love, there. Need to find some other lengthy series I haven't read before to dive into. There are gajillions of mystery series. I just need to find one I haven't read and that I can stand. Needs to be sorta hard-bitten, but also funny. Woods isn't funny. Maybe I should step back from the series concept. Clearly I get a little focused...

Also finished the first disk of season two of Wallander. Is good. Working my way through "A Touch of Frost" on netflix streaming. That's about as "comfort food" viewing as I can imagine. I'm into season four, now, and we're up to 1996. Since it's Britain, though, it feels like the late 80s. Anyway, it's like having on Law and Order in the background. Frost is fun, and the crime is occasionally gritty (but mostly feels seedy). People look like real people, with paunches and wrinkles and bags under their eyes. Refreshing!

I think I need a bit more reality and a bit less fiction, frankly, but until the weather changes for real, I'm stuck with escapism. Maybe a few more weeks?

Two days in a row to make up for the missing day. Today P and I went to visit our friend Jenn. She lives in New Hampshire, so visiting is a deliberate and not a casual thing. We went up for lunch, and got to meet her new cute kitty, currently named Harlow. Apparently Harlow is in Witness Protection, as it was impossible to get a picture of him. (I apologize for picture quality. All from my 1st gen iPhone, not good!)

"No Pictures, Please."

Here he actually reached up and pushed the camera down. Seriously, talk about diva!

Because I have nothing else to report, my book list so far for the year:

1. Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child (13th Jack Reacher book)
2. 61 Hours, Lee Child (14th Jack Reacher book)
3. Worth Dying For, Lee Child (15th Jack Reacher book)
4. The Monkey's Raincoat, Robert Crais (1st Elvis Cole book)
5. Stalking the Angel, Crais (2nd Elvis Cole book)
6. Lullaby Town, Robert Crais (3rd Elvis Cole book)
7. Free Fall, Robert Crais (4th Elvis Cole book)
8. Voodoo River, Robert Crais (5th Elvis Cole book)
9. Sunset Express, Robert Crais (6th Elvis Cole book)
10. Indigo Slam, Robert Crais (7th Elvis Cole book)

And I'm currently in the middle of, yes, another Robert Crais, L.A. Requiem. I am clearly in a reading jag. Crais is pretty good. I can't imagine why I never picked him up before. Maybe I glanced through one and thought he was too derivative. Maybe I was still in my "read mysteries set in Boston only" phase, I dunno. But he's a page-turner, with good dialog and good plotting. Elvis Cole, the main character, is a fairly typical hero: he's selfless and true, he's fiercely loyal, even the cops respect him, he's got mad skillz, yo, and he's got a mysterious sidekick. Bad guys frequently die, good people mostly get saved, and there's a bit of action of the female persuasion from time to time. Perfect escapism for dreary winter days.

And clearly I need it. Here's the result of a week's worth of almost non-stop melting: ( more pix within )

Tuesday: Worked. Was ok. Stayed a little late. Came home. Dinner with Patrick. Watched tv.
Wednesday: Worked. Was at home, so better than ok. Logged off on time. Dinner with Brian. Watched tv.

There you go, an entry.

OK, fine, I left out a few details.

Friends/Family: Patrick's driver's side car window exploded on him Tuesday on his way home from work, for no discernible reason. Scary! Just thinking about how I might have reacted if the same thing happened to me (I visualize a bit of a shriek, and probably driving right off the road and into a parked car) makes me nervous. I eyed my window driving home last night, gave it encouraging "do not explode" warm thoughts. It seemed un-fazed.

Today while I was chained to my desk on a deadline, Brian ventured out ahead of the storm to turn in our huge pile of returnables and to pick up lunch and a couple of snack-type things at the grocery store. I am occasionally reminded of how nice it is to have someone else around to get things done. I didn't really have that, living with Mom. If I didn't do it, it mostly didn't happen. So hooray for boyfriends! A year and a half into living together, and I am still being pleasantly surprised by things.

Mom is still crazy.

Entertainment: I've been all discombobulated by changing cable providers and by it being the new spring season. Everything's on a different night and at a different time, and I can't get used to the new channel numbers. I've had Comcast for 14 years? Something like that. So I am finding RCN's lineup disorienting even with the Tivo. Where do I go? What channel? Sigh. I feel like I'm 90, sometimes.

Watched the SOTU last night, the second half anyway, and I found the president to be as reasonable and intelligent as always, and every bit as middle-of-the-road as I've sadly realized he is. I do wish the administration was a little better at trumpeting their wins to the wide world, but I guess I just need to work a little harder to hear them.

Also spent the last two days sneaking bits of the book I'm currently reading, pretty much every free second I get (still love my kindle, still love ebooks). I really get more reading done than I would if I were depending on dead-tree media. Although right now Brian and I are both in the middle of books on the kindle, so I have to keep handing it to him and then waiting to get it back (I haven't figured out yet how to sync a non-Amazon file to my iPhone kindle reader, and since I'm almost done with the book I haven't bothered to kludge something up. My guess is that I just need to use a different reader and not have the nice page-tracking that the kindle app does, but I am not sure of that yet).

Chores/Organizing: I've been making some progress on sorting out my digital life. In the last couple of weeks I've: cleaned out my gmail account and put in unsubscribe requests to regular merchant-type email; cleaned out 40,000 unread messages on my yahoo email account; cleaned out my work laptop (I anticipate a soonish upgrade); put a bunch of files in Dropbox; tweaked some sync settings for Chrome so all my computers get the same bookmarks and setting and so forth; and deleted a bunch of duplicate stuff. I still need to unsubscribe on my yahoo account (my main account, alas) and I need to do more Dropbox tweaking. I don't think I have gushed about it over here, but MAN, do I love Dropbox! Two gigs of free storage for files, great security, ability to share with others, and best of all it will sync itself across all the computers you want it to. I now have four computers in regular rotation, and having my core subset of files wherever I am (even on my iPhone!) is totally key. I plan to keep just about everything in it (except photos and music, of course); I think it's big enough. I have most of the stuff I use regularly already in it and I'm at 10% capacity. Nice. I love cloud dwelling.

Money: still being frugal. I chipped a few more bucks per month out of the budget yesterday by downgrading my Netflix account. I don't really ever get to watching DVDs, so I dropped it from 2 at a time to one, a savings of $5. Whoo! I might need to try a little harder in the next couple of days. Always chipping away!

Tomorrow I can sleep in and not have to deal with commuting in the snow. Took the day off, so I can maybe get some sleep and maybe get some more stuff (productive stuff) done. Or maybe I'll just read all day!

You really want to go here if you are interested in free SF ebooks. Tor Books, in a final "welcome to our new website" has released (for one week only) all the titles they've been releasing one week at a time for the last few months for free. With no DRM! I've been obsessively downloading them all for several months now, but you can get them all at once. Convenient!

Some titles include:
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (LOVED it)
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (LOVED it)
Farthing by Jo Walton (haven't read yet)
Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell (haven't read yet)
Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest (LOVED it)
etc. There are TWENTY FOUR books for free over there. There's probably something to your taste. There's also a bunch of wallpaper you can snag, too (hi-res artwork from Tor publications).

The books are all available in various formats: PDF, HTML, and Mobi (ideal for Kindle!) so there's probably something you can use over there. Stock up your laptop for plane flights! Stick files on your Blackberries and Treos! And as always, if you like the stuff, go buy a copy. And buy other stuff by the same author.

So I started to do this harmless books meme, but in my inevitable linksy searchage, I found out that this isn't the right list, and that the whole business about average adults reading 6 books thing is pulled out of someone's ass. So here's the meme, my comments, and additions (sorry kicking_k!!):

( meme inside )

Browse Inside this book

Get this for your site

In case you've missed this, a free ebook for you to read online (only, alas). It's not that I'm a huge Gaiman fan, altho he's cute and scruffy so that's good. It's just that I love free. And while this is not the way I'd like to get a free ebook (unlike the awesome giveaway over at Tor where you can download pdf, html, or mobi versions of selected titles for the price of your email address), it's still a way to read a book for free. And this was pretty much my favorite Gaiman. So there. Enjoy!

Ha! Practically Page by Page Review of Deathly Hallows. So, duh, it's very very SPOILERY! And kind of cranky. But funny! One of my favorite parts of his review is p. 56. Ooh, the snark, it burns!

I'm working my way through the Making Light thread on this topic, so I might post other links to other reviews too. I'd appreciate any links to good Pottermania, thanks in advance!

ETA: In the few minutes between when I read mightygodking's profile and posted this link, LJ suspended his account! No idea why, because of course they don't say. I saw a couple of possibly-trademarked images, and he was blatant about breaking street on Potter, so I guess it's one of the two. Interesting!

Because I am a full-service type of gal, here's the Google cache of his entry.

OK, so it only took an hour and 40 minutes to get my grubby hands on it. But it was 1:40 that started at midnight!

But I think it was worth it.

Now to read!

Spent some time today surfing reading lists — things like the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" and the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list. Out of the 1001, I've only read 144. Out of the 100, I've only read 25 (although the reader's list I've read 45). Out of the All-TIME 100 Novels, I've read 26. From the BBC List I've read 42; that one's a reader's favorites sort of list, so take that one with a grain of salt. I mean, Jean Auel? (BTW — I've made spreadsheets of them all; I can hook you up if you like, just let me know)

This was kind of scary, in a truly geeky cool way: http://www.whatihaveread.net/, where some guy has kept track of what he has read since 1974 (when he was reading books like Hop on Pop and Green Eggs and Ham). I also found Art Garfunkel's list of everything he's read since 1968, a level of obsessiveness that I wouldn't have expected from him. And he reads some real quality, too. Not a claim I can make, despite my English major history.

So basically I'm feeling a little inferior to Art Garfunkel. Never thought I'd be saying that! I got to thinking that even if I add 10 or so "good" books per year, and assuming I live another 30 years or so, I'm never getting to the end of the 1001 books. I'll easily read 1000 books in 10 or 15 years, but I read a lot of lightweight crap that doesn't really involve my brain.

I guess the upshot of all this is from now on I'm going to shoot for an overall improvement in the quality of my reading. I'm going to be more deliberate about how I choose a book, too. Currently it's whatever catches my eye, or whatever is sitting on the shelf in the library. I need to make my choices with more forethought. There are many authors on these lists that I've never read at all. That needs to be rectified. There are other books I've started and put down a couple times that I should try again.

I'm not saying these are the lists of my life. I'm not saying I agree with the selections. I just think that there are many wonderful books out there that I am missing out on, and I need to get busy.

Now reviewing "Cell" by Stephen King. Stop on by!

...ZOMBIES!

Still pimpin' my reading blog; new entry reviewing Marvel 1602.

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