Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

I'm traveling on a train to Vividon in August -- 43 hours there and 43 hours back. Exciting! I have some stuff planned to occupy my time. I'm going to put a few choice movies on the iPad and I've downloaded some board games to play with echan. However, I also want to do some reading!

I know my friends' list is fully of savvy book lovers and I want to get some recommendations from you folks. Novels, non-fiction, etc. If it's available for Kindle or in the iBook store, all the better.

Fiction I like: Hitchhiker's Guide (only read the Adams books -- are the later ones any good?), Discworld, Vorkosigan, Dresden Files, Game of Thrones (halfway through book 2 now), 1984, Brave New World, The Running Man, the first Hunger Games book (yes I like dystopia, what of it), Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe, Rebecca (du Maurier), Ender's Game, Flannery O'Connor.

Tried getting into Honor Harrington and the military strategy/tech stuff just went right over my head. Might give it another shot.

Non-fiction I like: Books on movies, mostly. More toward the academic/analytical end of things, but given my vidding, I want to start looking at technical stuff related to editing as well. Most of my books are horror-related for obvious reasons and I'd like to branch out from that, although I am still obsessed with genre as a concept and its eternal chicken/egg struggle.

Also, John Green's Crash Course series on Youtube is making me more interested in world history, so if there's any really great reads there, let me know. Ooh and anything on the War of the Roses. I want to compare and contrast it with Game of Thrones.

Comics: Marvel tends to have more deals in the Comics app on the iPad, so I've been reading a metric ton of their stuff lately. I'd like to switch to DC and get some digital trades from the Kindle store. Any really good DC comics or independent series/storylines lately (by lately, I mean in the last eight years)?

Saturday

The Roomie left me her car to run errands, so that's pretty much what I did all day. First I stopped by Mom's to pick up some packages I had mailed there, including the Night of the Living Dead 40th Anniversary DVD with the Classic-Horror quote on the back cover. Mom was babysitting my niece, who ran over to give me a big hug. It was the cutest thing ever.

After that, I ran to the hardware store to pick up some materials for the Memorial Day Project. Then I spent more time and drove more miles than I'd like to admit trying to find sufficient Testors Metal Flake Ruby Red paint, as the Project requires it in large quantities.

Picked up the roomie from work, dropped her off at the gym. Instead of heading to the nearby Best Buy, I headed into Bookstar, which was a book store that I'd seen a billion times but never gone into. It looked chintzy from the outside and I'd always assumed it was a half-price used bookshop. Nope. It was a Barnes & Noble in everything but the sign on the front and the way the employees answered the phone. Even the little placards over the individual sections said "Barnes & Noble". I ended up spending *coughcough* on some books on digital photography, web design (I'm trying to get a more elegant look for Classic-Horror) and Final Cut Express.

Sunday

Programmed my new Universal Remote. The old one only really controlled my stereo receiver and my VCR. This one handles everything but the Playstation 3 (which can't be helped because it receives over Bluetooth). I did have to reprogram Every Single Key for the HD-DVD player, because while the box received the signal, it thought I was trying to control a Standard DVD player and would throw up a little message on the front display that said "HD-DVD" instead of, y'know, doing something.

Edited two reviews and one Masters biography. Started working on a new fanvid for Donna Noble set to Oingo Boingo's Just Another Day.

Went to the coffeehouse that night with The Roomie to finish up some other work.

Memorial Day

Woke up early, skipped breakfast and computer to go directly to beginning the Memorial Day Project: painting the pieces of what will eventually be my very own Tom Servo puppet. The Roommate gathered them about a year and a half ago as a Christmas present, but circumstances prevented her from putting it together. Now we've finally decided to tackle this as a team. I have high hopes for its completion before she leaves for vet school in three months.

The Roomie's boyfriend came over that night and we watched Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, followed by Mystery Science Theater: Mr. B. Natural, then Cinematic Titanic: The Oozing Skull, and finally Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II. Good times were had by all.

• Write review for Pete Walker's Frightmare (1974)
• Make decision on new applicant's sample review.
• Clean apartment (or parts of it).
• Send Courtney's press credentials to Comic-Con people.
• Finish Neuromancer
• Re-start Summer Knight or begin Alien Blood.
• Pay rent.
• Feed self.
• Feed animals.
• Laundry.
• Clean room.
• Hang posters in room.
• Write second review, title undecided.
• Finish Shocktober spreadsheet (yes, we're really doing prelim work on October this early).

I'm sure there's more. The clean apartment bit has soooo many subsections, which often have their own subsections. Definitely not getting all of this done this week, but it's a goal?

So. I'm reading again. Like voraciously devouring literature instead of thumbing through non-fiction. You can thank the girl I'm seeing as I pretty much got the third degree for not having read Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game." My whole "but he's an asshole" argument was tossed out the window pretty soundly.

This book is So. Awesome. And freakin' hard to put down. I was staggering around like a zombie this morning because I lost track of time reading last night. I should be through the whole thing either tonight or tomorrow.

Spurred on by this development, I went to Borders again last night to grab some more Major Sci-Fi Classics that I'd missed -- "Neuromancer" by William Gibson, "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov, and "Speaker for the Dead" by Card. I also replaced by tattered, well-read copy of "Lord of the Flies" while I was at it. Also grabbed a copy of Card's "Empire," based on a recommendation from the girl I'm dating.

I'm rather pleased by this, really.

As you may or may not know, midnightfae and I are in the process of moving. As such, our place has been invaded by boxes.

I'm also on a book-buying binge of late. I picked up some new stuff at Borders today (including an absolutely stunning book that just contains pages and pages of vintage horror posters) and file them appropriately. Then I snapped a bunch of pictures, because sometime in the next few days, I'm going to have to take all these books down and I wanted to preserve the image for posterity.

I've included the pictures below the cut. This is just the bookshelf devoted to my cinematic studies as well as my general writing and coding references (although I've had to pull most of the writing books over the past few days to make room for new movie-related acquisitions).

( We're gonna need a bigger bookshelf )
ETA: I didn't mean to give the impression that I wanted sympathy for my books. Far from it. I'm damned proud of this collection. When I saw the breadth of my cinematic library, I had to snap some pictures.

Incidentally, I found another book that I forgot to file, so shelf #2 should be about a book wider.

I'm home. *collapses*

I need a new bookcase for all the McFarland books I picked up at 50% (or more) off cover.

I need more DVD shelves, too.

And some place to put my TARDIS.

And new legs. I would like some new legs.

I think I'm coming down with something (seriously). Might have to call in tomorrow.

ETA: ( The most disturbing thing ever )

Reading novels has been something of an arduous process for me in the past few years. I have so much going on that I can really only grab a page here or there. Even though I'm a fast reader, finishing the book can take forever. It took me something like six months for "A Confederacy of Dunces" (a book which I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend heartily).

So, with that in mind, it was a bit of a shock when I finished "Storm Front" the day after I started it. Mind you, during that period I was suffering extreme insomnia and didn't have anything better to do for long stretches of night, but it says a hell of a lot that I chose to read a novel rather than work on my website or watch a movie.

( Thoughts behind the cut )

Good news: NaNo wordcount at 14275 as of midnight 11/4. This means I've officially surpassed my 2003 and 2004 numbers for the entire month of November (I skipped 2005). I'm solidly on my way to winning this year, barring tragedy or extreme silliness.

Bad news: I was stupid and bought a white chocolate mocha around 9:30 tonight and spent the next hour and a half work my way through it. Rough upshot is that I'm still wide awake. In about four hours, I'll have been up for 24 hours straight.

Good news: The coding book I bought about design patterns on Friday is completely awesome. It talks like people learn.

Bad news: It failed to mention anywhere on the cover that it's Java-specific and that knowledge of Java was necessary to work through any of the more complex concepts.

Good news: Returned book and bought another one specifically geared to PHP.

Discounting not-awesome swag, obviously. I am working from memory here. This list will be updated once I get home and have time to take an inventory.

( Purchased )

Free swag list coming soon...

Had a fantastic time. Miss my friends already. My muscles are pleased it's all over, however.