Archive for the 'books' Category
I finished off Love in the Time of Cholera a few days ago. I was flagging a bit at it and so decided to just power through. I enjoyed it but I am glad I’ve finished it! There is a lot that appeals about it and at the same time a lot that very much does not. I didn’t find the ending to work but I wonder if perhaps that’s just due to cynicism on my part?
I was meeting a friend for drinks in town the other day. It would turn out to be quite a drunk evening but anyway I was very early and went looking for a book to read. I came across Julius Winsome by Gerard Donovan. I like to look through the Irish fiction sections in several bookshops when I’m in Dublin and so it jumped out. It’s very short and indeed quite easy reading. I finished it off in about 2 hours while killing time. I enjoyed it a great deal and I’ll be looking for more of his books.
Then on Thursday morning I stared into Iain M. Banks latest; Matter which I had been looking forward to. It’s an odd book and one that I must admit I wasn’t enjoying as much as his other books but damn if it didn’t have one of the best endings of anything I’ve read in a while. Exactly my kind of ending. It’s somewhat spoiled by the presence of an epilogue that seems very tacked on a few pages later. I’d much rather it had simply ended right then and there. Glorious to the point of redeeming everything that I didn’t like about the book till that point.
I also took a re-read of Ty Templeton’s Bigg Time which I recall enjoying a great deal when it came out…not so much this time. The art was still very pretty but I guess the jokes just don’t work a second time. Last night I finally read the first volume of Sandman Mystery Theatre which wasn’t bad but not the genius I had come to expect. The art seemed to vary from being all over the place to being really really nice. I did very much like the quick panel that just shows the shape of Morpheus’ mask. That was nice. Note to self, must make sure that someone snags a copy of Absolute Sandman III for me while I’m away. Though I have the full collection upstairs and I may very well have to take a re-read of some selected pieces soon. Ooh there is so much I’d love to take a re-read through. I may have to order some of those bookends too. I never did manage to get any Sandman busts from that release a few years ago.
Oh finally last night I was aimlessly wandering on the net and I ended up watching two clips from a amazing gig I went to back in November of last year. The evening was the Duke Special in Bush Hall and the two clips and indeed two highlights of the evening are a cover of Van Halen’s Jump and then a lovely cover of the already hauntingly lovely Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Maps. Today’s title comes from a song at the same gig and so closes off this entry very nicely.
Lotsa little things going on since I got into Dublin. This afternoon I headed into town to start the last course of shots for going away. So at the moment I have yellow fever, it’s a live virus so, as I understand it, I currently have yellow fever and my immune system is just getting use to it. I”m sure one of my medically minded friends will be along to correct me if I am wrong.
Now that’s a lead in and a half but I’ll just move swiftly along for now. I had just typed out “I’m feeling” but I”m actually not and that’s the key. I’m not feeling stressed which is the first time I’ve really been able to say that in well years. I twigged the other day that my memory was noticeably better, things were clearer not just from day to day but for events back a while ago. Now a good part of that could of course just be to be here in Dublin and to be looking through some old things and to be meeting up with old friends and talking about days gone past but while I’m sure there is a bit of that, I’m also sure it’s the lack of stress. So that’s good.
So I have indeed been clearing out some old stuff. I’m going through the crap I left when I moved out of Dublin going on eight years ago. I moved pretty quickly and so I didn’t have a huge amount of time to sort things before boxing them up and I have not spent much time here to sort things since then. So a little of that and I’ve been finding some odd bits and pieces. I’ve also been going through some stuff I shipped back here before going to the US so it’s nice to have a stock of books and DVD’s to live on for the next few weeks.
Speaking of things back then. I was out riding a bike on Saturday night. It could actually be eight years since I had done something as simple as that. It felt pretty good. Today I’ve dragged my old bike out of the shed here. It’s in fairly good condition. I think I’ll need some new tyres but the brakes, chain and gears all look pretty good and seem to be working well. I’m going to pump up the tyres in the morning and see how it runs. It’d be nice to have it for a few weeks to get out and about locally.
I saw Juno on Friday night and enjoyed it. It wasn’t as great as it had been made out to be but the cast were excellent and it was witty enough. It really fired me up for those latest rumours of an Arrested Development movie. I stupidly left the 3 seasons with my sister instead of bringing them to Dublin and I’m really in the mood to watch them again! I should figure out how to get some DVD’s stuck onto my laptop so that I have a small selection of stuff to watch on demand. Luckily I’ll be here in time for the end of The Wire but I’ll have to see how I can get some Lost along the way. For those of you not watching, the fourth season is awesome.
Speaking of awesome one of the first things I found when I opened up some boxes was the the four Barry Ween books. While I have recently come to the conclusion that there is a middle ground between the mad love and the complete disdain for Scott Pilgrim, it is by no means anywhere near as good as Barry Ween at it’s weakest. The last page of the last book remains one of my favourite pages of all time. Glorious work. It’s such a shame that DC came calling with the tall WFH dollar for Winick.
I’ve just been button bashing waiting for the nine o’clock news and come across the Welsh Open snooker and it reminded me that I was playing some snooker out with Trev on Sunday night and man we were appalling. It’s almost impossible to translate the scale that I’m use to for playing pool (even on a full size table) to a snooker table and it just throws me. Much less power and more finesse needed too which doesn’t really help too much. Still it was fun enough and a quiet evening given the amount of walking we did during the day.
My book reading has way dropped off. I’m still reading Love In The Time of Cholera after about 10 days. It’s really odd. I’m enjoying it a lot but I’m not sure I’m actually enjoying reading it. Very odd. I’m close to the end, I’m hoping to sit down and finish it tomorrow. I’ve got some more books lined up and I’m keen to get into some of them soon. It’d be good to get some books read. I’m hoping to get a book or two into a pocket and take a bike ride out somewhere to sit and take a few pages through. That would be good.
I also want to see a few things in the cinema in particular There Will Be Blood. I’d imagine I’ll see that this week. I have very little stuff booked in, it’s nice to have a bit of time here and not have to rush seeing everyone and getting stuff done. We’ll see how that changes!
That seems to be that, I don’t have much else right now.
Last week when I was in Forbidden Planet I picked up the new paperback by Jack mcDevitt; Odyssey. He’s a sci-fi writer who I got into while I was in the US. He’s hard to describe, I’d say it’s light sci-fi but that wouldn’t really be fair to his books. He’s very easy reading with decent characterisation and so the books flow very well. The concepts aren’t entirely out there but they kinda are too. I very much like how he’ll often raise concepts or questions and do nothing with them, they are left there to be wondered or thought about.
Anyway I picked up the paperback and sped throughout it. Good fun. I enjoyed it enough that I went out and bought the just published hardback of his next book. I can really only say the same thing, good fun. Probably not worth picking up in hardback but I was so in the mood for it, it was a good investment. So this morning when I finished that, I needed something to read. I had about 6 sci-fi books that I could easily put my hands on but none of them were really about space and that was what I was looking for. I ended up going for a re-reading of Iain M. Banks debut (well with the M anyway); Consider Phlebas. It’s very enjoyable and I’ve spent a good part of today going through it. I sat in the pub for a couple of this evening and without a newspaper I made another couple of hundred pages headway through it. Good stuff. It also means that I have the next book, and indeed the next book lined up. I can simply go through some of the Culture series. That’ll be good.
A little while ago, I mentioned that I was watching Picket Fences again. Well I generally like to watch DVD’s in bed on my laptop. The problem is that disc drives on Macbooks are well lets just say not the best and mine rejects discs on a semi-regular basis. So I got three discs in and the next wouldn’t play. It’s an odd show. It’s not as good as I remember it being but perhaps I’m more jaded by David E. Kelley’s quirks and legal shenanigans now 15 years and several series more later. I suspect it actually was better first time around. Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying it and I’ll be off to watch another episode soon.
But anyway when the disc wouldn’t work I moved onto the first season of Rescue Me and well pretty much mainlined that and the second season and now I’m in the first few episodes of the third (Paige Turco!!). It’s an FX show before you think anything so only really half seasons! It’s an odd show, none of the characters are really likeable or at least they are (for the most part) not meant to be. The cast are excellent and it’s good to see Dean Winters with a good gig. Between watching him in this and watching American History X (side notes: a) an excellent movie but I know I’ve mentioned that before, b) is it wrong to be able to date a movie based on when Avery Brooks shaved his head and grew a goatee?), I’ve decided that the next show up for rewatching has to be the excellent Oz.
Other than that well, some CoH. A chunk of work on my second ‘toon over the past few days getting some levels in. Almost ready for RWZ and other fun stuff. Some good badging on my main and some other general bits and pieces.
Not a huge amount more going on. Tomorrow looks to be pub for the evening which should be fun. Not sure what the day’ll bring, perhaps a cinema. Despite varied reviews I’d like to see I am Legend and of course I haven’t yet seen I’m Not There.
Then again, I could just stay at home and try not to spend any money. Perhaps a better plan…
Wow well you lot are keen. I seem to have quadrupled my traffic here in the past week and that’s without even posting anything. Though it does appear that some of you are visiting several times a day. While I’m glad you are so interested, might I suggest you look into a feed reader and head down the RSS route?
- Season 2 of Dexter is miles better than season 1 and I’ve enjoyed it a good deal.
- The other night I read True Grit. It was another one to finish before turning off the light. Good stuff.
- The Golden Compass was dire on almost all fronts. Short of some of the cast, I can’t think of a single redeeming feature and I enjoyed the books.
- My In Rainbows discbox arrived. I own vinyl, I doubt I’ll ever play ‘em. CD 2 needs more listening but the main album has really grown on me in the past week.
- I’m going to Egypt in January.
- I have bought some Bil Bryson books to try and inspire myself…and a number of guide books.
- I gave my sister my ticket for the Manics tonight. I’m somewhat annoyed but I’m just wasn’t feeling up to it today. Annoying.
- I was listening to some Doves earlier today. They started so well, a not bad album with two standout tracks Pounding and in particular There Goes The Fear and then a rather poor second album and I’ve not heard a thing from ‘em since.
- I keep reading how NME was good once, way back in the past, but I have such a hard time believing it.
- I read Chronicle of a Death Foretold the other day and it was okay. I think I’m missing something about Márquez, nothing has really hooked me. I do own and want to read Love In The Time Of Cholera and more so 100 Years of Solitude. I should get to ‘em.
- I seem, oddly for me, to be in a short pieces mood. I bought a collection of mountaineering essays/articles by Jon Krakauer and I’ve been enjoying going through them. I also bought The New Granta Book of the American Short Story which I want to get stuck into sometime soon.
- I’ve also read a number of Asterix books recently and have been very pleasantly surprised to discover they are as much fun as they were when I was younger and that there are even more levels to ‘em than I had realised.
- The postman brought me a lovely small package today and I hugely enjoyed crawling around under the table with a screwdriver putting a nice little memory upgrade into my computer. It’s doing a little better so far. New computer coming soon anyway but till then…
- Yesterday the postman brought me a slightly larger package. I ordered from art from my friend Jill and it’s arrived. It looks even better than I expected. Now I just need to figure out how and where to hang it.
Alright that’s it for now. Sleep time.
For fuck sake. This stupid thing has just eaten a post.
As I was saying over the weekend I read Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name which should have been something that I really enjoyed, it had most things that I look for in books but for some reason I just never connected and I felt disappointed.
So I was scrabbling for something to read yesterday and looking for something a little different. After going through my shelves I settled on Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. It’s his account of climbing Mount Everest and surviving the 1996 disaster. He also wrote Into The Wild so you may have seen his name mentioned here before. Anyway I read for a bit yesterday afternoon and I was enjoying it. Last night I was doing some stuff online, mainly catching up on mail till lateish. I headed to bed around two I’d say it was and as normal started to read for a while before I turned off the light to sleep. At 5.10, I know it was 5.10 because the radio had a time check on, I put the book down and turned off the light. It’s been a while since I’ve heard the dawn chorus lull me to sleep. Amazing book, it started a little slow (I mean who really cares about mountaineering?) but it really grips once the climb begins.
So today I was a little tired and I actually had to get out of bed even earlier than I had meant to! The postman rang to deliver my nice box set of the new final cut of Blade Runner (still want to see it in the cinema this week though) and then I had to been in town for lunch with KG. Just a pub lunch near to London Bridge but the food was pretty good.
I went for a wander with my camera afterwards but the light had faded off and I didn’t get very much. I did get into the Tate to see the latest Turbine Hall exhibit but it’s not worth writing home about. I walked for a good while but I guess I didn’t really pay attention to much, not even the music I had going. I know I was thinking a lot but I can’t for the life of me remember any of the thoughts.
I have paperwork to deal with and I hate it. I see problems with it already and I don’t know what to do about it, though to be fair I guess I could say that about all my problems. (boo hoo).
Anyways I watched the first episode of Cracker this evening and I fail to see what all the fuss is about. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either though in fairness there were moments of potential. I’ll give another one a try and see how it does. I’ve also been watching Picket Fences which is at the same time the show I remember and not. I need to watch some more, it’s clearly taking some time to find it’s feet.
Tomorrow, well who knows what it’ll bring? (I could take a good guess but where is the fun in that?)
Ah Sunday evening, Monday morning how I dread you so. Another week begins. Lets first take a look back at this past week.
I’ve just noticed that I have been posting an hour in the future for some time now. I wonder how I missed this. I bet it’s some sort of GMT/BST thing. Anyway please subtract an hour from the last few postings, thanks very much!
Right lets go straight back to Friday evening. I took the day off work because something was up and I had things to do. This wasn’t so bad. I got some things done but not everything, wait that’s the story of my life is it not? Anyway I still had to go out to Hammersmith because that evening I was going to see Ryan Adams and the Cardinals in the Apollo. It was a mixed evening. The bad, we were seated (the entire gig was) and about halfway back on the balcony so it wasn’t great. The crowd was basically a bunch of cunts. It was the worst crowd I’ve ever been with. From the moment they came on stage there were people shouting shit and throughout the entire gig people were shouting requests. It was just odd. Every song would finish and people would shout and shout and shout. Assholes. Now the other big problem I have with seated gigs is people getting in and out. There seemed to be no rush at all for people to take their seats or anything like that when the gig started. Everyone milled around, people sat in wrong seats and then shouted about it. So shit crowd, like I say basically a bunch of cunts.
The good however could have been so much better. If this had been in Brixton or somewhere like that, it could well have been the best gig I’ve ever been to. They played for just over two and half hours and the setlist was amazing. There was almost everything I could want to hear (opening with Let It Ride!) from all the albums. Really good stuff.
So that was good.
Saturday was quiet. I did some stuff locally in the morning before my sister came around to use the net for a while. Her job fell through and so it’s back to square one but I suppose from my point of view at least she has a flat of her own now.
Saturday evening I stopped by for a quick drink at Andrew’s birthday party before heading out to Alexandra Palace to see Arcade Fire. I was most amused to find the shuttle bus to be a green ex Dublin Bus bus still with all the signs inside. Anyway into the gig as the band took the stage and it was excellent. I wasn’t in the best of form at the time (and probably ain’t now either to be honest) and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would but it was still damn good. Little bit of a chore getting home as I took a wrong turn and spent more time walking than I thought. Oh well.
Sunday…dead. I was meant to be seeing Arcade Fire again this evening but it didn’t happen. I generally use Stargreen for all my ticketing needs in London. I provided them with a change of address when I moved but this seems to have caused huge problems for them and for me. Twice I’ve had to collect tickets from them and for Ryan Adams I had to get duplicates from the box office. Despite two conversations in the past few days, they knew I had not got my ticket for tonight and yet still didn’t get back to me to tell me what I was doing. Do you think they were open on Sunday? So not happy there, I’ll be onto them tomorrow for my money back. I’m considering a strongly worded letter…not that I’ll ever get to it, it’s so old fashioned.
Now to talk about some other stuff. Work, well I can sum that up simply. I don’t know. I’d add stop asking me please but to be honest I think most of you know that already. When I have something to tell you, I’ll tell you. I’m really unhappy about the entire thing but there isn’t anything I can do but wait. It sucks.
Flat, well my flatmate gets back from America tomorrow. Family has kept her there for the past couple of weeks and is going to have her moving back to there in December. I have no idea what this means for me. I cannot afford to take the flat here on my own and we are both paying a lot for this place because it’s a nice flat and we can afford it. I’m not optimistic about keeping it. Of course to add to the complication, we are under contract and I don’t know what, if anything, we can do about that. I’ve that to follow up on during the week.
So just when I thought all was okay on the home front and I could worry about work, I had been so afraid of having to deal with them both at the same time, here I am having to deal with them both at the same time. Not good, not good at all.
Hence the real need for some quiet time. It’s odd that with my flatmate away so much recently how little time I’ve had to myself. Between going out and about and having my sister around and of course KG, I’ve just been all over the place. None of these are bad things I’d like to quickly add but it just stacks up. I feel worn out. I slept until 12.30 today and I still feel so tired (and cold for that matter). I should stop going out so much, that’s out in terms of booking things and that but there is so much good stuff on that I really want to see. I have another 3 gigs this week and then I’m going away next weekend so I’m already looking at the week after for having some time. It’s kinda mad. Some of it’s really good but some of it’s just kinda mad really I think.
I watched some stuff recently. House continues on a grand little roll. I’m really enjoying it, to the point of watching it before I watch anything else which is unusual for me. I guess it’s mainly because Boston Legal continues it’s roll of not being very good. I hate all the characters with two obvious exceptions and dammit I’m starting to hate them a little too. I have not cared enough to watch Heroes for the past few episodes but I hear that it picks up a bit…it needs to. I’m not sure why I’m still watching Weeds, oh wait, yes I know why but it’s a shadow of it’s former self.
Gaming and another couple of big ones recently. This weekend I completed two major nagging concerns. Sewer Trial for a number of badges and then today with the Goodman brothers, the Praetorian arc giving me some much missed badges. It took a good while, we may have been at it for 4 if not 5 hours (oops) but it was nice to get it done from start to finish and get the missing pieces. It was good fun too.
As I think I mentioned recently, I’ve been reading the Kurt Wallander series by Henning Mankell. I’m on book 5 Sidetracked now. I took a brief interlude to read Slash’s autobiography which while being nowhere near as entertaining as The Dirt was still a decent enough read and did leave me dreaming of having been in Guns N’ Roses one evening. Odd that was. Anyway book 5 and there is a whole style to his writing that I just can’t identify. I was going to say it was translation but there has been at least two translators. Well if whichever blurb it was can get away with just saying it’s very “Nordic” then I’ll go with that too. I’m kinda enjoying them, it’s odd I’m really not sure if I am but I’m still reading and buying more anyway. I guess I should stop that but I like finishing what I start (that includes series).
I need to use my camera. I should have this weekend but it’s cold and wet. I’ve done a tiny amount of macro work late ate night recently. A few photos are up but most are crap (and some could argue so are the ones that are up…) and I just need to get out and do more. There’s that having time again…
I’ve missed so much at the cinema. There are so many movies out at the moment or out over the past couple of months that I have not manged to see. Not just random stuff but things I’ve actively been looking forward to seeing (Once, Into The Wild) and I’ve just not managed it. I need to get that into order.
Oh did I mention that the full length tracks with the Heima DVD are even more amazingly beautiful than I had expected? I didn’t. Oh well they are. Truly amazing stuff.
I’d quite like a holiday. First I’d like some money for it though. I seem to be just hemorrhaging cash at the moment. Instead of getting money back from people for tickets and the like I just seem to be getting more tickets. It’s fine, it’s just it seems to be racking up at the moment. I’m not stuck for cash or anything but I’m just aware of my bank balances a little more. It would be nice to get it all back and pay off a credit card and then just carry on. It’ll happen, just like everything else it’d be nice if it happened on my timescales as oppose to anyone elses.
Oh, I’m perfectly sober now, but I really must try and remember to tick the drunk box for anytime I’ve been drinking before going on the internet. Context is king, yo!
Finally here’s a thought. You know how there is the old line that if you think you are crazy, then you probably aren’t and that it’s the ones who think they are perfectly sane that are actally crazy? Well anyway there it is if you don’t know it. I wonder if it could apply to anything else…
It’s Sunday evening and I feel like shit.
On Tuesday night KG, a friend of hers, my sister and I went to Water Rats in Kings Cross to see King Rat. It was always going to be an odd evening, we were there to play wingman/accompany KG’s friend as she took a look at a fella. The band were okay, the music was ok but the lead singer I didn’t think fit very well. Anyway it didn’t work out and we left fairly early on. KG and I went for a quick drink and I decided that I was in the mood for a bit of a walk and that I really wanted to buy the next book in the series I’m reading. So I walked down to Borders on Charing Cross Road (open till 11 6 nights!) and picked it up. It had been a odd day and indeed evening and so I was enjoying the walk but it was a little damp and I think that was when I picked up this cold. It’s been growing since then and really hit me on Saturday. The walk itself was good though, I enjoyed it. The soundtrack for it was Fur and Gold by Bat for Lashes which I’ve very much gotten into recently. Oh and I got my books so that’s good. Scroll down for more on that.
Anyway right so Wednesday was work drinks which was quite good. Lots going on and good to finally have a chance to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen in a while. I had some holidays to use up so I was off Thursday and Friday. This meant a nice lie in the morning after and then a little while assembling some furniture. All good. Then off into town for McKitten’s Suburban Glamour signing and of course drinks afterwards. Lots of people out for the evening but wasn’t really in the right mood and I didn’t stay too late, I suspect I left around 9.30 or so.
More sleeping in on Friday before assembling some more furniture and stocking most of what had been put together before going into town for the night out with KG. We had a nice dinner in Kettners before heading around to the Gielgud theatre where KG had gotten us third row tickets for Macbeth as it was my birthday. The play was amazing. I know that I’ve not seen a massive amount of shows but it was miles above anything I’d ever seen before in every single way. The cast were truly astounding, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Patrick Stewart is such a great actor or to dismiss him for the genre work he’s so famous for but he’s a long time stage and in particular Shakespearean actor. I have seen him on stage before in Mamet’s A Life In The Theatre in which he was excellent but in this he’s truly phenomenal. The rest of the cast by the way are almost without exception fantastic, in particular Kate Fleetwood as Lady Macbeth and Michael Feast as Macduff. Wonderful stuff all around. Of particular note is the scene at the banquet when Macbeth see’s the ghost of Banquo. This is acted out twice for us, once going into the interval and then again straight after. Once the scene is shown from Macbeth’s viewpoint and the second from the others present. It’s a powerful piece of work. Anyway I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s had five star reviews all over the place and I strongly urge you to see it if you have the chance.
I must, must, must get into the habit of seeing more theatre. I have several plays booked over the next few weeks and I need to keep that going. Though I doubt that I will see anything as good as that performance was again.
We’ll skip the part about then getting home and waiting for my sister to get home from her slightly drunken adventures at Disney on Ice and move straight ahead to Saturday morning. It was fairly lazy, I was starting to feel a lot worse by then but It wasn’t so bad because I was pleased to have made it through Friday night without coughing or wheezing the entire time. So after a quick run out for some fresh croissants, I cooked breakfast and then we went out for a walk on Hampstead Heath which was lovely. It was quite a nice day and I was pleased with some of the photos.
Saturday evening, well I was feeling a little better and knowing that Neil, Doug, Alasdair and Jamie were all heading to Derek’s party and that it was pretty much just down the road I figured I’d stop by for a little while. A little while turning out to be from eight thirty until two am. Oops. I was mainly sober for the evening, I wasn’t in the mood for massive amounts of drinking with my cold and stuck to vodka and cokes. Though thinking back, there may have been quite a few of them. I successfully avoided tequila which was good. Odd evening really. Lots of drama going on all over the place it seems, at times I thought it might even end with blows. Luckily it did not though everytime I though the evening was going to be sensibly called a night, someone would always change their mind and go to the bar. So not a bad evening, just odd, exceptionally odd really.
Today I have mainly stacked shelves and vegged. I have emptied all of my book boxes onto shelves and all of my dvd boxes. I look forward to getting time to sort them properly soon. I have also watched a huge amount of stuff! House season 4 is entertaining, it’s nice to see some changes to the status quo and I really like the group of applicants house is fucking with. Heroes is hugely disappointing. I do keep reminding myself that I turned off the second episode of the first season in disgust and only went back because so many people talked of the noticeable increase in quality from the end of episode four. As I recall the first two were terrible, the third was okay and the fourth was pretty bad until the first “holy shit” moment when future Hiro arrives. Then with only a couple of missteps the rest of the season was awesome. I’m really hoping for something like that soon in season two. It’s really odd how season one was at it’s best when Hiro or Peter was on screen and without spoiling at, when neither appear in episode 4 of season 2, it’s quite a relief. I’ll give it a another few and see how it does.
I’m almost up to date with Weeds now too. I have one more left to watch. It’s kinda all over the place. It’s a shadow of it’s season 1 self but it’s still a bit funny and Mary-Louise Parker is always always watchable. So I’ll watch that next with some toast and some hot chocolate. I really should go out to Tesco for some nice hot chocolate but I just don’t feel up to it.
Oh yes I had no idea that volume II of Absolute Sandman is out already. I wasn’t expecting it for another few weeks. I have huge objections to paying £65 for the Titan edition that FP want for it when it’s an entire $62 for the proper edition on Amazon.com. To be fair Amazon.co.uk do have it for £46 but again, the Titan edition. I’m trying to figure out if it’ll get through customs or how much I’d be charged if it doesn’t. Not sure how that works for books. I really want it though, and I want it now, the first one is absolutely beautiful. It’s kinda moot point though, I’m pretty much skint till payday. The deposit for the last flat still hasn’t come back and so I’m down a large chunk of change for longer than I expected. I really really don’t want to go into my overdraft but seen as I’m in need of a quiet enough week till then it should be all okay.
Oh, don’t know if I have mentioned it but I’m going to Dublin at the end of the month. I’ll be around for 4 days seeing family and friends. Not entirely sure which friends, been having an odd relationship with one of them for a while now, something seemed to go odd just before I went to the US and now I’m not getting replies to texts or emails. It could just be busyness, in fact it probably is but I shall make a call this week to see what I can find out and hopefully meet up. That would be good, I’d like to clear that up if needs be.
So I mentioned books above. Last week I was in need of a book for a journey home and I was totally in the mood for sci-fi and *only* for sci-fi. I spent the guts of an hour in Borders on Oxford Street looking for something and nothing caught my fancy. I eventually decided that because of the recent updates to trade covers for Gollancz novels that I’d given Dan Simmon’s Hyperion a try. It had never really caught me before but I was desperate at this stage. And well it was excellent, it was one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in quite a while. So finding out that there were now 4 books that make up the Hyperion Cantos, I have been acquiring them and I’m coming to the end of the third book. Surprisingly there has been no drop off in quality yet and I’m enjoying the hell out of the series. So that’s pretty good.
I guess that’s where I am at the moment. I have no idea now if I’ll go to work tomorrow. Sitting here no, I don’t think I’ll be in but I’m hoping that a long sleep and lots of calpol will help…though it didn’t last night and I feel so much worse now.
Right, some food and some tv. Thanks to all for birthday wishes.
It’s a Saturday afternoon.
It’s been quite a good day so far. I got home way later than I expected last night and pretty much went straight to bed. I took my laptop and figured I’d go and lie down and watch a movie. So I watched the first hour or so of Robocop before pretty much falling asleep. I slept well and woke up around 10 this morning which was nice. At which point I stayed in bed and watched the rest of the movie. It stands up pretty well, some of the ED-209 stop motion effects are a bit dodgy but the Robocop suit and everything around that is excellent. A pretty good movie.
Then there was a little faffing around the flat for a while, mainly sitting in the garden for a while on the net. We are suppose to have our own broadband back on Monday which will be a sweet relief.
A couple of days ago I finally decided to start reading some Henning Mankell. I’ve bought several of his books over the years due to good reviews and awards(if something wins a CWA award, I buy it). So I started with book one of his Kurt Wallander series; Faceless Killers. It was pretty damn good, I thought towards the end that it was going to be absolutely perfect and actually leave the crime unsolved. It doesn’t, it does solve the original crime but it does it in such a way that it doesn’t actually matter. The book isn’t about the crime or solving the crime so much as it is about racism and moreso xenophobia in Sweden in the late 80’s early 90’s I guess it must be. It’s stark and harsh and a wonderful read. So of course I went straight out and bought book 2. I tried to get book 3 too but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. I went out just now to my local Waterstones to look for it but without any joy. I did however pick up a few other books (what? Stop looking at me like that!) including Memories Of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’ve been meaning to read him for sometime now and as I was wandering through Watersones (actually checking if perhaps Mankell had been shelved in Fiction aswell as Crime!), I came across this and decided now was the time. Realising how short it was (115 pages), I went into Starbucks a little up the road (”triple venti extra caramel caramel macchiato please”), sat down and read it. It was okay, I’m certainly for reading more. 100 Years Of Solitude and Love In The Time Of Cholera are both on my reading list and have been for some time. The latter is even on my shelf somewhere…
So today is going pretty well. Tonight I’m of to see Richard III with herself. I have some reservations about what it’s actually going to be like but as I’m an idiot it was slightly on the expensive side and I’ll damn well enjoy it. I’m going to leave a little early and go look for that book in a couple of other shops and there are a couple of trades out that I want so perhaps a trip into Forbidden Planet is in order
Last night I was taken, to my shock, out of London! We went to see Run Fatboy, Run as a light comedy was definitely in order and it was showing out in Beckenham which I was amazed to find out is actually out of London and in Kent. I assumed that London would sprawl for miles and miles though I guess we were already a bit south of the river in Crystal Palace. Anyway the movie wasn’t bad nor was it really any good. Cast were excellent. Simon Pegg, Dylan Moran and Hank Azaria are all more than watchable and so I enjoyed it for that alone. Don’t get me wrong, we both laughed (not as much as some of the locals!) and I’m glad that I saw it but not really something I’d actually recommend. We were looking for a quick dinner beforehand, not a meal out and ended up in the high street Slug and Lettuce where I was quite surprised by how good the food was. I knew that it was fairly decent pub food stuff (we both had burgers) but it was actually quite good as oppose to just passable so that was good.