And Keep Those Damned Kids Off My Lawn!

It's official. I am well into the process of turning into a crotchety old woman. Today, I sent a snarky e-mail to the company that makes my usual brand of shampoo complaining about the really annoying caps they've just switched to on their bottles.

I feel like Grampa Simpson.

It's 12:24 AM, And I'm About Ready For Some Dinner.

At work, we're currently in the process of combining what were previously two separate departments into one, and I've been doing a lot of cross-training over the past few weeks. While that's going on, we've pretty much abandoned the regular shift rotation, and I've mostly been coming in and working in the evenings. It's my favorite shift, when I'm in one of my periods of having no social life (which, frankly, I usually am), as it requires me neither to get up at the crack of dawn nor to stay up until the crack of dawn.

The problem, though, is that it allows me to give in to my natural inclination to drift my hours later and later... and later. For a while there, I was working until midnight, going to bed around 2:00-ish, and sleeping until 10:00 or 10:30, and that was fine. Plenty of time to get stuff done before work, and a nice couple of hours to relax afterward. By this point, though, I'm lucky if I'm asleep by 3:30 and am opening my well-rested eyes sometime around noon... Which is just late enough that I start to feel rushed instead of relaxed before work.

I think something down in my brainstem has finally caught on to the fact that things have changed and is sitting there going, "Hey, wait. Aren't we supposed to be on the night shift by now? I'm sure we're supposed to be on the night shift. Here, let's go ahead and prepare for that, OK? It's gotta happen soon..."

I Feel Bad. But Also Amused.

In case you've ever happened to wonder how to go about getting the most pitiful possible mewing sound out of a cat, I have just discovered the answer: accidentally step on his tail, then, when you go to pet him in apology, zap him with a big ol' static-electric shock.

Poor critter's still looking at me with this interesting expression of wary confusion.

Grand Cavalcade of Random Links

I got a bunch of 'em this time. With comments!

The Butcher Block: A podcast for fans of Jim Butcher's books. I haven't had the chance to listen to it yet, but it looks like the most recent edition has some commentary on the Dresden Files TV series and its differences from the books, as well as a cut from a forthcoming audiobook version of one of the Dresden novels.

Fly Your Name to Mars: The Planetary Society is putting together a DVD that will fly on the Phoenix Mars probe, featuring a collection of Mars-themed literature and art, as well as the names of all its members and anyone else who cares to submit one. Just give them your name by February first, then sit back and wait for the future Mars colonists to find the disc and read it.

Mr. Deity: Short, humorous videos featuring Mr. Deity, the all-powerful, sort-of-all-knowing creator of the universe. Likely to offend some and amuse others. Or possibly both at once.

The Pulling Report: A 1990 report thoroughly debunking the idea -- then taken with disturbing seriousness by the US justice system -- that a plague of satan-worshipping Dungeons & Dragons players was sweeping the nation, causing teen suicides and other mayhem. Not exactly current events, but as a gamer, I found it interesting reading. Best quote: "If games were anything more than a form of entertainment, everyone who ever won a game of Monopoly would magically become a Donald Trump and good Risk players would have taken over the world."

Star Trek: The Next Generation Recaps: Wil Wheaton recaps old TNG episodes with a near-perfect balance of affection, insight, snark, and humor. He provides a few insider tidbits, which are interesting, but mostly he comes across much like any other fan... albeit more articulate than most. Definitely a Trekkie must-read.

Livermore's Centennial Light: There's a light bulb in a fire station in California which has been burning continuously for 106 years. I saw this thing on Mythbusters, and somehow found myself bizarrely fascinated with it. Fortunately, there's a 24-hour webcam!

What I Did Over Christmas Vacation: What they did was to re-create the movie version of the Battle of Helm's Deep. Out of candy. Man, it's nice to know there are people out there even nerdier than I am.

It Isn't Ironic, I Don't Think

I'm currently reading George Carlin's Brain Droppings (or, more accurately, an omnibus collection of his books, including that one). Carlin's a pretty funny guy even when I don't agree with him, but, man, he's just earned my undying love and loyalty for this succinct, well-formulated explication of the correct definition of "irony." I am quoting it here in its entirety because I think it is extremely important for every English speaker to understand this, in order to stop annoying me. (Yes, Alanis, I am looking at you.)

Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father's, it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is "a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result." For instance:

If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, he is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony.

If a Kurd, after surviving a bloody battle with Saddam Hussein's army and a long, difficult escape through the mountains, is crushed and killed by a parachute drop of humanitarian aid, that, my friend, is irony writ large.

Darryl Stingley, the pro football player, was paralyzed after a brutal hit by Jack Tatum. Now Darryl Stingley's son plays football, and if the son should become paralyzed while playing, it will not be ironic. It will be coincidental. If Darryl Stingley's son paralyzes someone else, that will be closer to ironic. If he paralyzes Jack Tatum's son, that will be precisely ironic.

Photo-Blogging, Continued

OK, for anybody who wanted to see where I work, this is the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Array Operations Center, in Socorro:



And here's the inside of our (newly and rather spiffily re-designed) control room. This is the correlator side, where I traditionally do my thing:



And here's the array side, where I am currently learning how to babysit actual antennas, rather than just discs of previously-recorded data:



The best thing about this arrangement is that there is no longer a big divider between me and the windows. Actual natural sunlight, hooray!

Elf, Vulcan... It's All In The Pointy Ears.

What type of Fae are you?

I Watch TV! And Then Post About It! How Exciting Is That?

I did, by the way, also get around to watching the -- What are we calling it, mid-season premiere? That sounds pretty dumb -- of Battlestar Galactica. But, y'know, while I'm definitely still interested in that show enough to keep watching it, I'm nowhere near interested enough to get all excited and want to blog about it. I have to admit, at this point my main thought about that show is that I want to see more of Cavil. Partly because he's an interestingly-written character. Partly because, dude, Dean Stockwell. And partly because he has good taste in hats. In fact, I was actually rather glad when [spoiler for last night's episode removed], because it let me stop staring covetously at Cavil's hat, which was really rather distracting.

Also, I think Cavil should have scenes with Doc Cottle. Yeah, other people may watch that show for the hot guys'n'chicks, but I would totally tune in for the Battlestar Galactica: Snarky Old Guys spinoff.

A Brief Observation On Looking Out The Window For The First Time This Morning

Wow, we're getting a lot of snow this year.

And What Is It With Magicians Named "Harry," Anyway?

I've been very much enjoying Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series of books (despite the fact that a cat tried to maim me with a collection of them once). So far, I've made it up through book 7, which I read about a month ago. I've thought pretty much from the beginning that they'd translate very well into movies, and when I heard they were actually going to be turned into a TV series, I figured, hey, that'll work, too; the premise -- basically a "wizard detective" sort of thing -- has plenty of scope to sustain a weekly format. So I was fairly optimistic about what they might do with it, and rather curious to see how it would come out.

Well, I've just finished watching the series premiere, and I'm not sure I can form a coherent opinion, because almost all I could think about, the entire way through, was how incredibly weird it is to see something so familiar done so... so... so same-but-different. The concept is exactly the same. The main character looks and acts pretty close to the one from the books, and appears to have very nearly the same backstory. The whole feel of the show seems about right. As such things go, I'd say it's actually a pretty faithful adaptation, but that fact just serves to make the differences stand out in an almost surreal kind of way. I found it disturbingly hard to concentrate on the story, because I kept going: "Wait, who is this chick?" and "OMG, is that Bob?! He's totally different! But cool! But different!" and "Wait, Harry doesn't drive a Jeep!" and "No, no, no, Murphy's supposed to be blonde!" They're not bad changes, necessarily -- except maybe for the Jeep thing, which I can't help thinking the "real" Harry Dresden would object to -- but they do have this odd double-vision effect on me. I really hope that'll go away after another episode or two, because I think I could like this show if my hindbrain will just shut up about the books...

More Piccies!

OK, here we go... For those who wanted to see a picture of my house, here it is:



And, since a couple of people seemed interested in a more general view of what kind of place I live in, well, here's a couple of (highly uninspired) views down Socorro's main street:




And a better view of the mountain than the one I posted yesterday:



My sister wanted to see my infamous (and hideously misnamed) To-Read Pile... This was actually impossible to get in one shot, so here are two non-overlapping pictures. Be afraid!




And, lastly, here's what I had for lunch: a tuna sandwich, half a dill pickle, baby carrots, some reduced-fat potato chips, and a mug of tea. Which I ate at about 3 PM, because I am pretty much a time zone unto myself.



Exciting stuff, huh? And there will be more to come, eventually...

Welcome To My World...

OK, I've gotten a few picture requests already, both in the blog comments and elsewhere, so here's some pictures to start with. Photos of anything outside will have to wait until daylight, though, and the person who wanted to see where I work will have to wait until I go back in on Monday (or, more realistically, until I get around to downloading and posting the picture on Tuesday).

Actually, I did take this one out my front door earlier today, for those who are interested in general pictures of where I live. I was trying to get a nice shot of the snow-dusted mountain, but I didn't think it came out very well. Still, here:



And here's a shot of my computer desk. (I resisted the urge to tidy it up before taking the picture.):



Here's my first attempt to use the self-timer to create a self-portrait. It's not a very good attempt... I think I somehow managed to decrease the resolution by accident, and I have no idea why my face looks that red. But here ya go, dad:



And, for the freak who asked, possibly just to see if I'd do it, my toothbrush:



(And, d'oh, my internet's being a little flaky, and when I try to upload these to Blogger, it keeps timing out. Let's see if I can ftp 'em to my own webspace and link to 'em from there... Yay! I can!)

I Won't Guarantee They'll Be Worth A Thousand Words, Though.

OK, I still haven't had the chance to play around with the new digital camera very much, so I figured I'd call on you, my faithful readers, to help me out. I vaguely recall this going around as a meme a while back, but of course I wasn't exactly equipped to do it then. So:

Tell me one thing that you'd like me to take a picture of, and I'll see about doing so and posting the result. Note that I reserve the right to veto anything too personal or too inconvenient, and also to arbitrarily decide that I've gotten bored and will stop taking requests. Leave a comment here with your suggestion, or send me an e-mail, or contact me any other way you might happen to know of to contact me, as long as it doesn't involve knocking on my door or making my phone ring before about noon.

Even The Devil Can Quote Scripture.

You know the Bible 77%!

 

Wow! You are truly a student of the Bible! Some of the questions were difficult, but they didn't slow you down! You know the books, the characters, the events . . . Very impressive!

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I Growed Him Up Good!

I just took Vir into the vet's for his annual checkup and his shots. You may be interested to know that his current officially recorded weight is upwards of 16 pounds. That's more than 12 pounds heavier than when I last took him in, a year ago, and a very far cry from the days when I used to weigh him on a postage scale. It's actually pretty uncomfortable to pick him up inside the pet carrier now!

Anyway, he's all vaccinated and checks out OK. I did mention to the vet the one small concern I've had, which is that his breathing sometimes seems surprisingly loud, almost like someone with a stuffed-up nose, although he never has any snot. That's sort of always been the case, but lately I've been noticing it more, and also the very occasional wheezy or buzzy sound from him. I haven't been too worried about it, as he never seems ill or short of breath, and certainly doesn't display any diminished activity or energy levels. Which response, according the vet, is pretty much right on. He might have a touch of asthma, or allergies (which I think would be a sort of poetic justice), or scarring on his lungs from his fragile orphan-kitten days, but it's not anything that's currently a big deal. If it's asthma, there are treatments for it, but those tend to come with side effects, and if he's not actually suffering any problems, hey, why cause any? So, unless it gets worse, there's nothing to really worry about. Again, that's pretty much what I figured, but it's nice to hear it from the professional.

Now I have to make an appointment for the other two cats... Apparently they're overdue for their shots, but for some reason Vir was the only one I got a reminder about. Sigh. No rest for the cat lady...

Obligatory Random Links Post

The top ten astronomy images of 2006: One astronomer's choices for the top space pics of the year. Very cool images, with informative commentary.

Battlestar Galactica season 3 gag reel: Some extremely funny stuff on here, though I think my favorite moment was Adama telling Baltar to "eat shit and die." Because, man, you know he wants to.

Pictaps: Draw characters. Then watch them dance. It's weirdly, insanely fascinating.

This Mind Is Not Yet Rated.

Your Mind is PG-13 Rated

Your mind is definitely a little dirty. You're naughty, but not trashy. You don't shy away from a dirty joke, and you're clearly not a prude.

Do You Have a Dirty Mind?

Yeah, I'll accept that analysis. Mostly because it makes me sound good from both ends. (Of course, now that sentence looks weirdly dirty to me...)

I Want To Go And Live In My TV Set.

Current DVD-watching is season 7 of The West Wing. I've talked about that show here a bit before as I've made my way through it on DVD, and, given that I'm not a big fan of politics, it may have seemed a little odd that I've gotten so into a series that appears to be pretty far from my usual sort of fare. The truth is, though, that TWW is exactly the sort of thing you might expect me to watch, because it's absolutely, 100%, pure, undistilled, alternate-universe fantasy. And wish-fulfillment fantasy, at that. Man, I so want to live in a world where I'd have trouble deciding which presidential candidate to vote for because I think they're both good choices, instead of the same damned lesser-of-two-evils crap over and over.

Most especially, though, I want to live in a world where politicians have a clue about science and some remote shred of respect for the concept of "separation of church and state."

Gratuitous Cat Pictures

Hey, you knew they were coming!

Here's a picture of Vir, hefty adult cat that he now is:


And here's Nova, sitting on a cat tree and being very fluffy:


And Happiness, curled up into a sleeping kitty-ball:



Ah, they all look so sweet and innocent. You'd never know what little hellions they actually are.

Current Meme

Current clothes: Dark gray sweats. A white t-shirt that says "I had Great Four-Play in Las Vegas" in big letters, and "At Cinema Ride In the Forum Shops At Caesars, Las Vegas" below that in smaller ones. (They gave out free shirts if you bought a ticket for four of the 3D motion rides.) White socks. The dinosaur slippers pictured in the previous post.

Current mood: Not bad. Better once I finish doing this meme, because once it occurred to me that it was about time to do it again, the thought kept hanging around in the back of my brain bugging me until I finally sat down to type it up.

Current music: I was just watching the recent Doctor Who charity concert, which someone a work gave me a copy of on disc.

Current annoyance: I actually cooked some chicken for lunch a little while ago, and I made lima beans with it... But I forgot to turn the water down from "boil" to "simmer," and they came out tasting kind of funny, so I mostly didn't eat them. So much for trying to get some vegetables into my system.

Current thing: Learning to operate a digital camera. Also radio telescopes.

Current desktop picture: It's a picture of the Babylon 5 space station. I'd link to it, but I don't remember where I got it; I just found it on my hard drive while I was looking for something to replace the TARDIS-with-a-wreath-on-it picture I had up briefly over Christmas. I'm feeling a bit enthused on the subject of Babylon 5 at the moment, having just finished Peter David's Legions of Fire trilogy, which does an excellent job of filling in some of the gaps left by what we saw on our TV screens. (I was lucky to be able to read all of that, by the way. For some unfathomably stupid reason, the first two books in the trilogy are still in print, but the third volume is extremely rare and currently sells for about seventy bucks on ebay. Fortunately, I found a friend with a copy he was willing to lend me, after a different friend very generously bought me the first two in return for some favor I did her.)

Current song in head: The radio in my brain has been switching around rapidly between various songs I've listened to recently. Right now, it seems to be "The Noah Plan" by Peter Schilling. Fifteen minutes ago, it was "Song for Ten," from Doctor Who. Before that, it kept alternating between "Leaving to Stay" by Jonny Lang, "The Future" by Leonard Cohen, and "The Man Who Sold the World" by David Bowie. Hey, at least it's playing good music.

Current book: Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson.

Current DVD in player: The disc with the aforementioned Doctor Who concert.

Current refreshment: Lemon-ginger green tea.

Current worry: I'm trying not to worry too much about anything.

Current thought: I think it's time to add the fabric softener to the wash...

Dinosaur Safari!

The new camera is now up and running, although I haven't exactly figured out any of its nuances yet. After my last post, someone suggested I should put up a picture of the dinosaur slippers. Well, your request is my command! Here they are:


I don't know how clear it is from the picture -- hey, I'm a novice with this machine -- but these slippers are startlingly realistic. Well, no, they're not realistic triceratops, or they wouldn't fit into my house, but they have this pattern and texture to them that looks remarkably like real reptile skin. It's actually a bit disconcerting to walk into a room when I've left them lying on the floor... My hindbrain tends to spend a moment shouting at me that there are strange animals in my house! The cats were kind of freaked out by them at first, too.

Anyway, there you have it! The beginning of my new digital-camera age! Be afraid...

Post-Holiday Shopping Fun

My digital camera arrived. Hooray! Haven't had the chance to play around with it yet, though.

Also, I now have a pair of slippers shaped like triceratops. Triceratopses? Anyway, I have slippers shaped like dinosaurs. This makes me quite unreasonably happy.

An Archetype I Am, Yes! Make Fun Of My Talking, You Should Not.

What Fantasy Archetype Are you?
The Weird Guy In The Hut In The Swamp You are The Weird guy In the Hut In the Swamp. In addition to talking funny, you're like Tom Bombadil (LoTR), The Lady of the Lake (Arthurian Legend), Yoda (Star Wars), The Beavers (Narnia), Old Bailey (Neverwhere), Hagrid (Harry Potter) and Adie (Wizard's First Rule). you are weird and strange. You isolated yourself from the world among your own private powers/library/artifacts. You usually have something important to teach or give the Unlikely Hero that will enable him to defeat the Totally Wicked Villain. When he comes, remember that young people are impatient and will never see the connection between their goals and crotchety old people.
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I Have A Memory Like A... What's That Thing?

Success! My old, woefully inadequate computer is now an old, slightly-less-woefully-inadequate computer! And it only took me about twelve tries to get the damned memory in there. (It's easy all the instructions say. You just line it up and push until it clicks. Well, I did that, damn it! Twelve times! It did not click! Gah.)

It's not as much of an upgrade as I'd expected, though, as I somehow had it in my brain that what was already in there was one 256MB DIMM, and instead there were two 128MB ones... Which, given that I've only got two slots, meant that one of those 128s had to come out before I could install the new 256. Meaning my memory is still pitiful (and, erm, so is my computer's). But at least it's better than it was. It seems to take somewhat less time to boot up now, and it hasn't frozen up on me yet in the 20 minutes or so I've had it running, which, sadly enough, is probably an improvement. At some point I need to replace the other 128 with a 256, and then I'll at least have as much RAM as your average laptop comes standard with these days. But it's going to have to wait until the blister I got from constantly inserting and re-inserting the damned thing heals up.

First Stupid Online Quiz of the New Year

Which Firefly Line Are You?

"The Bible is somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps." (Book, War Stories)
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Man, I totally love that line.

And, hmm... I suppose I probably ought to go and get dressed now. I can't spend all of 2007 in my bathrobe. Sadly.

So Many Books, So Few Days In A Year

OK, after much coffee and a hot shower, I'm feeling a little more awake, though I suspect this may be a temporary illusion. While it lasts, though, I will take the opportunity to present, as I usually do on January first, a list of all the books I read in the past year.

If I've counted right, 2006's total is 131 books, which seems pretty respectable to me. It's higher than 2005's count of 125, and considerably higher than the four or five years before that, when it typically fell below a hundred. I have been trying to resist the lure of the shiny, shiny internet enough to get a bit more reading done, and it seems to be working. Also, thanks to my self-imposed book-buying quota, I seem to have ended the year with 31 fewer books than I started it with, which is encouraging, even if at this rate it's going to take me something like 15 years to get the infamous To-Read Pile down to zero. (And, yes, if you do the math, that does imply that I bought or otherwise acquired an even 100 books this year. It's an addiction, I tell ya!)

I'm not sure what else to say about this list... There's a lot of Doctor Who novels on it, which probably won't surprise anybody. And the fiction-to-nonfiction ratio continues to shrink, a trend I've noticed increasingly in the last few years, and one which I don't predict is going to reverse itself any time soon.

Anyway, enough analysis. Here's the list:

2006 Books

Everybody Comes to the Nightside by Simon R. Green
Farscape Forever! edited by Glenn Yeffeth
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
The Dancer from Atlantis by Poul Anderson
Walking with Dinosaurs by Tim Haines
Doctor Who and the Hand of Fear by Terrance Dicks
The Wreck of the River of Stars by Michael Flynn
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The Year of Intelligent Tigers by Kate Orman
The Stainless Steel Rat for President by Harry Harrison
Resonance by Chris Dolley
Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres
Forever Knight: These Our Revels by Anne Hathaway-Nayne
This Is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow
The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos by Terrance Dicks
The Borderlands of Science by Michael Shermer
The Other Extreme by T.J. MacGregor
So Many Books by Gabriel Zaid
Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Darwin Awards II by Wendy Northcutt
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
Justice Hall by Laurie R. King
Holy Tango of Literature by Francis Heaney
Accelerando by Charles Stross
The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte
The Slow Empire by David Stone
Finding Serenity edited by Jane Espenson
The Little Country by Charles deLint
The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde
Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars by Terrance Dicks
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
The Day of Creation by J.G. Ballard
Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
The Whole Man by John Brunner
Black Seas of Infinity by H.P. Lovecraft
What If...? by Marshall Brain
Dark Progeny by Steve Emmerson
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney
The Deathworld Trilogy by Harry Harrison
The Hoboken Chicken Emergency by Daniel Pinkwater
The Odyssey by Homer (trans. by Robert Fagles)
Doctor Who - K-9 and Company by Terrance Dudley
John Glenn: A Memoir by John Glenn & Nick Taylor
Mammoth by John Varley
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
New Rules by Bill Maher
To Dream in the City of Sorrows by Kathryn M. Drennan
Bad Trip by Joel Miller
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
The City of the Dead by Lloyd Rose
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin (trans. by James E. Falen)
Raising Hell in the Nightside by Simon R. Green
102 Minutes by Jim Dwyer & Kevin Flynn
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGeuin
Grimm Reality by Simon Bucher-Jones & Kelly Hale
Bound by Law? by Keith Aok, James Boyle & Jennifer Jenkins
Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
The Ig Nobel Prizes by Marc Abrahams
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
Monkeyluv by Robert M. Sapolsky
Mortal Engines by Stanislaw Lem
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street by Lawrence Miles
The Works: Anatomy of a City by Kate Ascher
Coyote by Allen Steele
Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons by Terrance Dicks
Wizard by Trade by Jim Butcher
Abducted by Susan A. Clancy
Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Paul Magrs
The Difference Engine by Doron Swade
The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Flying Sorcerers by David Gerrold & Larry Niven
In the Theater of Consciousness by Bernard J. Baars
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
Anonymous Lawyer by Jeremy Blachman
Hope by Mark Clapham
Rumspringa by Tom Shachtman
Imperial Earth by Arthur C. Clarke
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Lieutenant Hornblower by C.S. Forester
Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade
Strange New Worlds III edited by Dean Wesley Smith
Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams
Mathematics and Humor by John Allen Paulos
Black Hole by Charles Burns
Four Frontiers by Robert A. Heinlein
Small Things Considered by Henry Petroski
Anachrophobia by Jonathan Morris
Metallic Love by Tanith Lee
Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins
Song in the Dark by P.N. Elrod
Dave Barry's Money Secrets by Dave Barry
Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor by Terrance Dicks
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
Us and Them by David Berreby
Singularity Sky by Charles Stross
Little Gods by Timm Pratt
Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent
Trading Futures by Lance Parkin
Fear: A Cultural History by Joanna Bourke
Your Eyelids Are Growing Heavy by Barbara Paul
The End by Lemony Snicket
Mina: The Dracula Story Continues by Marie Kiraly
The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig
Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett
Feynman's Rainbow by Leonard Mlodinow
Red Lightning by John Varley
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett
The Book of the Still by Paul Ebbs
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
Doctor Who - Vengeance on Varos by Philip Martin
The Book of Jhereg by Steven Brust
The Family That Couldn't Sleep by D.T. Max
Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick
In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman
Snow White and the Seven Samurai by Tom Holt
Adverbs by Daniel Handler
The Stories of English by David Crystal
The Crooked World by Steve Lyons
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
Wizard at Large by Jim Butcher
Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman
Ingathering by Zenna Henderson

First Post of New Year. (Am Too Groggy To Think Of Cleverer Title, Sorry.)

Had a good New Year's Eve. Lots of fun. Am now feeling extremely bleary, partly because of a resurgence the cold I thought I was fighting off, mostly because I was up far too late and awake far too early. (Note to my dear friends, whom I love, honestly: I am delighted if you want to call me and wish me a happy New Year, but I am not awake at 9:30 normally, let alone when I've been out until 4:00.)

Will post my traditional year-end book list when I'm more awake. For now, must have more coffee.

Happy 2007 to all!