Random Links (Biblioholic Edition)

Which DOCTOR WHO Library Is the Best DOCTOR WHO Library?: I can't decide, either!

Tsundoku: The Japanese have a word for it. That's oddly reassuring to know. (Also, holy crap, that Bookshelf Porn blog gets me disturbingly excited.)

25 Signs You’re Addicted To Books: I definitely qualify. But you knew that.

bookbookgoose: Shows you random books from Amazon. Very, very random books. I could keep clicking this all day.

Well, How About Next Week?

All day, I've had this weird feeling like there's some specific activity I should be engaging in, or something exciting that's supposed to happen today that isn't actually happening. And a little while ago, I finally realized why.

There is no new Doctor Who on today. And apparently some portion of my psyche is simply not prepared to believe or accept this fact.

My brain, ladies and gentlemen. My pathetic fannish brain.

How Come I Keep Hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger's Voice In My Head Now?

Now that I'm watching my money more carefully, I've started playing this fun new game called "What unexpected expense will there be for this paycheck?" This week's winner: $66 to the vet to reassure me that the weird brown spot on Nova's eye is probably not a tumor. Stupid expensive cats.

Still, on the upside: probably not a tumor! Yay!

Star Trekkin' Across The Universe

Just got back from seeing the new Star Trek movie. I made a point of going to see this one in the theater, not, I confess, due to any deep affection for the Trek reboot franchise -- honestly, the mere fact that I didn't actually hate the first one came as a pleasant shock -- but mostly because, well, Benedict Cumberbatch.

But I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I expected to. Probably more than it objectively deserves, really. It does, at least when it's not too busy being Big and Cinematic, have a fun, TOS-y kind of feel to it, mostly in the characters' banter, which was always one of the best things about the original. And, once again, there were lots of little continuity references and such designed to please us old school Trekkies. Although there were also a couple of points that the old school Trekkie in me had some problems with (including one fairly big one that's also a fairly big spoiler if you're going into the movie blind, so I won't say anything about it here). And, to be honest, I'm not sure the plot was actually coherent at all. More than that, it inevitably (and deliberately) invites comparisons to certain things that the original did, sometimes to the point of deja vu, and if you take it up on that invitation in any remotely serious way, this version is no way in hell going to come out the winner. And, yet, I found I didn't really mind much, but instead found myself settling into some optimal combination of taking it on its own terms and enjoying it for the nostalgic pleasure of being reminded of things I've always loved but hadn't thought about all that much in a while.

And, contemplating that reaction, it occurs to me that the reason these movies work for me at all is because my brain basically treats them as big screen fan fiction. I don't have to take them too seriously, and there's no way I'm taking them as canon, but what the heck. Approached with no expectations, no feeling that anything in particular is at stake, and the sense that I'm perfectly free to enjoy the aspects I like and ignore the ones I don't, it's an entertaining enough way to spend a couple of hours.

Now, on to the Doctor Who season finale! For which I do have expectations...


(Note: You're welcome to discuss details of the movie in the comments, if you like, but for the sake of those who haven't seen it yet, please do label anything that contains spoilers. Thanks!)

Random Links: All-Video Edition

First, we have a trailer for Calvin and Hobbes: The Movie. So help me, I seriously wish this was a real thing. I would watch the hell out of this.





Still on the movie theme, and just in time for the sequel, it's the honest trailer for the 2009 Star Trek movie. With lots of spoilers. Funny, funny spoilers.





And then there's Catherine Tate on some kind of game show, desperately trying to remember what part her co-worker David Tennant played in Harry Potter. This is probably the single funniest thing I have seen in recent memory.





And finally, a promo for the upcoming TV series Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. Even if I weren't stupidly addicted to the show it's being spun off from, I would think this looked really, really cool.

And Today's Lesson

The lesson for today: If your alarm clock goes off and some groggy, disoriented, wishful-thinking part of your brain says, "What did you set that for? We've already done Friday! That was yesterday! Today is a day to sleep! Turn that thing off!", do not listen to it.

Fortunately, I somehow managed to make it into work on time, anyway. But ye gods, do I need more caffeine. Or at least for all the coffee I drank before dashing out the door to start kicking in.

This Is The Sort Of Thing You Get When I Decide To Post More Regularly.

Lesson for today: it's a very good idea to wear gloves when you apply shoe polish. Oh, well. I'm sure the orange fingernails make some kind of fashion statement.

I Know, I Should Be Glad I Even Have A Job.

Things that are happening this weekend: a new Doctor Who episode written by Neil Gaiman, the eagerly anticipated season finale of Once Upon a Time, a huge library sale in Albuquerque, Mother's Day (meaning it would be good if I could at least give my mom a call), and probably still more nice weather.

Things I am doing this weekend: working twelve hour shifts and, hopefully, sleeping.

Sigh.

And Then There's This Thing

Current clothes: A nightshirt that says "Oops, I bought another pile of books!" and a pair of pajama pants with a pattern of stars and moons on them. I really need to shower and get dressed soon, but I guarantee you that whatever I end up wearing, it will not express my personality nearly as thoroughly as my sleepwear.

Current mood: Groggy. My circadian rhythms have been even more messed up than usual lately, and today's manifestation of that involved repeatedly waking up (largely thanks to a persistently annoying cat) and then falling back to sleep again, until I ended up spending over twelve hours in bed. And now my brain has forgotten how to actually be awake.

Current music: I was listening to my music collection on random shuffle again yesterday in the car. I don't remember much in the way of specifics, but, as usual, it was a ridiculous mish-mash of genres.

Current annoyance: Between the car payments and the credit card debt still hanging over my head, for the first time in years I'm having to carefully stick to a budget, and I do not like it.

Current thing: I don't know. Wanting to get out and enjoy some of this really nice weather we've been having lately, and not actually doing it. Man. That's a sad thing.

Current desktop picture: I finally ousted Rumplestiltskin and replaced him with the terminator. No, not that one. The one that divides day from night.

Current book: Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Deadliest Creatures by Carl Zimmer. So far I've only read the prologue and I'm already disgusted. Not with the book, which looks interesting, but with nature. Nature is icky.

Current song in head: "Demons" by Imagine Dragons. So apparently that band has been playing in my head for a month now.

Current refreshment: A giant-ass mug of coffee. I'm not sure if it's helping.

Current DVD in player: Disc one of season 5 of Merlin. Which I really should have learned not to watch while I'm also watching Once Upon a Time. The fact that they're both fantasy shows with lots of magic that reinterpret familiar characters means that comparing them is inevitable, and I'm afraid Merlin comes off the worse for it. It's frequently entertaining and occasionally exciting, but it lacks the complexity of OUaT, in terms of plot, character, and narrative structure.

Current worry: Blah, blah, existential angst, blah, blah, what am I doing with my life?, blah, blah, what if crises happen that I can't handle financially?, blah, blah, aging... Screw it all. My brain is not awake enough to deal with my worries right now.

Current thought: Maybe if I rub my face vigorously for a while, that will wake me up. *tries it* Nope.

Hey, Look, I Have An Actual Thing To Post About.

So, I went to see Iron Man 3 today. (I confess, this had less to do with an eager inability to wait for this particular movie to come out on DVD and more to do with wanting an excuse to drive the car. I haven't had much reason to leave town lately, and if I don't take the car out on the highway once in a while, the battery will go flat. Right? Plus, it's still an exciting novelty to me to drive a car that doesn't vibrate or fill up with so much wind noise that I can barely hear the radio. Such luxury!) Anyway, the movie was fun, in that improbable stunts, sarcastic quips, and lots of stuff blowing up sort of way. So pretty much what I expected and was hoping for. Also, I think more superheroes ought to suffer anxiety attacks. It makes them much more relatable.

You know, I've talked here before about my ambiguous feelings towards superhero movies in general (especially ones featuring Batman). But apparently any movie with Iron Man in it is pretty much automatically an enjoyable one for me. Which is funny, considering that before the first movie came out, I had only the vaguest idea who Iron Man even was, other than the subject of a song that gets stuck in my head every time I hear it.

But while I, like Tony Stark, enjoy shiny technology, I would like to offer up this tip for movie patrons: please do not let your kids wear those stupid sneakers with the flashing LEDs on them to the movie theater. I mean, come on, people. Seriously.

I Am Still Living Long And Prospering. More Or Less.

It has come to my attention that my posting here has been, well, nearly nonexistent, and that people do notice this fact and seem to miss me. Awww! Unless, of course, they're secretly wondering if I'm dead and they can loot my DVD collection.

Anyway, nope, still not dead. Just... quiet. Or at least I am here. You know how it is. You don't seem to have anything much interesting to say, and the longer you go without saying anything, the more interesting it feels like you need to be to be worth breaking the silence, and... yeah. Well, never mind that. I'm going to try to post here a bit more regularly, and then all of you who encouraged me can ask yourselves, "My god, what have I done?" when I start going on about the boring details of my boring life.

But let's start with a video, instead. You know, I hate commercials. I honestly loathe them. And when somebody tells me there's this really cute, clever, well-made commercial I must see, that only makes me inclined to be even more hostile to it. Because commercials are an attempt to manipulate my brain for profit, and the only thing worse than doing that badly is doing it well. But, well, I had to make an exception for this one. Had to. So:





ETA: And literally as I was posting this, somebody sent me an e-mail with a link to this video, in case I hadn't seen it yet. Oh, my interests, they are so very, very predictable.

I Sometimes Like To Pretend The Only Bad News In The World Is About TV Shows.

Apparently Futurama has been canceled. Again.

I'll be in the angry dome.

Another Brief Glimpse Inside My Brain

I was cooking yesterday -- yes, this is a thing I do occasionally -- and I discovered I was out of thyme. This disturbed me ways it really should not have. Stupid homophones.

Dodging The Presbyopian Bullet

Just got back from the annual eye exam I'd been so diligently putting off. Which featured the following conversational snippet, after the doctor got the funky lens-switching machine to a setting where things looked pretty good:

Doctor: Try this. *makes one final adjustment*

Me, pleased: Hey, that's even better! That looks pretty great!

Doctor: That's the bifocal strength.

Me: Shit.

Fortunately, however, possibly partly in response to my pitiful puppy-dog look, he allowed as how I could reasonably put off switching to bifocals for another year. Well, it's not like I've actually been having any trouble reading or anything, and with as much reading as I do, you would think I'd notice. Reprieve!

But, man, there are just not words for how much I do not want bifocals. It's not really the fact that it's an annoying acknowledgment of advancing age, although that certainly doesn't help. It's that already any time my prescription changes significantly, I feel queasy for a week, and my confidence in my ability to adapt to bifocals, of any kind, is thus extremely low. I also really didn't want to have to spend the money right now, to be honest. Next year, I will hopefully have to buy fewer plane tickets to oblige relatives who for some reason insist on me visiting them.

Also, when I told the optometrist that I really didn't know whether progressive lenses or regular bifocals would work better for me, he immediately replied with, "And you won't until you try them." Great. Just great. I mean, that's kind of a lot of money to spend only to find out you've made the wrong choice. (And I don't have insurance that covers my eyeballs. My work does offer an optional vision plan, but since I've generally only needed new eyeglasses every few years, it hasn't really seemed worth it.)

Oh, well. I'll worry about it all next year.

How Is It That We're This Far Into April Already?

Well, since it's past the usual time for this:

Current clothes: Dark gray sweatpants. A blue t-shirt with a picture of a caffeine molecule on it. (Mmm, coffee!) White socks. Brown leather boots.

Current mood: Not too bad. This is a weekend for me, so I'm in a very weekend-y sort of mood. Kind of relaxed, that is, but with a little voice in the back of my head telling me I should really get some more stuff done before I have to go back to work tomorrow.

Current music: Imagine Dragons' Night Visions.

Current annoyance: Lately we've been having extremely high winds or rain on all those days, and only on those days when I am a) off work and ready to do household chores, and b) desperately low on clean laundry. The vast majority of the time, one can do perfectly well without a clothes dryer in New Mexico, as a clothesline in the backyard handily provides a cheaper, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly alternative. But then there are days like today...

Current thing: I've been playing a lot of Kingdom Rush. I even paid for the premium levels; it's a pretty good entertainment value for six bucks. Then again, I think I often get more hours-of-entertainment-per-dollar out of video games, just because I'm so bad at them that it takes me ages to finish.

Current desktop picture: Oh, gawd, it's still Rumplestiltskin. This is getting downright embarrassing.

Current book: I've just finished Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World by Tom Zoellner. It's, um, about uranium.

Current song in head: "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons. Given the combination of current music and current book, this was pretty much inevitable.

Current refreshment: Green tea chai.

Current DVD in player: Most recently, Robot & Frank. Which was cute, although I kind of get the impression they didn't quite know how to end it.

Current worry: Well, there's always the worry that my house is going to fall down.

Current thought: I really do have some more crap I ought to get done today. But maybe I should have some lunch first.

The Continuing Memoirs Of A Biblioholic, Continued

Just got back from the local Friends of the Library Sale (which is where I was this morning when I really should have been sleeping, but oh, well). I bought seventeen books. I regret nothing! Although I probably will in a minute when I have to find somewhere to put them all.

You know, between the "I'd Rather Be Reading" bumper sticker, and the fact that I tend to think of it first and foremost as a means by which to transport myself to book sales, I have begun mentally referring to my car as "The Bookmobile." Possibly by analogy with the Batmobile, because, in my head, I would kind of like to think of myself as some kind of book-themed superhero. Too Many Books Woman! Okay, the name clearly needs some work.

Also, something I was thinking about the other day: every time I get into the elevator at work (which I do pretty much only when I have to haul a new jug of water for the water cooler), I experience this tiny moment of fear, because there is an infinitesimal possibility that the elevator will get stuck, and I do not have a book with me. Yeah, I'm not the slightest bit afraid of being stuck in an elevator. But I am afraid of being stuck in an elevator with nothing to read. That... may tell you a lot of what you need to know about me, actually.

The Continuing Memoirs Of a Biblioholic

By the way, do you know how many books I've bought this month? One. That's right. One. And I've read eleven[*] (including that biography of Albert Einstein I've been intending to get around to since approximately 1905), which means my total To-Read Pile has gone down by a nice, round ten. Which is still a drop in the bucket, but, you know, it's a biggish drop. I might just kick this addiction yet!

To celebrate, I'm going to take myself to the Friends of the Library sale on Saturday.

[*] Twelve, if I finish the one I'm currently on today, but that seems unlikely, as I'm not very far into it, and I do need to do things other than read today. Sadly.

Insert Blasphemous Joke Of A Subject Line Here.

Happy religious holiday/fertility festival/excuse for eating a lot of chocolate/whatever! Me, if I'm celebrating anything, I think it's Walking Dead Season Finale Day. (Which seems kind of appropriate now that I think about it. Heh. Sorry.) And yesterday was Doctor Who Return from Hiatus Day, which was certainly cause for celebration for me. (Gosh, that show is fun. Sometimes I forget, and then it comes back and reminds me again, and my life feels much the better for it.)

I went to AMC's website, by the way, and took their Walking Dead "Which Character Are You?" test. It told me I was Rick. I don't really want to be Rick. Although I'm not sure if most of the alternatives are much better. After all, no matter who you are, you're still stuck in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and that is pretty much guaranteed to suck.

My First World Problems

And now my iPod's frozen on me. And I spent all my money on a new coat because my old one needed replacing, and plumbers because my toilet was leaking and my kitchen faucet was coming apart, and an attempt to pay down my credit card bill a little after charging my entire January vacation, leaving myself about $100 for the week for groceries and sundry expenses, only to discover today that this stupid book club I belong to sent me a $70 textbook I didn't want because apparently I never got their "respond to decline your featured selection" e-mail and have charged my debit card for it, so now I have essentially no money at all until I either get paid or get the book returned, unless I want to dip into my savings, which I don't. And my iPod has frozen up on me and will not reset, and and my three most comfortable pairs of jeans all got holes in them at once, and my new favorite TV show just went on hiatus, and I still need to go to the eye doctor so he can tell me I need bifocals after all, which I'll also have to charge on the credit card.

Please send chocolate. Also large piles of cash, an iPod expert, someone to fix the scratch on my car, and a new piar of eyeballs. Thank you.

[ETA: Hey, I got my iPod working again! My life is suddenly looking up! Slightly. Hooray!]

I Guess Nothing Stays New Forever

Gaah, we had ridiculous high winds yesterday, and my trash bin, even though it's sheltered from the wind on three sides, still managed to tip over into my driveway and hit the side of my car, and now the rear driver's side door of my lovely, shiny new vehicle has a small, scuffy little scratch on it. I find that I am disproportionately distressed about this.