One of the many things that I signed up for but never really got around to using was Library Thing. However, now that I've pretty much finished cataloguing my comic collection (I'm now down to adding the Judge Dredd Megazine, which is taken longer than the other comics because there are very few details on the central database from which I download the comics details. And, being the anal comics geek that I am, I want to record it all!) I've decided to start on my books. I'm using a programme called Book Collector, which is from Collectorz.com which is where I got my comics database as well. And, it's got an option to output your collection to a csv file, which can then be uploaded to Library Thing. So I can geek even more online and in full sight of the whole world!

Hoorah!

PS - Speaking of books, I've now sold 40 copies of The Long Sleep and I've got some copies of it into Travelling Man - my local comic shop. I don't know how it's selling there yet, I'm being very good and resisting the temptation to go in and check, but I may go in this afternoon. It is a Thursday today after all. And Thursday means New Comics Day.

Just a quick one, I'm going to go and watch yesterday's episode of Doctor Who in a moment...

I just wanted to say something quickly about the book's I've been reading recently. Since cutting down on the amount of comics I'm buying and reading, I've been catching up on my reading stuff with fewer pictures. In the last week I've finished two books that have been hanging around for ages and read another two. The two that were hanging around are 1421: The Year China Discovered the World and Matter. Both of which were very different, but very good. (I'll not go on about them here. If you're interested, have a look at the Amazon pages.)

The two I read through the week were The Children of Hurin - which had a style sort of half way between the difficult reading of The Silmarillion and the slip-into-a-warm-bath style of The Lord of the Rings. Pretty much unputdownable. The last one, was a book which I won in a competition that trinapink runs every week on her Stone SouP blog (syndicated at stonoffsoup. It's her "Monday Book Giveaway" that she does every week (and each week from a different hat!). The book was The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson and it was really rather wonderful. A marvellous relationship story, based around the death of a girl in the family swimming pool(which is really something of a maguffin to get the story started but works wonderfully). The only thing which caused me a moments pause was when she referred to two girls watching Billy Elliott and referred to their 'Scottish accents'. I assume this is because it's a book published in America. A British editor would have caught that one. Still, it's got my full recommendation. I loved it and will definitely be looking for Joshilyn's other books. So, thank you Katrina! Very much!

Is there anything out there like an anti-Amazon wishlist for books you really, really don't want?

Oh, and if you're interested, this is my actual wish list.

Down Amongst The Yla

New Words: 631
Total Words: 48679
Pages: 153

48,679 / 100,000 (48.7%)

I'm not updating about much else because nothing else of great interest is happening. Everything is going on quite nicely with the house - it almost seems to be going too smoothly, I keep expecting things to go wrong with it. Oh well, we've got the survey to come. So we'll see what that says. Do they include the existence of ancient Native burial grounds in house surveys?

I got a package from Amazon today - the Serenity Official Visual Companion and Doctor Who - Genesis of the Daleks. So my geekiness continues. Finished a book as well - 'Give Me Ten Seconds' by John Sergeant - his autobiography of his time working as reporter and political correspondent for the BBC. Interesting and funny, although I think I prefer the John Simpson books.

Well, I've had a fairly successful evening. Perhaps it's gone on a little longer than I planned, but these things happen.

I started the MCSE thing and got as far as I wanted to today. I watched the last episode of Life on Mars - which was wonderful and really rather heart-wrenching. I'm not going to spoil it, because I think you should discover it for yourself if you haven't already. However, some things were explained. Although we still don't know how or why Sam (the protagonist) is in 1973. And the sexual tension was raised another notch. And we have to wait until this time next year for the next installment! What will I do until then? Oh, that's right. Watch Doctor Who and Torchwood. Phew. A narrow escape there.

I also ate pancakes. Today is Pancake Day. Or Shrove Tuesday, if you must be all religious about it. And I am married to possibly the worlds best maker of pancakes. So I'm very happy and wondering whether that last one was too much for this late at night. Oh well, it was worth it.

That's it for this evening. Off to bed with my book now. (It's called Firethorn by Sarah Micklem. It's pretty good. A very girly fantasy. Although there aren't any unicorns. Yet.)

And so, I bid you all a goodnight and sweet dreams!

I haven't been around these parts much for the last three days. In fact, I've spent most of the morning (when I haven't been doing work. Which is to say the majority of time) catching up on the posts in my Friends list. And what the hell I'm going to do when I go on holiday, I don't know...

The reason why I wasn't around was because of server failure here at work. Not that anyone seemed particularly worried by that. Well, that covered Monday and Tuesday's afternoon. Wednesday was a day when I was off sick. You know those days when getting up and going to work is just about the last thing you want to do? Well, the nature of this job being what it is, I felt absolutely guilt in throwing a sicky. I really did need a day of quiet, calm rest and relaxation. Which is sort of what I had. And, for once, this included not spending the entire online. So I didn't catch up with LiveJournal, or comics news or anything. Terrible, eh?
( Very long entry about books and cooking )
Music:
Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man
Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild
Adam Clayton - Mission Impossible
REM - Pilgrimage
REM - Femme Fatale
The Wedding Present - Don't Talk Just Kiss
Return to the Forbidden Planet soundtrack - We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place
Pop Will Eat Itself - England's Finest
Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kinh soundtrack - Cirith Ungol
Pop Will Eat Itself - Dance Of The Mad
(Long entry this, isn't it?)

I made the error of finishing my book at lunchtime and not having another one with me. I hate being without literature. Makes me feel so... naked. Well, maybe that's a little exaggerated. I do dislike having nothing to read though. Especially as there is a good chance that I'll get the bus home rather than walk this evening. Sitting on the 38 bus for 45 minutes while it chugs forwards through the traffic is really not my idea of a good time. Even with my MP3 player playing it gets really dull.

I was reading The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear It's a silly book. It is exactly what it says it is - the autobiography of a bear that is coloured blue. Bluebears have 27 lives, so this is the first half of his life. It is very simple, you could almost (if it wasn't for the fact that it is 700 pages long) mistake it for a children's book - it is very heavily illustrated and uses simple language. I'm trying to find the right words to talk about it, but my brain is seriously not working today. I think the lack of sleep I had yesterday has really hit me today. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it a lot. It's a fun, nonsense fantasy (there aren't many novels where one of the villains is a sentient, telepathic rock). Not my favourite book ever but certainly worthwhile to pass the time.

That was damning with faint praise wasn't it?

Music played while writing this entry:

Rubberneckin' (Paul Oakenfold mix) - Elvis Presley (2nd to None)
Pretty In Pink - Psychedelic Furs (Dark Side of the 80s compilation album)
Song For The Asking - Simon & Garfunkel (Tales From New York)
Walking On The Moon - The Police (Greatest Hits)


(Edited to fix the Amazon link)