Boring Miscellaneous Personal Update

June 29th, 2006 by Potato

I can’t believe I forgot to mention the latest perils of my poor car.

After being stolen, the window that cost over $300 to fix so that it would go up and down no longer works. I don’t care enough to fix it again. I rolled past the 200, 000 km mark last week, but was on the road back from Toronto, so I forgot to get a picture of the event, as it were. And of course, the aforementioned grinding/harsh resonance noise at certain speeds that could be the beginnings of a transmission failure.

On the home front, I’m looking for something semi-productive to do with my time during the summer. Voluntarily working out hasn’t exactly… happened, and my weekends have been spent in Toronto, so I haven’t gone off exploring the paths like I had planned.

I’m a little bit afraid that it’s going to lead to an over-compensation come fall: I’m going to have Halloween, which is a production all on its own (especially since this year the party has to be super-fantastic so people will come down to London to actually attend). Then there’s curling, and since I’m going to have to pay a ton of money to play at a real club now that the University stopped the business with the intramural league, I’m planning on playing at least twice a week (possibly even competitively!). Finally, I’ve wanted to study a martial art (Aikido or Karate or something) for some time, and I think I might join up when classes start this September, which could eat up another two nights a week.

Madness!

Anyhow, I finished reading the Sabriel trilogy by Garth Nix, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. They’re easy books to get into and read, the characters are quite enjoyable, and they prominently feature smiting the hated undead. Those who know me know of my great disdain — nay, loathing — of the undead; the only two characters I played through the end game of WoW were those with undead-specific abilities, and it’s only now, as they release a new undead dungeon that I’m tempted to return to save the terrified citizens of Azeroth (insects? what were they thinking).

Speaking of books, I haven’t yet mentioned one of my graduation presents: autographed copies of Far-Seer by Robert J. Sawyer, and a book by Scott MacKay (The Meek), who happened to be sitting beside RJS at Word on the Street and made puppy dog eyes at Wayfare and had a book half signed before she could break his little heart by telling him she had never heard of him before. I plan on spending at least part of my upcoming long weekend sitting in a lawn chair and giving the Meek a fair shake, now that Nix’s books are done with. (Aside: it’s shaping up to be a busy weekend: I’ve got to hang with the guys, take the cat back and get her settled, read a book, see Superman, go for a swim, maybe catch some fireworks, and continue to throw time and effort into a gaping chasm from which escape is not even theoretically possible).

As for Far-Seer, well, it turns out I now have two. Wayfare, in her funny parallel dimension where time is decidedly non-linear, claims that I went ahead and bought my copy after she got the one for me signed. However, that clearly can’t be true, as I didn’t take a vacation last summer and subsequently got very little reading done on the whole. Last Potatomas, I got the 3rd book in the Quntaglio series as a gift, so it is very likely that I got the first book over a year ago. What’s incredible is not only did she get this signed book ready for my graduation nearly a year before the actual event, but she refused to ruin the surprise by getting me to return the second copy of the same book when I bought it (assuming, of course, that I actually did buy it after… which I didn’t). It depicts a level of Craftiness that not only demands capitalization, but also italics. Er, that is to say, she’s an extremely Crafty girl. It’s actually quite frightening to be around her: she must possess an alien or pathological detachment from reality (and, I suspect, the flow of time itself) in order to so coldly pursue gifts with such malevolent forethought and patience. Any normal human, faced with keeping a gift a surprise for that long (and the time must have seemed longer yet, as for a long time there was no concrete date for my graduation), would have simply cracked and told the receiver all about it; or at the very least dropped some rather significant hints. Wayfare revealed nothing of her devious plan. She even bewitched poor Mr. Sawyer, who can’t help but blurt out choice quotations from his upcoming book (Rollback, for those who aren’t on the mailing list) — but who made no mention of signing a book for me, nor even a casual mention about anyone on the verge of getting a master’s. So powerful is her Craft that there lies in the dark recesses of her closet, behind the unopened copy of Kiss: Psycho Circus for the PC, underneath the box with her treasured merit badged from Brownies, just to the left of that pair of boots that she’ll never ever wear but just can’t quite bring herself to throw out: there, sheltered from the harsh rays of our yellow sun, lies a present — the perfect present — for someone she hasn’t even met yet. And it’s already wrapped.

My point, dear reader — and I have not forgotten it — is that I have two copies of Far Seer now, both in excellent condition. I am willing to part with one should anyone wish to buy, borrow, or gently smell it. You will, however, have to fetch it yourself, as I no longer trust my car to carry such loads.

One Response to “Boring Miscellaneous Personal Update”

  1. Netbug Says:

    Yes, she is a sly one. If only in the briefest of conversations which I have had the pleasure of participating with her, I found myself unawares as to which way gravity was pulling such is the deviousness of her craft.

    That said, I’ll give Far-seer a go. It’s the one with the dinosaur looking (holding?) a telescope on the cover, right?

    BTW, I have a book you should read called “Earth Abides”. It’s quite old (first publication looks to be 1947) and my copy is pretty beat up so you may want to purchase your own. An excellent read though.

    As for superman, I might put a review up later. I really really enjoyed it though and I think Brandon Routh is fantastic. Here’s hoping they eventually do a World’s Finest movie with Routh and Bale in the title roles. They certainly have the box office to show for it.