urge to do stuff...waning

Day 3 of my holiday and I wake up foggy headed, with a dry tickling cough.

Yesterday I went for my first proper "go to the pool and swim (aka flounder, breathe water and powerwalk when my arms give way) for 1/2 an hour"

I then made a couple of gingerbread houses (or at least made the components) and got in a little shopping on the side.  Turducken anyone?  Our local award winning butcher is making them.  They have as of yesterday, a standing order to make over 90 more for next week - I just bought one of the frozen ones, since it was just going to come home and be frozen till next week.

I went to bed with good intentions to swim again this morning and then decided to minimise the chances of turning the cough into something worse.  So, instead today I will walk the strand.

In addition, one more trip to the shops to pick up a christmas present, do the decorations on the gingerbread houses, go to the graduation (I'm in the procession as I have some students graduating).  I'll walk after that, since the graduation is near the strand - though I may change out of my academic dress first.  Somewhere in there I need to list some houses to look at next week.

I think thats enough for a day when I'm only perking up after coffee.  So it won't last.

26oC at 8am - joy.

first day of annual leave

So I had a massage.  I was also going to make gingerbread houses, but the new fridge was turning up, so I didn't want to be doing stuff in the kitchen.  I also downloaded 8 books from Baen books, because I need some holiday reading AND THEY DON'T DRM!!!...hmm I'm sure I did something else.  Oh wait, I mowed the lawn this afternoon - for an hour.  How did that slip my mind?

To do

I came in early to hose out the freezer part of my office fridge before turning it off for the christmas break – berry juice leaked in there when it partly defrosted & if I leave it one and the power goes off while I’m away, magenta coloured  ice will stain the carpet.When I sat down at the computer I found an email with some information that I can now send onto some students (I enquired about this yesterday moring) so now that’s done & now I’m going through my to do list to clear up some more jobs before I leave.  

1.      Discuss some student results (nope, needs someone else to be here)

2.      Hand over some grad student reports (nope, needs grad student to give me one more form)

3.      Write promotion stuff (nope, waiting on some paperwork I need to analyse to grind through someone elses hands)

I’m noticing a trend here.  Now looking on my to do list for stuff that doesn’t require anyone but me.  I really am not a team player.  Give me stuff to do that doesn’t depend on other people.  I’m much happier.

Now finishing this blog post after spending the whole day setting up an online resource for undergrad students.  This didn’t require anyone but me.  Glee and satisfaction.

new rule for my sony ereader

No buying DRM books through the Sony Store till I can figure out how to strip the drm before I put it on my Sony reader.  Sorry bookstores, you're out of luck.

Once again, I've had the waiting circles freeze my ereader mid book, requiring a reset and another sync with the desktop app to get the reader to recognise I have the right to read these books.  Maddening.  And what do I do if this happens on holidays when my computer with the downloaded rights is not available?

I must try a drm book on my kindle and see if it happens there too.

In comparison, I've read 30-40 books on both platforms that weren't drm'd and I've had zero problems.

Go Baen and Smashwords!

saw this on kickstarter

This looks interesting - watch the video - I really like the USB sticks near the bottom of the page.  I have a soft spot for steampunk.

2nd Solar eclipse

I have seen the 2nd solar eclipse of my life, with fine blue skies in a zone where it was about 94% total.  Normal cameras just blow up sun.  Taking  a photo through welding goggles produces a crescent though.

star wars memories - quality free commentary

I remember in high school, all the rumours, and gossip that there would actually be 9 star wars films, 3 before the orginal trilogy and three after.  The general conclusion from those who actually read up on the more reliable information was that there were only 3 more to make...the 3 prequels...if they ever were made.  Then, eventually, they were. 

And now!  On the new owners site - release date for Star wars VII - 2015.  Seriously, I'm counting decades from the original conversations! 

In the words of Winston;

“Never, never, never, never give up.”

 

[refraining from adding quality judgments to any of the situations above, since that's not what this post is about]

Related to royalty!

Well, if you trust someone elses family tree work...and you track back to 1000AD via my mothers paternal Grandmother..and then forward again via a sibling.

It seems I am related to Jane Seymour, wife of Henry the 8th.

I've had a look at her paintings and I don't think we look alike at all.

gaming

soo many games where this would have been handy.

Another attempt at an ebook

I have been slowly reading through some of my old books again and found a couple by Ann Maxwell; Dancers luck and Dancers illusion.  I once again really enjoyed them, so I looked up the author.  Sadly, although the story was well and truly set up as a space romp series, Dancers Illusion was the last one written.  I'm missing Fire Dancer, the first book.  Now, Ann Maxwell has written a fair chunk of books in various Genres, so I decided to see if some of the other sci fi was in ebook format.  I looked up Timeshadow rider and yes, yes it is.  Unfortunately, the sites I could find want me to download "download manager software"  ??? I don't need this for a simple ebook file.  Or they want me to become "a premium member" of their site, pay money and probably give them my contact details.  Or they just look really dubious and I'd want to scrub the file with all sorts of malware/virus checkers.  I'm not a team player, I'm dubious about joining anything.  Just let me paypal a one off book and I'm happy.  BTW One of my sony shops briefly pops up the book before it goes on to say 1-0 of 0 books....hmm.

urge to buy ...waning

I was rereading a book called orphans of chaos by John C. Wright.  I never bought the next two in the series, but thought "you know what?  I'm enjoying this.  I might buy the next one.  I'll buy it as an ebook".  Off I go to look at the sony shops.  They only have physical versions.  I'm trying for an ebook so I go wider.  Nothing on Smashwords, google only has hard copies.  Then I find a US site that sells ebooks in epub (though I have a kindle too, so it doesn't matter that much) version.  Its there!  I go through the process of signing onto the site.  The author has said no DRM, so thats always good.  But I can't buy it because its only allowed to be sold to US people.  ><  Apparently author rules (or perhaps authors publishers rules).  So I go to the kindle store...this edition is not available for Australian buyers.

Why? 

It can't be a price import thing.  I would have bought it locally using the Aus Sony shop by preference...but they didn't have it.  They have a physical copy for not much more than they charge for ebooks, so its not that they can make a bunch more from the physical copy.  Since they HAVE a physical copy, its not that the book can't be bought here.  I can't figure this one out.

Now I could buy the physical version.  But I just don't feel like it at the moment.  If there hadn't been an ebook anywhere I probably would have and thought myself lucky it was still in print, but I feel like I'm being offered a digestive biscuit, while everyone else is offered a chocolate biscuit.  I find my appetite fading under those conditions.

spending money too fast

I've had about four things that were serious sums of money (for me) in the last couple of weeks, all at once a couple were christmas related).  I'm trying to increase the money in the bank, but timing wise, putting any of them off would seriously inconvenience me, or stop me spending it at all as my window would close.  Sigh, I like to spread these things over one thing per pay fortnight, it looks better when the bank wants to see if I can live within my means when I get that house loan. This now means I have to act like a pauper for the next six weeks to get back on track.  No...More..Spending. 

rereading

With a few ereading exceptions (written by people I know), I've been rereading some of my old books.  They are really degrading fast.  I see the day when I'll have to replace them with digital versions.  Some even have odd stains that I assume were made by food/drink that I thought I'd cleaned off.

I won't talk about them all, just a couple that I made some new conclusions about.

There are two novels by Lyndon Hardy in my collection:

Master of the Five Magics and Secret of the sixth Magic.

I always get excited when I'm about to read these and then struggle with the characters, none of whom I like.  Every time I wonder why I remember the books with such fondness.  This time it hit me.  Its the world building.  The ideas in the book are so novel to me and so well described, that my logical mind spends all of the time I'm not liking the characters figuring out the universal rules.  I always end up with my mind just a little stretched.  Having made that realisation, I stopped trying to empathise with the protagonists, ignored their opinions as dumb, and just wallowed in the world building.


Speaking of picking up some ereader versions, I'm thinking theres a few prolific authors I'd like to get the "complete works of" digitally. - one day when I'm on holidays - I need to be organised about these things.  I must have lists.  I must tick them off.  I may also be finally ordering some sony ereader stuff through the ereader store - I'm not sure when it became available, but the link is there now when I sync my reader on my computer

LOTRO horse

One of my alts won a PAX Prime steed on LOTRO.  I've doen this before with another alt too.  Its never my main that wins the rare horses..but I'm not complaining.  I just need to level these guys up now.

up down up

I had a high, low, high day today. First I got to help lift a couple of 100kg turtles, one of which is being released back into the wild. I also got to hold its head to calm it down during the move (very cool). Then I had to deal with a negative email about something that could have been handled in other more positive ways. Short fume before I decided that I have more important things to do and moved on. Then I got a phone call to say I'd won the set of pipettes from the display that had been held the day before. Woohoo! 10-100ul, 100-1000ul and 1ml to 10ml, plus a stand, some tips, a usb stick and a pen. I've immediately loaned them to someone who's going to do some work in PNG next week, because he needed some more for his training trip.

Now i'm going home on a high note. Thus dodging the second down I'm due.

latest Game

I played secret world for 5 hours yesterday...It reminds me a bit of skyrim. I think because of the realistic graphics. I also thought the movement on the screen looked a bit similar, but no nausea - I must retry skyrim when I'm feeling particularly well & see if it was coincidental nausea.

I love the puzzles. I love the "no pressure to rush through and grind" because you have to stop and think.

I'm glad I played for a couple of hours on my own before hooking up with A&C, because I worked out what combat worked for me. When i joined up, the combat style changed completely. Then when they got off (with warnings of, now you are on your own expect to die a lot)...and I died in 5 minutes. Then I remembered my solo combat style and only died twice the rest of the day - I love being able to do combat moves while moving. Going back to "plant your feet, wait till the induction finishes, run out of the way" other games is going to frustrate me now.

must figure out how to do this

People are still hitting my matryoshka limit blog entry. Which is interesting given there's usually only two people who read this blog. The latest one suggested I graph the number of hits on my blog vs the position that a search on Matryoshka limit put my blog on over time.

Anyone (out of the two readers of this blog) know how to find out the latter? I can get the former easily.

its been a hard month

Hence its been over three weeks since I blogged...but while the next week will also be very busy, I see light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm also going to the show tomorrow - yay!

The reason I'm blogging tonight is I want to say how fantastic an author Patricia McKillip is.  I'm re-reading the riddle master of Hed series and she just writes so well.  Her characters have such dignity, warmth and personality.  She writes the small (and large) tragedies of life so well. 

It may also help that I've been reading some fiction that seems whipped off in a hurry, trying to get through events with scant regard for the characters, few of whom struggle with the right thing to do.  And if they make hard decisions, don't suffer from the regret it causes.

Of course, if I could write better, this would be clearer.

next books

Books to get;
Quiet:The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking  By Susan Cain

I saw this reviewed at the link above & thought it might be an interesting read.  I've been thinking lately about the pressure society places on people to be extroverted.  I was going to ebook it, but I have the feeling this one is one I might loan out to people, so I'll look for a physical copy.

Some thing else I can't find again....I saw a link to a novel on a webcomic advert.  I thought it looked interesting and was purchasable on smashwords, so off I went, only I was on a computer away from home and couldn't remember my user or password.  I thought I emailed myself with the link...but no, I didn't & now I can't remember book, author or even which webcomic it was.  bummer.

Edit:  aannnd found the book:  The house of Yeel which i am carefully linking here so i can go off and buy it at a convenient time.

thats right, May is over

So now, to my books of May..almost all of which were box sets;

All the James H. Schmidt novels that came free from baen books (ebook), the last of which I don't think I'd read - ah, good times

Tamora Pierce Songs of the Lioness series - the first Pierce novels I ever read & the author who introduced me to the young adult section of Dymocks.

Lloyd Alexander:  Chronicles of Prydain - a lot closer in style to Lord of the rings than much of what I've read fantasy wise, but also a lot closer in date.

I had family visiting for 1/2 of May so that's all I got through this month.