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.

I haven't been playing computer games because I've had guests - I've been outside, having barbeques, eating fancy ice-cream and fantastic coffee, panning for gold, nipping up to Cardwell for a Jessies' pie.  But they've gone now : (  So tonight I finally cleared up the backlog of other things enough to think I'd like to play...and both my online games are patching - doh.  I did consider skyrim but I haven't played for a month so its likely to want a long patch too (and it made me queasy last time).  So I thought I'd reinstall sims medieval...now it's taking its' sweet time to load.  Sigh.

Writing - sometimes I have to.

I just finished my first assignment for a grad cert subject that I'm doing (annotated bibliography).  I estimate it took me 20 solid hours to write about 2500 words.  I did have to find and read and assess articles prior to writing which is included in that time.  Now I have another assignment to submit in another 14 days - worth twice as much for the same word count, and another one 14 days after that worth as much as this one. 
I have some concerns about getting them done as well as editing two theses for grad students, teaching a 3rd real time PCR and writing the assessment and updating the practicals for an intensive subject I'm teaching in 5 weeks.  I'm planning on having a little melt down after the intensive.

Google is trying to take over

Hmm. My very common browser is no longer being supported by blogger. They suggested using Google Chrome. I wonder who runs blogger...oh wait, thats who. I'm all for companies getting bigger due to better service provision. I'm not fond of companies getting bigger due to making it hard for you to use brands other than their own...must look at independant blog providers. I tried google chrome and didn't like it.

This may be a first

I've started several books this month that I gave up on, for various reasons. Yesterday I found another pile of half read books under the bed that I lost track of and look at now with a feeling of meh. I think I'll give them all away half read.
Sherrilyn Kenyon: Born of ice (also born of night). Scifi romance - Ive read some of her novels and enjoyed them. I think these got a bit samey for me & I couldn't empathise with the characters
Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell: Vox - too kiddy  
Carol Berg: The spirit Lens - I think this is actually a good novel but I just could not get into it.
Cassandra Clare: Clockwork Angel - its a prequel to a series I found interesting, but none of the characters or the story particularly grabbed me or held me  
Johan Harstad: 172 hours on the moon - horror masquerading as scifi (I just don't enjoy horror as a genre, it makes me itchy)
Robert J Sawyer: Watch - I did enjoy the first one in the series, but the main character explaining her point of view to the audience got monotonous - story line please. I don't remember the first one having quite so much in it.

 Theres a couple I finished, but I won't be keeping
 TC McCarthy: exogene - interesting idea and viewpoint, very violent, never really could fit myself in with the heroine.
Galen Beckett: The magicians and Mrs Quent - rip roaring storyline and very Georgette Heyer in style (I like Georgette Heyer) but I struggle with books that run parallel storyline where the different groups of people barely interact (and some of them I quite disliked). I may get the second book anyway, as there may be some long term plan top have the characters join together more.

Theres a few I read and will keep (some came from my bookshelf)
Robert Buettner: Orphans alliance - less original now I'm at book 4 but still good hard war sci fi
Pittacus Lore: The power of six - I'll be reading ther rest of this series to see how it turns out. This is book 2  
Tamora Pierce: Tortall and other lands - I never used to be a short story reader. I found them unfulfilling, but as I get more busy, I appreciate the small bites of time. Particularly in a unverse I'm familiar with already. This lead me to pulling out a couple more of Tamora's books and buying a new one.  
Tamora Pierce: Terrier, Bloodhound, Mastiff - I bought mastiff on Saturday and read it last night and today. I was doubtful as it had been savaged a bit in the reviews, and yes, there's some treachery that could have been subtly forshadowed a little better without giving the game away, but it sucked me in and kept me reading well past lights out. So I feel a bit off today - need sleep (had a nap). I actually liked it better than Bloodhound. I think Terrier is the best. The treachery is very well done in that.

Thats it for April. Off to do some gardening so i don't feel guilty about the computer games later :)

The human spell checker

I spend so much of my time marking reports, that I can't read anything without mentally circling the typos. And yes, I do recognise that I spell atrociously myself - mainly due to the two finger typing (looking at the keyboard), followed by immediately hitting the enter key. And no, that doesn't mean you can send me your writing to check it for you.

TMNT

Can I still use an image of the teenage mutant ninja turtles on my point mutation lecture? What if it doesn't make sense any more? Maybe now I'm inferring the aliens are involved. These are the things I think about while writing lectures.

my poor computer

I tried to fix it, gave up and sent it into my repair guy. He thought he'd fixed it but i couldn't get back to him Friday, so it sat there over the weekend. Called him Monday and he said he turned it on Monday and got new error messages (after installing new hard drive and sata cables). I really hope i didn't corrupt the motherboard in some way. It all sounds very connections related. Anyway...still in the shop.

Edit: back now - new load of windows on new 1TB hard drive. So I'm updating the few things that didn't get swapped across. They did remarkably well, vent has been copied across & kept the passwords and logins - as has firefox. I'm also doubling the ram - but it wasn't in stock so when they get it, they'll drop by and install it at my place. Must remember to make bed that morning and make sure there's nothing embarrassing lying around.

Lotro needs a slight update, doing that now....SWTOR needs a new download of the installer. Guess whats not available right now.

new computer monitor

Most of my blog posts start with 'I'. This has nothing to do with the title, I just noticed it. It's not surprising since this is a purely narcissistic blog I write about me...and the weather. Hmm, Most of the weather blogs don't start with "I". Perhaps I should start using the royal "We" as variation.

We bought a new computer monitor today because SWTOR on a 19 inch monitor is tricky in group fights - too much HUD to click on the action. We were planning on 22-24 inch, but they either had shiny screens (yuck - much prefer matt) and/or didn't have the DVI cable option (only VGA). So, since it was on a $100 off sale, We now have a 27 inch screen. It doesn't have the 2ms refresh rate of the old one, lets see how long an LG lasts, but they set up skyrim on it and I couldn't see any difference in the quality with the character doing fast battle moves. This is as big as we can go and still fit the monitor and computer together on the desk.

We had to go back and correct all the accidental first person wordage in the paragraph above.

March Books

I doubt I'll read another one today. Too much to do, sp here they are...some with a 1 line comment! I like to ensureyou have enough feedback.

Wen Spencer : tinker – attracted by the bright pastel cover colours, stayed for the story
Garth Nix and Sean Williams: Trouble twisters – a little young for me I think, I couldn’t relate to the main characters
Rick Riordan: The throne of fire – OK book number two in a series I haven’t read # 1 of, so I can’t judge too much, it may require #1 to set the scene
Gail Carriger: timeless – enjoyed it. I really can’t see the issue with the dominant male thing – the female lead justs blasts straight through it
Kristen Britain: Green rider and first riders call – good books, I recommend the series
Orson Scott Card: The lost gate – book one in a series – looking good

Plus what I read at Andreas’
The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko
- Psi High and Others
- Diving the Wreck
- City of Ruins
- Boneyards

Edit:
OK, so much for not reading another one

Garth Nix: A Confusion of Princes - very good, read it in one sitting.

skyrim nausea

I have just come to the conclusion that the way skyrim is interfaced makes me nauseous. I played it a few times when I first got it and felt off afterwards. Then I played it again tonight and I feel distinctly off again. I think its the way you change direction with the mouse. Its too randomly floaty. Queasy now so off to bed.