Friday, August 31, 2001
18:34 ~
Amazon shipment came. Four books.Finished The Second Summoning by Tanya Huff. It was good. Anyone who likes Buffy should read those two books. So anyway, that leaves 2 more books to read before I can place another Amazon order. Except that I have another one in transit, so that number's going to increase before it decreases, likely.
Long weekend. Yay!
Now if I only knew enough Japanese to enjoyably read all this manga I've got.
14:29 ~
Annoyances of the day:
* Network behaving as usual.
* Printer /knowing/ it's me and printing lightly so I have to print it again. Even after rocking the toner cartridge!
* Microsoft Access. EVIL personified. Nihongo de.
* Stupid frelling Bank North website that insists my IE isn't secure enough. At home, I had to download Netscape to appease it. And not just any Netscape would do. No, I had to download the newest/most bloated version possible.
* Stupid loan websites that ask for PINs they've assigned you. Whatever happened to choosing your own PIN or *gasp* using a /password/? Like a series of 4-5 numbers is more secure than a random length password consisting of numbers /and/ letters? Frell, they're even using your SS# as your Account # most of the time. Privacy and security is /not/ their main concern, /that's/ obvious.
* UPS tracking. (Though at least it doesn't suck as bad as USPS tracking.)
* Bestprices for Pending Shipment instead of mailing it out already!
* The clock, for only saying 2:30, when it should be time to leave.
* And finally, BLOGGER, for not doing what I want it to. I'll have to sit and figure it out, but only at a time where I won't mind getting a headache.
* And speaking of headaches.. this monitor. Maybe it'll die too.
Thursday, August 30, 2001
14:44 ~
Did I mention it's too frelling hot in here?
14:44 ~
This is an incredibly long day in the middle of an incredibly long week. When will the weekend get here? Siiiiigh. Well, one of my Amazon orders is /scheduled/ to get here on Friday, tomorrow. We'll see if it does. It's UPS, so it's a distinct possibility. Otherwise it won't be here 'til Tuesday, which would be okay, since I have all these other books to read.
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
12:01 ~
Amazon shipped two orders yesterday. I'm going to be swamped with books again (still) by next week. They shipped 2/3rds of the order that I was trying to beef up so the shipping wasn't ridiculous. They'd better send that other book eventually. It's already been 4 weeks of their 4-6 weeks.
Finished the book I was reading, A Wizard Abroad, by Diane Duane. I had already read it. But I didn't remember too much of it, so that was okay. As far as Ireland goes, this book made it palatable. It was more the Ireland of /today/ than the Ireland full of elves and whatnot. Book has one, not quite fatal, flaw. The main character doesn't seem to be very important to the final culmination of the plot. You could plug nearly anyone in in her place and not notice a difference. Other characters have more of an impact on the final outcome. So why wasn't the book about them? It makes the book feel.. not right somehow.
So, starting a new book today. Probably won't get very far though, because I really need a nap when I get home /and/ to go to bed at a decent hour.
Tuesday, August 28, 2001
12:00 ~
Okay, so I ended up putting in two Amazon orders. See, it went like this.. I needed to add at least one book to my existing order, so it wouldn't ship with just one or two items and cost me an arm and a leg on shipping. But I found a coupon. It's a shame not to use a coupon. The coupon was for 5$ off 35$. So okay, it's easy enough to spend 35$. So I did. Got my 5$. Then I went to combine the order with the existing order, and it wiped out my 5$ coupon! Hmf! Hmf hmf!! So nixed that idea and just went through and made a new order with one book.. like I was originally intending. Combined that okay, except that now one book that was '1 on hand' is now '1 usually ships in 24 hours'. It's been more than 12 hours already. Well, anyway, that's my Amazon story. And for some frelling reason, one of my previous orders used my Mastercard and the wrong billing address. But it went through anyway. And and.. well, hmf, the Mastercard isn't an Amazon card! No triple points! I don't know if I did it intentionally, or just wasn't paying attention, or if it's entirely Amazon's fault. Probably somewhere in between.
Mmm, so anyway.. well, I guess that's it. Except I'm glad other people's blogs are back. Gives me something to do at work. Oh, and Live Journal sucks.
Monday, August 27, 2001
15:02 ~
Up down, up down, down, down, down, down. I don't know why they're still with this ISP. It so sucks. Anyway, decided to read A Wizard Abroad by Diane Duane. I think I've read it before. Oh well. There's at least one book in this series that I haven't. And there's another in her related series about wizard cats that I still haven't managed to get through. Too technical.. considering she's entirely making up this stuff about gating. It's not exactly sci-fi, you don't have to spend the entire book explaining it!
Mm, anyhow, this one is about Ireland. I usually don't like fantasies about Ireland. There's too sharding many of them, and you can't pronounce half the names used in them. I must be one of the few fantasy readers who isn't head over heels in love with Ireland.
Now we'll see if the network cooperates to let me post this.
00:37 ~
Finally finished Summon the Keeper by Tanya Huff. It was good. I'm really glad I have the sequel already. I /should/ wait a little bit before reading that, and I have plenty of other books to read.. but we'll see..
So anyway, I can put in a new Amazon order. That didn't take long. But not tonight. It's already late.
Saturday, August 25, 2001
18:16 ~
So I finished Glory Lane by Alan Dean Foster. It was pretty good. I liked the brief appearance of a Quozl. He had an annoying habit in the book of referring to people with phrases rather than their name. Such as 'the older of the two' and 'the shorter human' or things like that. And sometimes it was a bit difficult to follow who was supposed to be speaking. I bought this book used and it turned out to be a first edition. Ooo. Heh. The story screams 80's at you. It can't help but scream 80's at you when the main character sports a Mohawk.
I've read 4 of the short stories in the Christmas anthology.
Anyway, one book left before I can place another Amazon order. And good thing too, because I saw a Margaret Atwood display in Barnes and Noble and actually stopped to read the back cover.. I think it was Blind Assassin.. anyway, her latest one. And it sounded kinda interesting. I would've picked it up there, but I don't want to pay full price for a 14$ book.
Thursday, August 23, 2001
20:18 ~
One more book down. Two to go! Good thing too, because one book was cancelled from my last Amazon order. Another is likely to be.. which will leave one book in the order. And shipping on one book is too expensive! So I need to place a new order and combine it with that one. Or I should cancel that one book. I'll have to keep an eye on things.
Oh, the book I finished was Cardcaptor Sakura #6 - Bilingual. Hey, it counts! I won't count the Japanese ones I 'read', but I will count anything in English. Or French, should I happen to acquire anything in French.
12:00 ~
I've got too many books to read. And it should be Friday, but it isn't. I read Princess Knight (Ribon no Kishi, which is literally Ribbon Knight, but oh well.) Bilingual version, volume 1. It counts. So now I'm down to having to read 3 books. I read a couple short stories (2 exactly I think) in the Genometry anthology. And I never even finished one story in the Christmas one. Got distracted. I started reading another book too. Hopefully finish that by the end of Friday.
Anyway, Princess Knight was okay. It's an older manga, so it's pretty cartoony. And it's.. weird, not like the anime version very much. Sapphire's too girly. I prefer the anime, but that's harder to get ahold of in English. Bilingual manga is a Good Thing. I want to write up an FG article about that too.
Wednesday, August 22, 2001
17:15 ~
So I've got all these books now. I thought I had trouble choosing which book to read before. But I decided not too long ago that I wasn't allowed to place another Amazon order 'til I'd read as many books as was in the last order. So in this case..5. I've read 1. That leaves 4 more books to read. Oy. And well, that doesn't include all the manga that just arrived. Because, well.. then I'd never be able to place another book order again! I'm in desperate need of a bookcase. Maybe.. five.
14:16 ~
I want to go hoooome. There's two packages waiting for me. Amazon.co.jp shipped our order /yesterday/. (Okay, so accounting for the timezone, it was the day before yesterday).. but anyway, it's here today! Woohoo! The order page still /clearly/ says Economy 3-4 week shipping, so they'd better not have charged us for the faster shipping they used. I don't think they will. They're nice over there. When we had an artbook ruined in shipping due to water damage, they replaced it free and also shipped it DHL free. I've /never/ had to wait 3-4 weeks for an order from them. It's usually been a week or less. Faster than Amazon.com!! I'll probably write up something about Amazon Japan for Flaming Geeks. As soon as I get around to it. I just had to have something to post here and that's the most exciting thing so far today. :)
Tuesday, August 21, 2001
15:59 ~
I was stalking myself on the Net just now and ran across this. This site wins the award for Weirdest Place One of My Fics Has Been Linked From: Click here to see how weird.
13:39 ~
It's probably stupid to try to post something. The network or Blogger will probably flake on me and drive me up a wall. But anyway.. I changed my mind about reading that anthology. I started a few stories, but they were boring. So I'm reading a collection of Christmas stories now, by Connie Willis. We'll see how far I get. Maybe I'm no longer in a short story mood. I was considering getting some more Margaret Atwood books, but.. eh.. none of them sounded interesting.
Monday, August 20, 2001
16:39 ~
Annoyances of the Day: Flaky internet at work. Stupid Amazon shopping cart/order thingee. We had ordered 2 copies of something from Amazon Japan and one had come in and been in for more than a week. The other copy said 1-2 weeks. Today it changed to 3-4 weeks, so I said 'Frell it' and went about sticking it into another order. But /stupid/ Amazon's engine doesn't allow you to delete /one/ copy of something. It deleted both copies of the book. So then I had to go through and order another copy again. The end result: Now instead of one book holding up our order, instead of getting one copy of this book, our order should ship soon, but sans any copy of this book. Grrr.
The book I chose to start reading is another anthology. This one of genetic manipulation stories and etcetera. Gotta read up on this sort of thing so I'm prepared for the next Star Wars and Star Trek movies. (And, btw, I think Attack of the Clones is an incredibly lame title and wouldn't be too surprised if it turned out to be a joke. -- Or at least, Lucas should claim it was a joke so he doesn't look even more stupid than he did after the Gungan incident.)
Sunday, August 19, 2001
19:00 ~
So I finished The Handmaid's Tale. I want to see the movie again now. I'm sure the book was more understandable and enjoyable because I'd seen the movie. Of course I'll never know now. That's the problem with movies based on books; you have to read/watch one of them first. You can't experience them both separately.
In my previous list, I forgot to mention I read an anthology of short stories called Oceans of Magic. I read all but the longest story in there. I don't like reading the long ones in an anthology. I hardly ever end up reading every story in an anthology. So now.. need to choose another book to read.
I also finished watching the first 5 episodes of Angelic Layer. Now I need more. Because it's CLAMP and you can tell from the OP and ED that there's so much more plot to be revealed. I have the manga though, so it's not like I /need/ the anime for the rest of the story. Anyway, off to choose a book.
Saturday, August 18, 2001
01:39 ~
So I thought it'd be neat to start keeping track of what books I've been reading. (Idea originally from K.) But I thought, might as well share it with the world. I was sorta doing that in a couple FG posts anyway. So, here goes. In the last week or so, I've read:
Honor Harrington on Basilisk Station
Sailor Moon Stars #1 (English)
Sailor Moon Stars #2 (English)
And now I'm reading A Handmaid's Tale. Hopefully I'll finish it this weekend. I've seen the movie.. twice, I think. At least once for a class. Hadn't read the book before, not sure why. Picked it up used using a gift cert E got me for my birthday. Yay, free cheap book. :)
And that's about it for my first blog post, cuz I can't think of anything else to write that's not /total/ babbling. And I refuse to think that my babbling, as superbly written as it would be, should be posted for the whole world to see.