Off By One

Although it will no doubt come as a surprise to some (all?) of my readers, I haven’t been giving too much thought to my upcoming birthday, and all that goes with that. Meaning, of course, the greedy part of it — gifts.

Yes, yes, i know… Putting a post about it up on the blog certainly doesn’t strengthen my claim, does it?

Well, bugger that. It so happens that, this year, I am more or less at a loss as to what I even want for a gift. The fact of the matter is, ever since Dad got me one of these for Christmas, well, i literally haven’t wanted any gadgetry. Oh, sure, I want to upgrade my computer, but the day that stops, it’s time to bury me. But, other than that I haven’t wanted toys. It’s kind of weird. And, as a result, I’ve been less focused on my materialistic side as I’ve simply reveled in the pleasure of carrying 1900 songs with me wherever I go.

But, since I’ve been pounding away at a few things here as programming projects of my own, I’ve come to realize that there are a few, slightly oddball (as in, they get buried in the Amazon wishlist) items i’d like. And, as usual, they’re all books.

If you are thinking of getting me a book for the b-day, read the extended entry for it. O’Reilly’s JavaServer Pages or alternately, Manning publishing’s Web Development with JavaServer Pages

Core J2EE Patterns: Best Practices and Design Strategies

There are no doubt more like these, but these ones really appeal to me. And they’re right up the alley of the project i’m going to work on this summer in my spare time. Which I’ll talk about in another posting.