Off By One

On a significantly lighter note, here’s a place you can go when you run out of books to read:

ReadMe

This is a wiki collecting a significant fraction of the Ask Metafilter questions pertaining to suggested books.

I fear this list… It means I’ll be nose-deep in books soon. I’ve been expanding my reading tastes a bit lately, and this is only going to push that harder.

and I wanted to work Catch-22 into that title, but couldn’t.

So, in response to some vigourous prodding last night, I felt it was time to dust this off and get back to keeping people apprised of my life.

Here’s the skinny, since… holy shit! November 6! It’s been almost four weeks!

Since then, I have:

• Travelled to the Dominican Republic (where we were all amiss in not posting to Morruz)
• Dislocated my shoulder… again. That sucked. Worse? I was just playing volleyball in a pool, not even doing anything interesting. Funny thing is, though, when I went to a medical supply store to get some foam to pad the horrid sling I took home with me, the lady running the store told me that my injury seems to be quite common in volleyballers, at least anecdotally.
• Got my performance review at work, for which the term “glowing” might be an understatement.

And you wonder why I don’t post? My life is dull, dull, dull.

It hasn’t even been that interesting of a time, politically. I’ve kept my eyes on the news, but there’s been little out of the ordinary to spark thought or discussion, either north or south of the border.

Um… I’ve read some good books, lately. Is that interesting?

Expect more later. I’m just barely awake, and Char just fed me coffee.

I’ve known for a long time that, while I’m not a total hermit, I both need less human contact than other people, and tire of it sooner. The fact of the matter is, I find forcing myself to conform to others’ expectations of me is exhausting, both physically and mentally, and it leads to some of the more antisocial behaviour that I’ve engaged in in the past.

I’m thinking, though, that this book ought to be required reading for anyone that wants to understand me a bit better, and also for anyone that has a friend that they find to be a bit distant at times, for reasons they don’t really understand.

Party of One has put to words many of the things I see in myself. Although it’s not a word-for-word expression of who I am and how I feel about things, it is more accurate than not. I am a loner, to a large extent. And although the people in my life enrich it and make it a better place, there are frequent times that I can’t handle any of them, and I just need to be away from it all.

It’s a good book, and I hope that someone gets something valuable from reading it.

It’s a pretty nice evening here. I’m sitting on the couch in the living room, Char just beside me reading her Dark Tower book and Ivan on my lap.

I don’t have to get up in the morning, and I have plans to get some quality geeking in when I do.

The weather is windy and cloudy, threatening rain.

I saw the Bourne Supremacy tonight, and other than a strong desire to throttle the cinematographer, it was excellent, tense and fast and exciting.

The book that I’m reading… Okay, one of the books that I’m reading is about Faerie and it’s really nifty. Anyone that likes fantasy should really read Tad Williams’ The War of the Flowers at their soonest convenience.

Amongst the other books that I’m reading is Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, which looks to be an interesting take on the cyberpunk idiom, and Bruce Schneier’s Applied Cryptography — required reading for any cryptonuts in the crowd.

Right now, I am relaxed. And life is good.

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.

Since this is a personal weblog, i suppose i’m allowed to do this blatant gift-whoring

Here’s a list of the harder-to-find things that i want for christmas… It’s by no means complete, etc.. But if, by some chance, you’re looking for something to get me and have no idea what to get (ie: you’ve decided that computer hardware is out of the question) then perhaps some of the things below may be of interest: Barnes & Noble.com - ElfQuest Graphic Novel 7; The Cry from Beyond, Vol. 7

Barnes & Noble.com - Secret of Two-Edge (ElfQuest Graphic Novel #6), Vol. 6

Anything from here

Amazon Wishlist for .ca

for .com