Posting Location: University Village.Okay. LOT to cover, so despite my better judgement I'll just pull a megapost to make sure I get it all in.
Post-Holiday PlugsI received some
very good gifts this year. Among them:
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GURPS OGRE,
GURPS Religion, and
GURPS Y2K --- Sourcebooks for
Steve Jackson Games' fine
GURPS line, my RPG system of choice. These came as no suprise, since I knew I was receiving them back in August. That was when I bought a ton of sourcebooks due to a sale going on at a local store, and my mother bought three of them off me to give me as X-mas gifts this year. Yeah, I know, but my collection was large enough that it's hard for my family to remember what I already have, so this way at least they knew I'd like it.
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The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution by Dougal Dixon --- This book completes my trio of books by this author that look at possible far-future/alternate ecosystems, the other two being
After Man and
Man After Man (technically, if you count
The Future Is Wild!, I have four). Honestly, this one's probably my favorite out of the three; what can I say, I'm a sucker for color. My honest opinion, there aren't enough works out there in this genre.
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The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks --- The book everyone should have, just in case (and in fact, many people I know
do have it already; I seem to be the last in my circle of friends down here to get it). Complements my
How To Survive A Robot Uprising quite nicely.
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The Handy Religion Answer Book by Visible Ink Press --- Joint gift from my sisters, who also got me some incense and a burner to go with it. The book should help in my search for enlightenment; the incense will probably be better appreciated when I'm living somewhere that doesn't have rules against it's use (d'oh!).
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Digital Sci-Fi Art by Michael Burns ---
Actually, another gift with better intentions than results; in searching for a straight sci-fi artbook, they accidentally got one that was more of a "how to." Not a complete miss by any means, though; the art is still great, and....hey, looking at this thing again, I just realized it covers 2D art as well as 3D. In fact, it covers
Adobe Photoshop specifically.
Well, shut my mouth. This book is actually going to be pretty
and useful.
*
How To Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card and
Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy by the Editors of
Analog and
Asimov's Science Fiction --- Both gifts from my boyfriend Carlos. I've often complained that while I've got the world-building part of writing down pat, I can never just sit down and come up with an actual
plot. He got me these to help remedy that, which I very much appreciated. But what
really got me feeling all warm inside...
*...way back at the beginning of November, I ranted about the film
Zeiram 2, within which I mentioned, in passing, that I had also seen
Rollerball that week. It was one sentence, one link, and in the title tag for that link I mentioned, half-jokingly but half-genuinely, that I'd like to have the
jersey worn by the main character in that film. The untold reasoning behind that was that as an obscure refference to an obscure sci-fi film, it was probably the only "sports"-related shirt I'd intentionally seek out. Yes, I'm that much of a geek; that's not the point.
The point is that Carlos searched for that very shirt online for a week before tracking down a store in Germany that actually sold it.
And bought it for me.
And hid it under the two previously-mentioned books in the gift box.
Words cannot really describe how that made me feel.
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Alien Planet DVD --- Another Discovery Channel special that I had missed the first time around. Based off the book
Expedition by Wayne D. Barlowe, which I guess you could count as the "fifth" alternate ecosystem book I own. Thoroughly enjoyed it, despite odd changes in some creatures' biology, and a change in the overall "plot" to make the actual expedition better grounded in realism (
Alien Planet has a ship carrying robot probes going at relativistic speeds, while
Expedition had a manned mission that was a joint venture with a different group of sentient aliens). I also thought they could've credited Barlowe a little more thoroughly in the program itself, but whatever.
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Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith DVD --- Not much to say, except that this one was all but an inevitability.
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The Simpsons - The Complete Sixth Season Collector's Edition DVD set --- This one came as a
suprise from my one roommate. Fortunately, she and I appear to share the same opinion of when the "good" seasons of
The Simpsons aired. And, saints be praised,
Sideshow Bob has an episode in this season!
Resolutions This Year*
Focus on academics more. I want to see if I can't turn that "three A's and a C" to "four A's" this quarter, at least.
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Don't let myself take my relationship with Carlos for granted. I had fears such was happening last year at several points.
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Conserve money better this year. Self-explanatory.
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Read through the Holy Bible all the way at least once by year's end. If only to be able to say I've done it.
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Up the insanity when I do role-playing. Both in how much I get into my character(s), and how much I get into GMing.
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Make blog more than the sum of how my week has been. And more what the description has it as.
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Update to blog more often, and more regularly. Actually, on that note...
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Make sure I actually post my blog updates *coughthisonecough* instead of just "saving as draft." Whoops ^-^;
Well, This Is NewThis past
Thursday night, I was up at
2:00 AM and just about to head to sleep when my boyfriend IMed me. We had a bit of idle conversation, in which he seemed a little down. Right out of the blue, he asked me what my reaction would be if he asked me to go over to where he lives off South Campus, right then and there. This, and a bit more conversation, ended with me getting dressed again and heading out to spend the night with him. Right out of the blue. Keep in mind, I live off of
North Campus, and by a far larger margin.
Honestly, I'm not sure what my thoughts on this are. He said it meant a lot to him. It meant something to
me as well, I'm just not sure
what. One thing's certain, though;
some form of precedent has just been set.
And For Good Or For Ill......
Seafood Japan may no longer be carrying
Black Black. I've bought some
Green Gum,
Cool Mint and
Sumi-Yaki Coffee Candy to test for effectiveness in it's absence; after all, despite past problems that gum has also occasionally helped me out. Time will only tell whether or not I've lost a valuable ally (or deceptive foe).
Labels: books, holiday rant, life rant, resolutions, stimulant rant
