Books and food
Dec. 7th, 2011 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6So, I didn't have to go to the comic store, but I did have to go downtown to do some shopping and 'looking for ideas' for Xmas and an upcoming family birthday.
So, naturally I stopped by the used bookstores, where I picked up:
The Child Garden, by Geoff Ryman
The Ouroboros Wave by Jyouji Hayashi (translated)
There's actually been a lot of really interesting-looking Japanese SF that's been coming out in translation in the last few years. I'm sure there are other translated works out there from other languages, but these seem to be (mostly) a specific company doing it with TPB formats that tend to stand out in bookstores somehow and my eye gets drawn to them and so I wind up checking out the back cover. And, like I said, some of them sound interesting, and lately I've been interested in trying out voices and ideas from more varied points of view. Unfortunately, although some of them sound really cool, they don't sound QUITE cool enough for me to want to pay $20 for them new in that TPB form (a few I'd be willing to risk if they were published in normal paperback), so I've been hoping to see them turn up in used bookstores, and this one (about the discovery of a black hole on the edge of the solar system) is the first I found (aside from two about a super-intelligent war plane that didn't interest me much at all). From what I've been able to look up after buying it, it seems to be really hard SF, the kind that goes into a lot of depth about orbital mechanics and such, probably a little harder than I like, but hopefully there's still a really good story in there. And even if not, I'll still probably try the other authors the publishing house does, because some of the other stories I've seen are kinda cool.
Anyway, I mentioned last time I was going to try a new policy to get outside my comfort zone... whenever I take the trip downtown, I'd try to eat something I'd never eaten before, ideally at a place I'd never eaten before. Last time, I failed. This time, well, a partial success. I was again running out of options (in part because my back was getting a bit tense from all the walking and so I decided to take the subway home instead of walking it), and I was approaching a (very small) food court before the subway and decided I'd choose a place from there. Unfortunately, there were only about 5 choices (not counting a juice bar or coffee place), A&W (disallowed under my goal but otherwise would have been my default choice), an italian place I don't remember the name of, an all-soup place, something I'm not quite sure what it was but it looked like a 'healthy food place', and a Mr. Souvlaki (again disallowed, and actually now that I remember it THAT probably would have been my default choice), and the one I went with, "Extreme Pita". Yeah, it's sort of a "chain fast food place" but it's one I've never tried, and I didn't feal like soup or Italian. There I got a "Chipotle Steak" pita wrap. It was good, could have used a little more meat, and spice, but there were some nice textural variation with the veggies. Next time I'd hope to try one of the smaller independent places, but because I'm a silly coward who gets unreasonably intimidated by various random social things, we'll see how it goes.
So, naturally I stopped by the used bookstores, where I picked up:
The Child Garden, by Geoff Ryman
The Ouroboros Wave by Jyouji Hayashi (translated)
There's actually been a lot of really interesting-looking Japanese SF that's been coming out in translation in the last few years. I'm sure there are other translated works out there from other languages, but these seem to be (mostly) a specific company doing it with TPB formats that tend to stand out in bookstores somehow and my eye gets drawn to them and so I wind up checking out the back cover. And, like I said, some of them sound interesting, and lately I've been interested in trying out voices and ideas from more varied points of view. Unfortunately, although some of them sound really cool, they don't sound QUITE cool enough for me to want to pay $20 for them new in that TPB form (a few I'd be willing to risk if they were published in normal paperback), so I've been hoping to see them turn up in used bookstores, and this one (about the discovery of a black hole on the edge of the solar system) is the first I found (aside from two about a super-intelligent war plane that didn't interest me much at all). From what I've been able to look up after buying it, it seems to be really hard SF, the kind that goes into a lot of depth about orbital mechanics and such, probably a little harder than I like, but hopefully there's still a really good story in there. And even if not, I'll still probably try the other authors the publishing house does, because some of the other stories I've seen are kinda cool.
Anyway, I mentioned last time I was going to try a new policy to get outside my comfort zone... whenever I take the trip downtown, I'd try to eat something I'd never eaten before, ideally at a place I'd never eaten before. Last time, I failed. This time, well, a partial success. I was again running out of options (in part because my back was getting a bit tense from all the walking and so I decided to take the subway home instead of walking it), and I was approaching a (very small) food court before the subway and decided I'd choose a place from there. Unfortunately, there were only about 5 choices (not counting a juice bar or coffee place), A&W (disallowed under my goal but otherwise would have been my default choice), an italian place I don't remember the name of, an all-soup place, something I'm not quite sure what it was but it looked like a 'healthy food place', and a Mr. Souvlaki (again disallowed, and actually now that I remember it THAT probably would have been my default choice), and the one I went with, "Extreme Pita". Yeah, it's sort of a "chain fast food place" but it's one I've never tried, and I didn't feal like soup or Italian. There I got a "Chipotle Steak" pita wrap. It was good, could have used a little more meat, and spice, but there were some nice textural variation with the veggies. Next time I'd hope to try one of the smaller independent places, but because I'm a silly coward who gets unreasonably intimidated by various random social things, we'll see how it goes.
