newnumber6 | Entries tagged with holidays

So yes, it's the end of another year. One widely considered to be one of the worst in recent memory at least, and I can't say I disagree. I can, however, offer advice. If, after midnight, you happen to come across a discarded calendar of 2016... don't get complacent. Stab, stomp, or burn the thing immediately. We all know how it works in the movies, the monster always SEEMS dead but then it somehow lurches back for one final attack when people leave the body behind.

In other news, one last book foo of the year!

Finished: Red Rising, by Pierce Brown

Darrow is a Red, the lowest of the low in a rigid (and color-coded) hierarchy of society working on Mars. He believes he's laboring to make it habitable, but it's already habitable... the Golds at the top just keep the Reds in utter subjugation for convenience. But after Darrow loses everything he cares about, he's given a chance to strike back, to turn into a Gold and work to infiltrate their society and, perhaps, one day, strike back at them.

Typical YA scenario. Dystopia run on pure evil. Teen hero with improbably impressive abilities fighting against it. Competition, a little romance. There's nothing exceptionally novel about it, and it's even gimmicky in a few ways... but at the same time it has a pretty good fun factor. ( Read more... ) I've heard the series does improve greatly after the first book (and some say it even grows to be more proper science fiction), and despite my reservations with Red Rising, I did like this one enough that I'm willing to follow along and see if that's true.

Finished: The Noise Within, by Ian Whates

A pirate ship's been prowling the spacelanes, and special forces troops are trying to track it down. So is a businessman, who believes the ship is actually a lost prototype his company put out.. and designed to be the first ship piloted by an AI. ( Read more... )In a generally better book, I might have looked past these groaners, but here, they're about the only thing that stuck with me.

Finished: Phantasm Japan (short stories)

This is a collection of fantasy stories, about half written by Japanese authors and translated, and about half written in English that just happen to involve some aspect of Japanese culture or mythology. ( Read more... )I still think I'd give it only 3 stars, like the other anthology, but it's a much higher 3 stars.

Finished: Worlds That Weren't (short stories) (reread)

This is a collection of alternate history tales, and as there's only four of them, they're of novella length. In one, Socrates goes to war with an old friend and ends up changing his mind. In another, over a century after a major meteor shower in 1878 radically realigns the world and puts the brakes on progress, an aristocrat from India (now the center of what was once the British Empire) goes hunting in the wilds of Texas. In another, a group of mercenaries get into conflict with a religious order over their demand to bury a woman fighting with them. And in the last, German Philosopher Frederich Nietzsche moves to the U.S. for his health and eventually winds up in the middle of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

I love alternate history. In theory. ( Read more... )Two stars.

Finished: A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers
Because even reading the simple summary spoils some aspects of the ending of "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet," hiding behind a cut.
( Read more... )I liked the first book, a lot, but I thought I might like it as an exception, as a novelty. This one is less a novelty, but I liked it even more, which means the author is definitely one to keep watching.

Finished: Golden Son, by Pierce Brown

(description behind cut for possible Red Rising spoilers) ( Read more... )It looks like I'm hating on the book a lot more than I am, but I think more than anything I'm just disappointed by the hype. It's fine. I don't think I wasted my time on it. I'll probably read the third book (my level of enjoyment and curiosity about how they'll move on from where they did are just enough to make that decision) but I'll set my expectations a lot more realistically. Dumb fun is still fun.

Finished: Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson (reread)
Normally I don't review rereads, but since I had to write a Goodreads review for it the first time I might not have my official one posted here, so, here goes:

One night, three kids are outside as the stars disappear. Soon, they, and the rest of the world, come to learn the shocking truth... the entire Earth has been wrapped in some kind of bubble, and for every year that passes on Earth, millions upon millions of years pass in the rest of the universe. If it keeps up, within decades, the sun will die. But life goes on, or at least it tries to, and people deal with the upcoming apocalypse in their own ways. ( Read more... )Overall it's just a fantastic book that I'd recommend to everyone, even if you're not a hard-core SF fan.

Finished: The End of All Things, by John Scalzi

Part of a long-running series, so plot description might be spoilery.
( Read more... )I like the author, but I want to read stories that I feel excite him, and I don't get that feel from this book, by and large. I'm not entirely ready to give up on the universe, but I think he needs to find a new focus to build stories around, and let the political shenanigans and authoritarian dirty tricks move more into the background, rather than center stage.

Finished: The City and the City, by China Mieville (reread)

Finished: The Last Policeman, by Ben H. Winters (reread)

Finished: Countdown City, by Ben H. Winters (reread)

Finished: Infomocracy, by Malka Ann Older

In the future, the world's political systems have changed dramatically, now (aside from a few holdout countries) everyone is divided into groups of their 100,000 nearest neighbors, and vote every ten years on which government will rule them. Within their 'centenals', the laws of their governments hold, even if another government is just across the street. It's election time again, and everybody's scrambling for control of more and more areas, and a few might be scheming to tamper with the vote. ( Read more... )Overall, I'd say I like it more than many of the actual elections that were going on this year that I was aware of. Which is a low bar to beat, admittedly, but still the novel's in a mild 'like' category, so, three stars. I'm not sure I'd read a sequel, but only because I think as a series this may be geared more to the type of people who really are into this stuff. But I might be willing to give it a try, if a sequel expanded on the world more and got more deeply into the character's other traits than being electoral geeks, or try other works by the author.

Finished: World of Trouble, by Ben H. Winters (reread)

I'm not sure what it says that I closed out the year with a reread of a trilogy set in the months before a civilization-ending asteroid hits the Earth. Maybe that it's preferable to how the rest of 2016's gone.

Anyway, my end of the year wrapup!

My complete 2016 reading list was:

1. Planetfall, by Emma Newman
( Read more... )
75. World of Trouble, by Ben H. Winters (reread)

75 is a new record for me, for yearly books read. Average length was 376 pages, 27,061 pages overall. That's 3.08 pages every hour of the year. Or one page every 19.5 minutes of my life.

10 multi-author short story collections this year (1 was a reread... technically one was a collection of essays, but we'll count it here)

That leaves us with 65. Breaking it down by gender, I did not do so well as last year, 19 books by women. (In addition, one trans male who is counted on the male side, and one author who I understand identified as androgynous, so I haven't counted in either category)

Now, last year I had accidental gender equality, but one key factor was in play last year... last year I had a secondary goal of no rereads. This year, I've been rereading some books. I had 17 rereads, one of which was a short story collection, one was by a female author, and 15 by males. Obviously, there's a historical imbalance, since before I was consciously trying to 'read more women authors', a large majority of my reading was by males, and so a large majority of my favorites have been as well (and that's likely to persist for quite a while).

If we remove rereads from the equation and focus on new books, there'd be 49 single-author books in total. 48 by people who identify either as male or female. Of that, 18 by women authors is still lower than I'd like, but a bit more respectable at least. Still, clearly there are unintentional biases that push my reading taste more towards male writers.

I'll continue trying in the future, to try and read more diverse voices in general.

I got 5 physical books for free as part of promotional 'contest' style giveaways, as well as 4 others that were pre-release electronic book giveaways for review purposes for a total of 9 (these are the ones with asterisks beside them). Another 6 I got for free either because that's how the publishers or authors generally offer them, or as special post-release promotions where they offered them free to everyone for a limited time.

Going into 2017, I'm reading:
The John Varley Reader, by John Varley (short stories), The Prefect, by Alastair Reynolds and Fire with Fire, by Charles Gannon

End of the year post! As some of you know, I don't really celebrate New Years, both due to being a social hermit and just not liking it. But, why not put up a post to finish off my book review posts as an easy-to-find bookend, and also update on other things.

First, other things. I probably should have posted this earlier, but I hope everyone's had a nice holiday season, regardless of any holidays you celebrate (and if you don't celebrate any, well, I hope you enjoyed the lights and colors of other people celebrating?). I had a fairly quiet Xmas, just my Dad, Grandmother, Stepmother, and Brother having a dinner. It was good, though.

And it goes without saying (except that I'm doing so anyway) that I wish you all a Happy New Year for 2015, even if I don't expect one for myself.

Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, on to the actual update.

Not much has been going on in the TV front other than Legend of Korra finale (Which I discussed in a separate post) and The Doctor Who XMas special (which I don't feel like discussing it at length... suffice it to say it was an episode that was constantly annoying me while it was going on because of things that didn't make sense, but then they explained all of it more or less satisfactory so... I guess I kind of half-liked it? Though it's a weird kind of like. Maybe it'll rewatch better. Also, didn't especially like the ending.

What else... well, I should probably update on the cooking front.

Since I started learning to cook, I've actually cooked, in some limited sense of the word, almost every night for the last three months. A couple "grab fast food" nights and a few family occasions (and inevitable days of leftovers), and a handful of days where my brother cooked (he's busy and stressed with work and school most of the time so I don't want to ask him to do extra... so I like helping him out).

Now, mostly, it's fairly simple stuff... packaged side-dishes where you just have to pour in a pot and follow directions, frozen vegetables, and a couple times were it's something super simple "just pop it in an oven and wait" meals like frozen pizza (though I usually add mushrooms), but a fair number of meats where I actually cook... burgers and sausages being the most common, or ground beef for hamburger helper/tacos. I've also now cooked pork chops (including seasoning, searing, and then finishing in the oven), pork roast (rubbing a seasoning on it and slicing it from a larger roast) with carrots (prepared from fresh, peeled and chopped and) cooked in the juices, bacon and eggs a few different ways, and made what (if I do say so myself) was a pretty excellent meatloaf (in addition to dicing mushrooms for the loaf mix along with other ingredients, I also left three whole mushrooms in the middle as a little surprise which seemed to give it an awesome extra moistness). So I'm glad to be learning new things. And I haven't poisoned anyone yet.

But now let's go to Book Foo. As usual, reviews are usually grabbed from my Goodreads account, and unless otherwise noted don't have what I feel are significant spoilers but may include some minor information outside of the cut (and a 'back-of-the-book' summary before the cut, so if you don't like those you should probably stop reading the entry entirely right now).

Finished: Exo, by Steven Gould (Jumper, Book 4)

Millicent ('Cent') Rice is a teenager who has inherited the otherwise unique ability to teleport from her parents. She can go anywhere she's been, or anywhere she can see clearly, in the blink of an eye, and bring anything she can carry with her. So what does a girl like that do when she wants to make her mark on the world (and also needs a project to distract her from dwelling on a recent breakup)? Why, she starts her own space program, of course.

This book continues the Jumper series, which started out focusing on her father but as of the last book, Impulse changed to Cent, but despite that, and other changes, the series remains a fun and compulsively readable adventure. ( Read more... )

I do think the above problems (or near-problems) make it possibly the weakest book in the SERIES, it's only by degrees. Ideally, I'd like a bit more of an emotional punch other than the sensawunda (which, granted, is here in spades), and a more directed plot with complications, but I still thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and am totally on board for more. And there's plenty of room for more ( Read more... ) Whatever happens, I'll be there.

Finished: Pushing Ice, by Alastair Reynolds
When one of Saturn's moons suddenly leaves orbit and takes off for a distant star, revealing itself to be an unfathomably ancient alien starship, a nuclear-powered ice-mining ship is the only one near enough to have a chance at getting some detailed observations before it leaves the system. As they struggle to learn all they can, they soon discover that returning home may not be as simple as they thought, and begin a journey that will take them to the depths of space and time and force them to struggle just to survive. ( Read more... ) If it wasn't for the characters, this would be one of my favorites of Reynolds' books, as it probably has the most appealing (to me) central premise. As it is, it lands somewhere squarely in the middle.

Finished: Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch, Book 2)
(summary cut because it's slightly spoilery for the ending of the first book)

( Read more... ) The quieter, lower-stakes nature of the plot is the biggest flaw, but... it's not really all that big. If that's the worst you can say about it, it's almost like you're reaching for something to say. I liked the book, I enjoyed the characters, and even the pace was pretty good. If you liked the first book, you'll probably like this one as well, but if not, there's not a lot to change your mind, either. When the third book comes out, I'll certainly be reading that as well.

Finished: Maelstrom, by Peter Watts (Rifters, Book 2)

(again cutting summary because description is slightly spoilery for book 1) ( Read more... )Still, on the whole it's a worthy sequel, may even be better than the first (it's a hard call, since they focus on different things and either might appeal to me more when I'm in a certain mood).

Finished: Infoquake, by Daniel Louis Edelmen
Infoquake tells the story of a ruthless businessman in the far future and his attempt to do a product launch for a new technology that's going to change the world. That about describes everything that matters, which doesn't matter a lot to me. ( Read more... ) This might be somebody's ideal book, but it's not mine. There ARE some cool ideas, but I have to wade through too much stuff I'm not interested in to get to them, and the things that do interest me, they don't really get paid off in a satisfying degree.

Finished: Terminal World, by Alastair Reynolds
Terminal World is the story of Quillon, who lives in a world divided by zones, where the laws of physics are slightly different and different levels of technology work in each zone. Some zones allow only steam and clockwork contraptions, others allow circuitry and computer networks, and still others allow far beyond what Earth has today. A few zones don't even allow life, but even those that do, are optimized for those already born to it... crossing a zone boundary is hazardous, sometimes even fatal, without medication. Spearpoint is a city built on an impossibly tall spire, which contains several zones... but Quillon has to leave. For though he comes from one of the highest-technology zones, he's been in hiding in Neon Heights for years, and the people he's hiding from want him. But that's just the start of his journey, because the zones are unstable, and the whole world is at risk.

Ever since I heard about the book, I was both interested and wary. Interested, because I love the idea of different technology zones and crossing between them. This sounded a little like Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought universe, except all mashed onto one planet. And yet, two things worried me. ( Read more... )I would love to see Reynolds come back to this world, maybe not as a sequel (the story could continue, but it doesn't need to, my frustrations with the ending notwithstanding), but merely a different adventure using this world, for I can see plenty of stories left to tell in it.

Finished: This Alien Shore, by C.S. Friedman
The first age of spaceflight ended abruptly when it was discovered that the faster-than-light drive had side effects, altering the genetics of those who used it, which already included millions of colonists bound for different worlds. Earth shut down all travel and left the colonies isolated to survive or fall on their own, and their variants on the human form to develop into their own standards of normal. Centuries later, one of those colonies discovered a new way to travel faster-than-light, and brought together all the human worlds once more... but held a strict and complete monopoly on such travel, forcing everyone else to follow the rules of their Guild or risk being cut off from the rest of the universe. But there's a computer virus spreading which seems to be created to try and learn their secrets, infesting people's brainware and causing more than a few deaths, and the Guild must investigate it. But that's not the only thing that's going on... a teenage girl named Jamiska is on the run and doesn't know why. The subject of an experiment at a young age, she may be another key to toppling the Guild monopoly, and that makes her very valuable to all sorts of people who might not have her personal best interests at heart. But she's on her own... except for the voices in her head.

It's a complicated premise to sum up quickly (I didn't even get into significant spoiler territory), but when reading it, it's fairly easy to grasp, and the author's created a setup for her world and characters that draw you in. ( Read more... )I rated this a three, but it's a high three, nearly a four. I'd happily read something else in this universe. It doesn't absolutely need a sequel, but there's plenty of room in this setting to explore other stories.

Finished: The Human Division, by John Scalzi (Old Man's War universe)
The Human Division takes place in the universe of Old Man's War, after the events of that trilogy, but not focusing on the main characters. Instead, it focuses on Harry Wilson, friend of John Perry from the first books, and his adventures as science adviser on a series of missions, many of which are diplomatic in nature, while meanwhile somebody, possibly somebody in the Colonial Union, seeks to sabotage diplomatic measures.

Generally speaking, this is one of those "optional safe bet" books, at least for fans. If you liked the other books in the series, you'll probably like this... but at the same time, it's not required reading by any means. ( Read more... ) Because the book seems to suffer from this lack of depth (and the series in general is not typically deep SF), the whole thing winds up feeling a little disposable... fun, mind you, but disposable fun. Like watching one of those milestone episodes of a TV series, where instead of going for big events they let the actors just have fun doing wacky stuff, and you could skip the ep if you had to... you might miss a few plot points, but nothing major. I enjoyed it. But not as much as I did the other books in the series.

Finished: Leviathan Wakes, by James S.A. Corey (Expanse, Book 1 )
Leviathan Wakes tells the story of a spaceship crew who respond to a distress call and get way over their heads, and a cop on an asteroid colony trying to find a missing girl, who may have been on the ship giving the distress call.

This is a rollicking space adventure that combines SF, noir, action, and horror, and the first book of a series that has not only become very popular, but is also being made into a TV series. And I can see why... there's a lot of neat stuff here. And yet... I also was left, just a little, underwhelmed. ( Read more... )I did like it, and I almost gave it four stars, there was just that niggling TV-vibe that made it feel a little shallower. But I'm almost certainly going to be checking out the sequels, at least the first two or three. I'm not yet sure it's worth committing to all nine.

Started: The Martian, by Andy Weir
Started: Behemoth, by Peter Watts (Rifters, Book 3)
Started: Burning Paradise, by Robert Charles Wilson

That makes my total list for the year:

1. Briarpatch, by Tim Pratt
( Read more... )
60. Leviathan Wakes, by James S.A. Corey (Expanse, #1)

Some stats on what I read:
This year I read 60 books.
According to Goodreads, they totalled 26676 pages, which means I read about 3 pages every hour of the year (though of course, not read that way or I'd go insane).

(Though of course, this is slightly inaccurate as I read something like a 3000 page book of short stories slowly, some in 2013, some in 2014, but since I finished in 2014, they count it there... but, whatever, close enough)
I reread 12 books (vs 48 new to me)
Number of books recieved for free (through giveaways, contests, etc, rather than just given or available free by the author): 5
Favorite Books: Echopraxia by Peter Watts, The Causal Angel but both are parts of series I really enjoyed. For completely new finds, The Newsflesh series by Mira Grant and The Last Policeman series by Ben H. Winters were nice surprises that gripped me.

Well, Xmas is over (and yet some stations are STILL PLAYING XMAS PROGRAMMING. THIS IS NOT OK. WE ARE DONE WITH THIS. IT'S BEEN THE CHRISTMAS SEASON SINCE OCTOBER).

I normally post a 'haul' list, but so far it's not been much, in terms of numbers. In fact, for the first year in recent memory I think I gave more actual gifts than I got (in terms of value though, I still received more).

I got:
A gift card (Wendy's)
A bag of white-chocolate-peppermint covered pretzels
A pair of gloves
And all the rest has been money, not even gift cards, just money.

There are still a bit of outstanding people who might get me something.

I'm not disappointed, anything's nice to get.

Gave:
A digital photo frame for my grand mother, with some pictures of family and stuff preloaded into it.
A small pampering-gift for stepmother
Booze for the Dad
A 'go out to dinner' give card for both of them together
A Future Shop gift card for my brother, HMV for his wife.

Couple people I was debating whether or not to get anything for and decided against it, unfortunately... because they did give me something (the Wendy's card). It's not like I'm hurting for money it's just I didn't know if they were going to get anything and didn't want to make them feel awkward about it, so instead I get that feeling. Oh well, I'll remember for next year.

On Christmas Eve, we went the party room in the apartment building of one of the Stepsiblings, had a good turkey and ham and mash potatoes, pumpkin pie, cookies, candies... good food, and good to see them all (we don't get together too often), though I didn't talk much, not great in crowds.

On Xmas day (after I finished watching the Doctor Who special, which I liked in general but saw the end coming and thought it was a bit too... cute in some ways, to the detriment of believability, and I'm afraid, continuity), we went to see my grandmother (and Dad and Stepmother again), and one of my aunts was also there. We had tacos, along with Greek sausages and of course bunches of cookies and cheesecake.

Today I had work in the morning, but after work, I walked down to the Eaton Center area to check out stores... Best Buy, Future Shop, World's Biggest Bookstore, Silver Snail, and of course, the used bookstores, but, didn't wind up getting anything at all. It was still pretty early in the morning (before their normal opening hours, but since it was Boxing Day sales many of them were open early), so I probably could have gotten some of the good deals, but I just didn't see anything that grabbed me. The only thing I spent half a second considering was a Kobo Vox ereader for about $100 I think, $80 off. But... I think $50 is about all I'm willing to spend on something designed mainly as an e-reader, no matter what fancy other features it has. Black Friday they had one discounted for that price and I put it off, but this time that model didn't go on sale at all, so I decided to pass... as I said, $50 is about my limit for that. If I'm going to go much higher, I might as well spring for a couple hundred more and just get an all out Android phone (which I've been thinking about for a while and I might have got today, but all of the sales were "cheap if you get a phone contract" deals, and I just want the phone itself, pretty much for the WiFi. Nobody ever calls me, or would text me so a phone contract (particularly one that is onerous enough that they feel the need to give you a really cheap phone to lure you in) feels like wasted money... if I ever get a life or some other need for a temporary phone I can get a contract or pay-as-you-go later).

I did however find a $5 bill on the ground. Nobody was around, so, yoink! And since I didn't purchase anything, somehow I left boxing day shopping with more money than I started.

So last night was the Christmas-era party for my work, and this year, I decided to go.

How was it? Well, it was another of those situations where, while it wasn't horrible, made me wonder why I even bothered. I suppose it wasn't quite as socially nerve-wracking as it could have been... while waiting for the bus that would go to the venue, I ran into another co-worker, one of the people I've actually talked to a bit at work (largely because she's an extremely talkative person... the kind that changes topics on a dime and tells long stories about her family without being prompted on the subject and doesn't really leave time to get more than a few words in edgewise... which I suppose isn't all in my situation since I'm not much of a talker), and have a little in common with (she also watches cartoons).

We got there and a bit of awkwardness because it was time to choose a table and I hadn't been explicitly invited to sit anywhere, but manage to work up the social wherewithal to sit next to the same person I'd been 'talking with' (more like 'listening to') and assume an implied invitation to continue that companionship in absence of any other evidence to the contrary. In fact most of the people at that table were the same people I sat with last time I was there (the specific person I met in transit wasn't there that year, so it was kid of a weird coincidence, except perhaps that we were the people who showed up right on time). Still, it was a decent-sized table and, aside from a few minutes of conversation I was mostly silent the whole time while other people talked.

Food was okay, chicken (a little pink) and roast beef (a bit dry, even with the au jus), and some sides that were decent. Then of course they did the raffle... I didn't win anything. Everyone at my table who was eligible (at least, I believe, maybe one exception) won something, except me, none of the really nice prizes, but something. And my ticket number actually was pulled, but they were getting people in the crowd to pull tickets from a bowl and then handing them in order to the person at the mike to call them... I saw my ticket pulled (by someone at my table) but before it got up to the mike, the last prize was given away. Which seems to pretty much be how my life goes. ;)

After dinner there was a few minutes of entertainment, some kind of performance of Middle Eastern or perhaps South Asian dancing (not sure which, we have a lot of employees from both those regions... I think the latter), which was not especially entertaining to me, both because it's "not my thing" (not because of cultural issues, but rather because it's dancing at all... I don't even listen to music in general, and dancing is one of those associated arts that is kind of lost on me), and also because too many people blocked my view of most of it.

Then, although there was time set aside for music or dancing, a number of people were starting to leave, and I was already pretty beat and headed home too (the person I was with also left at the same time and we shared part of the subway, although to be honest, I'd probably have preferred to just read the book I brought for the bus ride).

All in all, I guess on some theoretical level it's "good" that I "got out" and was "among people" rather than indulging my strong hermit tendencies, and yet... I know I would have had more fun alone at home, hence the "why did I bother?" wonderment.

I wasn't made to be among people and it's hard to shake the feeling that I should probably stop trying.

First, Happy Birthday

escap1974! Sorry, I don't think I even got on LJ yesterday.

So yes, as some of you are probably wear, this past weekend was a holiday for many people.

My family was among those celebrating, and how did we do it?

Well, unlike previous years, we didn't do the traditional turkey and (ham or roast), potatoes, etc, etc etc. My stepmother, who normally would be doing the cooking, didn't feel up to it this year, and instead, we all went to Mandarin, an all-you-can-eat buffet. That was fine by me, I haven't been there in years and love their food.

I had three heaping platefuls, with nary a spot left unfooded, and then a smaller plate of desert. This is going from memory, but this is what I recall having:
Scallop (1)
Egg Roll (1)
Chicken Dumplings (3)
Breaded Torpedo Shrimp (8? 9?)
Chilled Peel and Eat Shrimp (5ish, and I don't peel, I just eat)
Lobster Claw (1)
Lobster Thermador (1)
Sweet and Sour Chicken Balls (5ish)
BBQ Spare Rib (1)
Sweet and Sour Spare Ribs
Lemon Chicken
Black Pepper Steak (on all 3 plates)
Spicy Chicken
Curry Chicken
Crispy Fried Chicken
Some other breaded chicken dish
Tofu with Mixed Vegetables
Sauteed Mushrooms
Singapore Noodles
Chicken Fried Rice
Thai Shrimp/Vegetables
I have a feeling there were a couple more things but I can't remember what they are.

For desert:
Pineapple slice
Slice of cheesecake with Cherry Sauce
Cube of Jello (to put to the test the old saying that there's always room for it).

My favorite is, as usual, the black pepper steak, although the spicy chicken gave it a run for its money.

The surprise of the night was tofu with vegetables. I don't know if I ever tried it before, and I know it's got a bad reputation, but it actually tasted decent, with a good texture that was a little reminiscent of meat... not enough to go back for seconds, but I could see myself eating it if it was prepared similarly again.

The regret, aside from not having enough room to go back for more of everything, was that I never got a chance to try the sushi bar. I'm not a fish person in general, and raw fish in particular sounds even less appetizing, but they had a couple choices that didn't actually seem to involve fish, or involved other seafood that are on my approved list, but in my 3 plates I never made it there. Also never made it to the prime rib steak, but I'm comfortable with that sacrifice.

After that, we went home to do gift exchange, where I realized I possibly ate a little too much and came very close to running to the washroom to puke a few times, but I managed to keep it all down. Also, crazy, everybody's got tablets now. Well, not everybody, but there were two there that the kids were mainly using, plus various cellphones including some pretty advanced ones (I didn't realize my brother has an android phone with lots of apps). I dunno, I can see some of the appeal, but I'd still prefer an actual computer with an actual keyboard. But then, I write. Also the games everyone was playing seemed to be variants of exactly the same game with just different graphics (squash the ant but not the bees vs pop the popcorn but not the bombs).

The gift haul:

Money (some of which devoted to a specific thing, which will be mentioned later)
Can of 3 varieties of popcorn (butter, white cheddar, and caramel corn)
Box of chocolates
Terry's Chocolate Orange
Socks
T-shirt
Irish Spring Gift Pack (containing a 5-bladed razor, shaving gel, deoderant, and two different varieties of body wash: Original, and "New, Legendary Classic". Somebody at the Irish Spring Marketing department needs a talking to.)

Normally we go to one of my aunt's house afterwards, and I didn't really feel like it but was going to because, well, family, but we were just out the door and about to go there when they called and said everyone'd already gone home. Normally it lasts a few hours later than that, but apparently my aunt was really tired. Anyway, I can't complain too much, I was happy to go home where I pretty much went straight to bed.

Next morning went to see my grandmother and one of my other aunts at her place, and she also served a bunch of stuff, had (in no particular order) sausages (Greek and smoked), zelnic (a sort of cheese pastry), cabbage roll, feta cheese, some other kind of Greek cheese, an olive or two, a Greek cookie, some honey balls, some hors d'oerves with avocado and proscutto and cheese on melba toast, a rice-in-grape-leaves things, a chocolate, and... I think that's it. We were given some turkey to take home.

After that, watched the Doctor Who Christmas special, which I rather enjoyed, not great, and the first 2 minutes or so annoyed me, but after that, quite charming. Then just a little bit of downtime before bed.

Today, I had to work. However, I had another goal... to stalk the most elusive prey of the concrete jungle... a boxing day deal on a new computer! Okay, I exaggerate. But part of the money I was given was specifically designated towards my computer, which I'd been wanting for a while (my oldest, aside from generally running slow, has been starting to suffer occasional bluescreens after a power failure about a week or two ago). Figured I'd get one Boxing day, saw one in the Future Shop flyer for $100 off and decided I'd go for it. I came very close to not getting it, too.

AFter work I took the streetcar to the Future Shop I usually go to, walked inside and it was crazy busy. Overheard two of the employees talking, and one said 'pretty much all of the Doorcrashers sold out already', and my heart sank because what I wanted was a doorcrasher deal. Looked around, found another similar model but $100 more, figuring that was the 'upsell' one (where they get you when you're disappointed that the cheaper one ran out), heart sank further. Employee asked if I needed help, I showed her the flyer and asked if they had and and said no, they sold the last one just a few minutes ago. So, I figured I'd wander around, get an idea of prices for what I might get otherwise, and then suddenly, between two boxes of other stuff was one lone box of the computer I wanted. Held my hand on it while waiting to get the attention of an employee (because it had a sign attached so I wasn't sure if it was saleable or considered for display or something), but they sold it and I was out of there and in a cab home within minutes. Victory is mine!

It's not setup yet at all, still in the box, because I need to temporarily take one computer off line so I can transfer stuff over from the computer on its way out, and I don't want to do that just yet. But soon. Soon.

For the record, it's a Gateway, Intel Core i5 processer 2300, 6Gig, 1 TB HD, blah blah blah, I think it'll be shiny.

So, we did the X-mas thing. Friday went over to my aunt's where they had a variety of finger foods and just hanging out and chatting with the relatives. Then on Xmas day itself we went over to my Dad's place for a relatively small (in terms of number of people, not amount of food) Xmas dinner.

Foodwise I dined on chips, roasted chickpeas and raisins, a variety of cheeses (including havarti and feta), a variety of things with cheese in them that I'm not sure I can name, mini-quiches (of a couple different types), meatballs, meatballs with rice and veggies in the meatball, sort of tzatziki-rollups, sausage pieces (the previous ones were all at my aunt's, the rest will be at my Dad's), chips, chocolates, nuts, turnips, scalloped potatoes, roast beef and turkey with gravy for each, brocolli, corn, cheesecake with blueberry sauce on top, and plenty of leftovers and sweets to take home.

Presentwise this year I got a fair amount of money from different people, a gift card to zellers and affiliated stores, socks, a body-wash/anti-persparent/shower-scrub-thingie pack, a hat (from someone at work), a huge collection of assorted mixed party nuts (mostly different styles of peanut).

Overall it was pleasant, no big family arguments this year. Only minor complaint/annoyance was that, while going to my aunt's was fun, I was a bit tired (since I had to work that morning and get up super early, and the party was fairly latish), and the kids of my cousins seemed to have gotten a lot louder in the last year, and there were a few more of them. Barely worth mentioning, and yet I do.

There is a slight chance I may get a new computer in the next week. This one (still running Win98) is in reasonably fine repair but I'd like to migrate all the data over to a system that actually has a way of directly transporting data other than a disk drive, so future backups are easy as a USB key (I have a USB-HD enclosure, so once I get the new computer I can liberate the HD of the old one and copy everything over relative quickly). And of course, fewer and fewer sites run well on this system (even though I mostly use it for just a couple mainly text ones), and, well, sometimes it does feel a little slow. There's also the fact that I believe this computer, because the tower is larger than many modern computers and the case isn't totally sealed, it throws up interference that borks my TV reception a little bit (I get through antenna)... when I turn it off, the reception gets better, and that doesn't happen with my newer computer. Anyway, I've been wanting one for a while and the stars might align for Boxing Week sales and having a lift to go pick it up/bring it home.

I also want to pick up a printer so I can finally have one. Then I can start sending off stories to markets that don't accept solely e-mail submissions.

TV, most things have been dead, but of course there has been the Doctor Who Christmas special. Mostly I enjoyed it, maybe a bit iffy at points, but still good. And it inspired Doctor Who dreams (one where I watched a version that had extra footage, including a robot in the TARDIS that seemed very much like Danger from Astonishing X-Men), and another one where I accidentally bought the novelization of the episode (accidentally in that I bought it and then immediately realized, 'why the hell did I buy this? I don't even read the Doctor Who novels that AREN'T based on an episode!'), then figured that since I already bought it I might as well read it to see if they explainedd any of the finer points of time manipulation, and while I read it, in the ways that dreams do, I became part of the story which went in a completely different direction than the episode (I believe we all time travelled back to the 1920s/1930s and some kind of workplace that was trying to unionize. There was also one scene where Rory was instructed to activate the TARDIS time-space-induction-thingie by activating the 'cockmost switch' on a certain panel, which the Doctor meant the one that was most off-angle from the other switches, but Rory thought "the lever that looks most like a penis" and spent far too long looking over all the switches trying to make a decision about which one that was).

As you all know, today is a very special day, involving three wise men. These wise men were on a long journey, and did something never done before. They were the first manned expedition to orbit the moon. It happened December 24th, 1968.

I'm also aware there's some religious holiday today and tomorrow, so to those of you that celebrate that, Merry Christmas.