Despite the fact that I’m pretty well loaded down with, well, life, lately, I need to take my escapism where I can. One of the most convenient escapes is reading, as I’m sure it is for many of you dear readers as well. For the last few months, I’m plunging through my backlog of pulp sci-fi magazine subscriptions (I subscribe to both Analog and Asimov’s at the moment, and haven’t been getting to them) that I’ve had piling up. Taking my fiction in the small does short stories and novellas provide has been nice – I can knock out a story over my lunch break, for example, which is a nice way of doing things.

However, working through my pile, as enjoyable as much of it is, is starting to feel more like work than anything else. I believe a break from that is in order. That said, I’m still sort of itching for a project of sorts. Last year, I worked through the existing Song of Ice and Fire series, spurred on by how good the Game of Thrones TV series (as much as I’ve seen of it, anyway) is, as well as a couple of personal recommendations.

However, since GRRM isn’t writing any faster than usual, I need something else. Interestingly, the universe seemed to notice, and threw me something worth looking at.

This weekend on NPR, I heard a piece about this week’s release of the final volume of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Haunting bookstores and libraries like I do, I’ve always seen this one out there, but the sheer immensity and (until recently) it’s incompleteness have intimidated me. Plus, there were always other things out there to fill the void. Jordan’s death a few years ago put me off of it further; as much a fan of orphaned 13-and-out TV series as I seem to be, I didn’t want to invest my time without a payoff. Of course, a while back, Jordan’s chosen successor picked up the baton – Brandon Sanderson. I adored Sanderson’s Mistborn series, which was a masterful piece of worldbuilding, and his ability to stage an action scene impressed me greatly. Sanderson’s now finished WoT based on Jordan’s notes, so if I start this business, I’ll at least eventually come to an ending.

That, along with nrlymrtl’s mention of the series this week (including a giveway of the audiobook of The Eye of the World, the first any one book in the series, save the last one!), and current read-along she’s got going on, amounted to too many incidents to ignore: I went ahead and ordered a box set of the first three paperback volumes, which ought to deliver by the end of the week.

So, it seems that despite all the other stuff I’ve got going on, I’ve just invested in another giant doorstopper epic fantasy series. Am I nuts?

I imagine all you readers out there clamoring for my lastest thoughts and feelings on the world at large, all three or four of you, are probably pretty disappointed at my output lately. You know what, I’m not thrilled about it either. However, I’m not sure when or if things are going to change, at least in the near term.

I mean, I hope they’ll change, and I can get back to writing things of great weight, profundity, and import some day soon. However, my life being what it is at the moment, things are falling by the wayside, and the blog, being almost entirely frivilous, is one of the most easily set aside while life and work and lots and lots of driving get in the way.

Sadly, that’s what’s been happening. When I do have a moment for me (which is not often at all), I’ve been spending it catching my breath, or doing something escapist that requiring very little heavy mental lifting (this has been mostly catching up on old tv shows on Netflix). Most of my free processing cycles are dedicated to figuring out what I do for a living now, and getting to a point where doing that won’t require so many hours a day sitting in the car listening to audiobooks and (usually) silently cursing the inattentiveness of my fellow motorists. What most of those cycles aren’t involved with is reading things on the internet to react to – I don’t have that kind of time, plus I spend all day staring at a computer screen as it is, and the thought of doing so off the clock is wearying to me at the moment.

That said, I do enjoy this outlet quite a lot – I really want to keep filling this space with interesting things. I just may be doing it a little more slowly from here on out.

Yeah. I went back to work this week. With the remains of the pre-New Years flu not quite flushed from the system. At least traffic was nice this week.

1. “Wrathchild” – Iron Maiden
2. “21 Things I Want in a Lover” – Alanis Morrissette
3. “Satch Boogie” – Joe Satriani
4. “Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me” – The Pipettes
5. “Trashy Little Number” – Syn D’ Cats
6. “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” – Waylon & Willie
7. “Show Don’t Tell” – Rush
8. “Ana Ng” – TMBG
9. “Dance Dance Dance” – Steve Miller Band
10. “I’m Gonna Make Him Mine (Tonight)” – The Donnas

Yeah, I should’ve gotten to this one earlier. Told you I’d be mostly away from the computer. Between a short bout with the flu my familial and social circles are kicking around, plus a little musical performance, some gaming and a pretty great New Years’ party, I haven’t had the time.

Anyway – Like I usually do, I went back and picked a couple of the pieces that I or others have liked over the course of the year, and figured might be worth reading again, if you were so inclined. Some of these are personally significant, others less so, but their a pretty good sampling of the original work here this year; a year when life got in the way a lot and there was actually a lot less original work than there’s been recently.

• ten years after
• “indoctrination mills” and social engineering
• fus ro dichotomy
• being aware of “awareness” campaigns
• who says you can’t go home? – the unique experience of teenage fandom
• a vague little story about a particular confluence of events…and some gratitude
• on tribalism and the fall of lions
• so much depends
• always the moon
• books I’ve been meaning to get to
• Shamokin – 1997-2012
• The final confrontation – council of spiders, session eight (and the rest of the campaign write-ups, for that matter)

Describing the last year in quantifiable terms:

• unique visits to this blog this year (so far): 4,927
• posts this year (so far, including this one): 155
• books read (so far): 83
• books acquired: many
• sporting events attended: 4
• musical performances attended: 21
• theatrical productions attended: 5
• fan conventions attended: 6
• miles bicycled: 950 (so far)
• inches lost from waist mesurement on pants: 2.5
• pants sacrificed to the patron deity of crayons in the dryer: 2
• number of instruments culled from the guitar herd: 2
• number of times ukulele played in public: 2
• cats lost: 1
• cats acquired: 1
• miles driven: roughly 13,000
• nights spent in a hotel: 120
• nights spent in a tent: 4
• dungeons and dragons levels earned: 12
• roleplay characters killed out from under me: 0 (which is nice)
• number of hours on my Skyrim save: 200, more or less
• new jobs started: 1
• number of national parks visited: 6
• telephone poles backed into: 1
• tie died t-shirts made: 3
• number of times the pre-schooler has tearfully screamed “MOM!” from her bedroom instead of just going to bed like she’d been told to since I started typing this list: several dozen

So, there it is, in terms of numbers. Less quantifiably, many good times were had, much stress was endured, several new friends were made, and a great number of asian and middle eastern meals were prepared and consumed. A stressful year full of change and shakeups, but also filled with many interesting new adventures. I’ll take it.

Later on, a run down of notable posts from the last year. See ya!

So, I’m done working for the year. That’s good. I’ve gotten really used to taking the last week and a half of the year and just not doing much of anything beyond basic household upkeep and the stuff that I want to do. The general lack of obligation to anyone but me, especially the part about not having to drive anywhere unless I want to (or, you know, need food or beer or something) is quite possibly the best gift I can give myself.

Also, I’m calling it right now: with the completion of the trip I just took around the city this afternoon, I’m done Christmas shopping. Nobody’s getting anything else; sorry. I might have to go buy cat food later, but that’s not Christmas shopping (and I don’t necessarily mind going to get things for the cats; they earn their keep by being amusing and purring).

So, what’s the plan? Dunno – don’t really have one. There are interesting movies to watch, I have have plenty of books to read, and Final Fantasy XII-2 is finally starting to make sense to me mechanically, so I’ll probably play some of that. We’ve got plenty of food, drink and spirits stashed away, so I probably don’t even have to go anywhere until Sunday, and that’s only because the spouse and teenager are in a choir and have to go sing some madrigals.

Also, I recently dug the mandolin out, and have been attempting to bend it’s really tiny neck with lots and lots of strings on it to the will of my large, but reasonably nimble and precise fingers – I think I may be gaining some ground in that particular war. There my be some more dispatches on that front in the days and weeks to come; who knows.

As far as the blog goes the rest of the year, I usually try to set the internet aside at this point in the year, though I’ll probably do a couple of those year-end posts the week before New Years, because it’s interesting, and it helps me take stock of my thoughts and actions for the year (and gives me a chance to go back and highlight the stuff I wrote this year that I like). So, unless the world does end in the next nine hours or so, be on the lookout for those sometime next week.

Otherwise, dear readers, that’s mostly it for me unless something interesting happens. In the meantime, please enjoy your holiday season, whichever traditions or philosophies you prefer. Don’t overdo it on food, drink, and song, but don’t underdo it either; you’re worth a little indulgence now and then, and there’s so much around right now to indulge in. Also, take the time to do something nice for somebody; most of those philosophies and traditions out there celebrate that sort of thing, and frankly, it feels good making somebody else feel good, so do that.

And…scene.

So, it’s nearly 10am EST, and we’re all still here. I’m not surprised, but a small part of me is a little upset, what with all the literal wailing and gnashing of teeth we’re missing, and the figurative stuff I’m getting via twitter (though at least that’s funny).

might as well spin some tunes, see what sort of apocalyptic stuff comes up:

1. “One Day, Robots Will Cry” – Cobra Starship
2. “The Moon and the Prince” – Akitaka Tohyama, Kenji Ninuma (Katamari Damacy sndtrk)
3. “Carnivore” – Liz Phair
4. “I Will Wait” – Mumford and Sons
5. “Song for a River” – The Badlees
6. “Deep Blue” – Arcade Fire
7. “Too Little, Too Late” – Barenaked Ladies
8. “Annie” – that dog.
9. “Your Latest Trick” – Dire Straits
10. “There’s A Fine Fine Line” – Avenue Q OST

Squint at that list just right, and you can see a bit of apocalypse in there, as long as you read “apocalypse” as getting rolled up in a huge ball by a little green guy (#2), or a story/song setting that normally looks so post-apocalyptic that they shot The Road there (#5). Also, #1 is from the band who did the theme song to Snakes on a Plane, and we all know that after the earthquake and the birds, it’s “snakes and aeroplanes”, according to prophecy by noted seer Michael Stipe. So, yeah.

Oh well.

Encountered via a passing mention in this week’s commute audiobook, David Hadju’s The Ten ¢ent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, an excerpt from President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s commencement address at Dartmouth College in 1953:

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.

In the midst of a book all about the wild-eyed witch hunts by The Powers that Be in the 1940s and 1950s directed at crime and horror comics of the era as root causes of juvenile delinquency and the downfall of civilization, it was nice to see that the man in the oval office managed to retain a level head.

They’d generally be right about the humbug thing, but not in this case, as this post has nothing to do with the season. It’s just my way of remembering how great The X-Files often was:

Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you’re stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there’s nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there’s a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they’re gone too fast and the taste is… fleeting. So, you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you’re desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.

Glen Morgan. wow.

As alluded to in the last post with the kitten, the stress levels I’m dealing with are through the roof at the moment. For all kinds of reasons. This time, all that stress is going straight to my head, providing sustenance and power to those gnomes in my frontal lobe with the pneumatic hammers…you know those guys, right? Assholes.

Anyway, I’m taking a small moment of peace amidst the chaos to stop and listen to music for a few minutes, and see if it helps.

1. “Voldemort Made Me Crap My Pants” – The Blibbering Humdingers
2. “Crying All Night” – The Grates
3. “Part of a Rainbow” – The Badlees
4. “It’s Kickin’ In” – They Might Be Giants
5. “The Box” – The Clarks
6. “So Jealous” – Tegan & Sara
7. “My Bionic Eyes” – Liz Phair
8. “The Verb” – The Swell Season
9. “You Will Be Waiting” – Barenaked Ladies
10. “Shame of the Otaku” – MC Frontalot

Not sure if it actually helped, but some of these conjure some positive memories and feelings – I’m going to try and ride those for the next twelve hours or so.