Current Distractions, December 2013 Edition

I'd originally planned to write something in advance of my holidays, so that I'd have one less thing to do during them. That didn't happen. In fact overall my holidays haven't gone as planned. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though.

Presents! Xmas trees! Woo!

Some things I did this month:

• Scrambling to finish reading The Dark Tower series before the end of the year

Believe it or not I will have some reviews about this to post eventually, so I won’t say much about it right now.

• Scrambling to finish watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine

I didn’t have a deadline for this, but I did want to get the series wrapped up. It was spectacular and I highly recommend it. I think I might be madly in love with Ron Moore [Ron D. Moore, Ronald Moore? not sure of the preferred appellation here]. While I’m not sure I’d call DS9 a better series than Battlestar Galactica, it was also a Star Trek series, so of course I loved it just that little bit more. Anyway, this means that I’m not currently deeply involved in any particular show. I intend to keep it that way until I've gotten a few things accomplished in the new year.

• Scrambling to finish watching Breaking Bad

I've been watching this with my sister, and the last eight episodes mostly involved us saying to each other "That's the spoiler I saw" after each big event on the show. Still, SPOILER ALERT, Jesse survived, which was all I could hope for. I've seldom been so attached to a fictional character.

Now I'm just doing a bunch of reading, spending all of my savings, and hanging out with various people. On the day this post goes up, I might go see the new Hobbit movie. Woo, holidays!

And oh, in case this sort of thing interests you, the top five search results that lead people to this blog (at least the ones Google Analytics will show me) are for the Finnegans Wake audiobook. So if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme*, I'd say there's definitely a market for a new and accessible recording of that book.

Someone please give the people what they want!

*Disclaimer: Probably won't actually make you rich.

Tell Me What You're Reading!

In the interest of maybe inspiring some more discussion around here, I've decided to open the floor to any readers who happen to pass by.

What are you reading this month? Is it for business or pleasure? Are you enjoying it? Would you recommend it to anyone? What are you going to be reading in the near future?

Depending on how much time I have in a given month, I'll also be giving updates on my own reading, so you'll have a somewhat better idea of where I'm at in List progress (not that anyone's holding their breath at this point), or just to talk about stuff that I'm reading that I won't be reviewing "formally."

In December...

Sorry, no time! :(

R31. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Year Published: 2008
Pages: 374
First Sentence: When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

Review:
I originally wanted to review this book before I read the other two books in the trilogy, but considering that it only took me a day to read The Hunger Games and I had the rest of the trilogy on hand, I ended up reading all three in quick succession. I'm going to try to just review The Hunger Games, though, and keep it spoiler free, although given that it's a trilogy and Katniss narrates the book in first person (present tense, ugh), you may be able to guess at least a little bit of the ending.

Katniss, by the way, is Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old girl living in District 12, which is the coal mining district of Panem, a country ruled by a frivolous and wasteful capital called, unsurprisingly, the Capitol. Everyone outside the Capitol lives in a state of privation. Katniss' family in particular struggled after her father's death in a mining explosion. Fortunately for Katniss, her mother, and her sister Prim, Katniss' father taught her to hunt before he died, so she has been able to support them on a steady diet of squirrels and water lily roots for the past half dozen or so years.

The Capitol keeps the Districts in line by forcing each of them to supply a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in the annual Hunger Games, where the 24 children from the 12 districts are put into an arena to fight to the death. The whole event, including the selection process and training of the "tributes," is televised. Katniss' sister is chosen to go, but Katniss volunteers to go in her place.

From there everything basically unfolds as you would expect. The major beats are pretty predictable for sure, but I did find myself surprised at several points, including the end of the Games themselves. The book works well as a unit without the two sequels, but they're ok, too.

Collins is a decent writer although not spectacular, and the book doesn't have anything particularly profound in it. She does better with action than she does with world-building and characterization, which isn't necessarily a problem but still means that the book doesn't pack anywhere near as much of a punch as The Long Walk does.

Still, considering that the alternative YA megaseries right now is still Twilight (I think?), Katniss makes a good Strong Female Character and the books certainly aren't a waste of time to read.

Current Distractions, Belated November 2013 Edition

Unfortunately I've been a bit distracted again at the edge of this month, and so there's been another delay in telling you about the last one, dear Reader(s). But let me tell you, my biggest distraction in November was work. Between October 28 and November 15 I worked a total of 161 hours. The normal amount of hours that someone working full time would have worked on those days? 112. So yes, not only did I put in an extra week's worth of work over the course of three, I also worked overtime during that week.

Fortunately all of that work culminated in a transfer to a new project working under, shall we say, better conditions. And working on a school, which feels a bit more uplifting in terms of the contributions I'm making to society. I'll predict right now that I'll hate the LEED system long before this project is over, though.

Anyway, that's work. My new project is located in a small town much too far away to drive to every day, so I'm renting a little house and carpooling each week with some other people. This means I'm learning the joys of grocery shopping on foot in extremely cold weather (it's for suckers, basically), small town stares and gossip, and taking advantage of the unlimited data on my phone like never before. I've also been:

Watching

Star Trek Deep Space 9 season 6 (which blew my mind) and these Mindcrack videos by Sethbling (which have been doing likewise);



Listening

To the Judge John Hodgman podcast (this episode in particular is can’t-miss) and Christmas music; and

A Bunch of Other Stuff, not much of which included NaNoWriMo, I'm devastated to report.

I know I promised a somewhat more comprehensive post when I last wrote, but this will have to do. My Christmas holidays are coming up soon, so it’s very likely you’ll hear more from me then.