etc.

A dream come true for the Aliens fan notwithstanding the realisation that the release of this boxed set might mean no Aliens 5 (even though the end of Alien Resurrection is perfectly conducive to another sequel). The mister and I love these films, all except Aliens³, although the director’s cut did fill in some interesting details. We haven’t even watched the special bits yet, all the “Making Of”s and previously unreleased footage, still I can’t wait to sit down and watch all four films all over again. This isn’t much of a review is it? Unfortunately it’s about all I can manage between viewing all this alien golden goodness and caressing the delightfully substantial box of 9 DVDs. Yummm.

I usually enjoy books that delve into the gritty details of the post-colonial immigrant experience, and while I liked this one well enough, I have to admit that I honestly couldn’t see what all the hoopla was about. Nazneen, born and raised in a small village in Bangladesh, moves to England at 18 to live with her new husband in an alliance that is arranged by her parents. The novel traces her adjustment to a man she grows to respect and appreciate more than love, and to a country that is at once foreign and at the same time familiar. Ali’s style is engaging enough and her characters are sympathetically drawn (including Chanu, the oafish yet mildly lovable husband), but I guess I was searching each page for signs of “Britain’s most promising new novelist” and I just couldn’t find it. Sorry.

number of books read in 2003: 52
percentage of improvement over 2002: 15
percentage of improvement over 2001: 136
average read per month: 4.33
average read per week: 1
number read in worst month: 1 (April)
number read in best month: 8 (August & December)
percentage written by men: 65
percentage written by women: 35
fiction as percentage of total: 58
non-fiction as percentage of total: 42
percentage of total liked: 85
percentage of total disliked: 9
percentage read on recommendation: 38
percentage of recommendations liked: 90

It’s not rare for me to have nine days off and be ready to go back to work after four. Christmas/boxing day/the 27th and 28th all turned out to be very relaxing days and on at least one of them I did little more than read books, nap, and leisurely munch on holiday baking and good leftovers.

Days like that rejuvenate me so when Monday rolled in, I felt like I should be getting back to work, what more could I want? I didn’t, of course, instead I read some more and took the occasional break to cheer on the mister who has been busily and back-breakingly sanding every single picket and rail on our over-painted staircase. There is 93 years worth of wear and countless heavy paint jobs on those rails and instead of just painting over it all we thought it might be a good idea to sand it all down first, you know, do it right. It’s turned into as big a deal as we thought it would be (although less messy since the sander has a hose that attaches straight into the vacuum cleaner, tiny little mercies) but he’s probably being smart by doing it on the front-end of the vacation rather than the back-end, which is when I’ll be painting every single one of those pickets and rails.

Unrelatedly, cable outages have kept me from posting more regularly this week; our cable service has been down and we now learn that the cable infrastructure in the neighbourhood and in our house is unfixable, intermittent service is an inevitability. So consider that my disclaimer for ongoing irregularity. Happy new year, however you plan to spend it. We will be eating heartily and playing Scrabble with my parents all evening. It’s certainly not the only way to celebrate, but by my thinking it’s the best way.

I could not have asked for a better book to curl up with on the first dull day of the holiday season. In truth, I picked this one up based solely on a recommendation on the Anarchist Librarian’s list since one of the main characters is a progressive librarian type, I can’t resist librarians in fiction and all the better if they are progressive. Henry — the time traveling librarian — suffers from a rare genetic disorder that makes him travel back and forth in time, mostly in his own time, no jaunts back to the Middle Ages or anything like that. On one such trip, he meets Clare, a young girl who will eventually become his wife. There isn’t much else to the book as far as story goes but it’s a lovely idea, decently explored, with characters you can’t help but care deeply about. I’m not easily taken by sentimental fiction but this one actually made me cry, go figure.

I love that one of my good buddies is a young adult librarian because she keeps me au courant on what all the cool kids are reading. The recommendation here was to read Feed, but since the library’s copies were all out or on hold, I went with this one. Thirsty is about a hopelessly average teenager living in a hopelessly average town at a time when vampires are common criminals and public lynchings are a kin to a day of muckraking at the mall. Except as Chris lives his average teenage life, trying to muster the courage to ask a girl out, he is also dealing with becoming a vampire and being used as a pawn by the forces of darkness. I enjoyed this book and I’ve heard that Feed is even better. I can’t wait.

I’m a pretty big moron when it comes to things like science and math which is why I always get a kick out of books that help me get it. This book helped me get it and it was a hoot to read too. Ingram devotes each chapter to the hows and whys of everyday occurrences like why we blink (and it’s not just to keep our eyeballs moist) and the politics and science of the aircraft armrest (you guessed it, women give it up more easily that men do). It’s a well-researched quick-read and you’ve got to love any book that changes the way you think about the dynamics of a cocktail party and gives you enough of the science to speak intelligently about it at the same party.

This is a film about an alien invasion, only it’s not really about an alien invasion, it’s really about faith and fear and the forces at play in the universe (not the alien kind). It’s a quiet film, barely any soundtrack, just the hushed feeling that attack and doom is JUST around the corner, which makes it pretty edge-of-your-seat. It was an enjoyable enough hour and a half, even though it all came together in a bit too much of a cosmic manner for me, I’m just not a believer in “signs” when it comes down to it.

I’ve spent that past few days baking cookies, whipping up olive oil and teriyaki marinade for gifts, enjoying vanilla-scented candles, watching our nephew get Christmas, and generally just hanging out with all of my favourite people.

Giving crafty means that all of the raw materials for our gift-giving came from the grocery store and a neighbourhood craft store, which in turn means zero time spent at shopping malls, no harried shoppers, no circling busy parking lots, two full days in the kitchen instead, and a 100% chance of a more enjoyable holiday season. I haven’t been too cut up over it being a green Christmas either, today we had the windows open all day (and the door in the basement too where the cats met a neighbour) and sunlight beaming into our crazy-little-house.

It’s been a perfect Christmas, I hope yours was too.

As soon as I raised the flag, things started happening. Cards were posted on Friday, the baking is almost done (today), gifts are almost all completed (more on this after the 25th, for obvious reasons), the litterbox is clean, and the cats’ blankets are practically knitting themselves. I am a good little elf, yes I am.

I’ve had seven regulars pipe in in favour of no comments and three against. As you can see, I haven’t brought comments back and this has nothing really to do with the for-and-against numbers I’m keeping track of, I never did claim to make decisions democratically around here. I just sort of decided that as etc. becomes more of a journal and less of a blog, which is the way it seems to be mutating, comments have become redundant. The upshot of all this is that I’m getting more email, the personal kind, the kind I like, it seems that some have cottoned on to the fact that they’ll actually get a response to an email, something that is not guaranteed when you leave a comment. It’s all working out quite well so far, keep ‘em coming.