Punk-Ass Book Jockey

Justine Larbalestier announced on Thursday that Bloomsbury had yielded to pressure and is going with a different cover.

( Here's what the new cover looks like )

I'm so relieved that this got worked out, and that Justine is happy, and that I don't have to have a conversation about institutionalized racism every time I try to recommend Liar to a customer at the store.

I was working through catalogues today, and had to enter a listing for a movie tie-in: "Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning" by Kevin Sullivan. I may have accidentally not ordered it. BECAUSE (( cut for bookish rantings )

Am reading through the 500 or so flist posts I missed this week, what with being social, trying to reduce the massive to-read stack next to my bedside table -- because on Monday? I have another dozen galleys to bring home -- and simultaneously freaking out about how I have to get a new job.

( The social part )

( The reading part )

( the need-a-new-job part )

Now must go rescue laundry from the clothesline. Also, chocolate-chip crepes: yes/no?

I like the standing Friday-apres-work drinking date with my colleagues, but whoa, I'm tired of coming home drunk... at eight o'clock

I am, however, impressed that I managed to type that whole sentence without having trouble with the keys or otherwise being ridiculous. That you can see.

I have Been Away, flist, and am now back, and oh, I missed you all.

I have to sort out my current internet access problem. Dial-up is stupid. Buying dial-up in tokens of 20 hours in embarrassingly dumb. And working at a job where the boss has made you sign an agreement that you will be fired if you check your email at work is also dumb.

Anyway, the confluence of dumbness has kept me offline for two weeks. It is now Saturday evening and I finally gave in and bought more tokens and am now sitting with a bottle of wine reading back the hundreds of posts on my flist that I missed.

And am going to go make brownies in a minute. Mmm. Brownies. In short, this is a fairly perfect day. Also? There's a knitting store a five minute walk from my house which I did not know about. Five minutes.

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Things I have done these past two weeks instead of read fanfic, since I was cut-off from fandom goodness:

1. Ziplisted a lot of David Thewlis and David Hewlett movies. (I was also looking for Two Girls and a Guy, out of curiousity, but it seems that zip.ca does na' have it. I have a feeling that I am probably better off. And I'm still waffling about whether to watch Slither.)

Mike Leigh's Naked was difficult. I gave up, actually, 3/4 of the way through. Criterion pick and critical praise notwithstanding, I made a decision a while ago that I was going to stop watching films where women got sexually assaulted or killed in order to further the storyline of a male protagonist. Thewlis was very convincing, and certainly earned the Cannes accolades that the film received, but I still don't want to see it again.

(I did, however, find the werewolf comments early in the film pretty hilarious.)

By contrast, Treed Murray, which I watched yesterday, was fantastic. It's unsettling but eventually redemptive and the storytelling is awesome and I absolutely adore ensemble pieces where no-one is good or bad or eclipsed. And the pacing was great and the cuts were great and Hewlett was great and that Ashmore kid was surprisingly awesome. Also, it ended at precisely the right time. Y'all should go rent it. It's a very satisfying film.

2. Re-read Anthony Robbins' "Awaken The Giant Within". It's been remaindered at my store, which I find sad, but it meant that I could buy a copy for $3.19. I find Tony inspiring. Also, the last time I tried to read a "design your best life!" book, I found myself covering my eyes and reading between my fingers, totally involuntarily, so the fact that I managed this one--in a normal, sane, fashion--is promising.

3. Obtained seemingly hundreds of root vegetables, which I have no idea what to do with.

4. Neglected to honour my mother's self-imposed state of denial about the fact that my sister and her boyfriend are living together and yes, sleeping in the same bed. I feel kind of bad about this one. Jess and I have agreed to let her be happy and deluded, but then I had to go and say "no no, I don't need that extra bedframe you've got, but Jess and Matt would probably like to get the mattress they're sleeping on off of the floor."

5. Have bizarre "terrorists are buying books at our store!" problems. $2500 email orders for bio-chemistry textbooks and rocket engineering tomes to be delivered to tenements in Montreal, to be paid for by obviously stolen credit cards. Totally uninterested RCMP officers. When a plague descends on Quebec, I won't be surprised. I tried to stop the apocalypse, flist, I really did.
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Okay. Brownies now.

I was at Book Expo today, and as I walked down one of the aisles, the word "chan" caught my eye.

"What the hell kind of publisher advertises that?" I thought, backtracking.

It was the Buddhist Light Press. I think it means something different to them than it does to us. I would have checked, but I got the church giggles and ran away to go get some free wine and calm down.