If you listen close, you can hear it

That would be the sound of Thanksgiving. Yeah, that holiday that stores pretend doesn't exist between Halloween decorations and Christmas decorations. It's my favorite. And that's only partially due to it's orbit around my birthday. At any rate it draws nigh.

Theoretically this weekend is Drucon. The weather and outside circumstances are doing their best to thwart that notion. Oh well, I've got the games and the t-shirts. That's right, t-shirts. And they are awesome.

You know what else is awesome? Watching the first eight Friday the 13th movies over the course of a week. Well, except for that last one. Manhattan? Really? Flooding the sewers with toxic waste every night at midnight? Whatever. And the psychic chick in the seventh one. What was that all about? But the rest were varying degrees of successful. Except maybe the third one. In spite of the 3D. And we wore the glasses. It was occasionally spectacular and mostly eye strain inducing. It was actually pretty interesting to watch them all like that. The first two are certainly the best, the third was a gimmick, the fourth-sixth were definite products of their time (80s slasher films), the seventh was the weird one until the eighth one came along, and the eighth was both weird and horrible. We've not seen the 9th one yet and Jason X is a silly guilty pleasure. There you go. The body counts reflected a nice bell curve peaking around  5 I think it was. There was also a strange continuity from 4-6 that started with Corey Feldman. Weird. And that possibly explains a lot.

Isle of Blood, the third Monstrumologist book by Rick Yancey, was decent. I think I liked it a touch more than the second one and am still interested in following the series. I'm still amazed at how gory these books can be (considering they're YA) but they are pretty fascinating. I like the characters quite a bit and there is a decent amount of humor and wit woven through.

G is very excited about the upcoming Zelda game. The demo for Disney Universe is also pretty cool. It's pretty similar to the Ratchet & Clank game (competitive co-op if that makes sense) just with a Disney skin. I suspect you only need one, just pick the one that appeals to you more. The Disney game has an added Little Big Planet vibe in that it looks like you're sort of a sackboy character wearing different Disney character outfits. Cute.

I've started reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It's interesting so far. Been a while since I've read him. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

At any rate, family get together soon. Shindigs. Possible Black Friday shopping. We managed to convince the kids to start throwing together wish lists so we'll probably toss some Christmas shopping in there too. Yup, it's the end of the year...

Firefly and Murakami

The Summer Fiction issue of the New Yorker magazine has an excerpt from Haruki Murakami's new book. Alas, I forget the title, but it has to do with his life - his running and his writing. Apparently Murakami has participated in a lot of marathons. In addition to being a pretty amazing novelist. I have several books by him and I find them all fascinating for one reason or another. I knew that music was a pretty important influence in his life (there are lots of references to the Beatles as well as other musicians) but I was unaware of the running. If you run (pun only partially intended) across the excerpt it's worth your time and is pretty interesting on its own. Otherwise give one of his books a shot. I don't know that there's a good starting place for him - you'll either like him or not. But for suggestions, try Hard-boiled Wonderland at the End of the World or A Wild Sheep Chase.

So I glanced at some of the essays in that Finding Serenity book. It's really only a matter of time before we start watching that show again. I still die a little inside when I think about the fact that Fox killed it off. It was such a brilliant show. I'm going to have to be content with the box set of DVDs we have as well as the movie. I think there may be another special edition I need to pick up. I also have some of the comics and apparently Joss Whedon has consented to telling Shepherd Book's story in a comic later this year. So yay for that. If you've not given it a chance yet, go find the DVDs and watch them. Watch the TV show before the movie. It's worth it. And then watch it again. Browncoats forever. Shiny.

I finished The Omnivore's Dilemma. It was an interesting read, and yet mostly frustrating. The food industry is so screwed up and yet there doesn't seem to be an easy way to fix it. We'll have to poke around and see what options we have for local food. I know there are some farmer's markets in the bigger cities, but it would be nice to find something a little closer. We should probably spend a little more time actually preparing food. At least we're not among the group that eats out every day. I really do wonder how people can do that. I can understand once in a while, but every day? I suppose I might understand a little better if my wife worked. I have a sneaking suspicion that having both parents work contributes to that lifestyle a lot. Another benefit to not having to do that.

Played a little Gang of Four with little sister this evening. And some Incan Gold with the kids. Games are good. They're off tomorrow to splash around the water park. If I liked water parks a little more I'd be jealous. I will miss the wave pool. And the bigger lazy river. Those are my favorites. But they never run the wave pool long enough. I want it to be a wave pool, not a wait for the waves pool. If I wanted a regular pool, I'd go sit in one...

The Olympics have taken over the TV. Good thing I have cable. Little to no desire to follow that. It's good that it only comes round once every four years. Oh wait... <sigh>

Neil Gaiman's new book is due out soon-ish. Looking forward to that. I believe this one is a riff on The Jungle Book by Kipling. I may have to track down a copy and give it a whirl. Unfortunately I have other things to polish off first. My list of things to read is far too long. Oh well. At any rate, time to bid the weekend Adieu. Alas poor weekend.