Back in town/Tuesday notes

1. Back in town. Trip was wonderful and too short.

2. Didn't read LJ at all.

3. Did play KOL. And got shadesong hooked, finally!

3.5 Am currently working on killing reindeer. Have earned the trophy for nailing ten of the buggers, and I'm going for 100 now.

Gift haul

Gifts received over the holidays:

From shadesong's parents: An iPod Video!

From the sister-in-law: An iTunes gift card.

From shadesong's birthmom: The latest Simpsons Forever book, Worldwired (by matociquala), the movie Where the Sidewalk Ends (which is not to be confused with the poetry collection -- this is a damned fine noir starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, and directed by Otto Preminger) and a new (and desperately needed) wallet.

And from shadesong's birth aunt/uncle/cousins: The Val Lewton Horror Collection! Squee!

shadesong has a rundown of the incredibly long list of stuff that Elayna got over here. Of all the things she got, I'd say that this is her favorite so far.

'song and I are buying each other gifts this afternoon, after we balance the checkbook. That's the nice thing about Hanukkah -- it gives you more wiggle room. :-)

Vincent Schiavelli

Crap. Vincent Schiavelli died. :-(

He really was a superb character actor. I guarantee you've seen him before.

Amazon: Cheap-ass Seinfeld, a few other notes

Amazon has a Seinfeld sale going on. Most of the items (including the limited edition of Seasons 1-3 with a script, salt and pepper shakers, and player cards) are 35% off, but they've also got Season 5 and Season 6 at $26.47 (47% off) each, the Season 5 and 6 giftset (with the handwritten script and mini Puffy Shirt) for $66.47 (45% off), and the Complete Seasons 1-6 Set for $124.97 (50% off)!

They've also got a $20 off Two DVD Sale, where you can save $20 off a bunch of DVDs. That said, it's not as good a sale, imho, as most of the DVDs are relatively high-priced, in the 10-20% off range. Probably only a great deal if you're an All in the Family or Dead Like Me fan, although there are a few other nice deals there.

Oh, and of course you all know that Nowhere Man when is released today, right? :-)

Free videos at iTunes for SNL and Galactica fans

The iTunes Music Store has at least two free videos (and you don't need a video iPod to see 'em) -- the Lazy Sunday rap music video from SNL (the one with the Chronic (what)-les of Narnia and the cupcakes), and a 22 minute "Sci-Fi Inside" for Battlestar Galactica. Both can be found in the TV Shows section of the store.

Omelets in a bag!

One of many great memories of this vacation:

On Christmas morning, after the kids had all opened presents, the adults sat down and made omelets in a bag!

Seriously.

This involved taking two eggs and cracking them into a ziploc bag. Then, add fixings (ham, cheese, onions, etc), and break the egg up and combine everything by squeezing the bag with the fingers (that said, don't actually beat the eggs). Squeeze out the air, close the bags, then drop them in boiling water for thirteen minutes.

It worked -- I kid you not.

S is for Score!

On a whim, I figured I'd head upstairs and see if, by some fluke, the library had a copy of S is for Silence. I figured that it'd likely be out, but it turns out that someone had just returned it this morning, and the advantage of being housed in an academic library during the winter break is that no one's around. So it's all mine for the next two weeks (or, more likely, the next two days, as Grafton's books don't take that long to devour).

If I was keeping track of the 50 Book Challenge thing (and I'm well past 100, or 200 if you count YA and graphic novels, which is why I'm not really keeping track*), Grafton alone would have accounted for getting me nineteen books along that path this year.


*Well, that and the fact that I'm generally lazy and disorganized.