Well, I mean, if you win.

Hopefully. This is good, because in five years – after I repay my parents – hopefully I can pick up a place on the not-so-expensive side. Ja!

Not that I want to turn this blog into Atomic Books or the recently discovered Margaret Fisk, but lately I’ve been quite deliberately making progress through Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club.

The title refers to an actual group of 19th-century Bostonians who gathered to translate Dante’s Inferno for an American audience. Among the members of this exclusive “club” were poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, and poet James Russell Lowell. While poring over the poem, the men find themselves on the trail of a serial killer who tortures his victims in ways that seem to be taken straight out of the pages of Inferno. The police are at a loss and must rely on the club members’ unique knowledge of Dante’s work to help catch the killer. Pearl, a recognized Dante scholar, uses his expertise to create an absorbing and dramatic period piece. Using historical figures in a mystery setting is not a new idea (e.g., Sir Isaac Newton plays detective in Philip Kerr’s Dark Matter), but Pearl has proven himself a master.

It’s a quite engaging novel, and I’m about at the midway point. This was an impulse purchase during my Barnes & Noble run on Saturday, and I picked it up despite the prominent endorsement from Dan Brown on the front cover. In any case, good book that most current or former English majors would almost certainly likely enjoy.

My sister E. is home for a week or two, and I’m heading down to see her tomorrow. I’ve got a birthday present for her (her b-day was actually late last month, but shipping is such a bitch I figured I’d just wait until I saw her), a completely assholeish gift — a box set of the Harry Potter films, and Disney’s Robin Hood (with the animals), on DVD.

How does this make me assholeish?

She doesn’t have a DVD player.

My sister’s living arrangements on Oahu have recently changed — my cousin M., having graduated from college last spring, moved out to the island to teach, and is in fact teaching at the same school as my sister. In any case, my sis, my cousin, and one of my cousin’s college buddies moved in together. I was thinking about picking up both E. and M. gift cards from Borders, then I started thinking the roomie might feel left out, so now I’m thinking I’ll get one for each of ‘em.

Hey, who knows, maybe the roomie is hot. I mean, eventually, I’ve gotta get out that way, right?

(There’s a Best Buy gift card in with the DVDs. So she can buy a DVD player, dig?).

No, I’m not making this up.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

… and this is why!

I kid, Phil. You lucky $!@^&*! bastard.

Sometimes nice drivers are worse than asshole drivers.

Asshole drivers – they don’t use turn signals, they flash the finger at you when they’re at fault, they get pissed when you’re only doing sixty on a 45-mph road because they’ve had to slow down from 100 mph.

Nice drivers, well, gosh, it’s like slugging the boy scout who comes to the door trying to get donations so midgets can fly to Vegas and enjoy the brothels. Rather not be bothered, but can’t exactly get away with sluggin’ the fucker, y’know?

This evening, the roads were wet with rain. I was trying to make a left hand turn off of Manor Road. An individual in a Volkswagen was facing me, trying to make a right hand turn off of Manor. We both had stop signs, north and south traffic had no such restriction.

An opening appeared — no traffic from the north, a truck leading vehicles from the south. I’ve been making turns from here for some time, I know that if the Volkswagen moves now, I can get out in time behind it, and all’s good. But the Volkswagen ain’t moving. Ain’t fucking moving. And as my eyes scan across the grille and up the hood, I see why. The driver is motioning to me to go.

I’m not stupid, horse’s mouth and all, I gave my car some gas, the tires skidded a bit, and I was southbound.

But, if the driver had done what was expected of them and gone, I still would have been southbound.

One of the things that makes asshole drivers so assholeish is their inability to be predictable. You know, they’re cruising along at seventy miles per hour and then they slam on their brakes and make a hard left into your direction of travel. The problem is that drivers who intend to be nice are making the same error — if it’s your turn to go, go.

Gary nearly killed a nice driver once. Further south on Manor Road, Dulaney Valley dead ends, creating a three way intersection. There are two stop signs — northbound Manor has right-of-way. One nice spring morning several years ago, Gary was northbound in his big monster pick-up, with a fully-loaded trailer behind him. The woman in front of him slammed on her brakes at the intersection to allow a vehicle from DVR to make a left onto Manor.

The problem is, of course, that Gary had been doing a nice clip of speed, keeping pace behind the woman in front of him. And if he’d been in just his pickup, no problem, he could’ve stopped — he would’ve been pissed, no need to slam on the brake if she’d obeyed the traffic pattern, y’know?, but he could’ve done it, safely.

Instead, he’s got a trailer that isn’t going to stop. He’s probably going to wind up crashing into the nice lady who decided to slam on her brakes. He wound up stopping the truck and the trailer, but it was a nearly avoided accident which occured because an individual — well intentioned, yes — became unpredictable.

To the person in the Volkswagen: Thank You. But, please, not again.

Awesome. Just, totally, awesome.

The gallery, here.

I’m not much into the written fantasy-genre. I mean, I enjoyed Lord of the Rings, but I was content to wait for them on DVD. It’s generally not my cup of tea — which isn’t to say that I don’t read fantasy, I would just be hard pressed to name a single work of Robert Jordan (and I only know that because my buddy Keith is huge into fantasy and keeps telling me I should read his books).

My introduction to the fantasy genre came from an author named Angus Wells and a book titled Lords of the Sky. I bought it at Borders in Columbia when I was a junior in high school. It was on their “New Fiction Release” table inside the doors. The cover looked interesting, and I decided to give it a try on that alone. It was great. I’d like to say that about all his books, but of his works that I tried, I just couldn’t get into it. It’d be like running in molasses … it was very discouraging.

There was an ad in the back of Lords of the Sky for another fantasy book coming out the next spring, by someone named Robin Hobb. The blurb mentioned something about a royal family’s bastard being apprenticed in the art of assassination. After my dissapointing foray into Wells’ body of work, I dismissed it. I dismissed it, that is, until that spring, when I found a copy of the book displayed again on the “New Fiction Release” table. The cover depicted an older adult with his hand on the shoulder of a young boy. In the background, a massive castle with towering towers and spires and air bridges connecting them.

I bought it. I devoured it. I loved it.

Assassin’s Apprentice was the first of nine Robin Hobb books I’ve read over the years — three trilogies, each related to the other. (In an interesting note, the second book of the third trilogy is titled Fool’s Fate but has nothing to do with this Fool).

In any case, I was elated to discover the announcement of the first book of a fourth trilogy sometime last spring. I was all, “Woot!”

And then I forgot about it. I forgot that I could get it from Amazon.com on September 6th. I forgot about it until late Friday, when my brain suddenly clicked into gear and said: “New Robin Hobb!”

So Saturday afternoon I ventured to Borders in Lutherville. They didn’t have it. Frustrating, particularly since my plans for the evening revolved around reading the book. So I made the decision to violate my shopping rule. Well, which is to say, to violate it even further — there are, you see, two parts to it.

I instituted my shopping rule to cut down on stress, and it is quite simply summed up as: “Never, ever, go shopping at peak times.” The rule elaborates, “Never, ever, ever, go to Towson Town Center, particularly on nights, weekends or anytime after Halloween and before New Years.”

I went to Borders in Lutherville during peak shopping times. The parking lot was crowded — I had to park over by Michael’s. No complaints — need the exercise. But in order to actually get the book, I had to try for the next best shot: Barnes & Noble. Essentially in Towson Town Center.

Oh, dear god, why?

I generally try to park in the recessed lot with the Trader Joe’s. Sometimes, if its busy, I wind up parking in the Towson Town Center garage lot. It is convenient, sometimes. Not Saturday. Between nearly getting wrecked by some ditz with a dog hanging out her driver’s side window, and the jackass in the Buick who parked his car across three spaces, and the assholes walking in the middle of the lane so no one could get past, and the assmuncher behind me screaming at me that I was taking his space, (not to mention the four people who drove slowly behind me screaming at each other for the Rights to My Parking Space), the entire ordeal just, I mean, really …

… I read about the horror stories of the evacuation of those Texas cities. People running out of gas, getting into fistfights, all that shit. And I wonder just how often that kind of stupidity happens in garage parking lots because, oh my gosh, I’ve got to park an extra five spaces away.

In any case, with the lessons of why I have a shopping rule reinforced, let’s hope I don’t decide the urgent need to revisit that.

Returned on Wednesday.

Recieved Today.

Netflix. Sometimes I love you, sometimes I fucking hate you.

In Ron Moore’s podcast about The Pegasus, he notes that an extended “director’s cut” of the episode exists, and will be present in its uncut state on the season two DVD box set. Woot!

Holy Crap!

We haven’t even had the September Happy Hour yet, but Texture Slut & Cara have already made plans for October’s!

Happy Hour Details:

Where: Dougherty’s in Mount Vernon
When: Wednesday, October 19th.

See, this is good of them — they can plan ahead. Me, I’ve been all week “Oh, I need to get my car in to get the wheels balanced.” And I am doing it tomorrow but thats only because I noticed my front left tire was suffering some deflation when I left work — a patch? I’m taking it to the Brooks Huff on Padonia Road — they have a courtesy shuttle. Drop it off at seven thirty, go home, back to sleep.

I love courtesy shuttles.

And, y’know, happy hours. Even if I don’t drink much at ‘em.

That is one sexy space fighter.

The full gallery, here.

UPDATE:

Why is this image not showing up on Blogtimore? It’s SEXY! SEXY!

Writing a check for .71 to my Chase Card.

Spending .37 for a stamp because Chase won’t do over-the-phone-payments for less than a dollar.

I spent five minutes trying to figure out how to write a check for only a cent amount. Hey, I’ve never done it before.

On the other hand, paying off my Chase account? Excellent!

Boston.com published its list of the top fifty sci-fi television shows of all time.

First off, props to the sci-fi channel’s remake of Battlestar Galactica, which made it to the number two spot on the list. A well deserved recognition for a well written, well acted, well envisioned show about the aftermath of armaggedon. The original show clocked in at #35.

I think Futurama deserves a higher rating than #41.

I think Buffy should be a top ten show, and certainly deserves to do better than the craptacular Stargate Atlantis.

Firefly — by the way, Serenity opens next Friday and you should go see it because its going to be awesome — pulls in a super respectably seventeen. Firefly — or rather, its cancellation — is also another reason why you should hate FOX.

I don’t think Star Trek Voyager should be on the list, particularly since Deep Space Nine — a far superior program — got the boot. I’m not sure what is more insulting — this, or that Sliders made it. %$!#&^@!!!

I’m disappointed Highlander: The Series didn’t make the cut.

Lost nearly made it to the top ten!

I have to wonder, reading some of the entries … were the producers of Space 1999 a big fan of Star Trek’s Walter Koenig? Because that just seems like too much of a coincidence.