July 11, 2010

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That promised post about stuff besides books

July 11, 2010 in Me | Permalink

So yeah, I’ve actually been doing things besides purchasing books lately, I swear!

The Great Enshrinkening of Anna proceeds apace, even if not quite as quickly as initially planned. As I enthused on Twitter and Facebook this morning, I hit 164 pounds today! Which is well and easily the lightest I’ve been in five years, and which gets me into territory before I’d started the Walk to Rivendell in 2005. (Which was when I started regularly tracking my weight.) 162 pounds is the 30 pounds lost mark. I’m still aiming for 150, so I have 14 pounds to go!

It’s a bit amusing as well to realize that if I count from my actual high point of weight last year, I’m actually down 29.5 pounds, not 28. But I’m still counting from when I actually started using the LoseIt app, so!

Work’s been a bit crazy lately since we’re hardcore face down on a huge project for the next few weeks–and my team’s having some QA shuffle going on as well, so we’re essentially down to two full-time QA people right now. But so far it’s all still good. And on Friday, we even finally got us an official Big Fish Games sign in front of our building! Check it out:

userinfosolarbird has gone to Oregon to play a gig down there, and I shall miss her, but wish her luck as well! In the meantime userinfospazzkat and I went to have tasty sushi in Woodinville tonight, saving me from having to figure out what the hell to make myself for dinner.

I am very, very happy that the heat wave from last week has passed. I don’t mind the hot so much, but I do mind the part where I don’t sleep well in heat waves. Today was lovely, though, once the clouds cleared up, and I had a great walk down to the shops.

I should also mention that userinfospazzkat has been getting into Leverage lately and I’ve quite enjoyed what I see of it so far. I can even tie this into Great Big Sea by noting that in the promo photos associated with the new album, Alan looks suspiciously Christian-Kane-like. This is not a bad thing. ;)

And speaking of GBS, NEW ALBUM COMING OUT ON TUESDAY! <3 <3 Brace for the squee, folks. You know it’s coming!

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Yet more books, and also, stats in Calibre

July 11, 2010 in Book Log | Permalink

I promise to post about something else as soon as I do this latest book roundup, I swear. ;)

Picked up in print:

  • Red Hood’s Revenge, by userinfojimhines (Jim Hines). Fantasy. The latest in his Princess series, which came out just as I was finishing book 2, and I am now working my way through this one! Score!
  • Rift in the Sky, by Julie E. Czerneda. SF. Read this as a library book when it came out, and this is me getting my paperback copy, since Ms. Czerneda remains on the Must Have in Print list!

And, picked up electronically:

  • Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord. Sort of fantasy/magical realism, from what I’ve been hearing from the buzz this book’s been getting lately. There’s a nice Big Idea piece about it over on John Scalzi’s blog, which is a nifty source for new books for me these days.
  • Exit Light, by Megan Hart. Urban fantasy/paranormal romance, one of my new purchases from Carina Press. DRM-free epub files FTW! This one’s featuring interactions in dreams as the paranormal aspect.
  • Song of Seduction, by Carrie Lofty. Historical romance, another Carina purchase. This one sold me for being centered around a gifted musician and the composer she adores, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
  • Fatal Affair, by Marie Force. Romantic Suspense, third Carina purchase of five. Political and suspenseful stuff set in D.C., I believe.
  • Love and Scandal, by Donna Lea Simpson. Another Carina historical romance. The schtick of this one is that the heroine’s been writing scandalous novels–but OHNOEZ, a notorious rank is being accused of writing them, and won’t believe that sweet little ol’ her is the actual author! Sounds like fun.
  • Captive Spirit, by Liz Fichera. One more Carina historical, and I’m looking at this one since it’s featuring a non-white heroine, so looking forward to that.
  • Dark and Disorderly, by Bernita Harris. Urban fantasy/paranormal romance, the last of the Carina purchases for this round.

And that’s 189!

On a related note I finally decided that I have so many ebooks that it was high time I yoinked them all into Calibre. This is a super-helpful tool, both for organizing your ebook library and for converting ebook formats (as long as they’re DRM-free). It’s also clever enough to communicate with both my Nook AND the Stanza app on my iPhone so I can do a pretty decent job of keeping track of what books I’ve got where.

It may amuse you all to know that I have a total of 426 ebooks now. Of these, 140 were acquired from various free sources: the big ebook giveaway that tor.com did when they came online, the Baen Free Library, the Suvudu Free Library, assorted authors doing promotions of their releases by giving away older releases, some acquired from Drollerie as free short pieces, and one that I won from Carina!

Of the books I bought, 63 were purchased from Barnes and Noble, 7 from Amazon, 176 from Fictionwise, 11 from Carina, and 16 from Stanza. Small presses represented in my purchases are Drollerie, Small Beer Press, Cobblestone Press, and the Book View Cafe. (Carina, being powered by Harlequin, is NOT a small press. Just so we’re clear on that!)

My next purchase is going to be userinfonaominovik‘s sixth Temeraire novel, because this is pretty much NOT OPTIONAL. But once I get that, I’m thinkin’ I’m going to take a book buying hiatus for a bit and actually READ some of these things I’ve been purchasing! Place your bets now on how long I’ll go before I buy something else!

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