“It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.” – Lemony Snicket

Very quiet week, which is probably just as well since the next one will be so hectic.  I’m leaving for Michigan on Wednesday!  I’m very excited, and I hope it’s positively frigid up there.  Summer and I are through.  I’ll report on my adventures in the north country next time.

Hoodlums ran through our apartment complex parking lot, breaking into a whole slew of cars in one night, which is rather unprecedented in our area.  There were so many break-ins, the police just went door to door taking reports.  Fortunately, my and my roommate’s cars were spared.  The perks of driving boring cars and not owning anything tantalizing!

Hilarity:

• Boop.
• Three guys attempt the smokey eye.  I don’t get it either, boys.
• My friends will never know how fortunate they are that I don’t own a velociraptor costume.
• Jared Padalecki and the European train system.

Geekery:

• Star Trek: TNG characters in Star Trek: TOS uniforms.
• The full-scale Millennium Falcon project.
• It’s just something my grandmother used to say.
• 25 signs you’re a liberal arts major.  Disconcertingly accurate.  (Number four, man…)
• Why English majors are the hot new hires.  Makes me feel better after reading the previous article.

Fascinating:

• Humpback whales, dolphins, and sea lions chilling together.
• Bug with a gear in its legs.  Insect cyborgs!
• The monster of Rhayader.
• Puritans and their weird names.
• Raven from the Tower of London, tweeted by the Raven Master.

Bolstering your faith in humanity:

• Music from the landfill. 
• A moving beer commercial?
• And if that one didn’t tug your heartstrings, this gum commercial will.
• A soldier’s reply to anti-Muslim comments.
• After waking up from surgery, this guy sees his wife for the first time.  Brilliant.

Music:

• “Bleeding Out” by Imagine Dragons as a round.
• Cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” by bluegrass band Iron Horse.

Books:  A friend gave me Cat-a-lyst by Alan Dean Foster, author of more scifi than you can shake a stick at, including the original novel of Star Wars (mistakenly credited solely to Lucas), the story for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, novelizations for the two most recent Star Trek movies, and a host of his own scifi and fantasy works.  I’ve been meaning to read his stuff for ages…but, sadly, I found Cat-a-lyst disappointing.  The ideas were extremely imaginative, but the execution was dull, and the characters were flat and incomprehensible in terms of motivation.  As a writer, I recognized all the signs of lazy, sloppy writing that annoy me in myself; I suspect Foster just didn’t put his usual effort into this one.  I’d like to read some of his other works to compare, because no one gets to his level of acclaim without having done something right.

Don’t wait, let’s go.

Last night I had an oddly specific dream that I met a guy named Caleb Arndt from Reykjavik, Iceland.  We dated for four months (in dream time) and then broke up, so he went home.  I don’t know anyone by that name, or anyone from Reykjavik (unfortunately).  I wish I knew what my subconscious was up to.

My weekend in Charlotte was lovely!  I got together with my family on Sunday and we attempted to eat downtown–almost everything was closed, but we were ultimately victorious.  Afterwards Ed showed us his hilarious video diary from his roadtrip to California.  The boys were going by Connor and Vernon, for unspecified reasons.  Maybe the video is less funny if you’re not related to him, but I found it pretty entertaining.  On Monday I hung out with friends and an absurdly adorable chocolate lab puppy in Kannapolis, so the weekend really couldn’t have been better.

It was a bizarre, short little week, having Monday off for Labor Day and Thursday off for the Feast of Trumpets.  I have no idea what day it is now, but I’m told it’s the weekend again.  On Sunday I’m going to see my roommate act in The Spyglass Seven, a one-act play about Edgar Allan Poe.  Should be pretty cool!

Several tiny tragedies occurred this week.  My popcorn popper perished, which for me is nothing short of catastrophic.  Fortunately Target had a sturdy replacement.  Fixing my car’s CD player is going to be a little more difficult.  It’s started to skip or get stuck on a loop more and more frequently.  The CD player is odd–it’s actually set into the armrest, underneath a cover, even though the controls are on the dash like usual.  When it gets stuck on a loop, banging the armrest usually fixes the problem, which is fine except that other drivers have been giving me very strange looks when they see me pounding on my seat like a maniac.

Geekery:

• Interview with Susan Cooper.
• Every tech commercial.
• Mark Hamill and an old friend.

Miscellany:

• I know what I want to do in China.
• The Brits know how to keep their word.
• Fox sneaks into man’s bed, apparently just wants to cuddle.

Music:

• “Wolf’s Law” by The Joy Formidable.
• The Nuit Blanche soundtrack.  I’ve not seen the movie, but the music is lovely.
• Orchestral cover of “The Misty Mountains” from The Hobbit.
• “The Fox” by Ylvis.  Falls into the “what the heck did I just listen to” category, but it’s catchy.  Also, for the record: this is what the fox says.

Books: I’m reading End of the Drive by Louis L’Amour, another of his posthumously published short story collections.  This one features quite a few shorts, written in the early days, that L’Amour later turned into novels.  Seeing how his writing developed (and how much better he became over time) is interesting, and the stories are still enjoyable even if several aren’t terribly well-written.  Nice little brain break.