random 2008 lists

Here are a few random lists, of books & comics I read, and movies I saw, in 2008. I don’t suppose I have any good reason for posting these. I was just kind of bored with the Rose Bowl, so I started making lists. I’m not bothering to list anything I read or saw, but didn’t really enjoy, so you can assume that all these books/comics/movies are recommended to anyone who might have tastes similar to my own.

books I read in 2008:
1. Well of Lost Plots – Jasper Fforde
2. The Millionaires – Brad Meltzer
3. Zero Game – Meltzer
4. Areas of my Expertise – John Hodgman
5. Something Rotten – Fforde
6. Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson
7. Interesting Times – Terry Pratchett
8. The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
9. Idea Mapping – Jamie Nast
10. Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon
11. Old Man’s War – John Scalzi
12. Death Masks – Jim Butcher
13. Bood Rites – Butcher
14. With No One as Witness – Elizabeth George
15. Certain Justice – P. D. James
16. A Taste for Death – James
17. Spirit House – Christopher G. Moore
18. Tales of Beedle the Bard – J K Rowling

some comics I read:
1. Coraline – Neil Gaiman / P Craig Russell
2. 21 Down – Gray / Palmiotti / Saiz
3. Teen Titans: Titans Around the World
4. Shadowpact
5. Fell – Warren Ellis / Ben Templesmith
6. a bunch of Hellboy and BPRD comics
7. Invincible (Vol 1-4, I think)
8. Kid Eternity – Grant Morrison / Duncan Fegredo
9. Challengers of the Unknown – Loeb / Sale

movies i remember seeing:
1. There Will Be Blood
2. Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
3. Stargate: Ark of Truth
4. Stargate: Continuum
5. Battlestar Galactica: Razor
6. Dark Knight
7. Hellboy 2
8. Iron Man
9. X-Files: I Want to Believe
10. Batman: Gotham Knight
11. Wall-E
12. Gone Baby Gone
13. No Country for Old Men

WSJ.com – Bush Is a Book Lover

According to this article by Karl Rove, President Bush read 40 books in 2008, 51 in 2007, and 95 in 2006. Pretty impressive, assuming these numbers are correct, and that Bush actually understood what he was reading. There are a couple of reactions (here and here) to this article on the Huffington Post site that express a certain amount of doubt as to Rove’s motivies in writing this piece, and the likelihood that Bush actually did read and understand all of these books. As for myself, I’ve been keeping a list of all the books I’ve read this year. I finished 17 books in 2008, mostly novels.

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Microsoft’s Official Fix for Failing Zunes

Happy New Year! I’ve been hearing some good things about the Zune over the last year or so, but now, Microsoft reminds everyone why they shouldn’t be trusted with making consumer electronics devices. Guys, it’s not like leap year logic is difficult to figure out or anything! Did they just think the product wouldn’t last until 1/1/09, so they didn’t bother with it?

read more | digg story

mystery books

I finished reading Spirit House today, on my Kindle. I’m a little annoyed that there’s only one other book in the Calvino series available in the US. The remaining books are available mail-order from Thailand, but that’s kind of expensive. One of the good things about the Kindle is that it should make it relatively easy and risk-free to get a bunch of already-written books into “print” in the US. You don’t have to worry about upfront printing costs, the risk of returns from brick and mortar retailers, or any of that noise. Just put them out there on Amazon, and see what happens.

productivity books

David Allen’s new book just came out. I’ll probably pick up the Kindle version at some point, though I think I’ll wait and see if they drop the price on it. It’s $14.27 right now; the hardcover is $17.13. I’m assuming the Kindle version will drop to the usual $9.99 eventually.

I still haven’t finished reading Ready for Anything , actually, so I’m in no hurry to start the new book. Along similar lines, I’m almost done with the audio version of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits.

I don’t know if all this book-reading is doing me any good, really, but I like to think it’s helping.

bookmarks

I’ve been using both Spurl.net and delicious.com to save my bookmarks to the web over the last couple of years. Spurl has clearly been on life support for awhile now. It continued to work, but it didn’t seem like anyone was doing any maintenance or support work on it. Their site became inaccessible a few days ago, and hasn’t come back, so I’m guessing that they’re finally dead.

I ran across an article that mentioned ZigTag today. It looks like it might be kind of interesting, but I still wish Spurl was alive and well. Meanwhile, Yahoo doesn’t seem to have screwed up Delicious much since they acquired it. It still works well, and it’s still fairly simple and fast.

More Readers Picking Up Electronic Books

Here’s an article from the NY Times on the Kindle, and other e-book readers, and the e-book market in general. The gist of it is basically that the market is picking up, and people, both readers and authors, are becoming more accepting of it. I’m still waiting for J K Rowling to decide that she’s OK with e-books. I wouldn’t mind re-reading the first few Harry Potter books at some point, but I had borrowed them from a friend when I first read them, and have since returned them. I could probably be talked into buying Kindle versions, though! I guess JKR just doesn’t want my money.

odd Kindle content

Okay, another Kindle post. Sorry. I just read that Rand McNally is releasing a few road atlases for the Kindle. I don’t know, I guess that could be useful, but really, the Kindle seems like a really bad platform for a book of maps. The screen is small and grey-scale. If you really want static maps, just buying a paper atlas is a much better idea. And if you want electronic maps, just use Google maps on your cell phone, iPod Touch, or whatever. Or get a GPS.

great Kindle covers

These guys make some great covers for the Kindle. They’re pretty expensive though. I guess I’ll stick with the one that came with it.

It seems like I haven’t been blogging about anything other than the Kindle lately. There’s no particular reason for that. I just haven’t had much else to say. I think I’m nearly done fighting the cold I caught a couple of weeks ago. I should, hopefully, be fine by Christmas.

new magazines on Kindle

There are two new magazines available on the Kindle: Cash, a personal finance magazine, and The Escapist. I’m still hoping that they’ll eventually add The Economist. As magazines go, it’s perfect for the Kindle — nearly all text. Very little would be lost in the translation.

I’m curious about “Cash”. The general format itself is interesting — it appears to be a Kindle-only compilation of repurposed content from other TMS sources. I wonder if we’ll see more of this kind of thing on the Kindle.