Lots more stuff coming out of my house and potentially into yours over the next few weeks. Let's start with some DVDs:

• The Prestige, a film I simply cannot recommend highly enough
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
• Ginger Snaps II a.k.a. Ginger Really Snaps

Five bucks a head. That's right, FIVE. If you live elsewhere than here and cannot pick up the DVDs, we can also work out a shipping cost.

Now some books:

• The novelizations of Episodes I and II, in hardcover!
• Memoirs of a Geisha, also in hardcover!
• His Dark Materials
• The Making of the Modern Age, which many of you probably read in history class in high school
• Oscar Widle - De Profundis and Other Writings
• Shadow Moon, the actual novelized sequel to Willow
• Jean Genet - Our Lady of the Flowers

Books are FREE. I don't feel right charging for books. Same rules apply re: shipping if you don't have the ability to come get them in person.

Posted by tederick at 10:28 AM in books & shinydisks
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Look what I bought on the street!!!:

and

and this one I've wanted for a while

yes!! awesome.

Posted by tederick at 10:05 PM in awesomeness & books
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Yes, I am reading The Hobbit again, and yes, I am content.

I toyed with the idea of replacing my copy a few years back, when the LOTR tie-ins were at the height of their prettiness, as I had done with Narnia; fortunately I remembered (after a bit of fuss) that even pulp paperbacks from 1979 can have a little magic in them, and that old paper smells good. So here I am. There's quite a bit to the cloth bookmark with the bear on it that I use to mark my page, too, but I'll share that with you another time.

Suffice to say that right now I am moving things around in my mind, trying to make a story, which is a tricky thing if you haven't done it in a while and an even trickier thing when you feel the book has closed on a lot of old things and a lot of new, different things will have to start opening now. Still, today is fairly sunny and there are places to go and things to do during the day, and I'll blow some smoke rings by dusk on the old back deck. So that's something.

Posted by tederick at 8:40 AM in books & the process
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I gave up on Monster Blood Tattoo; I loathe the truly pathetic attempts to capitalize on everything awesome about the truly great works of fantasy fiction (structure from Harry Potter, language-smithry from Tolkien, parallel worldism from Lyra) as though something new or interesting will come out of the blender-parts of the achievements of the past. Synergize, people, don't just homogenize. Ain't brain surgery. So instead, I'm reading The Indiana Jones Handbook. Which is crappy in an entirely different set of ways but is at least entertaining, especially given all the veiled "the crystal skulls are from aliens!!!" references. It's sort of like The Worst Case Scenario If You're Indiana Jones. I am learning how to pass under a moving truck, how to cut a rope bridge in half (if only I'd known 2 weeks ago!), and how to survive poisoning by a bloodthirsty Chinese ganglord. Given the poor pedigree of the book's writing, most of these involve "well, do the best you can, I guess." Which, to be fair, is probably how Indy approaches life, too.

I never bought The Worst Case Scenario If You're Batman (or whatever it's called). Wish I had. I imagine Batman has a number of seriously worst-case scenarios.

Hey, in the good news, I suspect the postal tag that arrived on my doorknob yesterday is actually my Raiders jacket, back after a 4-month sojourn in its home country of England. Words cannot express how much I've missed having this thing, and how much airplane flights suck when you're not wearing it. It's the all-purpose awesomegarment. Hats are for jerks: jackets are where the real adventure-wear lies.

Posted by tederick at 11:24 AM in batman! & books & dr. jones
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"Perhaps it was the light on your face, but I thought I recognised you from somewhere a long way down, somewhere at the bottom of the sea." - Lighthousekeeping

Did I get sent to work today with a Lazer Tag lunch box filled with a lunch that my girl made for me, and little notes and instructions that say things like "eat the carrots - you need vegetables"? Yes. Yes I did. And yet, she had me at "let's watch Pirates 1 and 3 but not 2." Sooner than that, even. Oh dusty world.

The TTC delay at Vic Park this morning (curses!!) got me thorugh the rest of Lighthousekeeping and out the other side, which is always a horrible feeling - "why didn't I bring more books???" I am now swinging back to H-pot for another Deathly Hallows re-read... this is, what? My fourth? It's in my head a lot these days, in near-Blu-Ray sharpness. I'm also reading a book about e.simulation design! Because I'm a nerd.

Here are some things I called my friend Erin while we were at lunch yesterday:"Gigantor," "Godzilla," "Monster Woman," "genetic disaster from a horror movie," and "something from out of the Deep." Isn't it nice when I express myself?

Now I'm listening to Return of the King and rather enjoying the look and feel of the day. My extended-hours cram session last night got me well ahead on a few things and I'm tackling a few more even as I type. Fabulous multi-screen multi-program multi-brain-lobe multi-tasking! I could teach a class.

Posted by tederick at 10:50 AM in books & h-pot & j-o-b & jedi antics
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Who has my copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (book)? Cuz one of you does, and I want it back.

Oscar nominations are the usual list of toldjaso's, likesay Cate Blanchett getting nominated for Elizabeth and I'm Not There, Johnny picking up his Sweeney nomination, and Ellen Page getting the inevitable actress nod. My feeling of Atonement dread was nicely lessened by the lack of a director nom; the Juno support is heartening, and it'll be hilarious to watch There Will Be Blood get so utterly snubbed on wins versus the number of nominations it actually got. How Golden Compass stole a visual effects nomination will be a mystery to me until the end of time.

The monster in Cloverfield is a giant space beetle from under the sea. That's fine. It's possible that the writer's strike has actually cured me (and North America) of our collective TV addiction; that's fine too. I haven't watched a TV show, or played the Wii, more than once so far in 2008. There's just so much other stuff to do. And this is winter: can you imagine if the doors got blown open and we could all go outside and play soccer, sit at cafés, or read comics in the park? Television itself might cease to exist for ever more.

Posted by tederick at 9:24 AM in books & movies & tv & wii
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All right, I've had it; reading The Rum Diary all week has pretty much destroyed any ability on my part to not be fantasizing constantly about getting the hell out of this town and spending several aimless weeks knocking around some anonymous beach in Dominica in the near and immediate future. Fifteen-degree Tuesdays notwithstanding, I have had it with this cold weather shite. I want to be wearing minimal, loose clothing (if clothing at all). I want to wake up covered in sand-flies. I want to watch the sun rise and only then begin considering finding a bed. Oooh, I like that last part most of all.

Speaking of The Rum Diary, I had the best rum evah last night. We went to Scaramouche for my dad's birthday, and after dinner I ordered a shot of a 15-year-old Demerara rum from Guyana... and holy sweet fucking crap, it tasted like cream mixed with vanilla. Enough of this cheap LCBO shit I've been pumping through my veins - I gotta get me some of that. Although I admit the allure would be greatly enhanced if I was buying it myself somewhere on or near the aforementioned beach.

OK, enough griping. As far as "happiness is": walking hand-in-hand before sunrise, and finding a Lobster Johnson in my bag that I hadn't read yet, have pretty much already made my day.

"The monkeys don't speak, but they move like ninjas."

Posted by tederick at 9:02 AM in books & the rum diaries
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I've been handing out Man of the Year here on the ol' blog since way back in 2000, when this utterly inconsequential no-prize was awarded to the conceptual godfather of the whole deal, Richard Hatch. At the time I was proud - yes, proud! - that no non-dude would ever win the entirely uncoveted "of the year" title here on the site, but from the very early goings in 2007, I was fairly aware that the ship was about to capsize. Men are just so uncompelling these days! And if we're trying to note the person who had the biggest effect on the Tederick.comverse for the calendar year of the award, cast your eyes no further than the little category we like to call h-pot: did anything else in 2007 even come close?

There was a whole lot of Potter prattle over the summer, but I think the entry called Dumbledore's Army does the best job of getting into exactly why this all mattered so much to me. Rowling created a book series; Rowling's book series created a culture. That culture is, beyond compare, the warmest, kindest, most inclusive, most exclusive fan base I've ever had privilege to be even remotely associated with, and it brought the big hugs n' happy for the majority of my year. That's really something.

Doesn't hurt that the book was the best I've read in a long, long time, either.

J.K. Rowling is the very first winner of Tederick.com's Woman of the Year. Previous recipients of the now-defunct Man of the Year include the authors of Civil War, Matty Price, Woogie, Peter Jackson, Master Yoda, Mark, and Richard Hatch.

Posted by tederick at 11:04 AM in books & h-pot & tederickdotcomdotcom
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The events of the weekend did one thing rather brilliantly: they completely erased my memory of seeing The Golden Compass. Like, on Monday morning I saw the poster on the way to work and was like, "oh yeah, that movie." Now I'm (finally) reading Lyra's Oxford again, which is a dessert course that should not have been preceeded by the stew, but whatever, it's still lovely, if far too short. You know, someday someone should do all of these things film-wise. Three features, and however many shorts Pullman ends up writing (there's one about Lee and Iorek coming out in the spring), plus the apocrypha and the lantern slides. That would make one hell of a DVD.

(At this point I'm presuming that New Line will never in a million years bankroll Knife and Spyglass after the pantsing Compass took at the box office this weekend. If we ever get around to a Mamo, I might explain more. Meantime, here's a good bit about the scripts, including the Hollywood bullshit line of the year: “The aim is to put in the elements we need to make this movie a hit, so that we can be much less compromising in how the second and third books are shot" - way to go Chris!)

There is now a floating theory that I am in fact from a parallel reality. This replaces the previous theory that Daniel is the central hub of a web of alternate worlds that only he can interact with, because now not only does Daniel not remember seeing Antenna with me, but I have no memory of seeing Spider-Man 2 with Chris. Since I am clearly the common element in these divergent histories, I must be the one who tumbled in from an alterna-cosmos. Which is fine, but I do miss our old morning ritual of eating cake before breakfast while wearing knit caps. It's the little things that make a home a home, y'know?

It is dead terrific to be out of DVD bankruptcy, internets. Still feels a bit strange though, like I was doing something naughty yesterday when I bought Lost. I also picked up some shiny blu Harry Potter 5, which looks fan-frickin'-tastic. Looking forward to watching that again and seeing whether I actually liked it, or just liked it because it wasn't as godawful as Goblet.

For my next trick, I shall write an entire instructional design plan in just north of 150 minutes. SHAZAAAM!!!

Posted by tederick at 9:06 AM in books & h-pot & movies & shinybludisks & shinydisks
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The tower is broken, DVD bankruptcy is over, I have a blu-ray player in my house, I have replaced my last VHS tape, and Pirates 3 comes out on Tuesday. I ran into Brandy on the street while carrying the blu-ray box and she said "it's the end of the world!" to which I replied "IT'S THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW WORLD!!"

Yeah, I caved to the Sony. Got fucking sick to death of waiting for the Panasonic, and the Sony came down in price and I just don't care enough about the new profile to wait a single day more when it's right there in front of me in the store. The player itself reminds me powerfully of the first VCR my family ever owned, the old iron war-horse. It's big and ugly and slow and dumb. But the pictures are so pretty. Me and the kids are going to watch Spiderman 3 and get drunk. (You know: Spiderman 3. The one with the Spidermans, the Solomons, and the Berkowitzes.)

What else happened? Well, I finished His Dark Materials this morning; that was significant. I feel like I sort of got to know a little more about Phillip Pullman this time around than I had before; when I was gorked out of my mind on Friday night and quasi-stoned with fatigue I was making all kinds of weird connections between him and Mary and the Mulefa and everything. And there's a particular challenge question in the Amber Spyglass Lantern Slides that made me feel like a foolish kid on the first day of school. Just a marvelous experience from top to bottom.

I finished the book over coffee and then went down on this particularly yucky weather day; hung out at the Snail for a while because I hadn't talked to Sheila in for ever, and then I grabbed a burrito and hit the Cinematheque for a screening of Bunny Lake is Missing - which was pretty damn good, except that "Keir Dullea is a psychopath" isn't really as surprising a turnaround as the filmmakers obviously thought it was, because yeah, that guy ain't right.

When the movie was done the weather nasties were really in full force so I jogged over to the Best Buy, made the crisis-support phone call to Matty Price re: the Blu Ray, and made my decision. Now I'm all wound up in HDMI cables and sippin' on rum.

Yup. That went well.

Posted by tederick at 7:43 PM in books & movies & shinybludisks
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