'Tis the Season-that-is-purely-non-climate-related
For those of you who aren't aware, I'm a Christmas Child (or at least an X-mas child, depending on how big on Christ you are or are not. Me, the X just looks ugly). December 20th, 6:00 AM. That's me.
Which has it's pluses and minuses. The minuses include the fact that my birthday, and the fact that one year, Basil and Calvin combined birthday and Christmas presents and then pretty much got me one computer game which (to no fault of their own ) I forgot about after about two months. To be fair, they got me two games, but the first was essentially the second one with marginally fewer features. Not a reproach, for the record, I'm just making conversation.
The other minus which has popped up a couple times is that, because of the convergence and because everyone is super-busy around Christmas anyway, and especially now that I'm at college, my birthday hits the sweet-spot when everyone is done with finals and heading home, but the last two years I was either spending the majority of the day getting home (travel, for the record, is surprisingly exhausting) or, worse, stuck in DC without anyone else about. This time, I get
Anyway. This is all by way of prologue to the actual point of this which is, of course, The Birthday/Christmas List.
I think I'm a pretty straightforward guy in terms of presents (and perhaps in general); on the other hand, everyone wants some sort of guidance in these matters.
Books:
- You know what, I've got like twenty books to read. I don't need any more.
- That first bullet was true, but irrelevant.
- If you don't mind things which are available exclusively through the Internet , a copy of The Order of the Stick: On the Origin of the PCs would make me most happy indeed.
- I'd ask for Rite: Short Work a collection of, well, short works by Tad Williams (who persists in being a personal favorite who this summer I finally got someone else to try). But that comes out after Christmas, so never mind. On the other hand, a used copy (the only kind which still exist) of Caliban's Hour or Child of an Ancient City would be nice as well. I remember enjoying copies of them from the library.
- Stephen King novels tend to hold my attention; The Drawing of the Three is the one I'd like the most.
- At the moment, in the Discworld series, the next three books are Pyramids, Guards! Guards!, and Faust Eric. After those, I'll only have about fifteen years/twenty books of catching up to do.
- If you're on a budget: A Clash of Kings comes in a $7.99 mass market. Of course, so do all but three of the specific books I've mentioned. But most of them don't have alliterative, iambic titles, if you're into that sort of thing. Lord knows I am.
- Whatever catches your eye would be greatly appreciated, of course. Books are full of surprises, unless they're dull and formulaic, which wouldn't be your fault. Unless you'd already read the book, found it to be dull and formulaic, and for some reason wanted to punish me, rather than the person who wrote the damn thing.
DVD
- Nothing really lusted after here in a specific way. Movies and TV shows are good, but there's nothing I must have. Except for Cars and Pirates, but you can be assured that someone will get them no matter what occurs.
Music
- The nice thing about music: it's significantly easier to consume than books and movies.
- I've got a constant hankering for some soundtracks. The Lord of the Rings, perhaps, or anything else A. Awesome and B. Orchestral. Of course, B implies A.
- Anything which sounds like something that you could catch on The Prairie Home Companion. You know, American Folk type stuff.
- At the moment, I'd like whatever you'd like to give. I appreciate all types of music, except for rap/hip-hop, which I just don't get.
Assorted
- Something to teach me Chinese might be helpful in, you know, China. *Shivers*
- While I've replaced my keyboard, which means that my space-bar actually functions as a space-bar with perfect accuracy, my CD/DVD drive hasn't been properly functioning (or, in the case of the DVD portion, functioning) for months. I'm pretty sure it's a hardware problem, which can easily be replaced. There's the off chance it's a software problem, but I don't find that theory likely, and I'm hesitant to give Dell forty dollars to confirm what I'm already pretty sure of.
Obviously, this isn't on the same tier as a mass market paperback; I'm just being thorough, and writing problems out, and suchlike. You know, blog-stuff. - A fedora, like everyone who ever lived in the 1930s wore. Yes, I've already got my awesome beret; some people need lots and lots of shoes.
- There are a few games I'd like, but I've decided not to mention them, because I have a lot of games I've yet to get around to. Which is different from books, because getting a book off a shelf is different than installing a game, somehow.
Intangibles
- Too numerous to list.
- Seriously, I don't need anything compared to people who actually need things. If you want to give me a warm glow in my stomach for Christmas, go ahead.
- "All I want for Christmas, is you." God, I love Love Actually. (This was specifically the bit after Martin Freeman kisses Joanna Page. Did you know that the black guy that is Keira Knightley is married to is the Agent in Serenity? Woah.)
Enough.