pedanther

. The family Christmas gathering was held a few days after Christmas this year, because that was when everybody could manage to be in the same place for the same few hours. (Including the out-of-town contingent, who I hadn't realised were also going to be there until I got a text message with a photo of something interesting they'd seen on the road here.) It was very nice to spend some time with everybody. My haul this year included several jigsaw puzzles, my siblings having taken note of how much I enjoyed working through my set of Magic Puzzles earlier this year (and possibly also of the fact that it's much easier to be sure that I don't already have a particular puzzle than that I don't already have a particular book).


. As the weather has been getting hotter, there's been an increasing issue at Parkrun with flies taking friendly interest in one's face, and the attendant risk of accidentally inhaling one. (Or nearly inhaling one, which is almost as bad.) After Parkrun last Saturday, I decided I'd had enough and afterward went straight to the shops to buy a protective net thing to wear over my head and keep them off. Step two is remembering to take it with me to Parkrun.


. My reading this week included Always Was, Always Will Be, written by Thomas Mayo, one of the campaigners for the Voice to Parliament, after the referendum went the way it did, which I saw in the new books display at the library and felt I should read; and, for a change of pace, E. Nesbit's The Railway Children, which I've been meaning to read for years and am very glad I finally did. (And not just because now I'll be less likely to keep getting it mixed up with The Boxcar Children and The Story of the Treasure Seekers.)


. I've started playing through XCOM: Enemy Unknown again. I set out with noble intentions that this would be the time I got through an entire playthrough without reverting to the last save point when things started going pear-shaped, and of course that didn't last but it did last longer than I might have predicted. As I've been getting back into the swing of it I've been pushing out the limit on what counts as going sufficiently wrong, and getting back near the mark of keeping going as long as a mission wasn't a complete failure, and re-learning that it is possible and even fun to recover from setbacks like having most of your most experienced squad wiped out in one go.


. Game Show 1939! is a fun podcast where contestants are faced with trivia questions sourced from quiz books published in the 1930s. "Some of the answers in the books have changed since then, and some of the answers were never right to begin with, but for the purposes of today's quiz the official correct answer is whatever was written in the book." Part of the format involves contestants being given a preview of the categories and trying to predict which ones they'll find easier to answer and which ones to force their opponent to answer. Most of the questions are followed by the host explaining who or what the question was about.

Fiction books
Rosemary Kirstein. The Language of Power
Rosemary Kirstein. The Lost Steersman
James D Macdonald. The Apocalypse Door
Baroness Orczy. The Scarlet Pimpernel
Tim Powers. Last Call (re-read)
John Scalzi. Old Man's War (re-read)
John Scalzi. The Last Colony
John Scalzi. The Ghost Brigades
John Scalzi. Zoe's Tale
Jeff Smith, Tom Sniegoski. Bone: Tall Tales
Gene Wolfe. Soldier of the Mist

In progress
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace

Non-fiction books
(none)

( short, screen, and stage )
( books bought and borrowed )

Top of the to-read pile
Gene Wolfe. Soldier of Arete