I can count in roman numerals... Everything starts with I.

Everyone else did a "where am I now?" status update for the new year. Yeah, well, some stuff happened and I couldn't find a way to talk about it at all. I explained it in chat to a friend who said, "There isn't enough o.O in the world."

Some things went well. The gifts I labored to send (even though they weren't handmade) were tolerably received. Simon seems to like his gifts from me.

After not receiving anything at all, I bought myself a few things in addition to the slippers I got for half off.

I bought the "commercial bin rack" by Seville Classics that I'd had my eye on for months. It's pretty expensive for what it is, but I really wanted it and I have about 8 uses for it, so even if it doesn't work for clothing storage (and I'm not whelmed in that regard) it would be great for a number of other things. The assembly was harder than it needed to be because the shelves have orientation that isn't specified in the directions, but otherwise was very easy.

I also ordered myself a set of PrismaColor colored pencils. There's no real reason for buying them, but I wanted them anyway. Those are the name brand colored pencils and they're supposed to be blendable, so better for artistic purposes.

I also bought a faux-fleece lined fleece vest. It went on sale from LLBean. I'm not normally one for polyester, but the outer shell was cotton-poly blend and the fuzz on the inside is washable. I like the huge collar on this vest because I have no hair. I remember ordering one years ago and thinking no one would ever want that because it pinched my hair if the hair was trapped underneath or gave me that big hair fluff if I pulled the hair over the collar. The collar goes right up to the hairline, so it's perfect for this hair. I should have spent the money 3 months ago. Probably it will get warm now and I won't have any use for this until next year.

I called the cleaner on Friday. She's coming tomorrow and Simon helped me tidy today. I have a lot of laundry that needs doing and everything needs scrubbing. I can't do it all even though I should be able to.

I still haven't ported over the stuff from my old computer to the new one. If I did that, I could use the big external monitor and clear off my desk. That would be spiffy.

book: Left Hand Of God by Hoffman

I finished a real book, you know one of those things with the tiny print that isn't just fluff to fill hours when there aren't any reruns on the television even if you stored a TiVo full of things for the holidays (when there is no tv).

It was called The Left Hand Of God and was by Paul Hoffman. I borrowed it from the library.

Overall my impression is this, WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Seriously.

I read the whole thing. I have no idea why I didn't just stop. It was kind of catchy, but thinking about it after the fact, I don't know why.

The characters were not at all developed. They had personalities, but those bases were known solely to the author and the characters appeared to act randomly. The situation and plot bothered me immensely.

Honestly, it was supposed to be a science fiction book. But it appears to be set in some post apocalyptic New England (according to the map) and there doesn't seem to be any magic in it whatsoever. It's full of hands-on battles akin to ancient times and medieval ones. Not that I'm historian enough to know what I'm talking about, but swords, arrows, crossbows, armor, horses. So what's differentiating this from being an alternate history book that could be marketed toward the non-genre fiction grouping that supposedly carries less stigma for publishers? I have no idea.

It's like if it's not real history and there are sword battles, then it's "fantasy".

But to me, there was enough Handmaid's Tale style realism in this to make it repulsive.

Supposedly we're supposed to see the main character as this amazing guy who has brilliant strategems for any situation, who can predict what an opponent will do, but the author doesn't have a Dr. Watson character who is explaining it to the reader by asking questions to elicit detail, so we're merely told this is what Cale (the main character) predicts. And when the author shows us that happening, we're told, "See? Cale's awesome!"

All of these things would not have bothered me, however, had the book not been Christo-preachy. Sure it's got another "name" to it as a faith, but it's the same thing. Son of the male god is sacrificed so inherent sins are washed away by his blood for everyone who accepts this as truth but anyone who doesn't is a heretic who should be slaughtered. Corrupt priests torture young boys and defile them because otherwise "The Redeemer" will have sacrificed in vain.

There is a rule. If you create a fantasy world, you shouldn't drag the same shit we already have and hate with you. If you're going to bring it with you, write something here and now; don't bother creating your own world.

It is anathema for a book to be considered science fiction or fantasy and be about the glorification of Christianity. The whole point of imagination is to imagine how to make things better than they are or at least to see how things play out. If it's a thought exercise to warn people about the dangers of a paradigm, fine... but lately more and more of the time science fiction horror novels are taken as a playbook by the government and the peoples in power. So, at the very least, there should never be a book published in the genre that dutifully toes the line that the base strata of reality relies upon which isn't intended as a warning.

I'm offended this was ever allowed out of the religion section. And if it had to be allowed out, then it should have been excluded from science fiction because this kind of claptrap should be preserved for the non-thinking masses.

rss reader issue

I have a potentially stupid question, but is it possible to filter feeds in Google Reader? And if not, is there a reader that does this?

I read some tech blogs but they don't have subset feeds and there's just too much to keep up with. There can be hundreds of posts per day.

Also I read game blogs and would prefer to only get the games I can play. I tried searching for specific things, like download games and mobile games but you can't mark all things matching a search as read. So when I haven't had time to play new games in a while, there can be hundreds of new games. It takes quite a while just to go through the list with a first pass to get rid of hidden numbers games and things I can't play. That's not even reading the summary which might or might not indicate whether I should bother opening the full description.

So it makes sense that the whole point of having RSS feeds is to make your life easier, but if I can't filter them, it's not as helpful as it might be.