Not a misandrist anymore, and other observations

I haven't been posting much, but I thought I'd share a few thoughts that are currently making the rounds about the vacuous expanse that is the inside of my skull.

Firstly, I'm not a misandrist anymore. I was being fairly silly back there. I still generally dislike my sex, but not with any particular vehemence. So that's cool.

I'm having a much better time here than I was before, now that I've learned to get off the goddamn laptop and start socializing. I blame Europa Universalis for my earlier antisocial behavior.

Speaking of Europa Universalis, that game is awesome. Currently, I'm playing as France, it's in the 1450s, and I've conquered and annexed my way to the point where I have almost all of present-day France within my borders. I also changed the government from 'Kingdom' to 'Empire'. Go me.

The sixth season of Lost is bloody amazing. Unfortunately, I still have to wait a whole week between episodes. Not fun.

I also watched the entire first three seasons of the web series 'The Guild' last weekend. Very entertaining, though my newfound love of Felicia Day may very well bring my current romantic relationship into trouble- darling, I love you more than life itself, but if Felicia Day came to me and asked that we make passionate nerd love, I would have to acquiesce. Anyway, the show is great, especially Will fucking Wheaton as the Big Bad of Season 3. Now, if I could only get 'Do You Wanna Date My Avatar' out of my head...

On a less pleasant note, I have confirmed something that I had suspected for years- that keyboarding, also known as home row typing or the 'right way to do it', is a completely superfluous, fatuous, and impractical waste of time. I mean, really, now. This system is supposedly intended to make one's typing faster and more accurate. Unfortunately, it fails on both counts. You see, I'm a proud two-finger typist, always have been, always will. So, as an experiment, I tried a words-per-minute challenge twice- once with home row, once with two fingers. The results: one attempt ended up with 30 wpm and 3 or 4 errors, while the second had 36 wpm and no errors whatsoever. Care to guess which one was the 'proper' method? If you guessed that the former, slower, and less accurate was typed using the 'standard' system, you would be correct. Go figure.

Back to better news. I am now a devoted fanboy of Jasper Fforde's 'Thursday Next' books, even though I've only read the first one. It's just so much fun, I can't wait to read more. I also discovered David Sedaris. While no Bill Bryson, he's still a very entertaining writer who has no problems with discussing unpleasant truths about his life and family.

I'm currently reading the second 'Anno Dracula' novel by Kim Newman. It's very good, but remarkably bloody. I mean, really bloody. As in, makes-you-feel-sick-to-your-stomach bloody. If the rest of the book weren't so completely incredible, I would have stopped reading it. But, as I said, the rest of the book is great. It manages to combine a lot of things that I like into one package: alternate history, Dracula, crossovers, and World War I. A recommended read for those of you with strong constitutions.

I also hit paydirt recently. I found a free app for my iPhone that allows me to essentially run Amazon's Kindle service without having to buy an actual Kindle. I still have to pay for books, but this will come in handy if I can't get ahold of a book I'm looking for. But the best part? The free literature. On the Kindle store, they have a whole selection of completely free books (almost always public domain). Now, I can finally complete my goal of reading the original stories that the cast of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came from. I've got 'Dracula', 'War of the Worlds', 'Tarzan', 'Fu Manchu', you name it, all without having to pay a dime. So, yeah, I'm a very happy little nerd now.

So, that's what's new in my world as of now. Also, my birthday is tomorrow, so send tribute in the form of gold, spices, virgins, and video games.