free-ish books

It's that time again: we are purging our physical books. Five hundred and ninety-nine of them, to be exact (now that I've shipped off the ones won by Con or Bust folks).

Most of them are going to our local library sale, but I like finding specific good homes for books too. So here's the deal:

From now until Sunday March 11 at noon Eastern, I will take requests for books. On Sunday afternoon and evening, I will compare up the requests, allocate any overlapping requests based on priority, and pack them up. I will ship everything on Monday the cheapest method possible: within the US, media mail; within North America, Priority International; outside North America, airmail (no more surface mail from the USPS). You will reimburse me for postage plus the cost of packaging, if any. Payment will be made through PayPal or Amazon gift certificate. If you don't reimburse me, I will mock you publicly and mercilessly.

Like I said, I want books to find good homes; but doing this is, frankly, kind of a pain in the butt, and I do have significant other time commitments. So please do me the courtesy of restricting yourself to things you particularly want, not just think might be kind of nice to have. ETA: this also means that requests for 40+ books (for instance) are disfavored.

Here is the list of books we are getting rid of. Here is the Google Docs form to request books.

Questions? Leave 'em here.

a thing I need to remember

As said in non-public context elsewhere: "Kate isn't a scalable resource."

Too, too (sadly, amusingly) true.

notes on things I have watched in the last several weeks

Haywire: the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I & the kids were staying with Chad's parents, and I escaped for a couple of hours to watch a movie. I was going to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but then I saw glvalentine's review of Haywire and decided to see it instead: partly because it was shorter and partly because it sounded really interesting.

I liked this less than Genevieve, for two reasons. One, I missed the first few minutes and spent most of the movie wondering if it provided some kind of context for the main character's goals and situation. I'm not sure why I felt vaguely aswim—maybe just sleep deprivation?—since in the end it was pretty simple: she was betrayed, she escaped, she finds out why, she makes them pay. I think I wasn't sure what she knew at any given time. (It is a Soderbergh movie, which means non-linear and lots of significant verbal omissions. One of which convinced me that a certain character was doing completely the opposite of what it turned out to be, which didn't help matters.) Two, I'm not that fond of the type of action movie this is. I love competence porn in capers or action movies, but I like either character development or a reveal to go with it (Ronin, The Bourne Identity, Ocean's Eleven). Haywire is instead in the "main character gets revenge and returns to status quo" mold, which I find unsatisfying. I didn't get a strong hook as the movie unfolded (character development), and I didn't have any reason to revisit my conclusions at the end (reveal). Instead I felt, as the credits came up, "That was it?", and was left with more abstract admiration than enjoyment.

So, if you like that kind of thing, you need to see this, and if you don't, it's worth background watching when it comes on basic cable in a few years.

The other two episodes in season two of Sherlock: "The Hounds of Baskerville" was very silly and not at all scary and entertained me in a way that almost entirely failed to engage my brain. Thus, I have nothing else to say about it.

"The Reichenbach Fall" was mostly terrific: I liked the updating of the conflict, and that Moriarty toned the swoopy down, and ( spoilers, minor and major )

Face Off: this is, of all things, an original reality show on the SyFy network, in which contestants design and execute special effects makeup. I saw some commercials for it and then found the whole season free on demand on my cable system one day when I was out of DVRed things to half-watch while dealing with the Pip. Anyway, I like seeing the different designs and all the craft involved, and generally find the judging clear, educational, and reasonable. Despite my best efforts, though, I find myself having opinions about the contestants as people, which I was trying to avoid because I know how manipulatively these shows can be cut to create interpersonal conflict. There's very little of that, however, so if you like how-to kinds of shows this is worth checking out.

White Collar: I dropped this show for a long time but the second half of this just-concluded season has also been maternity-leave TV fodder. Most of it was background noise, and I actually watched a couple episodes mostly on FF, but I thought the season finale was genuinely strong. (Well, except for the worst green-screening I have seen in quite some time.) And wow, Beau Bridges has a talent for playing characters who get on my last nerve (I watched SGA before SG-1 and so was introduced to General Landry in a much more confrontational posture).