Sunny day

[miss_pryss]

1) It's sunny! And beautiful. I'm on my second enormous cup of black tea for the day and feeling fiiiine. Mr. Smarty-Pants is at my side, industriously studying away. Yesterday I made blueberry corn muffins (hey stumbledhere, let me know if you want the recipe) and today they were allll gone. Yes, all 12 of them. No, I don't want to talk about it.

2) I spent most of yesterday afternoon and all of today so far entering my library into Delicious Library. I don't know why I bothered -- having taken the time and trouble to get everything in there I realized I've scratched an itch to organize and catalog but haven't achieved any real useful end (except probably giving some unknown party a list of all the books I own). Oh wait, actually, that's not entirely true -- I did make a sub-list of books I own that I haven't yet read (surprisingly, only about 30).

Here's how it breaks down (keep in mind that the books represented here are probably about a quarter of the books I own overall -- the rest are either at my work or in boxes at my folks' houses, waiting for the day that I have space to move them in with me).

Total books: 169

Unread: 29
Borrowed: 2

Adult Fiction: 37
Adult Nonfiction: 11
Collections/Anthologies: 4
Comics: 36
Finnish: 9
Kids and YA: 49
Manga: 9
Poetry: 10
Reference: 5
Travel: 6

Of course, since Mr. Smarty-Pants has his absurd library of ~10,000 volumes in the livingroom/library, I find myself seldom in need of my own little collection for entertainment.

(Your weird factoid for the day: amazon.com claims that my little 1992 edition of Bosley's translation of the Kanteletar is worth, like, $800 used. Geeze, I wish.)

3) Last night I DL'd and watched INFERNO which has my new favorite Rodney sequence of all time -- you know the one, when he's explaining his clever plan and John and Carson are like, "wait, we'll all die, how is that clever?!" and Rodney splains and splains and then they're like, "oh, that is clever!" and Rodney looks entirely nonplussed.

Also, although at first I hated that scientist for her impractical sheath dress, I later decided that clearly she'd been on her way to a fancy dinner when the Atlanteans arrived, so, being the dutiful science lady she was, she went straight to deal with them without changing out of her silly dress --

-- which led me to a whole line of thought as follows: science-lady comes to live on Atlantis and decides to stay there and study with the Atlantean scientists. She turns up at the labs the first day dressed in sensible clothing -- jeans, maybe, or slacks and a sweater with the sleeves rolled up, not wearing any makeup, and with her hair in a braid or ponytail. Rodney tries to hide his disappointment, feeling stupid as he realizes he expected her to turn up in, like, an evening gown or a bikini or something equally silly. But it's not so hard to shed that disappointment as she turns out to be a) a quick learner and b) almost impossible to intimidate -- she's a good back-snarker. They have a brief affair but it ends quickly because she decides he's more important to her as a teacher than a boyfriend, and he's no good at being both.

She could maybe be the first to receive that fanon "Atlantis University" degree that turns up in so many stories.


I really want there to be more Atlantis stories about Atlantean academics and the education available to folks with an interest in biology, physics, linguistics, cuisine, etc.

OMG, I have to pee so bad. And then: cleaning! And then: groceries! And then: taxes!

Comments

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Apparently, Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting regularly goes for about $200 on eBay. *boggles at copy on her shelf* In this day and age of electronic reproduction, it's hard for me to imagine *any* book being worth that.

[miss-pryss.livejournal.com]

Dang. I'm not sure how much I could get for this book (which turns out to actually for real be worth $800), because I used it the way I used all of my college texts -- roughly. It's a little dinged up and it's a lot written in.

But for serious -- who on earth would pay $800 a paperback copy of a crummy english translation of traditional Finnish lyric folk poetry from 1992? I guess I just don't get these markets where things are valuable solely because they're rare, not because they're inherently interesting in any way. Rare book and rare stamp collecting are pasttimes the appeal of which escapes me entirely.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Yes, you'd think anyone that invested in Finnish poetry would own multiple editions in the original and not be throwing much money after some random modern English translation.

The Starmore book does have some beautiful photographs, but in the end, it's a pattern book.

[rossetti.livejournal.com]

Atlantis U is becoming ubiquitous. We should design sweatshirts.

Isn't it an absolutely gorgeous day? Yay. I want your recipe for blueberry corn muffins! Yay muffins.

[miss-pryss.livejournal.com]

OMG SWEATSHIRTS! What an awesome idea.

I will post my blueberry muffin recipe! Right now!

[kupukello.livejournal.com]

*giggle* Really?! :)) I didn't know Kanteletar was that popular :)) Although, I think you're right, it's more about the rarity of the book than the content.

I don't actually have a copy of Kanteletar myself and even my Kalevala I nicked from my mother *GRIN*

So, what are the nine Finnish books then? Kalevala is one, Kanteletar in Finnish the other, but you still have seven more :D

[miss-pryss.livejournal.com]

OK, my nine Finnish books are:

Kalevala in English (Magoun translation)
Kalevala in Finnish (little red cloth-bound hardcover school Kalevala)
Kanteletar in English (I don't actually have one in Finnish)
Uusi Suomi-Englantii Suur-Sanakirja
Five books of the Suomea Suomeksi textbook series