Books of the Year 2009

So, all through last year, I kept a running tally of the books I had been reading through the year. I thought it would be interesting to look back at the books I have read in that time. So, here's the compiled list:

1. "Excelsior: Forged in Fire", by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels
   
2. "Moonraker", by Ian Fleming
   
3. "How to Fossilise Your Hampster", by Mick O'Hare
   
4. "Pathfinder: Into the Darklands" by James Jacobs and Greg A. Vaughan
   
5. "Pathfinder: A Memory of Darkness" by J.D. Wiker
   
6. "Twenty Years After", by Alexandre Dumas
   
7. "Diamonds Are Forever" by Ian Fleming
   
8. "The Orc King" by R.A. Salvatore
   
9. "Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition Core Rulebook" by Bill Slavicsek, Andy Collins and JD Wiker
   
10. "The Lords of the North" by Bernard Cornwell
    
11. "Starships of the Galaxy" by Gary Astleford, Owen K.C. Stephens and Rodney Thompson
    
12. "Pathfinder: Descent into Midnight" by Brian Cortijo
    
13. "Emperor: The Death of Kings", by Conn Iggulden
    
14. "Watership Down", by Richard Adams
    
15. "From Russia With Love", by Ian Fleming
    
16. "Pathfinder: Howl of the Carrion King", by Erik Mona
    
17. "Star Wars: Invincible" by Troy Denning
    
18. "Pathfinder: House of the Beast" by Tim Hitchcock
    
19. "Sword Song", by Bernard Cornwell
    
20. "Doctor No", by Ian Fleming
    
21. "Pathfinder: The Jackal's Price", by Darrin Drader
    
22. "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
    
23. "Pathfinder: Dragons Revisited", by Mike McArtor
    
24. "Pathfinder: Guide to Absalom", by Owen K. C. Stephens
    
25. "Pathfinder: Legacy of Fire Players' Guide", from Paizo Publishing
    
26. "Emperor: the Field of Swords", by Conn Iggulden
    
27. "Pathfinder: The Great Beyond", by Todd Stewart
    
28. "A Sword From Red Ice", by J.V. Jones
    
29. "Goldfinger", by Ian Fleming
    
30. "Pathfinder: Dungeon Denizens Revisited", by Paizo Publishing
    
31. "Shadows Linger", by Glen Cook
    
32. "For Your Eyes Only", by Ian Fleming
    
33. "Pathfinder: The End of Eternity", by Jason Nelson
    
34. "Pathfinder: Bonus Bestiary", by Paizo Publishing
    
35. "Krondor: the Assassins", by Raymond Feist
    
36. "Pathfinder: The Impossible Eye", by Greg A. Vaughan
    
37. "The Pirate King", by R.A. Salvatore
    
38. "Emperor: The Gods of War", by Conn Iggulden
    
39. "The Book Thief", by Markus Zusak
    
40. "Thunderball", by Ian Fleming
    
41. "Nineteen Eighty-Four", by George Orwell
    
42. "The Spy Who Loved Me", by Ian Fleming
    
43. "Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay", by Green Ronin Publishing
    
44. "Pathfinder: The Final Wish", by Rob McCreary
    
45. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", by Ian Fleming
    
46. "The Princess Bride", by William Goldman
    
47. "You Only Live Twice", by Ian Fleming
    
48. "Career Compendium" (for "Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay"), by Fantasy Flight Games
    
49. "Azincourt", by Bernard Cornwell
    
50. "The Man with the Golden Gun", by Ian Fleming
    
51. "Octopussy and the Living Daylights", by Ian Fleming
    
52. "Devil May Care", by Sebastian Faulks (writing as Ian Fleming)
    
53. "Pathfinder: The Bastards of Erebus", by Sean K. Reynolds
    
54. "Pathfinder: The Sixfold Trial", by Richard Pett
    
55. "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook", by Paizo Publishing
    
56. "Lankhmar", by Fritz Leiber
    

As can be seen, this gives a grand total of 56 books for the year, of which 22 were books for various roleplaying games, be they the core rulebooks, supplements, or adventure modules. The most read author was Ian Fleming, with 12 books (13 if you count "Devil May Care", but I don't). Other favourite authors were Bernard Cornwell and Conn Iggulden, neither of which is a surprise.

The best novel of the year by quite some distance was "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. Honourable mentions must go to "Nineteen Eighty-four" and "Watership Down", both of which would have been the winners by a long way in any 'normal' year. The most disappointing book of the year was "A Sword From Red Ice", which was a rather poor follow-up to two other volumes, both of which had been excellent.

In 2010, my provisional goal is to read 60 books, or roughly five a month, an even more punishing rate than last year. I'll be applying the same rules, with one notable addendum when reading a compiled version of novels, if I have already read some of the component parts, I don't need to reread them to include the whole in the list. This will be relevant when I read "The White Queen", which is now only available with two other novels I have already read, and perhaps also with "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".

Moreover, in 2010, I also intend to read 20 novels from my master list of "books to read". This list is made up of a combination of two "100 best" lists, the recommended reading list from the 1st Edition DMG, and the recommended reading list from Pathfinder. There are some 250 items on the combined list, although I've already read about 50, and some few are no longer available (and were trash anyway).

And so, onward!

My Year in 2009

2009 was a long, hard year. To be completely honest, I'm glad it is over. Still, there remain a couple of tasks to do, one of which is to post my review of the year. So, here it is:

My Year in... Work

2009 was a bad year in work. There were several reasons for this. The economy hurt us the same as it hurt everyone else (although, fortunately, we were able to avoid any job losses, so we were better off than many others). We also suffered from a rather terrible inability to get our projects finished, out the door, signed off and concluded - they seemed to go on and on and on, lingering long past the time we should have moved on.

But also on a personal note, I did not do my best work in 2009. At the start of the year, I set a Super Secret Goal for work, which promptly had to be abandoned. Unfortunately, at much the same time, coupled with the endless stresses of the year, I seemed to find it increasingly hard to get up in the mornings, to stay motivated and on task, and to generally do my best work.

So, 2009 was a really bad year for work. I'm certainly intending that 2010 will be better in this regard - although work was almost the only thing that went badly in 2009, it is such a major part of life that a bad time at work can really mar the overall performance of the year.

So, must do better.

My Year in... Gaming

The only other part of the year that I found disappointing was in gaming, although here the report is sharply divided.

For the first ten months of the year, the gaming scene was bad. The plan to focus on getting the group together in the early months of the year failed due to cancellation after cancellation. Then there was a hiatus for the band competition season, and then we were back, but with lots more cancellations. What gaming we got done was really good, and I very much enjoyed running Star Wars Saga Edition, but there just wasn't enough.

However, things turned around dramatically in November. Having concluded that the existing situation was unacceptable, I went and set up a second group in Falkirk, and have been engaged in a D&D (3.5e Eberron) campaign since, meeting on alternate Tuesdays. This has been going really well; in fact, I find myself having the odd problem that we're getting towards having too many players, rather than too few.

At the same time, the existing group (that I thought was dead) has had something of a revival, and we've suddenly managed to get together for several sessions of the Warhammer campaign I prepared on this blog. It has been going very well indeed, and looks to be another strong campaign.

In 2010, then, I'm hoping that this trend continues. I would like to run the Warhammer campaign to conclusion, and then run the "second season" to my Star Wars campaign, all while running the Eberron campaign in parallel. Things are looking better on this front than they have for a long time.

My Year in... Band

It has been a year of very hard work for band, but a very successful one also. We managed to qualify at three of the four Majors we entered, and won two prizes in Minor competitions. Additionally, we ran very successful trips to France and Ireland (although we didn't qualify at the latter, something of a fly in the ointment). We also hosted a very successful concert in October, raised about four times as much money for the band as in the previous year, and rebuilt a much stronger financial foundation for the band.

All in all, a lot of hard work, but it paid off handsomely.

In 2010, we are hoping to do well enough in competition to actually advance out of our grade and up to grade 4A. A change to the competition rules means that we won't have to pre-qualify at most of the competitions (probably only the World Championships and at Cowal, because of the number of bands present), while the promotion of several bands has really opened the field for us. Add to that the dedication of the current band members, and the addition of several new members, and we're in great shape.

Definitely looking forward to success in 2010!

My Year in... Love

Awesome. That is all.

My Year in... Resolutions

I completed ten of my eleven goals for the year, and had to abandon the last due to circumstances beyond my control. As such, 2009 was a really strong year.

In 2010, I hope to have a similar success, although I am intending to try to avoid the "tyranny of goals" this year by not setting goals that absorb my every waking moment.

My Year in... Travel

Trips to France and Ireland with the band, plus a trip to England for a wedding, made 2009 a successful year, despite my not wanting to spend money on expensive foreign holidays.

My Year in... Faith

Holding steady. No great advance to speak of, but neither was there any great crisis of faith to report.

One possible weakness is that I have stopped attending church on Sunday mornings (but still go in the evenings). This is mostly because of some serious roadworks, which make the drive across deeply unpleasant; I really don't want to do that drive four times on the Sunday, and neither do I want to spend every Sunday afternoon at the parents' (I love them and all, but I can never get anything done there, even if I take my PC, and I can't afford to waste Sunday afternoons).

My Year in... Health

Mostly, I'm in very good health. Certainly, I'm in much better health than most people, so I probably shouldn't complain. However...

I had to take two days off work due to illness this year. The first was a really bad cold, which had me bed-ridden. Annoying, but something that couldn't be helped, and something that passed quickly.

The second, though, was due to a neck problem that has now been ongoing for ten weeks, which is a real problem. I have been to the doctor and given pain killers and anti-inflamatories, and also some exercises to do, and have been referred to see a physio. So, that's all in hand. Still, it's a real pain, and it just hasn't gone away, and it's a big problem.

With a lot of luck, that will get resolved soon - it's having quite a bad effect on my life generally, and is largely preventing me from exercising, which is having the nasty side-effect of letting my weight gradually creep back up due to difficulties in exercising.

(I will have to do something about that in 2010 - I didn't go through all the pain of losing that weight just to put it all back on again!)

My Year... Overall

Mostly, 2009 was a good year. Actually, in several keys was, it was a spectacular year, of the sort I wouldn't have dared to dream of 12 months ago.

But work... work was a real killer this year. If there is one thing I would change if I could, it would be that. In 2010, I will need to focus on that. (Although, hopefully, it will also improve naturally - my estimates were always that things would be bad until June 2010, so if that is right...)

Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to 2010. I haven't been this optimistic about a new year in a long long time.

Endurance Test

Yesterday, apart from a quick trip to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and a quick trip to Tesco to pick up some wine, I spent the day doing exactly one thing: reading. I started the day some 250 pages short of the end of the compilation of Lankhmar stories, and really didn't want to carry it through into the new year. And so, I can now complete my list of books for last year:

#55: "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook", by Paizo Publishing
#56: "Lankhmar", by Fritz Leiber

Experimental Cookery 'Tuesday' #67: Parmesan Chicken Breasts with Crispy Posh Ham

This was an odd one. The original plan was for me to cook them last Friday. However, due to a combination of not being bothered and also suffering a PC meltdown, I instead had pizza. Therefore, the plan was revised to have them on Saturday. This was then scuppered by PC World.

The revised revised plan saw me cook up the chicken on Saturday (to prevent it from going off), but not eating it until Monday. This worked fine, mostly.

The food came out of the pan looking good enough to eat. However, by Monday it had cooled, and really didn't look appetising. However, I duly heated it in the microwave, and gave it a try. And it was okay - not great, but okay. I suspect it would have been better had I eaten it right away, but even then I doubt it would have been as good as some of the other options in this chapted.

Still, I think that's enough to take this chapter to 6-0, despite this being the weakest entry so far.

Next up is "Griddled Lamb Chops with Chunky Salsa", and then Moroccan Lamb with Couscous". I hope to tackle one of these before Christmas and the other in the week after. Once I've done that, I'm going to leave this book behind due to the remaining meals all being fish.

Experimental Cookery 'Tuesday' #65: Crunchy Garlic Chicken, and #66: Best New Potatoes

I did these a couple of weeks ago.

The chicken was fine - it was easy to make, and tasted good. The only oddity was that they came out green instead of the brown colour in the book. I think this was due to my adding too much parsley, although I only did what the book said.

Anyway, that takes that chapter to 5-0.

The new potatoes were also something of a success, although they could probably have done with a minute or two more cooking. So that would be 3-1 on "Delish Veg".

The Strange Liberation of Loss

After a long, hard week I got home last Friday expecting to have a couple of nice restful days. My game had been cancelled, so I had two full days 'off', during which I was all set to do some light preparation for my Eberron campaign, do a bit of reading, watch some TV, and generally laze around.

Immediately on arriving home, I switched on my PC, then went to make a cup of coffee while it started up. My PC is getting old - it takes several minutes to warm up. I'm sure it didn't used to be so slow.

Anyway, when I came back, I was faced with the horror of a "Windows Failed to Start" message, followed by a cryptic error number.

There then followed a couple of days of messing around, the full horror of which I won't go into. Eventually, I found that the solution was an easy fix - just a bios setting to change. Unfortunately, the setting in question was in a hidden menu that I simply could not access. And so came the ultimate indignity: I had to take it back to PC World for repair!

I eventually got the PC back on Monday, having had the hard disk blanked and the system restored to factory settings. A nice clean slate to work with from here. Since then, I have been busily re-installing software, rebuilding my data, and generally wasting lots of time getting the system working again.

For the past year or so, I kept saying to myself, "I really must get one of those big external drives, and set up automatic backups. It sure would suck if my PC died and I lost all the data I've spent years building up." I kept saying that, and saying that...

About three months ago, I finally bought one of those big external drives, and set up automatic backups. This proved exceptionally fortuitous, as I was thus able to restore all my documents and files after getting the PC back. Huzzah! (And also: bloody hell, that was lucky!)

There's just one minor problem: it seems the the automated backup system does not include email. So, all the emails I have stored since forever (back to my first PC in 1994!) and all of my email contact details, and all of that stuff, is all gone!

I expected to by much more dismayed about this that I actually am. The thing is, while it sucks to lose data, and especially to lose it when I thought it was safely backed up, it's also true that I hadn't looked at most of those emails in years. Indeed, I had folders entitled "From 2007", "From 2008" and "Older" into which I just threw the appropriate emails and forgot about them. So, in many ways, it's a relief to be free of that junk. I wasn't using it, so I haven't really lost anything.

The one thing I did lose was the license key to a particular piece of software I have used only occasionally (but, like much occasional-use software, when I wanted to use it, I really wanted to use it). Even here, though, there's no great problem - they have been able to regenerate and resend the key.

Plus: now my PC is more up-to-date even than it was before the problem hit, and doesn't have quite so much lingering "junk software" lying around. So, really, it might not be the worst thing that has ever happened. Maybe.

Not quite dead

I have fallen behind on maintaining the blog, primarily due to a recent bout of PC problems. Normal service will be restored shortly.

Goals 2009 Wash-up

Last night was the final meeting of my Spanish course. It has been good!

Amongst other things, this completes the last of my goals for the year. So, as promised, here is the wash up, followed by some thoughts.

• Super Secret Goal #1. Complete.
  
• Super Secret Goal #2. Abandoned in April.
  
• Books. Complete.
  
• Weight loss. Complete.
  
• New skill.The Spanish course finished last night. However, a new course starts in January, which will pick up where this one left off.
  
• Car fund. Complete.
  
• General finances. Complete.
  
• Band. Complete.
  
• The house move. Complete.
  
• TV. Complete.
  
• RPGs. Complete. We have actually managed to get together for three whole sessions of the Warhammer campaign (including two in a row!), and should be getting together for another on Saturday (three in a row!). Additionally, I have started up a second campaign in Falkirk, meeting on almost alternate Tuesdays.
  

And so, there it is. Ten complete, and one abandoned. Frankly, I consider that a rather spectacular result for the year. Some thoughts:

• The tyranny of goals: For about six weeks there, I was juggling about six different goals concurrently, and so found that my every waking moment, and almost every waking thought, was dedicated to one or another of these goals. This was not a terribly pleasant experience. Next year, I'll either not be setting so many goals, or I will time-limit them so that there is a limit to how many are running at once.
  
• That one abandoned goal. Circumstances required that that goal be put on the back-burner indefinately. However, that goal is still important, and is therefore something that is going to have to be one of my main focuses for next year.
  
• Once a goal is finished. I have barely read anything since completing that goal. Since coming off the diet, I haven't been anywhere near as rigourous about what I eat, and have regained more weight than I really would have liked (though not a disasterous amount). The amount of TV I watch has gone up and down over the course of the year. In all cases, I have taken the view that once a goal is done, it is done. However, there may be an argument for some goals being considered ongoing matters, and not to be neglected once the (usually arbitrary) target is reached.
  

Goals for next year?

Well, I will have some. I even have a couple in mind. However, I don't as yet have anything concrete. And, frankly, given how busy I am and am going to be, I'm not sure I will really be able to juggle goals on top of that.

First Sunday in Advent

Yesterday was the first Sunday in Advent, and so I promptly went all Christmas-y. To that end, and having completed a rather nasty cleaning job on the apartment, I proceeded to put up my decoration.

I have also donned my Christmassical Trevor t-shirt once more, and have started work on my festive beard, making an heroic return after its year in the wilderness. I felt there was a need to return to the traditional fripperies of the season.

Experimental Cookery Tuesday #64: Pork Kebabs

I did indeed do the Experimental Cookery Tuesday last week, but just never got around to updating the blog with the results. I've been absurdly busy.

The short version is that the kebabs were quick and easy to make, and they tasted much as I would have expected, which was quite nice. Also, I managed to avoid poisoning myself, which is always a plus.

That's really all there is to say about that. Next up is "Crunchy Garlic Chicken", which I'll actually be tackling on Friday as I won't have time tomorrow.

Uh-oh

Apparently, Swine Flu has reached my place of work. This is not a good sign.

One advantage we do have is that the office is not air conditioned, which should hamper the spread of the virus. Also, the person involved caught the symptoms early, and has promptly isolated himself. Still, it doesn't bode well.

That said, I suppose if I have to catch it, it would be better to catch it before Christmas, rather than over the break. That would suck.

But not tomorrow. I refuse to get sick before tomorrow.

Gaming Revisited

A couple of months ago, I blogged about the cancellation of the regular Saturday game, and how I suddenly found I was no longer "a gamer", so much as "someone who games occasionally". I also said at that time that I found this entirely unsatisfactory.

So, not being one to just accept when things aren't right, I set about fixing the problem.

To that end, and after some investigation, I set up a Meetup group dedicated to D&D in the Falkirk area. This has proven to be a success, meeting and (perhaps) exceeding my expectations. The second meeting is tomorrow night, during which we will probably kick off a new D&D campaign set in Eberron.

There's just one problem: in amongst all the chaos, I've been so busy that I haven't had time to do more than jot down a few very basic notes for the outline of the campaign. I didn't really want to have to run the first session without proper preparation, but it does look like this may well have to happen.

At the same time, my Saturday game seems to have found itself a new lease of life. After a couple of false starts, we finally managed to get together for a game two weeks ago, and then again on Saturday. It's starting to look like the interest may be starting to come back there, and we may be able to pick up the pace again.

Of course, that means I now have two full campaigns to juggle, two sets of players to manage, two sets of characters to challenge, and two sets of adventures to prepare. And that on top of band practices twice a week (and probably bag packing most weekends), my Spanish course, and then a trip to the Squirrel Ballet. Plus, somewhere in there I am supposed to do some Christmas shopping.

Life is quite hectic at times.

Christmas Lights and the Environment

In pretty much every town centre up and down the country, you will now find they have put up their Christmas lights, which are lit for several hours every night. They're quite pretty, and generally rather nice (despite it not being December yet).

They are also, fundamentally, a waste of large amounts of energy.

So, here's the thing: if the powers-that-be are really, truly as worried about climate change as they keep telling us, why is this waste of energy acceptable? Sure, it wouldn't be much fun to ban the lights... but it would be rather less fun (I imagine) to find the world becomes uninhabitable.

(I expect the likely response to this is that they'll claim the lights are used in a "carbon neutral" manner - they've offset the cost to the environment by planting some trees, or paying for China to build a cleaner coal power plant, or something equally silly. The problem with this argument is that carbon offsets are a big con, a way for people to salve their guilt without actually having to give anything up. If they're really, truly as worried about climate change as they claim, they should be paying the carbon offsets and not putting up the lights either. In fact, they should then be using the money saved on all that power they're now not wasting to pay for more carbon offsets. A Christmas present for the whole world, if you will.)

Experimental Cookery Breakfasts 12: Fresh Fruit Platter

I finally got around to finishing off the breakfasts chapter of Jamie's book.

To be honest, I think it was a bit of a cheat to have a 'recipe' that was essentially, "Get some fruit. Put it on a plate. Add yoghurt. Eat."

Still, never mind. It was nice enough.

That concludes the chapter at 7-5 in favour. (Yes, I had to go back and find that number.) The result would have been much better, except for all the many eggs. I think my favourite was the smoothies, while the loser was clearly one of the eggs. But which one? We hates them all... I think the omelette, purely because it was more hassle than the others.

I have now moved my secondary bookmark to the start of the soups chapter, and will probably work through that chapter gradually. Between now and Christmas, I also intend to tackle the remaining half-dozen 'meats' in "Quick-Cooking Meat and Fish", and then I think I'll retire this book and move on to something else.

(Incidentally, I've noticed that this is beginning to turn into "Steph/ven's Food Blog". That's not really my intention. However, at the moment my internet connection is down, so I'm trying to do the minimum online I can get away with without letting tasks just pile up.

Experimental Cookery Tuesday #63: Spanish Style Griddled Steak

So, another Tuesday means another Experimental Cookery. This one almost didn't happen - I was late in due to traffic, and had to go out again fairly quickly (more on that later). Still, I checked the book, and it claimed to be a 5-8 minute cook-time (6 minutes in practice), so I decided to go ahead.

I'm glad I did. The preparation for this one was a breeze, and it cooked very quickly indeed. The results were also rather impressive. I particularly enjoyed the peppers, although was a bit less impressed with the chillis, which were extremely hot.

Anyway, that makes for another success, taking this chapter to 3-0. It also confirms my opinion of the buttered spinach - I was going to try that again, but didn't have time. As a result, I had a handful of spinach raw, and it was rather better than the results of cooking it.

Next week is pork kebabs, which could be interesting...

Experimental Cookery 'Tuesday' #61: Perfect Roast Lamb, and #61: Baked Carrots in a Bag

I tackled the fourth and final roast dinner last night. It proved to be a rather stressful experience, especially when I dumped the entire contents of the salt shaker on to the meat. Still, it all turned out okay in the end.

The lamb turned out to be okay. As with pork, I find that that largely comes down to the choice of joint used; beef and chicken appear to be much more consistent. Plus, it all seemed to be rather a hassle.

However, the baked carrots were far more successful. Indeed, these worked extremely well. This was good, as I had been somewhat unhappy with the results of roasting them - they seemed to come out burnt more often than not.

Anyway, that's the "Family Roasts" chapter finished, with a 5-0 success rate. There are now only a few weeks left before I'm going to have to face up to the army of fish dishes that are at the end of the book. (Or, I might abandon it at that point. I really don't fancy ten consecutive weeks of fish - that's the very thing I wanted to avoid by working through the book sequentially!)

Edit: I forgot to note - that's us up to 2-1 on the "Delish Veg".

Experimental Cookery Tuesday #59: "Grilled Beef with Hourseradish Sauce" and #60 "Buttered Spinach"

So this week we have a two-for-one: the second of the "Quick Cooking Meat and Fish", being "Griddled Beef Fillet with Horseradish Sauce", and the second of the "Delish Veg", "Buttered Spinach". It made for quite an exciting cooking experience, let me tell you.

This was all very quick and easy to prepare. The spinach took about four minutes to cook, the beef about fifteen (start to finish). However, when it came to the actual eating, it was something of a mixed bag. It seems that the cook times for the beef were a little off, or perhaps the book had assumed thicker steaks than I was using. Either way, instead of coming out medium to well done, the steaks came out as being very well done. Mostly, this was fine, but it was something of a surprise.

Unfortunately, the spinach was nowhere near as successful as the beef. Simply put, it had far too much salt, far too much pepper, and far too much garlic, which totally overpowered the taste of the spinach itself (which, let's face it, wasn't that nice anyway). So, that was something of a disappointment.

The end result of that is that we'll count the beef as a 'win', but the spinach as a 'loss', bringing the "Quick Cooking Meat and Fish" to a total of 2-0, and the "Delish Veg" to 1-1. Next up should be "Perfect Roast Lamb" on Sunday.

#54: "Pathfinder: The Sixfold Trial", by Richard Pett

What Steph/ven Read Next...

It's a funny thing: as long as I had so many goals running, I found myself constantly looking forward to getting them finished and off my radar, and thus having an opportunity to relax more. As soon as I finished off most of my goals, and got the opportunity to relax more, I found myself drifting aimlessly and being unsatisfied at not getting anything done.

Since reaching my target of 52 books, I have eased back on the reading quite a lot. I didn't ever actually stop, but due to the nature of the books I have been reading, I haven't actually managed to finish anything, and so haven't updated the blog to that effect.

I have decided that, between now and the end of the year, I really want to "clear the decks" as far as accumulated reading material is concerned. I have had a number of books sitting on my "to read" pile for some months, or even years, and it is time to clear this out. The books are as follows:

• "Lankhmar" by Fritz Leiber. This is a compilation of the first four Lankhmar stories (and is identical to another compilation, "The First Book of Lankhmar"), which I got a couple of years ago as part of a "classics of fantasy" kick I was on at the time. I never really got around to reading it, largely because I couldn't be bothered.
  
• "Elric" by Michael Moorcock. This is another compilation, but does at least appear to include all the Elric stories. I got this at the same time and for the same reason as the previous book, and similarly never quite got around to reading it.
  
• "Forest Mage" by Robin Hobb. This is part two of a trilogy, the first part of which was okay but not spectacular (good enough for me to try another book by the same author, obviously). And, again, I just haven't ever mustered the enthusiasm to read this one.
  
• The "Conqueror" series by Conn Iggulden. I picked up this trilogy because I saw it on offer in Asda, so got it cheap. As this is one of my current favourite authors, I actually want to spread these out - I don't know when he'll be writing another novel.
  
• The "Pathfinder Core Rulebook" from Paizo Publishing. This is a massive book that I'm working through rather slowly.
  
• "Pathfinder: The Bastards of Erebus" and "Pathfinder: The Sixfold Trial", both from Paizo Publishing. I get a book in this series delivered every month, and have built up a slight backlog. These are the first two designed for use with the new Pathfinder game, hence the delay in reading through them.
  
• The "Pathfinder Bestiary" from Paizo Publishing. Finally, the monster book for the Pathfinder game, which I picked up on Saturday.
  

My revised 'reading goal' for the rest of the year is to clear off all the books from this list, with the exceptions of the Conqueror series and the Pathfinder Bestiary. This will allow me to proceed into 2010 without carrying the baggage of a large number of books to read. To that end, I'm currently reading "Lankhmar", the "Pathfinder Core Rulebook" and "Pathfinder: The Sixfold Trial". After "Lankhmar" is finished, I'll move on to "Forest Mage", and then finish out the year with "Elric", all being well.

I haven't yet settled on a reading goal for next year. I'm not sure whether to go for "another 52 books", or to tie it to a list of books, or perhaps a list of authors, or even perhaps to just not have a reading goal at all. I'm also leaning towards setting a writing goal for next year, but I'm not sure about that either.

#53: "Pathfinder: The Bastards of Erebus", by Sean K. Reynolds

Experimental Cookery Tuesday #58: Pan Fried Glazed Pork Chops

It's been a couple of weeks since I've done one of these - it's not that I've abandoned the experiment, but rather that I just haven't had a chance to do the roast lamb that is, by rights, the next thing on the list. Plus, I didn't really fancy skipping on to the next chapter, "Delish Veg".

At length, I decided to skip ahead to the "Quick Cooking Meat and Fish" chapter. The first item in this rather long chapter being the aforementioned pork chops.

Well, they certainly were quick-cooking. And the results were fairly agreeable - I have no complaints. The only thing is that I'm really not a big fan of pork, and while this was nice pork it wasn't really enough to change my mind.

Still, this one does enough to score 1-0 in favour in the chapter.

Incidentally, there are a total of seven unfinished chapters left in the book. The roasts chapter and the breakfasts chapter each have one outstanding entry, and then there are "Simple Soups", "Delish Veg", "Quick Cooking Meat and Fish", "Classic Fish", and a chapter on sweets. I have decided to omit the "Delish Veg" and sweets chapters from the experiment - I'll try these when opportunity arises, but won't work through them entry by entry. I do intend to complete the rest, though. (Unfortunately, the "Quick Cooking Meat and Fish" chapter ends with several fish dishes in a row, and is then immediately followed by "Classic Fish". This means that the book ends with exactly what I had wanted to avoid - a couple of months of nothing but fish. I foresee a certain amount of badness coming up.)

Hidden Costs

I've ranted about this before, but how on Earth can low-cost airlines possibly justify their pricing structure?

I am in the process of booking up my holiday next year. This involves flying from either Glasgow or Edinburgh (or, I suppose, Prestwick) to La Rochelle, probably via Southampton. So, off I go to FlyBe (or EasyJet, or RyanAir, or wherever - they're all much the same), and put in the details, and lo and behold, they offer a flight from Edinburgh to Southampton for £1.56.

That's not a typo.

Fantastic, I think, I'll get and book that. And so I do.

Only, as soon as I select the flight, the total cost in my Basket increases from £0, not to £1.56 as you might expect, or even to something reasonably close to this. With "fees and taxes", it jumps to £51.56.

That's also not a typo.

And, in fact, since I'm booking four flights for two people, and each person has to check a bag for each leg of the journey, the total cost comes not to the £80 I had estimated (one leg advertises at £26. The others were all about £2.), but rather to just under £600.

I wouldn't mind so much if these were, realistically speaking, avoidable fees. But they're not - you have to pay tax, and although you can strictly-speaking avoid the "booking online" fee, you can only do this by incurring a higher "booking by phone" fee.

Basically, it's a lie, and not even a small lie - £520ish isn't exactly pocket change. (And, of course, I didn't even get to the "credit card" fee that you also can't realistically avoid, or the "use the toilet" fee, or the "check-in online" fee, or the higher "check-in in person" fee, or the "silly hat" fee, or any of the others. It all drives me crazy - tell me up front how much it will really cost, so I can make an informed choice!)