So, way back in high school while looking into the SAT crap (scored a 1300, no studying, when the test still scored out of 1600) I signed up for the A Word A Day mailing list. Over the years since I subscribed, this list has at times made me giggle, made me grin, and sometimes even drove me to hunt down literature I hadn't had the chance to read yet. The times I've mused upon these things has been tagged with vocab in my LJ.

I think the first time the list gave me something other than just another word on which to chew, it quoted me the final passage of The Hunchback of Notre Dame to give context to a word, though I don't remember which one it was. I had seen the Disney movie years before, loved the animation, thought it was cool. I should have known better, the vignette presented in the email painted a very very different ending than Disney elected, typical Disney, no? So I decided I had to go find myself a copy of the book and give it a read. I picked up the unabridged copy, a mistake given that it meant chapters full of architecture, geography, and history of Paris that did nothing to advance the plot, but despite this set back, I still enjoyed the book.

Today, I had the name of a stock ship in the Serenity RPG suddenly illuminated as having meaning instead of just randomly have been picked. Not being a poker player, encountering a ship named "Aces & Eights" meant nothing to me. I just figured someone liked Aces and Eights. Today A Word A Day told me different. A pair of aces, and a pair of eights make up what's called Deadman's hand.

Babyland is playing at the Gilman this Saturday, and I only found out about it tonight because someone posted about it in babyland. I aim to go, but I would like people to go with me. I tossed off an email to a friend, but because he works retail too, I suspect he won't be able to go on such short notice.

Anyone reading this in the bay area interested in joining me for some Babyland? We're talking Saturday night @ 924 Gilman st, Berkeley. $7 for the show, another $2 if you don't have a current Gilman membership. Starts at 8p, Babyland will likely be on near midnight. I've seen one of the other bands before, C/A/T, and they seem cool enough. I don't know the other bands, Floating Corpses, Swann Danger or Everything Goes Cold, but the last Babyland Gilman show was pretty cool, so this one should be cool too.

In other news, one of my new coworkers is a Browncoat, and he agrees with me that one of our managers has hair like Shepherd Book's. It is pretty gorram high-larious. :D

While gawking at some drama llama crap, I ran across an icon reminding me that there will be a super fancy new DVD set for Serenity. I already have the normal release, but it wouldn't take me much effort to find a new home for it. I really would like this nice fancy pants shiny DVD for my birthday, and apparently it releases the day after my birthday. The biggest thing that makes me excited for the Collector's Edition? It'll have the R Tam Sessions on it as bonus features. Woo.

I need to decide who's most likely to actually follow through and buy it for me if I ask for it for my birthday. I don't want to have to return one or more if multiple people buy for me, but then I don't want to ask just one person and not get it. Meh.

So a couple years ago, it was recommended I read a book called Finding Serenity, which contained a group of essays focusing on Firefly. I did as I was told, though I was bad about it and did it sitting in a Barns & Noble without buying it. I did eventually go back and buy a copy because of one essay which offended me so much that I felt I really should write a reply to it tearing it apart (that's still on my todo list).

The last few days I started poking through the book again for the unofficial glossary of Chinese in the series, as I've been working on background story for the Serenity character I put together, awaiting a game to be started which I can participate in. The dialog is coming a little difficult in the story at the moment, so I started getting side tracked, and eventually ended up at the website listed on the back of the book, www.benbellabooks.com. Poking around, I was reminded that Finding Serenity was part of their Smart Pop Books series and ended up at their website for that.

Scanning over the other titles down the side of the page, there are three of these books I'm going to have to get my hands on. The first is The Anthology at the End of the Universe, as I love Hitchhiker's Guide, and some of the essay topics sound fun. Next, I most certainly have to get Farscape Forever! as I am somewhat of a rabid 'Scaper. ^_^ Finally, a book I recently noticed while geeking out on Veronica Mars, and was reminded about when I hit the Smart Pop website, as it is one of their recent ones, Neptune Noir.

There are probably other books in their catalog I'd enjoy reading, but those are the three that stand out and yell "Read Me!"

For the record. The bit with Wash, it isn't so painful when watching with the commentary audio track. Joss is still a bastard.