books, music, candles (mine) and drama (not mine)

today i ate lunch at riva’s with the potts. after that, i dropped by half price books and then yankee candle. three of my typical lower-cost vices were purchased: books, music, and candles. here’s the haul:

• a confederacy of dunces – john kennedy toole (wing books)
• cyberpunk: outlaws and hackers on the computer frontier – hafner and markoff (simon & schuster)
• garfield minus garfield – davis/walsh (ballantine)
• persepolis 2 – marjane satrapi (pantheon)

i bought confederacy because it was a hardcover version of the book with a cover design i like (unlike the current hardcover versions i see around). it’s a 23rd edition of this version though, so don’t get too excited. i bought cyberpunk because it was a first edition hardcover. not because it’s a well-written, accurate book. 🙂 it is kind of a classic of the genre though. i’m pretty sure i have a softcover around here somewhere. and finally, the garfield book is just brilliant. remove garfield and most everything except jon arbukle from the strips…suddenly jon is sad, lonely, and schizophrenic. it’s true! and having been a single working man for most of my adult life, i completely understand. this book version is nice because it gives you a smaller version of the original so you can compare them. and last but not least, persepolis 2. i bought the first one a few years ago when i was perusing comic shops for interesting new things. that phase waned, so i never knew there was a second one. a couple of years later they made a movie version of it. i went to see it and quickly realized i hadn’t heard a lot of the story. that’s when i learned there was a second book. well, i finally picked it up. it’s the story of the author, growing up an iranian woman in both iran and europe, dealing with the iranian government and religious fervor and life. the movie is animated, and they did an amazing job of making it look like the artwork in the comics. check it out, it’s beautiful and interesting.

• aphex twin – classics (pias america)
• aphex twin – come to daddy (warp / sire / warner)
• joy electric – hello, mannequin (tooth & nail)
• miss kittin – i com (nobody’s bizzness / labels / astralwerks)
• moby – 18 (v2 / bmg)
• tito & tarantula – hungry sally & other killer lullabies (cockroach)
• wilco – yankee hotel foxtrot (nonesuch / warner)

i was kind of surprised to find all of those, except the moby and wilco cds.
in the cd category, but not music, on a lark i picked up a 2 cd set on russian. it’s some low-quality thing i’m sure, but it should at least give me some exposure. it even has pdf manuals you can print out. it’s actually not completely a lark though, because over the weekend i was looking at russian culture here in houston and contemplated signing up for a beginner course in russian they offer. i’ve also recently made a couple of trips to two of the russian stores that are around the meyerland area. having spent a lot of time with the hrc for a couple of years, along with reading work by classic russian authors, i’ve become more fascinated with russia and russian culture. even though the hrc didn’t seem all that interested in her own cultural background, i thought it was cool. so i figure if she’s not going to be around, maybe i should find some way to get into the russian culture that exists here in houston.
and finally we get to the yankee candles. i had a “buy two, get two free” coupon, so here’s what i purchased (all large jars):

• buttercream
• mandarin cranberry
• peppermint swirls
• tropical fruit

now for the drama. saturday afternoon/evening a co-worker had an informal dinner party at his house and asked some fellow workers over. it was a fairly small gathering, and pretty low key. but there was drinking involved, mostly beer and frozen margaritas. one of my co-workers got competitive about his drinking, and went a bit far and threw up a few times (in the sink) right after i made him a nice margarita shot (double) with patron silver, grand marnier, and fresh-squeezed lime juice. (he’d been drinking blackberry merlot arbor mist before that…about 3 bottles.) well, just a bit later he said something jokingly to the hostess about her husband’s activities after work, then she got her purse and left. the host had just drank some patron, so he was mellow. the loose-tongued co-worker freaked out and wanted his car keys so he could go find the hostess. the hostess played it all up and claimed she’d driven into a ditch when they called her cell, and i must admit i sort of fanned the flames some as i tried to keep everything nominal. it was all pretty funny. (though perhaps not to the host and my vomiting co-worker.) once back, the hostess claimed it was my doing for egging the co-worker to drink more, so she made me do a couple of shots. which i did. i like my co-workers that were at the party.
i’m looking forward to this week. if things work out as i’m hoping, i’ve got at least 3 or 4 good things that should be happening…