Phewww

Luckily, Christmas and Mr. Estepheia's birthday happened without a glitch. We didn't feel excessively festive but we had lots of visitors and plenty of food.

We always have too much food because for some reason it would be a catastrophe of epic proportions if there wasn't enough. I guess I was just brought up that way. I was also brought up to tidy up and dust and hoover, but this aspect of my gender-related brainwashing never took hold.

Mr. Estepheia is now the proud owner of the LotR special edition with all the extra scenes, some cinema vouchers and a few other gift vouchers which he plans spending on CDs.

This morning we played one of our new boardgames, namely a brand-new variant of The Settlers of Catan (one with a prehistoric theme). I lost by a margin, because of a risk I took combined with just a bit of bad luck. I'm afraid I complained most of the time. But it was a good game, very well-balanced. If I don't complain about a game then it's boring and not worth playing. I am not normally that competitive, but when it comes to gaming I am obnoxious and people have to develop a certain selective deafness.

It's Katharina's birthday on Saturday, but the party is on Sunday. At least I don't have to organize a party for the 31st. For the first time in years we've been invited to a party. Yay!

On reading...

It just occurred to me that I haven't read a book from cover to cover in a long time. I'm stuck in Jim Butcher's Fool Moon (because part of me feels I should wait for the James Marsters read audio book - here's hoping!) and Dori's Buffy tie-in These Our Actors (which annoyed me because the re-telling of the Cecily/William scene from FFL is based on the script rather than the episode itself - the gender of the 'aristocrats' is wrong). I've been wanting to read The Eyre Affair (I forgot by who), because I thought the idea sounded entertaining, but although it's lying next to my bed I haven't even looked at it.

I was given a few new books for Christmas, a Sean Bean Biography and A.S. Byatt's Booker prize winning novel Possession (which came with strict instructions to read it ASAP, before the movie comes out here in Germany). Then there's David Lodge's Small World (apparently a post-modern whodunit based on the Parzival-legend but in an acedemic setting). Now I can't make up my mind what to read first.

I still have two essay collections to read, that deal with BtVS and AtS. Perhaps I should spend less time Livejournal hopping.

I find LJs extremely fascinating. All those glimpes into other people's lives, marriages, families, hobbies, jobs - I feel like I'm learning something every day. While I enjoy discussions on fanfic and Buffy and Firefly, I am just as interested in personal tidbits. However, I do notice that I have less time to read and post at other boards or to just sit down and read a novel. Every few hours I have to check what the online community is doing.

From several posts in my friends list I could see, that I am not the only one who feels kinda naked without an Instant Messenger and a bunch of people to chat with or new LJ entries to peek into. That's strangely reassuring...

Firefly

Some of you may remember that a few weeks ago, before Firefly officially got cancelled, I mentioned a German SF magazine that unjustly slagged off the show. I am not sure if I mentioned it, but I sent them a letter, defending the show. Well, I just bought the mag and - lo and behold! - they printed it.
Not that it makes any difference, but Firefly does not deserve getting a bad rep just because the writers of that mag dislike the Western elements, preferring Sci Fi with bigger guns and boring aliens.

I totally forgot to mention, that the Jayne icon was taken from jess79's site. Thank you, Jess!!!