Thursday, December 31, 2009

Last of the "Decade"*

Thus ends 2009. Thus continues more waffle

Been working on the Quiz Book. In fact, on a paranoid whim, I decided to reverify the 200 pages I wrote almost two years ago. And verify it HARDER than ever before.

However, it appears my past self is slipshoddy with the facts.

Turns out I had dodgy typing fingers or wibbly transcription skills. I have misspelled many a funny foreign/book/binomial name and got various birthdates/publication dates all squiffy. So corrections are the order of the day. Mindnumbing corrections.

So yeah, that was merely boring administation because I am in a very boring place where it takes a hour to do every single page: rechecking, rewriting, even replacing. This is the very meaning of bogged down.

But 'tis better to get it right than to look at the publishing thing and scream my head off for evermore about missing an "i" from the scientific name of the Bluff oyster (phew ... that was close).

Oh God. More Bloody Lists.
I was going to do some lists (fave 2009 movie: Inglourious Basterds; (predictable yawn) fave LP: Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective, with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix coming very close behind) and all but the decade ones (2000-2009), as in Top 50 Books, Top 100 Films, Top 100 Albums, Top 100 Songs, Top 50/50 Loves/Hates can come in January - you know when the year 2009 is over. Tsk, all these places doing them a month before the year has ended. It's very very naughty. And presumptuous.

So let's have a sufficient 2010 - don't want to hope for too much ... hoping for losts is bad and mildly delusional - try [still just about] this year's New Statesman quiz without making critical comments liable to make me go suffer from a case of temporary batshit insanity.

*Yes, 2010 is the last year of this decade. I guess. That's what people say. Sometimes I don't believe them.