I went to Half-Price Books today and liquidated a $50 gift certificate; since everything in the store is 20% off today and tomorrow, I actually ended up with $60 worth of books. Here’s what $60 gets you in used reading material:

Brin, David: Kiln People
Ellison, Harlan: Angry Candy
Faulkner, William: As I Lay Dying
Irving, John: The World According to Garp
Lethem, Jonathan: Gun, With Occasional Music
Niven, Larry: The Integral Trees
Pohl, Frederick: The Other End of Time
Sedaris, David: Me Talk Pretty One Day
Watson, Ian: The Embedding
Willis, Connie: Future Imperfect (Uncharted Territory, Remake, Bellwether)
Willis, Connie: Lincoln’s Dreams
Wilson, Robert Charles: The Perseids and Other Stories
Zelazny, Roger: Four For Tomorrow
Zelazny, Roger: Home is the Hangman

I also picked up new copies of this year’s Pulitzer winner, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, and an enthralling-sounding Dickensian steampunk novel, Perdito Street Station by China Miéville.

Suggestions on what to read first are welcome.

I’m home in America, it’s great, I’m tired. I somehow managed to play nine hours of Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga during a three-hour bus ride and ten-hour flight, so the time passed fairly quickly. I saw Return of the King this afternoon and ate fajitas for dinner, so number one and two on my to-do-in-America list have been taken care of before I even get my first night’s sleep. Not bad at all.

Thanks to everyone who requested mix CDs; I’ll be burning and sending those out over the next few days. Quite busy, actually – so no more requests, please!

Chris Tilton: please resend your last e-mail; it got deleted in a webmail snafu.

I just finished production on a new mix CD – two of them, in fact, loosely connected to each other. And I have exciting news: thanks to the magic of a winter break in the states, I’ll be sending out free physical copies of these CDs to anyone who wants them. HOWEVER: I have to burn the CDs before I leave Japan, as I won’t have access to a CD burner in the states, so if you’re interested, please, please, please, e-mail me ASAP. If you’d like a physical copy of HARUMAGEDDON or any other mix CDs as well, please mention so in your mail. But try not to request the entire back catalog at once if you can help it.

As usual, the cost of receiving these mix CDs is nothing but feedback on what you liked and what you didn’t. Is that so much to ask? (No.) Disc one, “Feels Like Home,” is quiet, meditative, and restive. Disc two, “Running and Confusion,” is far more energetic and rocking, but has a small undercurrent of darkness (but not, unfortunately, the Darkness). The track listing of the discs is as follows:

Disc One: Feels Like Home

1. Cocco – Hoshi no Umareru Hi

2. Tracy Chapman – Fast Car
3. Paul Simon – Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes
4. The Magnetic Fields – Asleep and Dreaming
5. The Decemberists – Red Right Ankle
6. Dave Matthews Band – #41 (Live)
7. Iron and Wine – Such Great Heights
8. Final Fantasy X-2 – Kuon ~Hikari to Namida no Kioku~
9. U2 – Luminous Times (Hold on to Love)
10. Tori Amos – 1,000 Oceans
11. Vagrant Story – Shinjitsu
12. Annie Lennox – Into the West
13. Basement Jaxx – Feels Like Home

Disc Two: Running and Confusion

1. Radiohead – Anyone Can Play Guitar

2. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Zephyr Song
3. Talking Heads – The Lady Don’t Mind
4. David Bowie – New Killer Star
5. British Sea Power – Fear of Drowning
6. Big Boi – Flip Flop Rock
7. Interpol – The New
8. Pearl Jam – You Are
9. Blink-182 – All of This
10. And You Will Know Us by The Trail of Dead… – Source Tags & Codes
11. fra-foa – Kirameyuku Mono
12. Cocco – Drive You Crazy

Though I enjoyed making my past few discs, I feel that they sometimes focused on the theme and message to the point where they could be hard to listen to. One of my major goals this time was to make discs that were just fun and pleasant to listen to, and I’m really happy with how they turned out. Just send me your shipping address and I’ll see if I can’t hook you up over break.

It’s hard to describe what a Japanese man covering his favorite English rock songs using nothing but his own voice sounds like, so you should probably just visit the site for yourself.

The test has come and gone. It was fine enough, as soul-destroying standardized tests go. A bit harder than I might have hoped from past examinations, but isn’t that always the way? I’m not positive I passed, but I’m not convinced I failed, either. Results come in February; I’m doing my best to forget about it until then.

I came home to a special Sunday delivery of big boxes full of US DVDs and games – thank you, Joe and Fritz! I have a lot to choose from, but I started tonight with the English Space Channel 5 Part 2. If you own a PS2 and don’t own this game, you are a terrible, terrible human being. Seriously … it’s $15. There’s no excuse not to own it. “I hate happiness” is the only possible explanation – and playing Space Channel 5 Part 2 will fix that soon enough!

The word “oyatsu” means “snack” in Japanese; though usually written in hiragana, the dictionary reveals that the word originates from the counter (and kanji) for the number “eight.” So it’s rather incongruous that the dictionary goes on to define “oyatsu” (“eight”) as “elevenses.” Let this be a stern lesson to us all: British English is not actually English.

I recently got embroiled in an online argument about how much CDs should be worth in this digital day and age. The results of that discussion were inconclusive, but I think that everyone can agree that this woman’s work is slightly overpriced.

I appear to have burnt out three days early and accomplished absolutely no studying today. Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be filled with more inspiration. It’s just that everyone has done such a good job of telling me not to stress out and that this test isn’t important that, well, I’ve started to believe them. Thus: slacking.

I want to play Baten Kaitos and Wild Arms: Alter Code F. Is that weird? I thought I was mostly done with Japanese RPGs, but these both look like they might be interesting. I also preordered Donkey Konga in a fit of pique. You’re talking to a man who owns Minimoni Shaka to Tambourine – it was probably inevitable.

Between those three games and the on-their-way Final Fantasy X-2 (English), Space Channel 5 Collection, Mario and Luigi, Ratchet and Clank 2, Beyond Good and Evil, and Castlevania … I shouldn’t have any trouble slacking off at all.

Saitama University is not, as I mistakenly assumed, in Saitama. It’s in Tokyo. Surprise!

It’s a bit much to have the test starting at 9:45 in the morning, I think. There’s only a few test locations all over Japan, and it’s a bit of a hassle to get there so early – I’ll probably have to head out and stay in Tokyo the night before.