A couple of mini-reviews of the books I’ve read lately:
Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
The 20th book in the Discworld series (and yes, I’m reading them in order – I find they tend to make a little more sense that way), about average Discworld length, possibly a bit longer than that, and focuses on Death (and his granddaughter, Susan). I tend to prefer the books involving Death, so that automatically makes it interesting for me, but I found Hogfather to actually be a bit creepier than most of the Discworld novels I’ve read. I can’t quite pinpoint why (although it might’ve been Teatime). Reading it now gave an additional “Christmas in July” feel so I’m not sure if it would have seemed less strange and/or more appropriate if I’d read it in December XD;
All She Was Worth – Miyuki Miyabe
This book was written by an author I’d never heard of previously, but happened to pick during a particularly ambitious book-buying spree on amazon. (I have two more books by completely new authors still waiting for me.) I don’t quite remember how it got recommended to me, I imagine it was through a (Haruki) Murakami page. ASWW is a fairly straightforward detective novel, in the sense that the protagonist is a detective and spends the entire time trying to unravel What Happened. Naturally there are some additional scenes, giving background on the protagonist and his life, but that’s generally overshadowed by the investigation and the information learned about the subject’s life and personality. I was a little disappointed that there was no shown confrontation at the end, as it felt a bit like things were left hanging. I suppose you can come to the conclusion that everything unfolded just as the detective had discovered it, and I suppose the motive for the actions was clear enough… but I somehow still prefer to hear it straight from the character’s mouth. It wasn’t a bad ending, just not my preferred one. (Also, the fact that there were at least three or four blank pages at the back of the book didn’t help any, but that’s a publishing/printing choice, I believe.)
I should note that I read these two books in quick succession, as I seem to always do. Hogfather at least took a couple nights to work through, but All She Was Worth was read from beginning to end last night XD; That was unintentional, but not unprecedented. I’m wondering whether to wait a bit before starting on In the Miso Soup or Out (I’ve also got Kinki Lullaby and Jingo but I’m saving those, one because KL’s the last Billy Chaka book and Jingo because, well, I just read a Discworld book.)
I always welcome book recommendations and questions about books that I’ve read! Feel free to leave a comment here, or on my 2010 book list page 
I enjoy last-generation (or last^2-generation) games, as anyone who started on them might, but I don’t feel a burning nostalgia for the Days of Yore in which single games came on multiple discs, or even cartridges that would get dust in them or would generally be fickle so you’d jam it in and wiggle it around a bit before getting it to work.
I like the games, yeah, but the media can go recycle itself.
I understand that vinyl records have a very specific sound quality to them, but I’m not convinced they’re higher quality than digital recordings, or even better quality (I’m differentiating a quantitative “higher” in which bit rates, etc are better and “better” which is less numbers and more of a “the overall feel is nicer” fuzzy kinda logic). I did listen to some records as a kid, most notably some Alfred Hitchcock stories I to this day still do not understand (XD) and some Copland pieces. My father’s digitized most or all of his collection by now, I think.
VHS, SNES, N64, even cassette tapes which I grew up on – I don’t feel any kind of awe for them, or strong emotional attachment. They’re just stuff. Moving the data from one form to another doesn’t make a difference to me – if the bits are intact then the source is the same as far as I’m concerned. Easier to back up, too.
I’m not saying I dislike all physical media, because I can’t quite seem to move away from tangible books, but media that’s already halfway there to digital may as well be all the way there. (If I had grown up on books that were sold on little cartridges you stuck in a handheld reader I’d probably be perfectly fine with moving away from that, to be honest.) I’m a little wary of digital media that won’t let you back it up due to DRM or other madness, but in general if I can make two or three copies in the event that something happens to the originals, I’m 100% fine with digital-only media.
Physical media just seems to have so many limitations – I’m sure even after I get my Lucky Star box set I’ll probably still watch my sub files because I can chuck them all in a playlist and run them straight through without having to change discs. I might also rip the DVDs and do the same. … Come to think of it, I really ought to do that for other series, too. Anyway, the point is I like to have free reign over my stuff and just let it run… as you might’ve observed by my occasional tendency to stick my entire 10k iTunes library on shuffle and let it fly. XD
So why don’t I own a PSP GO (I’ve no idea how to format that idiotic name) or the DSi?
Well for one, the DSi currently only comes in this awful hot pink (okay it’s not a bad hot pink but I really want light pink, sakura-pink, milky pink) and the LL (sorry, “XL”) exists in black and brown of all colors. (As a side note, why is it always brown? Why not white or blue or ANY other damn color? Are there really that many people who want brown electronics? It looks like it’s perpetually dirty!) Yes, maybe it’s petty but I want cute electronics and I will not bend! Years of nothing but black, grey and that hideous cream that every single computer tower seemed to be made out of in the 90s…. I want COLOR! Okay, truthfully I want pink but you get my point.
Will I chuck out my DS carts when Nintendo handhelds go digital-only? Eh, probably not, mostly because they’re tiny and there’s little point in paying twice for a game I already own. I’ve only got a few PSP games as it is, so assuming Sony doesn’t go nuts with DRM/copy protection I have no issues downloading games rather than buying UMDs.
Do I still buy CDs? Yes, but actually I tend to mainly buy CDs I’m forced to import, which now that I think about it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since I could just buy iTunes cards or something and get music that way… but I think I shyed away from using iTunes too much back when it was full of DRM. I get most of my downloaded English music from amazon.com – I’ll only use iTunes if it’s the only place I can find it. I understand that currently CDs are actually much better quality, but I feel like in the future that might not be the case, if we move away from physical media more completely.
The only media I haven’t moved to digital with is books, something I’ve discussed in part before. The Kindle is not my ideal reader, nor is the nook, although it was an exciting step in the right direction. The format is keeping things too separate – there’s no one universal “book” format that you can easily convert to, unlike mp3s. You can’t download a book from amazon and use it on your nook, or from b&n and use it with your Kindle. It’ll probably take some time before that media war settles down and the consumer gets to win again. So I’m not ready to switch over just yet. It’s tempting, really tempting, but I can’t justify it at the moment.
Plus, you know, I like the feel of books. (But that’s not a very concrete-type argument XD;)