Happy happy

[flemmings]

A man do need to make at least one bet every day, else he might be walking around lucky and not know it, someone said. And a woman do need to drop into the Blue'n'white Used Bookstore at least once a week, else there might be something she needs there that she doesn't know about.

Like a discovery in the outdoor dollar bin, Old Irish Paradigms and Selections from the Old-Irish Glosses. Not because I'll ever study Old Irish; I can barely remember a thing from Modern Irish Gaelic almost thirty years ago. But because it gives the Irish glosses on Latin texts, both quoted in full, to demonstrate verb mode usage, and how unbearably cool is that? ("Geek!" screamed the pigeon, "geek! You're a geek, I know that well enough!")

And then there's a paperback copy of Willey's The Well-Favored Man, so I can give paleaswater back her hardcover. Also the usual idiotic 'reminiscent of Zelazny's Amber' argh. If a guy's done it then that's the definitive version, end story, even if a woman does something only vaguely similar and much better.

And The Second 100 Chinese Characters, in the Traditional form (they also had the Simplified but pah! I read my subtitles in trad.) "...it's slim and light weight so it's easy to carry around so you can practice on it when you have a few moments to spare waiting for the train (or what have you)." In a word: restaurants.

Passed up an original copy of Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, which I never expected to see in the flesh, and some Thrilling Tale of two plucky English boys who go to rescue their father who's being held for ransom in North Africa somewhere. World enough and time: the Blue'n'white will be there tomorrow. With the second-hand copy of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon they were pricing while I bought my books.

(Which probably has the same wonky area as the DVD of Hero I bought last April the day before my operation and viewed too late to return for a refund. Wonky area of course is smack in the middle of Uncle Ming's fight with Broken Sword.)

Comments

[incandescens]

Of all sad words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are: "if only I'd gone into the bookshop that day, I wouldn't have missed those books..."

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Of course, generally, if you don't go into the bookstore you don't know the books are there. Sadder is going in and dithering do-I-don't-I and then deciding don't and then changing your mind later on. No secondhand book is ever there when you go back for it.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

So so very true ... I think I said it once ... and sadly never again hence my perpetually poor purse! ^__^

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

Ohh, thanks for the link to the Chinese characters book! Looks useful!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Nothing you don't already know, but I find writing hanzi restful, and they give you the simplified as well in a small box on the side, should one want to relate the two, visually or kinetically or any other way.

[shiny-monkey.livejournal.com]

Hm, I have a copy of Hero, but I'm pretty sure it's not Region 1. If you have Region 2 capability, I will happily lend it to you so you can see the scene ^_^ If worse comes to worst I'll whisk me + laptop to you and you can watch it on that! (laptop being set permanently to R2)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Region 1 and only region 1. It's not badly boked, just stops and starts all the time. No matter. I've seen the thing before and it's not Uncle Ming at his best either. It's just not having it handy at need that irks.