When I picked up Kit Laughlin’s Stretching & Flexibility after work yesterday, I thought that I should look back at all the things on my wishlist and see how I’m doing. Here’s the summary:

• Subscription to Scientific American Mind. Still open. Shipping costs are increasing at the book shops, making the subscription make a bit more sense.
• Chef’s knife. Check.
• Stretching & Flexibility. Check.
• Book ends. Check.
• Le Petit Prince. In progress.
• Guitar tuner. Check.
• Decomposure – Vertical Lines A. Check.
• Malajube – Le Compte complet. Check.
• Grand Theft Bus – Birth of Confusion / Flies in the No Fly. Neither.
• T Leaf Tea. Lots.
• Sinfest books. Pretty please…

I think we can take an implication from this that I tend to get what I want. Some things have been pushed down the priority list and some things get caught in the spur of the moment and never actually get on the list. All told, I’m not doing too bad.

I wish I could say the same for my list of things to do.

It’s one of the oldest web-comics that I still read. Sinfest had held my imagination and my sense of spirituality hostage for years and has recently come back to retake me. I’m not complaining. However, flipping through the archives is tedious, and given the volume of material, finding anything specifically is a small nightmare. This leaves one option: someone needs to buy me the books. First, second or third – I’ll happily take all three, but it’s okay to start with just one. And if someone is feeling a little overboard, I’d also be willing to put a poster up in my office.

Edit 2008/05/02: Fixed order of links to books…

Resurrecting the wish-list, pretty much anything from T Leaf Tea is welcome. I’ve been getting back into drinking teas in a big way – by the cup, by the pot, as it suits. I’ve got a few small infusers and we have a couple tea pots in the house already, so the best bet would be to aim for the tea blends themselves. I’d be particularly interested in the 6-flavour sampler packs. Being prone to trying anything once, many small packs of anything are fundamentally a good idea.

For those who have this year’s Entertainment book for Wellington, there is a 2-for-1 coupon in there. Note the not-so-subtle hint.

There is a lot of talk going on about the high valuation of the New Zealand dollar against other international players. Blame the high interest rates for that. In turn, blame the stupid property investment market. There’s no end to the why of the matter. So let’s deal instead with what it gives us: cheaper imports. Books and music are expensive in New Zealand. With the proliferation of online shopping from overseas, plenty of options are available for finding cheaper items, including shipping and exchange costs. So, exhibit number 1 is the new Decomposure album, Vertical Lines A. The release date is coming up quickly, as soon as the sun rotates back that way, so hopefully I won’t be waiting too long for my order to get shipped.

Other things on my shopping list:

• Malajube – Le Compte complet
• Grand Theft Bus – Birth of Confusion
• Grand Theft Bus – Flies in the No Fly

I’m not very good at Christmas countdowns. I know people that have been counting down for weeks already. Here it is, December 22 [1], and I’m just getting started. Mostly because today is my last day of work before the break. In fact, it’s not even a whole day. We’re getting kicked out at lunch.

So, with the time between then and now getting a whole lot shorter, I should add a last few items to the Christmas Wish-list.

• Bookends. Yes, bookends. My bookshelf is in desperate need of tidying, and it isn’t overly good at holding books vertically.
• Another book: Le Petit Prince
• A good idea for storing my CDs. They should be easily accessible, but not in the way. And since NZ is kinda earthquake prone, they should be stable, too.
• A guitar tuner would be stupidly handy, and a capo. Both are welcome, so I’ll stay out of the guitar stores for the next few days.

¹ Happy Birthday, Ang. This works, thanks to the magic of the International Date Line

Christmas lists should always contain book lists. This is a start, but I’ll keep the more technical books off of this list. They’re just far too expensive.

• Stretching and Flexibility by Kit Laughlin was highly recommended in my sports massage class, and if anyone needs to stretch more, it’s me.

On arriving home last night, I noticed my favourite chef’s knife on the counter in two pieces. A broken knife is a sad thing to look at, and having finally brought it back to New Zealand with me on my last trip home, I didn’t get a lot of time with it. So the next thing on my wish list:

• A new chef’s knife. The last one was a Henckels, but I can’t claim to be a knife-snob. I just want something with a comfortable grip, good weight and holds an edge for a while.

For anyone interested in sending Christmas presents, I’m going to start a wish list. I’m not planning on crazy-expensive stuff that I’ll never have a chance of getting. I’m thinking of somewhat realistic things.

• A subscription to Scientific American Mind. Even though I don’t understand it all, it’s an amazing read and always interesting. The price gets up there for international readers, but it’s still cheaper than a lot of my IEEE subscriptions