Stuff I Want

Updated: December 4th, 2011

I keep having these flashes. They are brilliant. They tell me that people don't actually know what I want for (insert gift-giving excuse here). I can go the old-fashioned, "I'm sure you'll think of something" approach, or I can just break down and tell you what to get me. The latter is entertaining, but unsurprising, and the former is a grab bag. An occasionally wonderous grab bag, true, but still a grab bag. Being the snake that I am, I'm going to, instead of either choice, create and hopefully maintain a list of Stuff You All Can Get Me When You Need An Idea. If you know just the thing I want, great, but here are some things I actually definitively desire. I'm even making some sort of halfhearted attempt to maintain it now and again, just so that it's useful for future giftgiving, as well as to future generations who want to see what kind of people their ancestors were. Yes, this is more than a temporary list of gifts - it's an anthropological document. One that will ring through the ages, in fact.

Ahem.

Note also that I have many book requests (this is just a current snapshot). However, these days I'm going almost entirely e-book (epub format), so it's more likely that a gift certificate at an epub bookseller will be better than a real book. I'll still take real books, though. I'm not proud.

Sorted roughly in order of my desire for them.

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+ I desperately wish to do hang gliding. Money towards classes or equipment (or just classes or equipment).: Flying has long been a dream of mine. I started to take hang gliding classes years ago in California, but ran out of money before I even got the beginner's rating. Recently I learned that there are actually places around here I can go for this. Will wonders never cease?
+ Books by Sheri S. Tepper - Marianne, the Matchbox, and the Malachite Mouse - ideally epub.: For some reason, the books in this series are old, obscure, and amazingly expensive. I didn't honestly expect anyone to get them for me, but I got the second book in the series last year, so I keep asking.
+ By Donald Westlake: Nobody's Perfect, Good Behavior, Drowned Hopes, What's The Worst That Could Happen?, Thieves' Dozen. All ideally in the epub format. In fact, any Dortmunder novel in epub format will be great - I lack all electronically.: Donald Westlake wrote comedic crime novels (among other things) that are all worth reading, and I want to read / own the rest in the Dortmunder series. Local bookstores keep lacking them, however.
+ A tablet computer of some kind, one running Android if possible.: Android tablets aren't out yet, but I'd like one. I don't need a data plan - I can happily run it on wifi and avoid monthly charges. iPads are acceptable but not preferred.
+ The time-traveler's aid t-shirt.: You can't be too careful when it comes to being thrown into the past.
+ A video game from 2001 called Anachronox.: I'd never heard of this game before, but I found a reference to it online and looked it up. Looks deeply entertaining. You can get a planet as a travelling companion. Intrigued.
+ By Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman: How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them -- A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide.: Recommended to me as an infrequent writer. It can't hurt.
+ Any game from Board Game Geek's top 100 or so that I don't already have. Of the ones currently in the list, I already have Puerto Rico, Dominion and Dominion: Intrigue, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Cosmic Encounter, and Citadels.: Board Game Geek is a wonderful thing for those of us who like playing games. I'm a bigtime gameplayer, and if you find a game that I a) enjoy and b) don't have already, you've got a surefire winner. Note: for any game not on the top 100 list, ask first, as I have probably far too many games and get more all the time. It's an addiction. Make it casual. Slip it into conversation. "Oh, your birthday is tomorrow? In a totally unrelated note, do you own WarHamster 40K?" I like board games, card games, roleplaying games, video games, and basically anything else in the game category except for sports games. You could have guessed that, I'm sure. Since I still have friends who have more games than I - Pace, I'm looking at you here - I crave more. It's a disease. I like it.
+ Icehouse Pieces.: Icehouse pieces are sets of small pyramids in three different sizes and a variety of colors. The idea is that they're game pieces for new and interesting games created by anyone who wants to create them, and there are a lot of Icehouse games out there - my favorite is one called Mondo. I've got a couple sets of Icehouse pieces, but that's not enough for Mondo playing. (There was at one point a Mondo pack, which would be ideal, but just more pieces would be just fine.)
+ An old video game called Neverhood.: Another game I used to own that's vanished. Maybe I'm haunted by a spirit with really good taste.
+ Any Pixar films, either the short ones or the long ones.: There never has been nor will ever be such a thing as a bad Pixar movie.
+ The DVD set for Clone High.: An old cartoon about a high school where all the great figures of history had been cloned and were being educated. The little bit of it I saw was surprisingly funny, and now it's all out on DVD.
+ An Xbox 360.: I already own many video game consoles (Super Nintendo, 3D0, Playstation, N64, GameCube, Playstation 2, and Wii - I am obsessive/compulsive at times), but one more is always welcome.
+ Almost all movies written by Charlie Kaufman - Synecdoche, New York, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. (I already have Being John Malkovich).: Charlie Kaufman, judging from the movies he's written and/or directed, is a very strange and disturbing man. Luckily, I highly enjoy very strange and disturbing movies, so it all works out for the best.
+ An obscure movie called Schizopolis.: Another very strange and disturbing movie, this one by Stephen Soderburgh.
+ Another obscure movie called Waking Life.: A beautifully rotoscoped movie about lucid dreaming. If you haven't seen it, do so - it's thought-provoking and random.
+ What Do You Care What Other People Think?, by Richard Feynman (ideally in epub format).: Richard Feynman was a great physicist and a very funny guy.
+ Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter (ideally in epub format).: Enough people have told me that this will change my life that I have given in. I'll read it, my life will be changed, and maybe then they'll stop bugging me.
+ Geek Confidential, Rick Klaw (ideally in epub format).: There are things on my list that I have no idea who recommended to me, but am curious about anyway. This is one - a collection of essays about the art of bookselling (which is supposedly much more entertaining than it sounds).
+ The Narbonic print collections (ideally all at once - on the page it says "Bonus: Order all six books together, and I'll do a little sketch in each copy in addition to signing them.").: Narbonic is / was a long-running webcomic involving mad science, genetics, computers, guns, and general wackiness. The only reason this isn't higher on my list is that they're still available online for reading at any time I want, but I'd still like to own them in dead-tree form to get some money to the creator, Shaennon Garrity, who richly deserves it.
+ Meet The Robinsons.: A Disney movie of time travel and family. The time travel is inconsistently handled and I saw the ending coming a mile away, but I still enjoy it.
+ King Missile CDs, not including Happy Hour, King Missile, Mystical Shit / Fluting On The Hump, and the Way To Salvation.: I once made a music video in high school for a class project for "The Story Of Willy". Ah, memories.
+ Dan Bern CDs, not including Fifty Eggs.: Dan Bern is proof positive that you don't need a singing voice to be a singer. Still, he makes me laugh.
+ Voltaire CDs.: Geek / goth music - a combination that was meant to be.
+ Ziggens CDs.: "Cowpunksurfabilly" music. "The cheese in Wisconsin can grow 10 feet tall - we'll all sit around and we'll make ourselves a ball..."
+ Snakefinger / Residents CD - A Collection of Songs Written and Produced with The Residents 1978-1980.: The Residents have disturbing music to begin with at times, and this CD in particular haunts my sleep. Anything that I have this much trouble getting out of my head must be good.
+ A CD that I doubt anyone can find called Buy Product - Revealing Songs From 20 Underexposed Artists. Good luck. I'd love you if you found it, but good luck.: I used to own this, but it vanished in The Great CD Disappearance Of '01 Or So. Pity - a lot of good music. I found it the first time in a used CD bin somewhere, and haven't seen any sign of it since then.
+ Really good food.: If you get me food that's amazingly food, either from a restaurant or from your own cooking, you've got a friend and possible servant for life. (Offer of servitude void if you are not my wife, as she will complain.)
+ Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction, ideally in epub format.: Something else that I don't know where it came from but am too curious about to take off this list.
+ The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy, ideally in epub format.: Good SF / F short stories make me happy.
+ Turing Test: A Coffee House Conversation, by Douglas Hofstadter, ideally in epub format.: Sort of a follow-up to the above Godel, Escher, Bach in my mind.
+ The Mismeasure of Man - Steven Jay Gould, ideally in epub format.: No idea what this is - I think I want it because I like another author by the name of Steven Gould, and they keep getting conflated in my head. Hmph.
+ Mono Puff CDs, not including Unsupervised.: One of the Johns from They Might Be Giant's side project band.
+ Spider John Koerner and Willie Murphy CD - Running Jumping Standing Still.: Recommended to me by an author in a book I like. Still, the same author turned me on to two book series that I now adore, so I'm willing to take a chance on this music.
+ Stand up comedians on CD or MP3 - I have a bunch, but I can always use more.: Basically, I like laughing. I don't know why - it's an inexplicable involuntary gasping / choking sensation, but I still enjoy it.
+ Oddnesses.: If there's something out there that makes you look at it and say "Guh? What the hell?", I'll probably enjoy it. I'll make annoyed noises if it's particularly annoying, but I really like it. Just so you know. If it makes you smirk _and_ say "Guh?" that goes double. I have strange friends. It is one of the joys of my life.
+ Gift certificates or cash.: For the uncreative, you can always just let me make my own decision about what I want for insert-giftgiving-occasion-here. Or you can just hand me your credit card. I don't mind! Really!