Another Word for Nerd

Houston recently opened a Goodwill Computerworks location. I was very happy to see this because I missed my weekly Saturday browsing sessions at the Austin location.

Last week, I picked up a great load of books:

- Murphy’s Law
- The Elements of Programming Style (both editions)
- COBOL With Style
- FORTRAN With Style
- Programming Proverbs for FORTRAN
- Programming in VAX-11 C
- Software Tools
- The C Programming Language (first edition, two copies)
- UNIX System Administration Handbook (first edition, yellow cover)

Today, i went back to pick up a book about BCPL for $2, and while walking towards the cash register, looked down at the tub of PS/2 mice.

Sitting there on top of the pile like the king of the hill, was a Logitech Trackman Marble FX trackball!

I grabbed it, hurried to the register, paid the $8, and brought it home. “Hey honey! I have a surprise for you!” Amy turned around, and I handed it to her. “OOH! It’s so.. shiny…. I told you flowers were overrated!”

Only in a nerd household could a ten-year-old trackball be worth more in karma points than a dozen roses.

Just finished a data migration project at work that took up a lot of weekend and evening hours, and this is the first weekend I’ve really had “to myself” in the past two and a half weeks.

I’ve been reading a lot, and even picked up MORE Mack Bolan books at my new favorite used book store here in Houston, Quarter Price Books. Check them out if you’re tired of Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Half Price Books and just want the fun of browsing through stacks and stacks of stuff that isn’t remainders and unsuccessful titles.

The second box of books arrived this past Monday.

At least, half of them. I’m hoping another box with the remaining 85 books shows up on Monday.

I think I’m set for at least a couple months when it comes to reading trashy male action/adventure novels.

On Friday, I won this auction: “Executioner w/Mack Bolan by Don Pendelton – 154 issues”

Of course, now I need to find a cheap way to build some paperback-only bookshelves.

A recent discussion brought back to mind one of my favorite hobbies through the years – reading trashy “male testosterone action/adventure” novels like the Mack Bolan “The Executioner” book series.

I had a good collection of the first 25 books in the series back in the late 80s and early 90s, and would pick them up whenever I found them at flea markets and used book stores. When I lived in Austin from 1996 to 2004, I got my “fix” from a neat little used-paperbacks-only book store on Burnet Road called Book Exchange. I think I still have a lot of trade-in credit left on file there from when I cleaned out my garage one weekend…

Now that I’m in Houston I’ve been unable to find any neat little “hole in the wall” used book stores that carry tons of paperbacks and the “male adventure novels” I look for. Half Price Books is good for sci-fi and everything else. They carry plenty of romance novels (the Mack Bolan series is published by a division of Harlequin) but none of the actual Bolan series or spinoffs.

So far it looks like my only option is to rebuild my collection via eBay, but if anybody that sees this knows of good hole-in-the-wall used book stores in Houston, please let me know via email or comments – and if you’ve got a box of Mack Bolan books in the back of a closet, get in touch.

It appears that things featured in Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash are coming to life – specifically, someone is trying to build The Raft:

HONOLULU — A coalition of community groups in Hawaii is hoping to convert a retired Navy ship docked at Pearl Harbor into a floating homeless shelter.

I finally found the title and author of a book about the development and adoption of the M16 rifle that I’d read in high school (thanks to the helpful staff at the Anadarko Public Library, who tracked down the book that was still on their shelves).

It’s The Great Rifle Controversy: Search for the Ultimate Infantry Weapon from World War II Through Vietnam and Beyond by Edward Clinton Ezell.

Unfortunately, I can’t find a used copy for any less than $120 (looking on Amazon and Abebooks). It will just have to go on my “pick it up one of these days” list, and I’ll continue to look for a cheaper copy.

Update: I did manage to pick up a copy of The Black Rifle: M16 Retrospective last week, written by Ezell and Stevens. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m building an AR-15.

I read with sadness that Robert Anton Wilson passed away this morning.

He was co-author of The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which messed with my head in a most enjoyable way during my first semester of college back in 1993.

I’ve long been a fan of zombie books. I’ve read all four of David Wellington’s “Monster” novels, as well as the four “Infected” novels by David Moody along with anything else I can get my hands on.

Based on a recommendation, I recently picked up “World War Z” by Max Brooks (son of Mel).

Hands down, this is one of the best “zombie” books I’ve ever read. I can’t put it down (I’ll finish it tonight, for sure) and am looking forward to the movie version coming out in 2008.