So I managed to read 52 books this year, a little down on the last couple but not to bad

( Books read in 2011 )

Particularly good books were a trilogy by Jo Walton, Fathing, Ha'penny and Half a Crown which was a well written post WWII alt history crime thriller, Mira Grant's Deadline which was a fantastic follow up to Feed a post zombie apocalypse thriller and Zoo City by Lauren Beukes a very evocative noir style PI novel set in a weird Jo'burg where people who have committed a crime are animaled gain a companion animal, Zinzi is a finder with a Sloth who is asked to find the brother from a brother and sister pop duo in order to find the money to pay her dealer

Anyone know a good Dim Sum restaurant in central London.

I have been reading reviews but every place seems to have as many bad as good so not sure where to try.

Originally posted by deathpixie at Signal Boost: Return of the DDoS

So our yearly subscription to Cineworld unlimited switches over again so this is a list of what we saw at the cinema in the last year

( Films seen in 2010-2011 )

We didn't do to badly, with 40 films seen it comes out at £4.12 a film before you add the £1.50 3D supplement, even with that we don't hit the current film ticket price of £8.30 a go

Particularly good films this year include

Inception
Social Network
True Grit
Rango
Limitless

I suspect that there are other shows you could do this for but still clever!

So I managed to read 68 books this year, the full list is under the cut

( Books read in 2010 )

The stand out titles included the final in the Chaos Walking trilogy, of Monsters and Men a fantastic but depressing end to a great series, The entire Hunger Games Trilogy was great and Chris Wooding was a great discovery with Retribution Falls and The Black Lung Captain following a crew of of Airship Pirates, the dynamic has a very firefly feel to it and they are enjoyable stories. Finally I started yet another gripping series with a novel called Feed by Mira Grant, this is set some time after a Zombie Apocalypse following a brother and sister pair of bloggers following the presidential campaign, I read the book as it was part of a book club challenge expecting another run of the mill zombie story but it was very compelling, one of the first books in a while that I would choose to read rather than doing anything else.

I also point people at calico_reaction who is a great blogger who reviews mainly genre (fantasy/sci-fi for the most part) fiction and has pointed me in the direction of several interesting authors and courtesy of a competition she ran I won a book which was even better

As my boss has broken his arm I am now going to the BGI in Shenzen on Tuesday.

I have to give a short talk and possible chair a session.

I also have to get a visa when in Hong Kong so the first night I get to spend on my own in Hong Kong

hopefully this will be lots of fun, its also a more than a little scary

A year ago last weekend myself and rms finally bite the bullet and got cineworld unlimited cards which give you unlimited access to normal movies at any non London cineworld and very small premium to pay for 3D films

This has led to a great year of film viewing

( Films we saw in 2009/2010 )

In doing so we average about £4.5 a cinema ticket which is considerably less than the standard price especially as it recently went up to £8 an adult ticket.

Its meant we have seen some great films which we probably wouldn't of seen otherwise probably the best film in that list is Moon which we had to see at the Picturehouse and pay full price for but as it was such a good film I don't regret it. The best film we saw at the discounted rate is probably UP which is such a gorgeous romantic story which made me sob buckets behind the 3d specs.

We also saw some films which were good but I probably wouldn't of seen if not for the pass like 500 Days of Summer or 4,3,2,1

I definitely recommend the pass for anyone who lives near a cineworld

Myself and friends from work are running the in Race for life again this year

Any Sponsorship would be gratefully received

Here is a trailer for the next season of true blood which starts in the states in a couple of weeks

It looks just as terrible and entertaining as the last one

Extended True Blood Trailer

I made it home yesterday, In work today unfortunately

hope everyone else is well

Well I made it to Madrid, just need to wait and see what the next step is, currently looking like a very long train journey to Brussels and then hopefully the eurostar

In case anyone is wondering I am fine in a lovely Riad in Marrakech.

Don't quite know when I will get home though and depending on what the flights do the journey could be interesting.

I might need to go to the new town and see if I can get a jumper or a couple of tshirts in Etam or somewhere similar as I never thought I might need to spend 48hrs traveling through europe. I also need to find a bookshop selling english novels as I am already nearly through 2 of my 3

see you all soon I hope

The curious difference between the UK and the US Doctor Who trailer

Interesting scifi wire post with the two trailers, the US one is definitely more action but the UK one doesn't take long to catch up

Lost is soon to restart in the UK and the US and ABC have done a special recap. Quite funny

I managed to read 71 books this year

The full list is under the cut

Here are my highlights
( Lindsay Davis', Falco Series, fantastic noir detective stories )

( The Extremes, Christopher Priest, a great thriller )

( Heart Shaped Box, Joe Hill, a wonderful ghost story )

( Santa Olivia, Jaqueline Carey, a coming of age tale )

( Chaos Walking series, vol 1 and vol 2, Patrick Ness, a fantastic young adult series of novels which looks at gender differences and growing up and how dire circumstances can deeply alter people )

These are all great books. I thoroughly recommend anyone reading them.

( Books read in 2009 )

An entertaining 20 questions based website for characters real or fictional

http://uk.akinator.com/

Came from Neil Gaiman's Blog

The lovely folks on downsizer gave us a gift certificate for kiva for our wedding.

Kiva is a micro-finance organization who help small micro finance banks around the world loan money to people to who need it to do things like buy bikes to commute to work or build a toilet or fix their roof but wouldn't otherwise be able to get help from a bank

I have just got my first set of repayments and its so exciting, another round and I should have enough to loan more to someone else, the minimum contribution is $25 and when its paid back you get to loan it again its a great way to help people in need