Just in time for you to copy my nominations*, here's my ballot, with a few notes:
Best Novel:
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - All the awesome
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab - Cool setup, great characters, fun read
Uprooted by Naomi Novik - Was a bit light (felt like YA), but a great read
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie - It's a bit boring to nominate the 3rd book when the first two both got noms (and the 1st won), but this was the best of the three. Another great read
I am normally skeptical of tie-in works, but this one was excellent! Though it brought *ALL* the feels to the top, still a great read!
Short Fiction:
I only read two, so deciding what to nominate was easy!
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor - A fascinating story, and it opened me up to learning about the Himba people, which was even more fascinating
Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer by Megan Grey - This was incorrectly nominated last year, but it was still a great read. A surly teen and a surly, retired demon are enjoyably surly together!
* If you have a working time machine
You flirt a bit, but then you fall in love, you make a decision, you make a commitment, and you stick with it. Sure, you're tempted by that hot new thing in your eyeline, BUT YOU MADE A COMMITMENT. And this relationship, through its ups and downs, it buoys you. I knew this. But then everything changes.
I was always a Canon guy. My photo-Yoda, Jim Veneman*, backed me in my choice. And then, this week, I threw away a relationship of more than 30 years. Sure, I'd dallied with Panasonic**, but we all knew that was just a meaningless fling. Point-and-shoot, it meant nothing. But this? A DSLR? That? That was some serious shiz-nit.This isn't a dalliance, this is CHEATING. And, dammit, I'm ok with it. I'm sorry, Canon, but I've moved on. I'm a Nikon guy. At least for now.
Photos to come!
* Seriously, he's amazing
** Like a different area code or being in Vegas, It doesn't count
US News & World Report partnered with a brand management firm and Wharton (the business school) to whip up a ranking of countries, presumably so that upper and middle class American kids can choose their next citizenship the same way they do their colleges.
Germany came in first (no arguments here), and while that was exciting for me (a German resident), it made me wonder how they were ranked. The methodology has its own page, and after patting themselves on the back, you get this:
"A set of 65 country attributes – terms that can be used to describe a country and that are also relevant to the success of a modern nation – were identified. Attributes by nation were presented in a survey of more than 16,000 people from across the globe where participants assessed how closely they associated one with the other."
So, what these really are is a ranking of how people perceive the countries. This explains why Uruguay, which gets 95% of its electricity from sustainable sources, ranked 33! in the "Best Countries for Green Living". Of course, doing this hand-in-hand with a brand management company should've been a dead giveaway. This isn't ranking reality, THIS IS RANKING PERCEPTION. Rankings are like computer data: Garbage in, Garbage out.
Some web surfing brought me to a blogger based in the 'dorf, GiveForGranted, specifically her post about her bucket list. I started one while I was home last year, but hadn't followed up on it. So, I am blatantly copying her post (which, to be fair, is not the only one of its kind)
- Sell my house
- Go skydiving
- Go bungee jumping
- Run a marathon
- Play well again* in an ultimate tournament
- Visit every country in Europe
- Visit every state in the USA
- Visit every populated continent (I'm counting American-style with 7 total N/S America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Antartica, which has enough trouble without me)
- Visit the Tatooine sets in Tunisia
- Visit the new Star Wars location in Ireland (Thanks a lot, The Force Awakens)
- Visit all the former Soviet Republics
- See the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World (not sure what to do about a few that are completely gone)
- Pick a list** of 7 existing wonders and see them
- Visit Angkor Wat
- Visit Machu Picchu
- Visit Easter Island
- Visit all the US National Parks
- Cross a country by bike
- Cross a country by car
- Backpack across a country
- Ride a hot-air balloon
- Learn to scuba dive
- Learn to snowboard
- (Re)Learn to ski
- Catch and hold green waves
- Brew my own beer
- Finish writing a novel
- Write an app(pplication, platform isn't important)
- Fall in love (again)
- Run a marathon
- Read Ulysses
- Read Infinite Jest
- Smoke at a coffeeshop in Amsterdam
- Take a cooking course in Italy
- Stand on the equator
- Learn to ride a skateboard
- Do a fjord cruise
- Drive around Iceland
- Achieve Elite status on Elite/Oolite (childhood goal!)
- Return to Taiwan
- See Victoria Falls
- Go on a 1 week backpacking trip
- Ride a Vespa in Italy
- Work in a vineyard during harvest
- Start my own company
- Lead a tour group
- Hitchhike
- Do a weekend biking trip
- Take a running tour of a city
- See Petra
- See Cobá
- See the paintings at Bonampak
- Volunteer at an archaeological dig
- Visit Rift Valley
- See paleolithic cave paintings
- Visit a FIFA men's World Cup
- Be asked for, and pay, a bribe to cross a border
- Visit Tokai
- See an F1 race in person
- Watch Messi play in person
- Go to a USA-Mexico match in Azteca
- Go to an England match in Wembley
- Visit Pompeii
- Attend Carnival in Rio
- Take a Nile cruise
- Visit the Smithsonian
- Watch a Supreme Court case
- Watch a debate in Congress
- Shave my head
- Take a Segway tour
- See one of the Ring Cycle live
- See an Opera at La Scala
- See da Vinci's The Last Supper
- Ride the Trans-Siberian Railway
- Ride on the outside of a train
- Go hunting
- Climb a volcano
- Stand on the 4 Corners
- See a solar eclipse
- Learn Morse code
- Swim with bioluminescent algae
- Spend a night in a desert (of the natural, rather than the moral, variety)
- Visit New Zealand
- Successfully eat a gimmick spicy food (hottest curry)
- Visit North Korea
- Leave North Korea without going to jail
- Run with the bulls
- Jump off a waterfall
- Go on a safari
- Go to an airport/train station without knowing my (long-distance) destination
- Get married
- Visit the Galapagos
- Take a culinary tour of a city
- Tour Chernobyl
- Visit Baikonur (during a launch, if allowed)
- Heckle a comedian
- Do stand up
- Go sailing with my mom
- Shoot the moon in Hearts... after announcing that I'm going to do it (the technical term for this is "dickbagging")
- See the Forbidden City
- Visit the ruins of Karakorum
- Eat insects (other than those preserved in booze)
* Former teammates are free to argue the validity of the word "again"
** There are a bunch of these floating around, so I need to pick one. Or two.