I had a much longer post—witty, erudite, filled with surprising and transformational insight into the human condition—which was eaten by the revised blogging software and resulted in a heated feedback message addressing in detail why things should be let the heck alone. But, you know engineers, they love to change things. Of course, in this case, the god damned computer center feel is appropriate.

November's behind us. As the first rankings came in on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I thought it might surpass the current leader, The Hunger Games (9.29 out of 10), but the second half of the voting pulled it down. December's title is The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack  by Mark Hodder. It's also the last of our tradition of members picking a book for their birth month, at least to be read in that month, thanks to this year's growth in attendance. A couple of ideas are floating around about how to proceed (back to the Jar of Doom, hand-to-hand combat, etc.) including a couple which would give everyone a chance to select a title, in birth order, not by month. Some of that we'll hash out via email this week and get a selection for January as well. That'll give me a chance to get copies on hand in the store before December's meeting.

While looking forward to all that, what else? There's always the Green Lantern movie, as well as Captain America. 2011 should bring A Dance with Dragons, though nothing's guaranteed on that front. What is, however, is the premiere of HBO's adaptation of A Game of Thrones. A pictorial preview was in last week's Entertainment Weekly magazine and on their site.

Speaking of magazines, Realms of Fantasy has survived another near-death experience and will continue publication. One begins to wonder if they shouldn't switch exclusively to zombie stories.