Wrapping things up in Vancouver

It's been really interesting as I have raced to get through various things here in preparation for the move.  Things are really winding down.  I've given up on the idea of doing the Grind again.  I'd like to figure out a way to bike in Stanley Park, but I'm just not really seeing that happen.  (Maybe it will be an incentive -- if everything is completely done by Thurs. evening, I will take Friday afternoon off (it is supposed to be nice) and ride to Stanley Park from the office.)

I did get a fair bit done today, but it meant dropping things off in charity shop bins and selling CDs to basically the only store in town that still pays cash (Neptoon).  So I am behind where I wanted to be in terms of the final rounds of boxes, which means that I will be packing on Canada Day instead of relaxing...  Well, it could be worse, and I'd have to take all this time off work.  I was annoyed to 1) run out of tape while trying to seal up boxes and 2) to not have any spackle compound, so I'll need to drop by Home Depot tomorrow around lunch time.

I've completely cleared out my queue at Burnaby Library.  For some reason, one book was never actually released to libraries (it's been on order for months).  I believe the only way to get a copy is to go to the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, which is frankly ridiculous.  It's the catalogue for their Mexican art show.  The book is by Nicola Levell and is called Marvelous Real: Art From Mexico.  I'll just have to try to do ILL from Toronto one of these days.

For the Vancouver Library, I have 4 items out, all going back over the next couple of days.  I really thought I would get the DVD of the Dallas Buyer's Club from them in time, but it looks like I will be a few days short, so I will go way to the back of the line in Toronto.  Sort of on the same lines, the library just did not process Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love in any kind of reasonable time frame.  I would actually have been better off going through the Burnaby Library.  As far as I can tell, the Toronto Library doesn't have Cassavetes' Love Streams in the system (yet), so I might actually not be too far back in that queue once it gets entered.  I'm assuming that since it is put out by Criterion, they will eventually get it in their collection.  Or I can look into an actual DVD stores (a few more seem to be hanging on in Toronto compared to Vancouver).

In terms of things that should have been in, but went missing and couldn't be traced, there are just a few things:

• Britten Death in Venice (CD)
• It Came From Beneath the Sea (DVD)
• 20 Million Miles to Earth (DVD)
• The Time of the Doctor -- Dr. Who (DVD)
• Globalization and Transformations of Social Inequality (will try ILL)

Perhaps the single most annoying library thing (aside from the Levell book, which is certainly not the library's fault) is that there was some vaguely interesting paperback title by an Indian author.  I wrote it down but the slip got lost.  Burnaby is odd in that adult paperbacks are not in the system by title, so I can't just ask them to point me to the list of the paperbacks they were recommending.  They have no idea.  I spent quite a bit of time trying to track it down and found a bunch of recent Indian and Pakistani literature that looks quite interesting (if only my TBR pile wasn't already so absurdly long).

In the course of this search, I found this article, which I will definitely return to some day.  Of the top 25, I had read 7 so far.  I have to report that I weakened and ordered All About H. Hatterr by G.V. Desani, as it sounded so unusual.  As for the rest, if I ever do get to them, I will try to be strict and just go through the library.  Here are the ones that looked the most interesting to me (from these lists and elsewhere):

• Train To Pakistan by Khushwant Singh ✓
• The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor ✓
• One Night at the Call Centre by Chetan Bhagat ✓
• Love and Longing in Bombay by Vikram Chandra

I suppose at some point, I will come across that book again (or even the slip of paper with the title), but there is no point in getting hung up over it when I have many years' worth of books still to go.  On that front, it does look like I will finish Two Solitudes before the move (but I'll review it in July) and maybe one or two half-read books.  I'll probably kick off the Toronto commute with The Tin Flute.