Deals on Things

[Thad]

Humble Forgotten Realms Bundle. Never read any of them; I was more of a Dragonlance kid. But I keep hearing things about this Drizzt fellow.

$1 gets you the Dark Elf Trilogy, the first two War of the Spider Queen books, and the first Lady Penitent book; there's more stuff at the $8 and $15 tiers.

Ain't no way I've got time to read all 23 of these, but if I did read the Dark Elf Trilogy and decided I wanted to read more, is there anything must-read in the $8 or $15 tier?

[Büge]

Humble Forgotten Realms Bundle. Never read any of them; I was more of a Dragonlance kid. But I keep hearing things about this Drizzt fellow.

$1 gets you the Dark Elf Trilogy, the first two War of the Spider Queen books, and the first Lady Penitent book; there's more stuff at the $8 and $15 tiers.

Ain't no way I've got time to read all 23 of these, but if I did read the Dark Elf Trilogy and decided I wanted to read more, is there anything must-read in the $8 or $15 tier?

Wow. There is nothing I want to read in that collection. I clicked on it thinking that it'd include, I don't know, the Moonshae Trilogy, or the Finder's Stone Trilogy, or the Realms Anthologies or anything by Elaine Cunningham or Ed Greenwood. But no, it's all Drizzt or Drizzt-adjacent. Snore.

[Thad]

They Might Be Giants' Flood Live in Australia is free again. Valid email required. They ask for a billing address too but you can probably put any old thing in there since it's a free download.

It's good! It's Flood, They Might Be Giants' most popular album (the one with Birdhouse In Your Soul, Istanbul, and Particle Man), performed live. If you're a fan of the original album, you'll enjoy this as a fresh take; if you're not a fan of the original album, well, it's really quite a good album and maybe you should check out this free live version? It's not the same as the original album (for one thing, the track list is upside-down), but they're good songs and these are good versions of them.

[Thad]

Pulled up NewEgg because I needed some HDMI cables; looks like they've got a pretty good sale on Rosewill cables (their house brand) at the moment. Got three 6' HDMI 2.1 cables and a mini-DisplayPort-to-HDMI cable for about $18 with free shipping.

[Thad]

They Might Be Giants have a two-day end-of-summer sale on. There are some albums in there, and some merch; you might be able to score a cheap T-shirt, but they're sold out of most sizes above Small.

[Thad]

They Might Be Giants have some sales on, all proceeds going to benefit their crew and live band. There are two LPs*, Modern and My Murdered Remains, each available for $5, and a new song called I Lost Thursday, which is pay-what-you-want with a suggested donation of $5.

* digital, not actual LPs

[Thad]

For those who still buy movies on disc: Barnes and Noble Criterion sale is on again.

Thinking maybe some silent films this year. Maybe some Keaton, maybe some Lloyd...

[Thad]

They Might Be Giants Live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg 11.29.15, free for the next week.

E-Mail address, name, and billing address required. E-Mail address has to be valid; the rest doesn't.

[Thad]

Humble has one of those bundles they do where it's a bunch of books from a given genre publisher (Hard Case Crime, in this case), and they're written by big names within that genre, but it's like second- and third-tier works, not the ones they're actually famous for. Posthumously-published Spillane and Westlake! The comic book adaptations of the Millennium Trilogy! Something called "The Stephen King Sampler" that has excerpts from three novels that aren't included in the bundle! A whole lot of banners that say things like "first publication anywhere" and "from the author of"!

And a shitload of really gorgeous Robert McGinnis covers. God damn, look at those. Maybe not at work.

[Mongrel]

Tell me that isn't TOTALLY Lee Van Cleef on the cover of "Two for the Money"

God damn, look at those. Maybe not at work.

Starr: "The True Crime"

[Thad]

As I usually do this time of year, I'm looking at Barnes and Noble's 50% off the Criterion Collection sale.

I think I'm going to splurge and spend $112.50 on the Showa-era Godzilla set, with the first 15 films in the series. And figure out whether this set includes all the features on the Criterion release of the original Godzilla, since I already bought that one a couple years back.

[Niku]

Heads up; it's been going around specifically regarding that set that something with the glue causes it to potentially degrade quickly, and if this happens while you've got it upright on a bookshelf or some such the discs will slip down and get covered in melty degraded glue.

[Thad]

Fun. Thanks for the heads-up. I'll check and see if that's still a problem with recently-purchased copies, maybe hang onto my $120 for another year and see if they get it fixed in future runs.

[Thad]

Following further research: it's still happening; if you ask Criterion for a replacement box they'll send you one but it's the same box with the same problem.

Well, guess that's out. Guess I'll get something else. That Zatoichi box set looks pretty godammit.

...maybe the Bruce Lee set? That looks like it comes in a regular plastic Blu-Ray case.

[Thad]

Washington Post's got a deal on for 99 cents a month for an online subscription or $9.99 for a year.

They've got their problems (looking at you, Thiessen) but among the big national media outlets, they're definitely one of the better ones. I can spare a Hamilton.

[Thad]

There's a sale on for the new 11x14" Terry and the Pirates collections.

$885 for the entire set is way too rich for my blood, but $90 for just volumes 1 and 13 is a pretty good deal.

[Thad]

I just remembered I have a generic 8-disc case just lying around that I'm not using for anything. Maybe I'll get that Godzilla set after all.

...not in stock online? Have to go to the mall over Black Friday weekend to pick it up? Then again, maybe I'll pass. They do another one of these in July, right?

[Thad]

Three They Might Be Giants live albums are currently free:

First Album Live

Flood Live in Australia

Live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg 11.29.15
This one's two sets; for the first set they go back to their original two-guys-and-a-drum-machine setup, while the second set is a more typical modern-day TMBG performance with the full band.

[Thad]

A couple freebies from Tor:

the annual short story collection (requires an account at one of Barnes and Noble, Google, Amazon, Apple, Kobo, or ebooks.com)

Bundle o' Love -- Witchmark, by CL Polk; Silver In The Wood, by Emily Tesh; and All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (requires a newsletter subscription)

[Thad]

Another TMBG sale. Flood Live In Australia is free once again, and this time it's joined by My Murdered Remains.