a guided tour of nadirland

[Zenith Nadir]

I forget how exactly the topic was breached, but I was in #rawr yesterday and Ler asked me if I bought video games a lot and I said "not really, i like commix lol" and he was like "WHAT LIKE THE ARCHIE SONIC BOOKS XDDDDD" and i was like "no, more like STRAY TOASTERS"

So in between this, and the fact that I'm heading out of the country for the better part of a year in a couple of weeks, and having been thinking of doing something like this for a short while I decided why not, whipped out a digital camera and whizzed around my bedroom snapping anything that looked at me funny, with special focus on my bookshelves.

Before you read further, download this: http://zzt.org/nadir/roomphotos.zip . It's 10.7MB because the images are very high resolution, so you little people (ones with dialup, that is) may want to give this a miss.

Done it? Good! What follows is notes on each picture. The pictures start at my computer and go clockwise around the room.

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1. Wait, I guess I lied. This is the shelf OVER the computer (you can see a little bit of monitor below). Each unit is conveniently segmented into five areas. They are mostly single-volume graphic novels (as opposed to book series, see pictures 12 & 13) apart from the ones on far right; the ones on the top shelf are anthology titles (Solo, Flight, Bizarro Comics and Epic Illustrated), the ones on the bottom shelf are Dungeon and Usagi Yojimbo (best known for being the samurai rabbit in that one episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). I'm sure you can see the majority of the titles yourselves, but if you can't.............. just ask.

2. The Great Machine. The backdrop is taken from a desktop thread on digitalMZX. Not really much to say here. There is a printer/scanner. I need a bigger desk. The stuff on top of the tower is tape and stuff I have listed on eBay.

3. The computer from a different angle. If you look at the IRC display closely, you will notice that it is Drupe Day in #rawr. Note the Catbus pencil case and the Ghibli/Pixar DVDs, Invader Zim bootlegs (pretty much the only way you can get ahold of it on DVD here, there's no chance of a Region 2 release) and various CDs including GWAR, Tool, Godflesh, KMFDM and Placebo. If I have more than four CDs by one artist or band, this is where they go!

4. A shot of the south wall. Unfortunately the tassel hanging off my overhead light seems to have absorbed much of the flash from the camera, so this is a pretty dark shot. This is mostly to show that there is a south wall in the bedroom, and not some kind of swirling void. The cow poster is there because it reminds me of the transitions in Earthworm Jim 2, which used a 16-bit version of the same picture, wherein the cows smiled at you and said "Well done :)",

5. Like the file says, door and chair. And a Spellbound Dizzy poster. I used to have a lot of free posters out of cheap Codemasters games when I was like eight years old, but this is the only one that's survived this long. Anything else worthy of comment is covered in other photographs, so let's move on.

6. I have these odd "tick" shelves in here for some reason. This one is the one you can see the left end of in picture 5. Not much to say here really, Sin City books at the bottom, with some other books. Worthy of note: Neotopia, Scott Pilgrim, Courtney Crumrin-- again, you can probably make out the titles yourselves. Domo-kun guards these books jealously.

7. Following on from the bottom of the previous picture, Hamtaro pencil toppers. I bought these off of eBay for purely ornamental purposes, which they have so far ably fulfilled. I daren't take them out of the package, I'd never be able to get them all in again!

8. Think of this picture as a transition between 7 and 9. Most worthy of note here is the Knuckles toy- I've never seen one of these anywhere else, which is strange. Some similar, perhaps... but they are inferior. This guy is like, some sort of plush supremacist. He rules. Also, to the right is a snake carved from a coconut husk. I got this while in the Carribean several years ago. His name is Harvey.

9. This black shelf stores the majority of my manga. Most of these are pretty atypical, if I may say so myself- probably the closest thing to "conventional" manga I own is Silent Moebius. The plain white books in the top-right corner are Achewood books. Yay for Achewood.

10. Bottom half of the black shelf. The stuff on the bottom is all western comics; pretty much all my superhero stuff is here (apart from a few hardcovers which we'll come to soon). I guess I like Wolverine and Catwoman a lot, but I never follow characters. Also seen here is a mess of Slave Labor humour material, like Bear and Evan Dorkin's stuff. The black books on the far right are... bank statement archives... ugh...

11. Deep perspective shot of my CD rack. Whereas the rack in photo #3 is mostly DVDs with some CDs, this one is the opposite. DVDs I keep here are films, and British comedy like Spaced and Brass Eye.

12. THE BIG SHELF. Holy crap, this shelf is big. The top shelf is where I keep my really big stuff, like hardcovers. The ones with big fat MARVEL banners are the rest of the superhero stuff I mentioned earlier. The rest is a little higher-minded; I'm sure the inclusion of the two Love and Rockets hardcovers (Locas and Palomar) will redeem the lack of social worth inherent in reading stories about spandex-clad musclemen hitting each other. Also on the top shelf is X/1999 vols. 1-18, stacked vertically because there's TOO GODDAMN MUCH to fit on a shelf anywhere. Second shelf down has art books on the far left, then shelf one of two shelves containing "series" titles (stories spanning two or more books).

13. The bottom two shelves following on from the previous one. Not much to say here. Bone (left) caught more camera glare than I would have liked. The top shelf in the picture completes the series shelves, the bottom shelf stores syndicated strip archives (Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes and a little Dilbert), more art books (the EBOY book being the most obvious), MAD, some larger-sized one-volume graphic novels that wouldn't fit on the shelf in picture 1, and several thousand pages-worth of 2000 AD paperbacks (most of the right third)

14. To the north of the room is a window. The blinds are closed because it's night-time. Many of you have probably asked yourselves at some point, "How does that rapscallion Nadir sleep at night?" The answer is, in the bed pictured here. In the top-right of the photograph is a signed drawing of the British comic book character Desperate Dan, which I have had since 1990.

15. The second tick shelf, and another KMFDM poster. Whereas Domo-kun rules the small books with a tyrannical jackboot, the big turquoise smiley face reigns benevolently over the anime DVDs. Maybe they'll go to war soon. Anyway not all of these are anime, that begins with Azumanga Daioh and goes right. The rest are Western animation, be it British or American.

16. I am not actually a big fan of System of a Down (they're alright but not my favourite by a long shot) but I sure do like this poster!

17. Directly beneath the SOAD poster, between my bed and computer (note the DELL tower to the right) is where I store clothes. But that's boring, so atop that is my CD player and some assorted toiletries. The CD currently in the player is PAIN - REBIRTH, which is really good. I would describe it as City-era Strapping Young Lad, though not quite as loud and sweary.

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And so we return whence we came. I hope you have enjoyed our little tour. Please pay on the way out. I guess the ultimate point of this post is;

a) to show off
b) to advertise all these cool things that are dear to my heart that nobody else seems aware of, boo hoo, please Google any titles you may be interested in

r+r please :D

[Ando]

now i know

where you sleep

[Schroedingers Cat]

So in between this, and the fact that I'm heading out of the country for the better part of a year in a couple of weeks...

YOU'RE LEAVING THE ZZT COMMUNITY?! What sad and troubled times we live in.


...


You're leaving to run for the United States Presidency, aren't you? Here's proof: Zenith "Ralph Nader" Nadir is running for president. Be prepared...

[Zephyr]

He's going to Poland. Notice the book labeled "Polish" in the last picture.

How's the language coming, anyway?

[Ryan Ferneau]

Oh, Polish, not polish!

[Aplsos]

he's going to poland, to polish polish poles

[Zenith Nadir]

now i know

where you sleep

you sure do

YOU'RE LEAVING THE ZZT COMMUNITY?! What sad and troubled times we live in.

i'm sure i'll find a way to at least stick my head in for updates once in a while! i couldn't just up and leave, zzters are cool dudes.

He's going to Poland. Notice the book labeled "Polish" in the last picture.

How's the language coming, anyway?

apparently i don't need to actually KNOW any polish when i first get there, but i intend to at least make a slight effort. so far though, the only word i've managed to memorise is "miasto", which means town or city!

[Quantum P.]

Where are you going to stay?

[Dr. Dos]

"WHAT LIKE THE ARCHIE SONIC BOOKS XDDDDD"

Fuck you :ler:

[Zenith Nadir]

Where are you going to stay?

gdansk, hopefully. at first i gravitated towards that choice because of house of leaves (anyone who's read it will know why), but it actually seems like a nice, interesting place to go. plus it's a port town on the baltic sea so once my time is up come june it won't be too much hassle to "do" scandinavia if i so desire. i intend to go to helsinki to buy some more of that arabia moomin crockery. that stuff rules!

alternately, i'll be in elblag, which is only about 30 miles from gdansk. either way i'll likely be operating in the north-west, but we'll just have to see how i'm placed by the agency.

anyway this is not the point of the thread, maybe i'll start a new one later so you can all pay tribute to a great man (me). books!!!!!!!!!!