Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

Some of you might be aware (although probably few of you care) that I have been on the hunt for the perfect beverage for quite some time. My perfect beverage would be one that is caffeinated, carbonated, flavored, and unsweetened. I have searched for many a long year, but my faith was finally rewarded. hi-ball energy water meets all the standards of my list of ideals, AND has taurine and b-vitamins. <3 <3 <3

In other news of no particular consequence, I read Mistborn this weekend and enjoyed it immensely. It's sort of an epic fantasy heist story, and I have a special place in my heart for cross-genre fiction. Anyway. That's your update kids; remember, sometimes it's monkeys.

This is the best story I have ever heard regarding the motivation for writing a book. The author in question is Jim Butcher, and the story comes from gamera_spinning, who attended a book signing by Mr. Butcher last night:

The Codex Alera books were actually written on a bet in a heated internet discussion. The person he was arguing with dared him to write a good book about a bad idea, and he said, "No, I'll write a good book about TWO bad ideas". The ones that he was given were: a Lost Legion of Rome and Pokemon.

I have never had any great desire to read Codex Alera, but I do now.

Today is brought to you by the Tibetan Mastiff. They're going to be in Westminster for the first time this year! I have no way to watch Westminster, of course. But no matter. I'm still cheering for the Tibetan Mastiff. When I read The Dresden Files, and he talks about Harry's dog Mouse, I always think of these guys. I know Mouse is supposed to be some sort of fictional temple dog, but this is where my brain goes.

Today is also brought to you by Aaron Fotheringham, who is my hero of the day. I was waiting to pick up lunch in the sports bar across the street, and the TV over the bar was showing mid-day ESPN (snooze), when they start talking about this kid. He's 14 years old. He has spina bifida, which prevents him from walking. The video at the other end of the link up there is him at the skate park. He does BMX-style tricks in his wheelchair. Kid can do a backflip in a wheelchair. I don't care who you are, that's pretty damned impressive. He calls this "Extreme Sitting". :)

And now, with all that good stuff out of the way, it's time for my Two Minutes Hate.
We have a new radio station in Kansas City called "The Boulevard". It's not a bad station, particularly. It's allegedly a rock station, but seems to keep to the lighter side of the old rock-n-roll business: Elton John, REM, U2, Jackson Browne, and so on. So the station is not bad, just dull. The advertising, however, is abomination. They run this ad that goes something like "Do you ever wonder why you never hear Peter Gabriel or Van Morrison or U2 on the radio? We do too. Now you can. The Boulevard. Quality rock."

Kids, if you live in Kansas City, you will immediately recognize the problem. If you don't, let me put it this way for you: It's like seeing a commercial on television that asks you, "Do you ever wonder why you don't see Law and Order or CSI on television?". Yeah. Every damned station in Kansas City that isn't country or sports talk pretty much already plays all this stuff all the time. Would it fucking kill someone to get us a radio station that offered something *different* from what we already have? Maybe so. Maybe I'm just spoiled from my brief exposure to XM radio. But seriously, could we get a Fungus 53 over here?

So, I'm reading this book called Mockymen. It's not a good book. Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that the author took all that writing advice about showing, not telling, and decided it was so much crap. Let's also leave aside the fact that it appears to have plot enough for several unrelated novels, all jammed together in one short book (this feat largely being accomplished by taking out all the motivation and most of the transition between plot points).

Aside from that stuff, what I don't like about this book is that the main character (so far) is female, and the (apparently male) author has decided that it will make her a more realistic female character if she thinks about having a baby, and when would be the right time to have a baby, and why she and her partner haven't had a baby, and so on, about once every three pages.

Now, as you might be aware if you know me, or even if you read my journal regularly, I gave up trying to be female when I realized that a) it was sort of a crap game, and b) I was never going to be any good at it anyway. So I'm willing to believe that it's possible that women really do constantly think about having babies, and that's normal for the population. Therefore, I'm seeking further data. If you're a female-type person with female-type biology (or you used to be and/or used to have same), please enlighten me by making the clicky on the poll, below.

[Poll #1095206]

I spent all night last night nursing a fever and hacking up stuff that would not be out of place in a Ridley Scott movie. Slept most of the day, only getting out of bed to email in to work (explaining that there was no need to share this alien virus with any co-workers) and to go to the bathroom.

Fever is down now, but not gone. My brain is moving slow and fuzzy. Long words confuse me. So if you were thinking I'd comment on your brilliant post about your abstract theories of whatever, sorry, maybe tomorrow.

I took advantage of this condition to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This, of course, meant that I enjoyed it immensely. And I will never have to read it again. Mark 'complete' on that stack, yay.

First, a meme:
Below the cut are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users at the time the first person to post this meme posted it (I have no idea when that was.). As usual, bold what you have read, italicize those you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.
( Read more... )

And, speaking of unread books: have you ever claimed to have read a book that you really hadn't? What book? Why?

Couldn't hold out. Bought the books. The lure of new-book smell was irresistible, and really: Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition! Poems of Hafiz! Anansi Stories! Spars and Rigging from The Nautical Routine, 1849!

I know, I'm weak.

This post is all about the linking. And the buying. And the thinking.
First off, politics:
Via next_bold_move, I found a clever little widget that matches your stand on political issues with stands avowed by various candidates for the presidency in 2008. My top match was, surprisingly, a guy I didn't know was running, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel. That link goes to his bio and position statements, which are in a .pdf (be advised). Oddly enough, when I used the widget this morning, this fellow was at the top of the list for 'most often top matched' by users of the site. He's pretty progressive, so I wonder if that means that the widget link was circulated mostly in progressive forums, or if there really is a much larger percentage of progressives in the population than I usually suspect.

Second, capitalism.
- Dover Books has a bargain books section that is extremely compelling to me. I'm trying to hold off from buying 10-15 books at the moment. We're only talking about $40-50 worth of books, but bookshelf space is at a premium at EHQ...
- A friend in Oregon is going through some tough times (sudden departure on the part of her partner) and facing some financial woes. She is a consultant for one of those sex-toy party companies, and earns commission on purchases from parties and over the interwebs. My course of action is clear in this matter, I think. ;) (And if you were thinking, "Oh crap, I'm out of lube" or something on that order, please consider buying from this lovely lady, okay?)
- The Red Jak energy drink that is amber is not the same as the Red Jak energy drink that is red. They are made by different companies, just... have the same name, and taste very similar. Who knew?
- In other energy drink news, Bawls Sugar-Free tastes like Nerds candy dipped in caffeine. Mr. Yuck-face applies. lexpendragon is welcome to the entire world's supply of the stuff.

kittenpants was away at dance camp (this one time, at dance camp??) for the weekend, so triadruid and I consoled ourselves by playing D&D, going to the movies, eating stuff she doesn't like, shopping, and generally fucking around. And it was good!

The D&D group met on Friday, and finished Chapter 1 of their great adventure. Next time, they'll meet their new traveling companions (mwa ha ha) and head outside the boundaries of the Vitraen Empire to aid some of the Empire's allies. That means triadruid and I get to build a bunch of encounters that are much weirder than anything we've done so far, and we'll also be building the town of Freeport, which is controlled by a coalition that includes (among other interests) religious leaders, the military, and the mafia. Good times. I'm thinking that I'd like to build an LJ-filter for the campaign that will not include any of the players, and post some of the world-building and character-building stuff on it. For one thing, we've been writing little micro-fics about the PC's lives before the game, and handing them out to the players, and I'm pretty proud of some of the writing. I want people to appreciate our twisted genius, you know?

Saturday, we went shopping with the goal of buying triadruid some pants. This failed, but he did find a nice belt, and I picked up some pirate pajamas (size medium -- who knew?) and a nice red and grey wrap (I'm officially an old woman now, I've bought my first shawl). We also saw Shoot 'Em Up, which was simultaneously hilariously funny, wildly stupid, and amazingly well-choreographed. It also somehow managed to have a gun-control message mixed up in its hash of plot, which was like an extra layer of funny. Clive Owen was deadpan and bad ass, Paul Giamatti was creepy and pussy-whipped, and Monica Belluci was somehow creepy and warm-fuzzy at the same time, so that was all good.

Somewhere during the course of the weekend, I remembered that I can cook if I have to. I made fried catfish on Saturday, with these wildly interesting zucchini 'fries', and then on Sunday made chicken in a vinegar and herb pan sauce with crimini mushrooms, and served the rest of the zucchini (I always overbuy zucchini, for no good reason) in an Alfredo sauce. All of it was surprisingly tasty.

The rest of the weekend would more or less have to go on my TMI filter, if I had one. But I don't. :) Let's just say I'm extremely tired this morning.

Unfortunately, all the weekend goodness was marred by logging on to LJ last night and discovering that Robert Jordan had died, and that some folks that I thought were doing really quite well were actually not doing so well. Ah, life. But the story goes on, in both cases. Mr. Jordan allegedly had told the end of the Wheel of Time series to his wife and other family members, who were sworn to finish the project should he be unable to do so. So that continues (thank the gods - I've only been reading those things for ten years now, and the end is so, so close!). And for the rest of us, as long as we live the story's not over either. Somebody quoted something at me the other week which I find terribly appropriate, even though I can't remember who originally said it now (and I'm paraphrasing anyway) -- "Everything always turns out all right in the end, and if it's not all right, it's not the end." So I'm sending that kind of energy out to everybody today. If it's not all right, it's not the end.

Have a fine sort of Monday, everybody. :)

What can I say? I'm a fanboy for large complicated series.

( Who knew? A Song of Ice and Fire quiz. )