Felicia Day

Why, oh why? The British cover is amazing! So why is there a man with a mullet on horseback wearing plate armor for us in America?

I picked up this book on the recommendation of Flog commenter Paul. I liked it. I’m not raving about it, but I definitely liked it and will buy the rest of the series. The author, Steven Erikson, is planning on this being a 10 book series, but each will be stand alone, which is quite interesting. I just ordered #2-5.

This book is DENSE. There is no skimming. No sir. Every page is chock-full of world building and myth creating. Almost to the point of losing the characters for me, but when I sat down and REALLY FOCUSED, it started to weave a hugely complex world in my head and I couldn’t put it down. I admit, I love fantasy fluff, and this took concentration like on a Dickens novel, which, in the end, I think I will appreciate more in the long-term. I definitely was flipping to the glossary and the “cast of characters” a lot.

There are no good guys here. You root for a character and suddenly they die. Oops. There are fascinating interactions between the Gods and mortals that I loved, and the intrigue was very suspenseful. I can’t really summarize PLOT because there is way too much going on to even begin to one-line. Brutal fights, ruthless characters, all yummy. Wars, strange magics, immortals, maniacal puppets, need more?
The one thing that annoyed me was there was a lot of FORETELLING going on in the first half. A lot of alluding to what was coming, what was foretold, what was fated. I wanted it to just happen. Also, his dialogue between characters is very oblique, like a David Mamet play. Sometimes I just wanted characters to say what was in front of them. Obscurity for obscurity sake can get tiring, but then I was hooked back in again and stayed up until 2am reading.

I will definitely stick this out for the rest of the series. It won’t be my light reading, but I will enjoy the challenge. Hopefully, since this was the establishing book, deciphering will be easier in subsequent novels, because he established SO MUCH already. Well, it better be

Ok, so “The Guild” has been out all weekend and I would say it’s getting generally good feedback. I’m going to ignore that right now. Because OBVIOUSLY I have to fixate on the negative comments of people. Here are some of my favorites.

“…film is not your milieu.”

“She didn’t do it for me. Had that Helen Hunt look about her.”

“wasn’t really funny but the girl was decent *or to put it in words the OT can comprehend* “I’d pee in her butt”.

What a pick-up line. Anyway, what does this mean to me? For one thing, it makes me feel bad about about my Transformers bashing before. In short, the whole experience has made me appreciate the effort of film making, and the stinging critique of our consumer culture. Yes, I’m going to use big words now.

Most of us have no appreciation for what goes into the things we consume every day. I certainly don’t. I’m sure if I studied the plastic cup, I’d be more reverential when I sipped out of it. Hell, one of my favorite movies on YouTube is this one on how aluminum foil is made. Fascinating. Anyway, our society is so sophisticated, we have become authorities on everything, or so we think. There’s no face to face with the actual makers of the products we consume, and therefore feel carte blanche to poop on things when we don’t like them. When the author of Acacia commented in my thread here on his book, I near had a heart attack, and I went back to scan my entry to see if it was insulting. Before, I could have given a hoot, he wasn’t a person to me, the book was there for me to consume and judge, end of story. Thank goodness I loved it

It might not be that articulate, but I guess I’m trying to say sorry for bashing your movie Mr. Bay. It may not be my favorite thing, but I feel I’ve experienced a tiny minuscule fraction of what you went through to make your movie, and although I didn’t love how your movie portrayed women, the movie was good fun, and to dismiss probably years of your life’s effort with a snarky blog entry probably didn’t give you the consideration you deserve. And I did like the robots smashing things.

There. I hope that cleanses my karma and someone doesn’t try to actually pee in my butt. :O

I thought I’d post something completely off topic, because even I’m boring myself by talking about my webisode so much (even though not much is going on OTHER than that, but still). I present to you: CUBBY.

Yes, he’s cute. And soulful. We’ve had him for 4 months now, got him at the pound during a “no-kill” adoption weekend. He was there for 2 months! I can only thank that shelter for keeping their animals around that long, usually they only have a week. He was in a cage with a very barky dog, and only on the second pass around did we see him in the back of the cage, looking depressed. We called to him and he came up, put his paw in the gate and looked up at us like, “Get me the hell out of here.” And we did!

Cubby is pretty perfect. He’s quiet, he doesn’t drool a lot, he doesn’t chew on anything, he always has an amused glance ready for when he trips over something or falls off the car seat because I have a bad habit of slamming on the breaks. He loves to play with a tennis ball, but he only has 4 or 5 throws in him before he decides “Ok, let’s go in so I can have a snack now.”

He’s perfect except for one thing: His anxiety disorder. Yes, my neurosis even extends to my dog. He’s silent when we’re around, but he can’t be alone at home by himself without barking incessantly. We got a little crate that we have to put him in while we leave the house because he scratches at the windows and ruins them. I understand this is common in rescue dogs. He’s getting much better, but he’s still very anxious and upset when we get home from going out, which makes me feel like a bad parent. I’m going to hire a dog trainer to come help us, because I want him to be able to watch Animal Planet while we’re gone and not be anxious.

The weirdest thing that’s happened since we got the dog is that his poop has become a topic of conversation. After a walk it’s always, “Did he poop? Yes, he pooped.” Why the hell is that even UTTERED?! How has that become a normal question?! What have we become?!?  I know, too much information, but I’m hoping this is a universal phenomenon, other than a personal one. I’ve never asked another human about their poop, I promise. Really weird.

I hear this becomes common if you have a baby. My cousin even wrote down her baby’s schedule in a little diary which totally creeped me out. Doctor’s orders. That’s something you want her to show your date when you’re 16, eh?

I’m going to regret posting this, I know. Oh well.

Here it is! Wow! The poor director was up all night compressing and then there was drama because I didn’t know how to create a mailing list, and we had to have a webmaster housecall, thank god for roving web designers And then: Myspace layouts, ugh. I found this great site www.lovemyflash.com that has great layouts, but they don’t exactly “drop in” ready to go.

Anyway, please watch! Pass it on to anyone you think will laugh, and that’s probably everyone. And if you like me even a little, please favorite the video and subscribe to our channel on YouTube. The next episode is even funnier!

If you want to see my programming handiwork, look at www.watchtheguild.com. I think that for a website thrown together in 2 days, it’s pretty good. Thank you template maker Without you, I would have used tables *Gasp*.

This experience has been so exciting! Whatever happens with it, if my friends laugh, that’s enough for me but for the sake of all the people who gave their time and expertise for free, I hope it becomes a hit! When we were uploading it, I got a little nervous, it was so silly! So many fears get in the way when you create things. You have to be brave and willing to fail, and just do it for the experience. I like to remind myself that any experience at all changes the pathways between your brain cells; literally changes your brain. My brain is different, and it feels good.