Heard a Good Book Lately?

I have two credits saved up on Audible.com with a third credit due any day now. I am trying to figure out what audiobooks to get. I already have a handful that I've downloaded and I haven't listened to. The issue at hand is that the plan I am on only allows me to save up to three credits before I start losing them, so I need to pick some spend credits on.

I'm still taking a break from the "Saga of Seven Suns" series by Kevin J. Anderson. He really could have chopped the first five books (where I've stopped for the moment) into a three book series and then started a second series for the follow-up. Books four and five just draaaaggggeeeedddd on in some parts (as I'm sure this post will also do) and I'm too anal to skip ahead (or to chop this post down.)

I just now got back to listening to "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons. I have actually read the four Hyperion books before; "read" as in books in hand. Two of my World of Warcraft characters are Perion and Dymion as in hyPERION and enDYMION. The problem being that everybody pronouces Dymion as "Dime-e-on" instead of "Dim-e-on" They also call Perion, "Pery" which drives me nuts, but then again what doesn't these days.

Speaking of nuts, I have had a half dozen people ask me if I was allergic to nuts in the last few days. I'm not sure what is up with that or why I thought it worth a tangent in the middle of this tangent.

I had stopped "Hyperion" to listen to 2 sessions of "the Bendis Tapes" on Word Balloon. Word Balloon being a comic book, interview format, podcast hosted by John Siuntres. The Bendis tapes are these massive shows he does twice a year with comic writer, Brian Michael Bendis (pictured), whom I ranted about back in early February; because, he got me to watch the entire 7 seasons of the Gilmore Girls for which I was the target of much abuse by friends and colleges.

Brian has a message board over and jinxworld.com (which also hosts forums for a number of other comic writers, artists and now even Word Balloon) and he lets his fans post questions about his works. He and John answer and discuss the questions and a ranger of other topics over the course of the interview. I hadn't listened to the last two sessions, because I didn't want spoil the Secret Invasion storyline Bendis had been orchestrating as the Marvel, cross-comic, summer event. I managed to finish it just before leaving Perth.

I have a slight problem with jinxworld though. They don't let you register with any of the common free email accounts such as yahoo or gmail. It would appear you can't even register under a real email address and then change it to one of those free ones. I still don't know if I am going to keep the hewitt.org email address when it expires this month (there has been some other change of ownership or something.) I understand Bendis might have a spammer or abusive poster problem over there, but they have moderators for that sort of thing. Also, those moderators could be used to hand approve email address exceptions. In any case, unless they do something, I'll just be registered with an email address I never check and which may be going away. Hope they board never tries to send me any email for anything important.

Okay, back the audiobooks:

I was going to download "Swords and Deviltry: The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" which has been sitting on my wishlist. It is the first book in Fritz Leiber's classic sword-and-sorcery series which launched the sword-and-sorcery genre, and were the inspiration for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. I remember hearing a lot about this series back when I was in Jr. High School, but reading the reviews I think I am going to pass on it for now. One of the reviewers summed it up with, "Might have been a classic novel, but it doesn't hold up as a "modern" fantasy novel." The other reviewers were less kind.

I see they are offering "Midwinter" by Matthew Sturges. Matthew writes the DC/Vertigo comic "Jack of Fables" which is a spin off from Bill Willingham's "Fables" series. But I don't think the "Jack of Fables" series is really all that good and the Amazon.com reviews of Midwinter speak of much the same disappointment. Reading the summary blurb, I am also afraid to read it because it has some of the same elements of a story I am putting together and I don't want to be influenced by things he has thought of.

I think I am at least going to try "Daughter of the Blood" by Anne Bishop. It is the first book in the "Black Jewels" series. The reviews seem okay, though they all warn you that the series is not for the prudish or squeamish. The thing holding me back is that it is yet another big series of books. Well that is partly true; the wiki points out that the first three books are the main trilogy. The fourth book is another story that takes place in that world. Then fifth book that is a collection of four short stories which expands on the events in and after the main trilogy. The fifth and sixth books appear to also be just other stories set in that world. But still, for somebody anal like me, that is seven books.

Anybody have any other suggestions of some good fantasy books?

The Last Gilmore Girls Post

Wow, season 7 of Gilmore Girls was completely off the mark. It was like all the characters were replaced by pod people who thought they were the real people, but if you looked real close you could see they were different. The plots and storylines were okay, but the execution wasn’t tuned. What was an entertaining show filled with interesting and eccentric characters became an annoying melodramatic parody of itself.

I just did some Googling of the show and found out that Amy and Daniel could not come to an agreement with the network and they left the show at the end of the sixth season. I’m not saying she was some creative genius, or that there is anything wrong with Dave the new guy in charge, but the change was noticeable and bad for the show. From the ratings of that last season it looks like I wasn’t the only one who noticed the problems.

Thank for nothing Bendis! Though, I did finally finish Secret Invasion so I can finally catch up on the Bendis Tapes at Word Balloon. Hmm, maybe I'll save them for the airplane trip. I also tried to register at Bendis' web site, Jinx World,so I could post on his forum, but they won't accept non-free email addresses such as yahoo.com and I don't want to use the hewitt.org address anymore.

Nemeses

Tired of hearing me go on about the Gilmore Girls yet? Well, don’t worry they are just the MacGuffin in this story. I say “story” but you can go ahead and read that as “rant.”

I mentioned before that I talked to the girl working at Blockbuster about when season 1 disc 2 was due back in. It was actually case #2 containing discs 3 & 4. I felt it was important to update you on that mistake, as I know you are taking notes for the test later. She pointed out that the people who just watched discs 3 & 4 were probably going to want discs 5 & 6 next. She recommended that I check them out now, so I could jump ahead of them.

Discs 3 & 4 were finally returned late yesterday and now I've watched up to disc 6. Just after putting up my last post, I realized that I would be finished with it in a few hours and have nothing to watch in the morning. I jumped in the car and tore off to rent all of season 2. It was with a cold, creeping, horror that I realized that case #1 of season 2, containing the first two discs, was already checked out!

It was them! My Gilmore Girls nemeses! They did the same thing! They checked out the first two discs to leap ahead of me! They aren’t due back till next Thursday. They are probably just going to sit on them until I return the last 2 discs of season 1!

Again, we only have Brian Michael Bendis to blame. I bet he is in league with those slow watchers! He probably goes over their house ever night and they all snuggle up on the couch with popcorn and share a blanket that they spread over their legs. They probably only watch one episode a night so they don't spoil it by rushing too fast. Oh but sometimes they can't help it, they just get too excited and they watch (gasp) two in a row!

I bet they think they've won. Well, they haven't! I have the rest of season 2 and they better just pray that I'm going to return them! I could just take them with me when I leave the country! What would they do then! Yeah, that would learn ’em not to mess with me!

I saw all of the seasons at the mall for $24 AUD each, but A) I really don’t have money to spend at the moment especially since I just quit my job and bought new shoes and B) I don’t want to have region 4 discs!

What Kind of Day It Has Been

I guess the major update is that I resigned as Creative Director of Interzone yesterday. It was a result of a lot of things accumulating at once. You many already know that I’m not big on the sharing of personal details, so I'll just say it was a very amicable break and the door is still open for me possibly returning in the future. I want to say that the team at Interzone was one of the best I have ever worked with. I honestly have never seen such a high percentage of the team be so bought into the product and willing to do what ever it takes to make it work. Nick, my boss, also had some very nice things to say in my ‘I leaving’ email thread about how I transformed the game from where it was to something both development and corporate could buy off on. It was very mushy and I’m expecting an excellent letter of recommendation.

At the moment I’m sitting here trying to enjoy my last day of relative normality before I have to actually put some sort of plan in motion to move back to the United States. There is all sorts of stuff that I'll have work out such as selling the car, furniture, white goods (what they call major appliances here in Australia), etc. I even splurged and had an ice-cream (pralines and cream in a waffle cone of course) to help cushion the chaos that will start in the next few days.

Currently though, I am going a little nuts trying to find some reference in this episode of the Gilmore Girls (Christopher Returns) of when Lorelai made plans to meet Luke. In going through the episode several times I have found all sorts of mistakes. Reflections of the crew in the window, shadow of the mic, and one scene where Christopher says that tomorrow is Saturday making it Friday night, which is when they should be having the weekly dinner at her parent’s house. This is also the second time that Dean mentions that he has a motorcycle though he told Lorelai that he didn’t have one when she first grilled him about dating Rory. And this whole thing about what was said the previous night at the dinner table, they never made it to dinner. I also think it’s raining in the baseball game scene in the beginning and that they are filming under tents or something. You can hear the rain and occasionally see some heavy raindrops. Anyway, I have finally figured out that the plan with Luke was set up from the previous episode and that is the night she is supposed to help him paint the diner. I probably would have figured out that faster, if I had let the episode finish instead of stopping it and going back to the beginning. Oh I am so going to write a nasty email to Bendis for doing this to me!

I have also decided to take a break from my current audio book, “Of Fire and Night” the fifth of seven books in the Saga of Seven Suns series by Kevin J. Anderson, to listen to “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman. It is written in classic Gaiman style and I give it a thumbs up. You'll probably find it in the “Young Adult” section of the book store but don't let that fool put you off.

One thing that I have been wondering about is why they aren’t pimping Gaiman more on his movies? There was no mention of his name in the advertising of any of his movies so far including the upcoming “Coraline”. He is a best selling author with a rabid fan base. Why wouldn’t they at least toss out a “Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman” in the ad? Granted, the fan base being as rabid as we are, most of us knew about each movie long before it was presented to the unwashed masses.

Edit: I accidentally clicked the wrong thing and added Gaimen instead of Gaiman to my dictionary and didn't notice Neil's name was misspelled all over the place. Fixed.

Bendis must be made to pay!

I blame Brian Michael Bendis. Not only that, but it’s his fault as well. Now, I know you have not yet committed yourself enough to this narrative to Google who the hell Brian Michael Bendis is, let alone put forth a ruckus demand for an explanation, but I’ll just carry through anyway.

So not much to do over Christmas Holidays last month. It’s the middle of the summer here and it’s hot. It’s hot like Vegas, but with that added touch of humidity to make sure the sweat sticks to you instead of just being wasted by dripping off and soaking the carpet. I’m holed up in my room, scrolling through the list of cable channels on the TV guide. I was fully intending to just stare endlessly at the myriad of shows sliding down the TV screen until I passed out and got some much needed sleep. But instead of a walk in stardust, I noticed… Okay it’s hard to admit this; because once I say it, it’s out there and I can’t take it back… I noticed that the Gilmore Girls was on.

Okay, let’s jump back a bit. Brian Michael Bendis has mentioned this show in the past. He’s a writer I like, you could even say a favorite writer. You still haven't Googled him so I’ll just toss out that he is a comic book writer. I am just going to give you a compliment by assuming the revelation of his medium did not drop your expectations of him; though, we are still on for this all being his fault. One of my secret little hobbies is to check out the things my favorite writers like. So, I watched an episode of the Gilmore Girls. Two, I watched two episodes of the Gilmore Girls. There were two episodes on, one after the other. Really it was just easier to keep it on that channel than exerting all that energy searching for the remote and changing the channel.

Now it’s a month later and it wasn’t when I found myself programming the cable box to record episodes that I realized I had a problem. It wasn’t even when I found myself obsessing about the fact that of the three episodes I was watching every week, they were from two different seasons and it was totally spoiling the flow of the overarching storyline.

It was today that I realized I had a problem. I stopped at Blockbuster on the way home from work knowing full well that I had a huge late fee. I went up to the counter, without even a female companion with whom I could pretend to be dating and only renting the DVDs at her insistence. It was right after convincing the girl behind said counter to look up when season one disc two was due back because they only had disc one and three. If you knew more about me, you wouldn’t be at all surprised by that. She wisely pointed out that people who rent disk two will probably be looking to rent disk three, and that I should rent disk three now and preempt them. That is when I realized that I had a problem.

So yeah, I’m sitting here and I just finished watching the whole season one disc one of Gilmore Girls. I'm already jonesing out that disc two isn't due back at Blockbusters till the end of the week. Brian Michael Bendis must be made to pay for this, because it is all his fault.