Stuff and nonsense

1) I'm working on an epically awesome crochet project of epic awesomeness. If the initial epic awesomeness works out, there will be spawn of epic awesomeness as well. (This is all suitably vague, dontcha think? There will be a picture in a couple of weeks. :) )

2) I have somehow slated myself to write four stories by the end of the year. Not sure what I was thinking with that, since I have pretty much NO writing time when derby starts back up next week.

3) Derbyderbyderbyderbyderby. :) I think I'm going to be going to practices 3 days a week starting in September. Maybe 4 days a week, once Booty Camp starts. Yeah. Eat breathe sleep derby. :)

4) We watched Whip It last night. Jeremy has decided that he shouldn't watch derby movies with a ref. I couldn't help but comment on legality and illegality of some of the stuff they did. I guess that means I'm picking some things up. :)

5) I'm currently working my way through The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, who Jeremy met in Kansas (and introduced me to as well). This mainly entails reading about 4 pages each night, while Jeremy is feeding Delilah and I am already in bed. Not the most productive way to read, but I'll take what I can manage. (This is, at least partially, a bit of research for one of the short stories I plan to write.)

6) My mom will be visiting Seattle for the first time EVER. She arrives on Saturday, we whisk her off to Portland for a couple of days (where she has also never been), bring her back for one night, and then put her on a cruise to Alaska. I have no idea what we will be doing for large chunks of the time. We have spa appointments, plans to do a wine tasting, and a place to sleep. Oh, and Powells is a given, even if Jeremy and I REALLY do not need to buy more books. :)

Movie review: Coraline

So as a HUGE Neil Gaiman fan, I'm always anxiously awaiting any new movies that he's involved in. And though Beowulf was somewhat disappointing and Stardust left me stomping my feet a bit, I can't complain too much. I feel pretty much the same about Coraline.

The movie is undeniably cute, between the stop motion and the overall cuteness of the story (despite it being a little scary in places, at least for little kids). I tried really hard not to squee too loud during the They Might Be Giants song, when Coraline's father's voice suddenly and unmistakably became that of John Linnell. :)

The big issue I had with it, unfortunately, was something that Thaddeus told me about on Sunday--they added a character to the story. Normally, no big deal. Until it has the effect of lessening the main character. :( I could go into a big huge rant here, too, about girl power and such, but I don't want to ruin the story too much for those who haven't read the book or seen the movie.

Oh yeah, which reminds me. Read the book. :) The movie is wonderful, but the book is equally so, if not better. I've only read it once, and it's been a little while since I read it, but I think that you'll find the book and movie are pretty wonderfully similar. Except for that extra character. *sigh*

Books and such

I've actually been reading quite a bit lately, which is a nice change. Most of this was inspired by the fact that I had two 5 hour flights last week, and needed something to do while waiting in the airport and while en route. So as it turned out, I finished four books and started a fifth. :)

Now, granted, two of these were children's books: The Girl with the Silver Eyes and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I'd also read both of them before, when I was a kid. Another was Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, which, again, I had already read (and was miserably disappointed when I realized that I ONLY had the first book of it. Not even Restaurant at the End of the Universe!).

The fourth one I read was one that I had started reading before I left: The Good Fairies of New York. That one was a random find when we went on a crazy book buying binge at Barnes & Noble one night. The cover was interesting, and then I saw that Neil Gaiman had written the introduction. So of course I had to read it. :) The author, Martin Millar, also has a book called The Girl Werewolf, or something like that, which I also want to get and read. :)

And for the fifth book, which I'm only about halfway through, I finally decided to read Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, after having it for several months. I do that WAY too often. I buy a book, I leave it sitting around for a while, and then I put it up on the book shelf, where it is effectively forgotten. Well, presently, I have a STACK of books that need to be read, and that one trip whittled it down pretty well. Of course, my stack is incomplete, since we have an entire shelf of graphic novels, and I've read about half of those. And Jerome has many, many more graphic novels on our external hard drive.

The best part, though, is that I've started reading these books in the evening, instead of having the TV on. Jerome has been happily plugging away at reading graphic novels on his laptop. It's brilliant! :)

Movies, and more mocking of Stephen King novels

We watched "1408" last night, and though I got a bit bored with it towards the end (and absorbed with doing stuff on my laptop), Jerome really liked it. Of course, however, since it's based on a Stephen King story, we had to mock Stephen King a bit more. So here is the list of ways you can tell it's a Stephen King movie:

1) Four teenaged boys save the world. (Or fourteen inch boys save the world.)
2) The place is located on an ancient Indian burial ground.
3) The evil force is an alien/group of aliens.
4) Strange things happen to household pets.
5) The main character is a writer, who is also an ex-smoker (but the temptation to start again is always there), and/or ex-alcoholic (but the temptation to start again is always there), and/or is probably estranged from his wife (but the temptation... oh, wait, never mind).
6) It's set in a small town in Maine, where everyone talks funny.

I think that comes pretty close to covering the majority of his books and stories. There are a few exceptions, of course. I'm pretty sure that the only part of these covered by The Stand is that a couple of the characters come from a small town in Maine. And four adult men save the world. And the Dark Tower series (which I haven't read in a long time, nor all the way through) probably doesn't fit the pattern. But those 6 elements come up in at least 90% of Stephen King's writing.

Oh, and I forgot the last one!

7) The movie has absolutely nothing to do with the book/story it's "based" on.
(See Trucks (Maximum Overdrive), The Lawnmower Man, or Children of the Corn.)

Yeah... :)

Blah... nothing much to say...

There's a 10 p.m. showing of "Matrix Reloaded" in Marion tonight, but I'm not going... cuz it's at 10 p.m., and won't get out till super late... and would require a half hour drive home afterwards...

So yeah, I'm not going to see it till Sunday evening... keep your spoilers to yourselves... :p

Finished the first Anita Blake book yesterday, while Gabe and Thor were killing stuff on the PS2... it ends rather abruptly, IMHO... now I have to borrow #2, read it, and then I actually own 3 and 4... then it's back to borrowing them, assuming no one buys them for me... hehehe... :)

There, I added the link for the library now... not much stuff there at the moment, but I'm working on it! :)

Oooh... I just found Poppy Z. Brite's webpage... sweet... :)

I think I'm gonna put up a library page in a bit here... books I've read recently, books I'm reading now, and books I've got on the "waiting list" to be read when I get to them... :) Yeah, definitely a good idea... :)

So what should I be reading...

Well, first off, I've had the SonofaBritsch's copy of Hitchhiker's Guide (all of the books) since December. I'm still only about halfway through it. I suppose I should get that back to him sooner or later... particularly since I found the Old Man's copy... ;)

I want to reread The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned... I went to see the movie, and my friend Ashlea told me that it wasn't really like the books, mentioning some aspects in particular... so I want to reread them and see how off it was...

One of these years, I should get around to reading all of the Lord of the Rings. I managed to get through The Hobbit without any problems, but I can't make myself read Fellowship... no matter how hard I try, I just can't do it! If they weren't so expensive, I'd get them on tape or CD and start listening to them while I'm driving to ST meetings or to St. Louis for game or family functions.

I have about 10-15 Vampire and other World of Darkness books that I've only managed to skim thus far. I should really read all of the revised Werewolf tribebooks, since I'm helping to ST a Garou LARP... (and the Old Man just reminded me about the tribe novels as well, of which there are five so far! Ack!)

Oh, and then I should be studying German for my language proficiency exam, and I should be coming up with my readings lists for my Ph.D. exams... but I've been REALLY lazy about this for the past few months. I should probably make sure that I can get the time extension that I need for this stuff, before I start doing all of this reading...

I think that's it... for now... :)