I'd asked a friend of mine if he could draw some personalised icons of me or of Thanners!Me to use on my LJ/etc; this is the first one he sent to me.

Tags: gip

As I'd mentioned in my last post, I started reading Richard Morgan's "Black Man"/"Thirteen", but just couldn't seem to get into it for some reason. I'm sorry Richard, you even wrote "Enjoy! (I hope!)" on the insides of my books, too, when I'd admitted I hadn't actually read any of your stuff before. I do hope I'll go back to it again to enjoy it. At least I did enjoy "The Steel Remains".

So, I picked up "Ender's Game" instead. I have to say that I really enjoyed it. It was easy to get into, and an interesting read, enough so that I'm interested in the other books by Orson Scott Card. However, "Ender's Game" was the only book I'd actually heard of before; are the other books any good?

Next, I then moved onto Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep" (sci-fi), which I just recently finished. This one I really enjoyed reading. It was a book that I found very interesting from very early on, and I loved his aliens. In fact, I enjoyed reading the book in large part for more chances to read sections that involved this particular race, the "Tines" (this is not to say the parts that didn't focus on them were crap, I enjoyed those parts, too). I have to admit that while I do enjoy reading, I'm not very well-read, so maybe there's a whole host of other authors who would have elicited a similar response from me, or who have done similarly interesting things. Anyway, whatever. I was fascinated with his aliens from the earliest chapters they were introduced. I'm being deliberately vague because I took great pleasure in learning about the nature of them the first time, and wouldn't want to spoil that for anyone else.

If you've read this book, did you have the same fascination with the Tines as I did?

Anyway, next up is "Priestess of the White" by Trudi Canavan.

Tags: books, orson scott card, richard morgan, trudi canavan, vernor vinge
Current Mood: anxious

Howdy all! Thought I'd post something since, well, it's been a while.

I'd once again resolved this year to read more (and more often). Swancon this year was helpful in kick-starting this interest again. I'd had the chance to see panels with the guest authors Richard Morgan and Trudi Canavan--neither of whom I'd actually heard of before, but who were interesting enough that I bought some of their books (and got them signed).

The first book I read since Swancon was Richard Morgan's "The Steel Remains", which is Richard Morgan's first foray into fantasy, and is of the fairly vicious, 'gritty' type of fantasy. Apparently it suits him down to the ground, though I haven't read any of his science fiction. It was a good read, and I await the next in the series.

A few days after finishing it, I started on Trudi Canavan's somewhat more "PG"-rated fantasy series "The Black Magician trilogy", starting with "The Magician's Guild". I've found it to be a highly enjoyable page-turner; I've already devoured the first two books and am trying to delay myself from reading the last one (because my eyes really need some rest. I haven't been glued to a book for some time, mainly because I haven't been reading anything new until recently).

Also by Richard Morgan, I have the science fiction book "Black Man" (called "Thirteen" in the U.S., I think). I'll probably read that next

Additionally, I picked up a group of second-hand books cheap at the Swancon auction: "Figures of Earth", "A Fire Upon The Deep", "The Ruins of Isis", and the one that made me bid on the bundle: "Ender's Game" (no, I hadn't read it yet. Really). It's nice to have new books in my reading queue again. (c:

Anyway, I'm afraid I've been murdering grammar because I'm tired and finding it really difficult to even string words together today, so I'll leave it at that.

No, wait, I have a haiku I composed in a few minutes this afternoon at work:

I am so weary,
I cannot wait for day's end
Um, five syllables.

Tags: books, haiku, orson scott card, richard morgan, trudi canavan, vernor vinge
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: 張懸 (Zhang Xuan) - 嫁祸进行式

Generally I dislike anything that makes me feel as if I'm 'showing off', but because of the nature of this post.. it's pretty much just straight-up showing off. (c:

Anyway, some of you may know that I've started doing gymnastics. I started about November 2008, initially going just Wednesday afternoons, and then going both Wednesdays and Saturdays. It's a fairly informal class, with about half an hour to an hour of warm-up, stretching and maybe some technique work, and then it's mainly just 'free time'. Most of the people there do various things from tricking to martial arts, to break dance type stuff, so the motivations of people vary. Some did gymnastics and want a chance to regain skills, some just want to be able to use the equipment, the floor, the trampolines. However, even though it's not a very strict class, the coach is willing to assist, which is great.

I've sustained several injuries doing it. Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to be fairly injury-prone, which made gymnastics kind of an odd choice. (c: However, I'm also getting much better at treating my injuries and avoiding them, so.. I think it's working out. Currently I am still sporting a thumb-wrist injury from a couple of months ago that is still slooooowly getting better. I've had various pulled muscle in my lower abdomen, wrenched a shoulder, sprained ankles, and just had various other general soreness, typically of tendons. But I think I'm both getting better at knowing how to deal with injuries (and more importantly, how to avoid them), and my joints are slowly getting stronger.

So. Because I feel like I've already rambled without any particular direction long enough, I'll cut this post short here, with a very short video of a couple of the somersaults I've managed.

Tags: gymnastics
Current Mood: happy

1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to each question.
4. NO CHEATING.


1. How am I feeling today?
"Always crashing in the same car." [david bowie. oddly fitting, since i'm totally Mr Injury-Prone today]

( Surprisingly some of the titles make sense (well, kinda) )

Tags: meme, music
Current Mood: injured

Just a random update at 3:30pm.

Games
Haven't really played anything on the PC for a while, but I have been playing my DS a fair bit more.

Chrono Trigger: (JRPG). Such an awesome game this third time around. I really like this one, it rates high on my personal 'top games' list. The DS version was pretty much a straight port of the original, but translation cleaned up, some cutscenes taken from the Playstation version, and an improved, (imo) cleaner interface that makes use of the dual-screen.

I haven't actually finished it, I've just been at the point (as you get in most Square RPGs) where you're close to the end, and have the freedom to do all the sidequests and become über powerful. But the other thing about it is the extra story you get by letting each of the characters go and.. do their thing. I'll probably play through it again to see each of the (twelve!) endings.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village: (Puzzle-adventure). Pretty much just a game of about 120 various puzzles (tile-sliding, simple maths, re-arrange the matchsticks, move the wolves & chickens across the river, etc...), wrapped up with a fairly reasonable story. Presentation was quite nice, too.

The World Ends With You: (Action JRPG). This was an interesting game. I wasn't sure about it when I first started it, and the main character being a bit of a git also made it harder to get into, but it was intriguing enough that I kept playing... And then at a certain point I suddenly realised I thought the game was awesome, and I began to find the world quite engaging.

The game itself is fairly linear; as Professor Layton was a game where you advanced through a linear story and solved puzzles along the way, in TWEWY you advance along a linear storyline and fight battles along the way. It's all really stylishly presented, though, both the art and soundtrack are pretty cool (YMMV), and it's a game that was clearly designed with the DS in mind.

The battle system is quite fun, if somewhat RSI-inducing and initially feeling very complicated. You have to control a fight with two people on both screens at the same time. The top character is controlled using the directional buttons (or B, A, Y, X if you prefer holding it the other way), while the bottom is controlled with the stylus, slashing/scratching/tapping/dragging, and occasionally by shouting into the microphone (choosing more mic-based attacks would probably reduce strain on the wrist. :P).

It also had other interesting things, like being able to set your current level to anywhere from 1 to your actual level, allowing for more of a challenge, but increased chance of rewards. So I'm currently playing through the game again with my level fixed at level 1, difficulty set to HARD, and seeing how I go. (c:

Other Things
Lost and Battlestar Galactica come back soon! YAY. In related news, I have the DVDs for BSG (miniseries + seasons 1, 2, 3 + Razor + first half of season 4), and intend to try to get my friends to catch up before the end. (c: (yeah, i know that's a Lot of watching..)

Temeraire: I still haven't picked up the fifth book, "Victory of Eagles", and it's killing me a little bit.

Wheel of Time: I'm up to "Winter's Heart" on my nth re-read of the series. I find myself skim-reading the Perrin & Faile chapters. Again. I feel like I started this re-read too soon, since the book won't be out until the end of this year, and that's only if I'm lucky.

Weddings: Also, I've been to another couple of weddings in the past couple of months, but I shall post about them in another post.

Also, just thought I'd share this. I was looking over a profile describing midwives data, which obviously has mother and child information on it. These thoughts flashed through my head in the space of about a second:

"Huh, so that must be the baby's sex, but what about the mother's?"
"..."
"Oh, wait."

*facepalm* Well, I did say it was 3:30pm, right?

Tags: games, randomness
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: すばらしきこのせかい OST - Leah - "Calling"

So, this has been making its way around recently. Someone had taken extracted models from World of Warcraft, and storyboarded and animated a short video. Some very impressive animation camera, lighting and animation work, and quirky but strangely fitting choice of music. Wire-fu-type choreography, if you like that sort of thing. (c:

I think you can appreciate it even if you've never ever touched Warcraft before, as long as you can appreciate the animation.

[Video - BLIND] HD version looks better. Obviously.

Tags: video, worldofwarcraft
Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: Namie Amuro - "Hide and Seek"

And history repeats...

And I forgot to save my game again, dammit!

Having picked up Chrono Trigger DS, I've been playing through it again (love this game). Despite it being a long time since I last finished it on the SNES, I've noticed there are certain things I do the same. There's a boss fight that I struggled on for ages, and I remember doing that last time, too (but obviously I didn't remember how I beat that boss, else I wouldn't have struggled for so long). And now a certain point, I have that feeling of déjàvu after doing a particular section, advancing further, wiping against a boss, and then remembering I hadn't saved since about 40 minutes ago.

Anyway, Happy December everyone, hope you're having a good one.

Stumbled across this flash game: Auditorium.

It's a puzzle game, where you move various objects around to deflect a flow of particles to fill containers, generating sound as the containers are filled. This description, while accurate, doesn't really do it justice. It's just presented in a fairly simple, stylish manner, and I've sat playing it for a while today. :P The music is quite soothing, so it isn't quite as frustrating when being stuck on a particular puzzle. Unless you're stuck on it for a loong time and haven't shifted the flow for a while, in which case it'll suddenly become apparent how short the section of looped music is. :P

Go have a look. (c:

Tags: flash, games
Current Mood: relaxed

Back at work after a reasonably busy weekend. Saturday was my friend Evan's Buck's Party. Involved going out for lunch, then playing super-golf (in the rain. grr). Later, we headed back to Evan's house for much drinking and random gaming and stuff, and then went into Northbridge, and I finally got home at 5:30am. Asleep by 6:30am, awake by 8:30am for some incredibly stupid reason, and then couldn't sleep anymore.

Then Sunday evening went to the Billy Joel concert. It was Awesome, and I am so glad that I'd taken the chance to watch him play live.

The weather wasn't great, with a fairly strong wind and occasional bursts of rain, but that hardly detracted from the experience at all. He truly is quite the entertainer. After opening with a couple of songs back to back, he stopped for awhile to address the audience: "Hi, I'm Billy's dad. Billy couldn't make it, he was too busy doing his hair.. I came along instead since I know all his shit." He was definitely a lot of fun.

I found myself thinking afterwards of songs that I wish he had done at the concert, but I also enjoyed every song that he did play. If he had played all of the songs I like, I think it would have had to go for twice as long.

Whew. Anyway, now just to stay away awake (yes, amusing typo) long enough to get through the rest of work today.

Tags: billyjoel, bucksnight
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Billy Joel - *