Since I read so many more books than I'll ever review, I've decided to start keeping track of them in my LJ.

( Since Juldea requested the cut )

Disney's first African-American princess turns into a frog. Hilarious! I also liked the dancing.

shogunhb and I saw Up tonight. I teared up in about five different places. They told a great story, with both dialogue and silence. Good show.


She turns into a frog!

The next story I write involving elves or faeries of any kind going to be titled:

That's What Sidhe Said

Ooh you make me live
Whatever this world can give to me
It's you you're all I see
Ooo you make me live now honey
Ooo you make me live

Ooh you're the best friend that I ever had
I've been with you such a long time
You're my sunshine and I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
Oh you're my best friend

Ooo you make me live

Ooh I've been wandering round
But I still come back to you
In rain or shine
You've stood by me, Toph
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend

Ooo you make me live
Whenever this world is cruel to me
I got you to help me forgive
Ooo you make me live now honey
Ooo you make me live

You're the first one
When things turn out bad
You know I'll never be lonely
You're my only one
And I love the things
I really love the things that you do
You're my best friend

Ooo you make me live

I'm happy at home
You're my best friend
Oh ya
Oh you're my best friend
Ooo you make me live
You you're my best friend.

I am here. I am alive. I still love you.

And we're STILL married.

Two years ago today, I said "I do" to a future of happiness, love, and marital bliss. I roped shogunhb into agreeing to take care of me when I was ill (which I promptly cashed in on), agreed to wed with a ring, worship with my body, and endow with all my worldly goods--except my books. I pledged my love and fidelity in front of a hundred-odd people, and mean those words more today than I did then, as our love has had more time to grow, mature, and deepen.

Shaughn, I love you so. Happy anniversary.




Also, playing the FFVII victory music during the kiss? Still awesome.

Happy birthday to my dearest mesmerising!!!!

You are wonderful, darling, and will only continue to get moreso!

Can't wait to see you again

If you want to get in touch with ddrpolaris, call my cell. If you want to get to in touch with me, call shogunhb's cell. If you want to get in touch with shogunhb, well...you're fine.

An interesting look at the Star Trek film; comparing it to two modern day subcultures.

(Man, that sounds all fancy doesn't it?)

Money Quote:
In Star Trek, the twinks are all aboard the Enterprise, along with their signature companion: a sexy, sassy female best friend. They're all wearing the same labels. The ship is new and exclusive, with custom retro furniture and perfect lighting–the de rigueur elements of a twink nightclub.

They are fighting the bears–thinly disguised as the Romulans–led by a pugnacious leather daddy named Nero, who struts around brandishing his gigantic staff. Aside from a nasty case of cauliflower ear, Nero is a prime candidate to get his own calendar from Colt Studios.

*snerk*

Props to rm for the link

I'm going to be a little quieter on Lj for a bit. I'm in the first few days of a new activity that I really enjoy, and whenever I discover something new, I tend to obsess over it for awhile.

Don't worry, this too shall pass. Till then, though, I'm gonna be a little distracted.

ddrpolaris: "I declare myself pope. Pope Me the First."

ddrpolaris: "The jib...is my penis!"

And not just any book...Greg Semenza's (otherwise known as virile god of the forest) book.

Okay, not exactly by name. But in his appendix, he included several different examples, like applications, cover letters, and syllabi. In one, he references 2003's Lit. Goes to Hell course, which I was in. So, I was excited about that. Then, later, he gives student comments, and the last one included was from my evaluation!!! Of course, he doesn't know that, but I remembered writing it!

Joy!

Also, he is all that is awesome:

*I have included some of my own professional material, not because of my massive ego (which he gets pinged for a lot in evals of students who don't do well) but rather because I do not need permission of any sort to do so.

*In order to keep the advice I offer here as immediate and personal as possible, I use the second person familiar pronoun far more often than I would ever allow my undergraduate students to do.

*The only realistic solution to this national, systemic problem (forcing graduate students to do the work of professors, which wears out students and cuts out tenured jobs, both of which serve the purpose of saving the university money) may be graduate student (and adjunct) unionization....Even in cases where union movements have eventually failed, activist graduate student bodies have tended to benefit from the concessions offered by the universities in their attempts to block unionization. "If we can't beat them into submission, we can at least pretend to treat them fairly," would appear to be the line taken by many administrations.

*Unless one is able to claim with a straight face that unionized schools such as Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, NYU, Rutgers and Wisconsin seem to be struggling as a result of having been unionized, arguments against the move seem totally unpersuasive and unethical.

After reading all that, it may surprise you to know he had a bumper sticker in his office that said, "You're welcome for the weekend. --The Labor Movement"

Fragile Eternity (which, now having read it, makes so much sense as a title) ends not-quite-abruptly. Don't get me wrong, the ending is smooth and well-paced, but Fragile Eternity is pretty much just setting up for whatever book comes next. And damn. Whatever book comes next is going to be AWESOME.

This wasn't a giggle-book though. There were no happy, giggly moments between Ash and Seth. There was just conflict, conflict, and more conflict. Bananach, the epitome of war, stalks through this book, and you can see her trails, overlaying the other characters, even when she's far away. And the court dynamics between Niall, Donia, Keenan, and Ash are also quite good. I hate to say it, but I would so root for the Dark and Winter Courts--not if this could affect 'the real world,' but they're so awesome and Keenan's such a douche.

And, in this book, Keenan makes (what I hope) is a fatal mistake with Ash.

Even though I said this book feels like mostly set up for what happens next, it doesn't really have that feeling until a couple of chapters before the end, when you realized that nothing can be resolved by the time you run out of pages. It's very dramatic, very intense, and oh-so-good.

This book was from Seth's POV, which, on the one hand was awesome because he's Seth and just a really great character, but on the other, I kinda liked the mystery he was in Wicked Lovely. He doesn't suffer from the Jaenelle-Syndrome, but he comes close.

4.5</i>

I was all set to be productive today, but our mail lady just delivered my copy of Fragile Eternity. This would be a perfect day to start reading it, curled up on the couch, ignoring the wet weather outside. I'd even just finished The Stepsister Scheme, so I'm all set to start something new. But I know I'm going to want to read it all in one sitting, and shogunhb and I are having date night tonight, and I'm not about to put it off just so I can read a book.

Even though he'd probably let me, cause he's wonderful like that.

So, tomorrow, I'm going to wake up early-ish and start reading so I can be done before I hang out with ddrpolaris tomorrow night.

But for the rest of the day, Fragile Eternity is going to taunt me from the Amazon box, silently urging me to pick it up and just read a few chapters. I'll be able to put it down any time I want. Seriously.

Ha! Nice try, book. I'm onto you.

Since I read so many more books than I'll ever review, I've decided to start keeping track of them in my LJ.

January
*Mistress of Mellyn, Victoria Holt Review here

*Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy, eds. Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois

*How to Ditch Your Fairy, Justine Larbalestier Review here

*Zofloya, or The Moor, Charlotte Dacre

*Austenland, Shannon Hale Review here

*Grimm, Fantasy Flight Games Review here

*Nobilis: The Game of Sovereign Powers, R. Sean Borgstrom

*The Myth of Mars and Venus, Deborah Cameron

February
*Black Pearls: A Faerie Strand, Louise Hawes

*Lament, Maggie Stiefvater Review here

*Gender Trouble, Judith Butler Review here

*The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, Lauren Wittig Review Here

*The Winter's Tale, William Shakespeare Review Here

March
*Vampire: Dark Ages, Jennifer Hartshorn, Ethan Skemp, Mark Rein, and Hagen Hassall

*Beasts, Joyce Carol Oates Review Here

*The Shadow Queen, Anne Bishop Review Here

*Twilight, Stephanie Meyer

*The Darcys and the Bingleys, Marsha Altman Review here

*Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One, Sharon Lathan Review here

*I am Legend, Richard Matheson

*The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

*Othello, William Shakespeare

April
*Vampire: The Masquerade 2nd Ed, Graeme Davis, Mark Rein-Hagen, and Stewart Wieck

*Clanbook: Malkavian, Daniel Greenberg

*Clanbook: Setites, Richard Watts

*Clanbook: Brujah, Steve Crow

*Clanbook: Ravnos, Christopher Walters

*Clanbook: Cappadocian,Justin Achilli

*Clanbook: Lasombra, Richard E. Dansky

*Clanbook, Assamites, Graeme Davis

*Liege, Lord, and Lackey, Jason Carl, Tom deMayo, Michael Lee, and Wendy Soss

*Dark Ages Storyteller's Companion, Heather Grove, James Kiley, and Chris Hartford

*Libillis Sanguinis 1: Masters of the State, Craig Bolin, Richard E. Dansky, and Rob Hatch

*Bitter Crusade, Zach Bush, James Maliszewski, and Joshua Mosqueira-Asheim

*Macbeth, William Shakespeare

May
*Beauty, Robin McKinley

This list will be updated periodically (ie: when I remember)

We're eighteen full weeks into the new year, I've read thirty-five books and reviewed twelve. That means I've no worries about readin fifty books this year, but I'm already six behind for reviews (four if I don't mind getting rid of the two week buffer). No new reviews since March.

(I know, I know, news at 11...)

But seriously, he does. Look:



They're selling missile bases as homes now. Do I really have to tell you how bad I want one of these?

This is even better than my idea for a cruise ship, because there wouldn't be the problematic 'getting to the safe location' bit. I'd live there. 4am zombie alarm? No problem, just roll outta bed and march downstairs into the vault. Swine flu attack? Let's just go downstairs till the hysteria's over. Wandering proselytizers? They'll never find us when we're several hundred feet down (and slightly to the left)!

THE AD EVEN MENTIONS HOW GREAT THIS PLACE IS IN CASE OF CRISIS SITUATIONS. THE SILO IS CAPABLE OF WITHSTANDING A NUCLEAR HIT. TAKE THAT VAULT-TEC!

Yeah, come and get me now, zombies, in my fucking nuclear-proof silo! Ha! Bitches! There's also a generator and its own well.

So, there's the "No secret govt. bases here, nope!" model house above ground, and then a two level, 2300 sq.ft., 3 bedroom 2-1/2 bath with open living area and kitchen adjoined by a spiral staircase belowg round where the launchpad use to be. This place is a duplex, and that's BEFORE we convert the silo into additional living spaces, gardens, school, public library, and doctor's office. Hmmm...what else would we need for a fully functioning society?

Oh and ha! If this were my nifty house, you people totally couldn't ban me from your enclave, even though I have no valuable skills! Double ha!

So...who wants to help me raise $2.3 million and be secure in your knowledge of a zombie-free future? Oh, and a nuclear and/or biochemical warfare-free future, too, I guess. Those are what the website mentions. But, yeah, zombie-free!

Dom Deluise died in his sleep last night

I'm probably just showing my age (or relative maturity level), but when I think of him, I think in terms of cartoons:

The Secret of Nimh, All Dogs Go to Heaven, An American Tail, Oliver and Company, The Muppet Movie (technically not a cartoon but whatevs)...

I know he was in a lot of other movies (Space Balls and Robin Hood: Men in Tights leap to mind), but, for me, he'll always be inextricably bound up with my childhood.

Wht am I writing a scholarly paper and using "tentacle-rape" as a valid term?!?!

Even though I reference it, I'm not explaining Legend of the Overfiend to her. If she's so damn curious, she can look it up herself.

In a fit of foolishness, I decided to see where I'd be, page-wise, if I changed my font to Courier New. I jumped from page 14 to page 19. Even dropping the font from 12 to 11 left me at 16.

So tempting...

I'm got going to do it though. For one thing, I'm not 14 anymore. For another, I haven't even gotten to the point where I begin tearing fandom to shreds for its latent sexism. (Don't worry, I've said some very nice things about fandom thus far). I'll need the remaining 5.5 pages shortly.

Tonight, I vomit words onto pages. Tomorrow, I go back, edit, cite relevent theory beyond "this is what all my friends say," and play with footnotes for the first time in my life.

All right. Nose, meet grindstone. Maybe I'll just put everything into Comic Sans and be done with it.