IT'S OVER!!! IT'S FINALLY OVER!!! BAH-FREAKING-HUMBUG!!!

Oh rapturous day, caloo, calay, my least favorite time of the year is over and done with for eleven more months. Yes, that's right, I am not a fan of hte Christmas season, mostly because of the fact that i work for the post office and work during december is HORRIBLE!!! You work 90 hours a week, get worked down to the bone, and what do you get for your trouble? A bunch of jerks yelling at you because their package that they ordered on the 23rd at 11:45 PM didn't arrive before christmas.

Therefore, I'd like to take this time, to give you the eleven things I hate most about the Christmas season. Why eleven, you ask? Because that's how I roll.

11.) Decorating. I absolutely despise decorating. I have hated it since I was a child, and was forced to do it anyway until I moved out. Now that I have, I don't even get a christmas tree. Why? Because I don't care. I hate decorating. It's a waste of time, effort and money. There are so many more important things I could be doing with that time, and with the money that the decorations cost. The fact that I do not decorate my home for any holiday, much less Christmas, does not mean that I am an angry, hateful douchebag that has no fun with holidays, but saying that I do because I don't like to decorate does tend to make me angry. Making assumptions like that about people based on something so incredibly ridiculous makes YOU look like a complete ass.

10.) Christmas music. Yes, that's right, I don't like christmas music. Why? because there are, what, 7-8 different songs that are played non-stop for an entire month by 700 different artists? Repetition can ruin every good thing, and it certainly has ruined christmas music. Worse are so-called famous artists who come up with their own, most often horrible, christmas songs, Paul McCartney and the Beach Boys come to mind, or sing existing christmas songs badly, hello Madonna, weren't satified with ruining American Pie, were we?

9.) Traffic. I don't know what it is about December, but all of a sudden there are four times as many cars on the roads, and everyone is driving like a complete retard, or a complete douchebag.

8.) Social Obligations. Now, it would be silly to believe that forgetting to get a gift for someone that gave one to you would cause the ground to crack open beneath you and hell to swallow you up. Quite silly indeed. But try doing it sometime though, the person you snubbed will certainly make you wish that it had. I should not have to spend my hard earned money on gifts for people I don't like, don't know too terribly well, or don't particularly care about, simply because they're an overachiever and got a gift for everyone on earth they've ever met. Yes, I do sound like an grumpy, anti-social douchebag... your point?

7.) Last minute shoppers. Christmas is on the same day every year people. It's not like it's suddenly going to jump out of the bushes and eat your children. You know when it's going to be, and you have an entire freaking year to buy gifts for people. Why, in the name of God, are you leaving it until 4 minutes 'til midnight on the 24th? There is not a word in English for how incredibly, mind-blowingly, completely, freaking dumb you are. Do yourself a favor and Darwinize yourself so that this stupidity is culled from the human race.

6.) Salvation Army bell-ringers. Yes, I realize that there are a lot of people out there that are less fortunate than I am. And I know that they really depend on those guys standing outside of stores, dressed in various states of Santa-ness, and ringing their bells to provide them with warm clothes for the winter, food for a Christmas dinner, and presents to give to their children to make a bleak life a little brighter. But could you maybe choose a slightly less irritating sound to annouce it with? Plus, the way they staaaaaaaare at you as you walk by makes you feel guilty as hell, even when you either have no cash on you, or have none to spare. I make my donations at church, I don't need someone giving me the evil eye for walking past them without donating again.

5.) General disposition of the public. For some reason, despite the fact that every commercial on TV tells you that this is a time of giving, hope, understanding, and joy, everyone on the freaking earth is grinding their teeth, in the worst mood imaginable, and openly hostile toward anyone that gets in their way in December, especially if you go within a mile of any Wal-mart location.

4.) Spoiled Children. The fact that there are children out there that are complete spoiled brats about christmas annoys me. News flash, people, if your child is like that, you have failed at teaching them the point of Christmas. In fact, you've probably missed the entire point of it yourself. There is nothing more annoying than seeing a child throwing a tantrum because he didn't get whatever toy he wanted for christmas. You know what Jesus got for Christmas when he was 2? A funfilled vacation to freaking Egypt because King Herrod tried to murder him by killing every baby boy in the district!!! So shut your annoying faces you spoiled little douchewaffles and be glad that you got anything at all.

3.) Commercialization. The true meaning of Christmas, be you Christian or otherwise, is more about putting others before yourself. However, present day society says that it's all about spending more money than you have, to give away things that people don't really need, or even want. I am a huge hater of comercialized holidays, Valentines Day and Halloween being foremost in my sights, but Christmas is a close third. The way the retail industry just swarms out of the cracks to grab you by the throat and wring your neck until you agree to buy x new gadget for someone just completely misses the point of what the season is all about. The meaning of any holiday is not to spend money on people or else they don't think you love them. If you need a holiday and a pocket full of cash or a credit card for someone to know that you love them you have a serious problem. And if you get angry because someone in your life didn't spend money on you, you've got an even bigger problem.

2.) Family Gatherings. I am not a social person. Surprise, surprise. I also have a VERY huge family, with nearly 100 members within an hour's drive of me. Big get-togethers are loud, crowded, and generally unpleasant for me. I do not like being around a lot of people, especially when there are shrieking children with no supervision whatsoever, and a lot of other noise. I like calm and quiet, and there is no universe in which a Brunson family gathering (my mom's side of the family) could ever be considered either of those. For me, Christmas is a time for quiet reflection, and these gatherings are the complete opposite of that. Plus there's the whole guilt factor if I don't go. "You know your grandparents may not see another Christmas, so you better be there now to share it with them or you'll be sorry you didn't" etc.

1.) Non-christians. Okay, I am very well aware of the fact that the christmas season means different things to different people. Despite it's pagan origins, it is a time to celebrate the savior of humanity for Christians like myself. There are others who celebrate it as a time to spend with their family, to do things for others, to help the less fortunate, and so on. In short, Christmas is a holiday for everyone, not just Christians. That being said, those of you out there that do no subscribe to any Christian beliefs, also need to realize that there are people who do. People for whom the holiday does have that extra little meaning in it. So stop being complete douchebags about it and doing your best to belittle, remove any Christian meaning from, or destroy the beliefs of those who do happen to celebrate the holiday as a religious one. All you're doing is making an ass out of yourself, and completely ruining a time of year that should be filled with joy and caring for someone else. Whatever belief system you choose to put your faith in, if you're celebrating Christmas, doing these things is contrary to what the holiday stands for.

That being said, I hope you all had a very merry christmas.

Book Review: The Shadow Rising

I've posted a review on The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan if you feel the great urge to read it.

Enjoy =)

"They"

/Grammar Nazi On

Because of the political correctness of today's society, people seem to think that it is improper or, in some way, offensive to use the proper gender specific pronoun to refer to people, instead using the gender neutral "they". This is wrong, and it should stop. "They" is a pronoun that refers to more than one noun. If you are talking about a group of people, you call them "they". If you are talking about a single person place or thing, you use "He" "She" or "It". When the gender of a person, place or thing is not known, it is proper English to use the pronoun "he". For example, if you are speaking of the writer of a newspaper artical, and have no idea if the writer is male or female, you do not call the writer "they". You call him "he" whether he is a he or not, until you know for sure one way or another. It is NEVER proper English to use the pronoun "They" when speaking of a single person place or thing. Why would you not call a "woman" she or a man "he"? It's what they are, calling them what they are is not offensive, and if anyone says that it is, he needs to stop being an idiot. That makes no sense. Why would you call him or her "they" instead? That's just stupid and it makes you sound like a retard.

/Grammar Nazi Off

I Am Nobody - Prologue Rewrite

Man, oh man, December suuuuuuucks for my job. I've hardly had any time to sit down and write since Thanksgiving.

Anyway, I keep trying to sit down and write more on I Am Nobody, because it's a story that I'm really starting to like, and I've lately been outlining it a little more heavily, filling in a few blanks I had in the storyline. I keep having some pretty horrible writer's block with it, and have been kind of just puttering around, not really adding much to it. I've come to realize that the reason for this is that I'm just not very good at writing in the first person perspective, in fact, I'd go so far as to say I'm downright awful at it. It's harder for me to do, and that's why I've been so reluctant to sit down and right more. Plus, i was having a hard time trying to work the elements of the story I wanted to tell into the perspective of a single person. As I've said before, I'm not a big fan of the first person perspective because it gives a very narrow view of the world. I also felt that in doing this book in first person I was sort of ripping off Dan Wells, and that is something I really don't want to do, because, really, he can do it much better than I can. Believe me. Read his books. They're GREAT.

Sooo, I've decided to start over with this one, and redo everything in third person, because I'll more easily be able to incorporate all of the elements of the story that I want to, and I'm much better at writing in third person anyway. Luckily I only had 20 pages written so far, so there isn't much to backtrack.

I've finished the new prologue, and it can be found at the bottom of this page. This, in my opinion, is a MUCH better beginning to this book, as it introduces both the protagonist, and the antagonist from the eyes of a third party, and Mia's duties as a Grim Reaper are better laid out up front. I kept the first paragraph of the original prologue as a bit of an epigraph at the beginning of the new one because "They say girls are made of sugar and spice, and everything nice, but not me, I’m made of death and despair and things to beware." is just such a cool first line to a book that I had to find some way to incorporate it. I think I'm going to have an excerpt from Mia's diary at the beginning of every chapter like that.

Enjoy =)

Oh, yeah, I also recieved a digital camcorder as an early christmas gift, so once my job stops being so awful I thought I might start doing video reviews of books rather than written reviews.

Book Review: Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

I've posted my Review of Inheritance by Christopher Paolini if anyone cares to read it.

Enjoy =)

Help Save the Internet as we know it

There is a bill before congress that if passed will force ISPs to block sites with offensive content, and basically gives the government the authority to block any and all sites that anyone says infringes upon their copyrighted ideas without need of showing proof, without question, and without giving a single warning to the owner of the site. This means that your blog, your twitter account, your facebook account, any sites or blogs that you visit, youtube, and many, many more sites could sudenly become illegal and censored by the united states government. Any comment that you make that any person finds offensive to them in any way will bsically make it so that you and every site/blog/etc that you own are effectively banned from the internet without warning and with no hope of ever getting them back. It is, basically, the death of the first amendment. And if Congress can so easily kill the freedom that it grants us, what others might they so easily strike down? Do not let them get their foot in the door with this. Send them a message that you will not stand for it.

Click here to sign the petition against this bill and send a message to your congressman that you want him to vote against it

Book Review: The Alloy of Law

I've put up a new book review on The Alloy of Law: A Mistborn Novel by Brandon Sanderson if you care to read it, but your time would probably be better spent reading the actual book, as it was extremely good, very entertaining, and a great deal of fun for its short length.

Enjoy =)

Lord of the Misunderstood Characters

/nerd rage on

Soooo, I got together with a bunch of people for a gruelling 11 hour marathon of all 3 extended version Lord of the Rings movies. Why? Because I'm a freaking geek, that's why. Do I need any other reasons?

Anyway, I typically watch movies in that sort of thing with people who are very vocal in poking fun and such, it's just so much more fun that way. Now, a bit of a heads up, if you know nothing of the Lord of the Rings, this rant will make very little sense to you.So we get to the part where Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo at the end of Fellowship of the Ring, and everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, probably the 15 other people watching with me, start talking about what an evil douchebag he is. I'm really kind of getting tired of explaining this to people. If you think Boromir is evil, I'm afraid you've completely missed the entire purpose of his character.

There are several things that you must understand first before you can understand why Boromir tried to take the ring when he did. First of all is the nature of the ring, both in the story and what it represents in the real world. Tolkien is very huge on symbolism, and if you're completely oblivous to such things, his writings will not make much sense to you. The Ring is the power, the very soul and essense, of the Dark Lord Sauron. It corrupts EVERYTHING that it touches. Some have more resistance to it than others, but all who come in contact with it will eventually succumb to its temptations. This is symbolic of the power of Satan and Sin to pull you away from righteousness with their power of temptation. No one on Earth is immune to the temptings of Satan, and thus, no one in Middle Earth is immune to the temptings of the Ring.

Next you must understand what kind of man that Boromir is. He is the best general and warrior that the nation of Gondor has to offer, first son of the Steward Denathor, and sent on a mission by his father. Denathor has heard stories of the Ring, and its power, and he has seen the armies of the Dark Lord massing. With only his nation standing between the hoarde and the rest of Middle Earth, Gondor alone guards against a threat that it cannot possible hope to stop, or even turn aside. Boromir was sent to Rivendel to bring back the Ring so that its power might be used to save Gondor from the Dark Lord's forces. With each passing day, Boromir sees the enemy growing stronger, and he sees how hopeless things are becoming. He has placed his faith in what his father has told him, that the Ring is the only salvation there is for his people. He is a man of duty, and honor, and wishes only to protect those whom he has sworn to protect. This is illustrated later on when he sacrifices his life to hold off an army single-handedly so that Merry and Pippen could escape, fighting on though he was shot more than thirty times with arrows, and killing most of those who came for the Hobbits.

Why did Boromir try to take the ring? There are many reasons. He believes that it is the only salvation that his people have, and that they are simply throwing it, and any hope Gondor has away by destroying it. He wishes to be the hero that saved Gondor when the Line of Kings had long abandoned it to its fate. He wishes his father to be proud of him. But most importantly, he was tempted by the nature of the Ring. He was tempted by the power and the glory that he thought it could bring him, and the salvation that it could bring to his home. Every character in the Lord of the Rings comes into contact at one point in the story or another with the temptations of the ring, and either overcome or succumb to them. Boromir, unfortunately, succumbs. But you know what, so does Frodo in the end, so shut up!

The character of Boromir himself is symbolic, going into Tolkien's love of symbolism. He symbolizes a strong and righteous man, who falls to the temptations of Satan. His character is a lesson that Tolkien was trying to teach to his readers, that even though you may be righteous and strong, you can still be tempted by evil to do evil things, so its best to leave evil things be, and stay to the path of righteousness. By the way, did I mention that Tolkien was a religious man? So, if you believe that Boromir tried to take the ring because he was evil all along, you've completely missed the point, and Tolkien is rolling in his grave because the lesson he was trying to teach you has gone ignored and misunderstood.

Boromir is one of my favorite characters in the Lord of the Rings, and when I say that, those who don't just outright ask who the heck Boromir is and why am I such a geek, look at me weird like I said Satan is my favorite character in the Bible. It's because he is a strong man who was tempted by darkness to one dark act, for which he attoned for immediately thereafter in one of the most spectacular death scenes that any character has ever had in fiction. He is one of my favorites because of the lesson that he teaches, and the things he represents in the story. Yes, he was tempted, but so was every other character, that doesn't make him evil, it makes him human.

I really love the actor that plays him in the Peter Jackson movies. I can see that Sean Bean really does understand the character, and his motivations, and the symbolism behind everything. He does a very good job of showing how a righteous man can be tempted for a moment by evil. Give the movie another watch if you didn't notice. He gives a very good performance that illustrates exactly what Tolkien was trying to say with the character. Also, pay attention to things like camera angles, the composition of visuals, lighting, sound and music. All of these things contribute to his performance to make the lesson very plain to anyone who is looking for it. I especially like the shot where Frodo sees Boromir watching him through the Ring, symbolizing that the Ring has taken him with its temptations.

/nerd rage off

Book Review: The Dragon Reborn

In my reread of the wheel of time series in preparation for the final volue to be released sometime next year I've finished book 3: THe Dragon Reborn and you can read my review of it here.

I'll be taking a bit of a break from The Wheel of Time for the next couple of weeks as Alloy of Law and Inheritance both come out tomorrow, both of which are highly awaited by me.

Enjoy =)

The Eternal Chain Chapter 4 First Draft

I've finished the first draft of chapter 4 of The Eternal Chain and you can download it at the bottom of this page.

This chapter follows the same basic structure of the original upon which it was based, however it is very much different from the original. Brand is sent by the innkeeper to hunt down Raven and bring him back for starting the brawl, and one of the Seven arrives, destroying the entire city, killing everyone in it as Brand stands by helpless to do anything about it. He joins Raven not for some weak and vague reason I didnt really think out very well in the original, but for the clear promise of vengeance against the one that did it if he comes.

Something to watch here, is that Brand is having two different types of flashes. Hes having flashes of memories from before his memory was erased, and flashes of things that could not possibly have happened before his memory was erased. The original idea for the original trilogy upon which this book is based was that the villain had control of time itself and had trapped it in a loop called the Eternal Chain. Every time the loop repeats the fabric of time runs a bit more ragged, and sooner of later it's going to snap, and everything will simply cease to be. I didn't really bring much of that into Beyond the Lost Horizon, because it was part of the larger story that I was largely trying to save for the second two books so that the first book could stand alone if needed. I think it's a bit better to have him having flashes of previous lives that he's lived in that loop at the very beginning to establish that something strange is definitely going on. Also, a thing to watch out for is characters feeling deja vu. It's because everything they're experiencing has actually happened to them before, countless times. Every tie a character starts talking about how they feel like this has happened before, it's a warning that something very important to them is about to happen.

Anyway, enjoy =)

Do you know the Muffin Man...?

Soooooo, today I woke up craving muffins for some reason, and got out my family's ancient muffin recipe. Yes, that's right, there is such a thing in this world as an ancient muffin recipe. It has been passed down through my family for hundreds of years. Seriously. I'm not making that up. It has been adapted through the ages by this person or that to meet the ingredients, or measures, or oven technology of the times, but it's basically the same recipe that my ancestors were making centuries ago. If you're expecting a sugary treat, look somewhere else. These have much, MUCH less sugar in them than most recipes you can find these days, and I think they're better for it. Back in the day, on the Highlands of Scotland, sugar was not as accessable as it is today, and people weren't hopelessly addicted to it as they are today. So here it is:


Oat Muffins

2 Cups Oats
2 Cups Milk
3 Cups Flour
1 Cup Sugar
2/3 Cups Cooking Oil
2 Eggs
2 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Baking Soda
1 Tsp Salt
Any fruit/berries of your choice.

Preheat oven to 400

Combine Oats and Milk and set aside to soak for 10-15 mins. Most if not all of the milk should be absorbed by the oats
Combine all other dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix together thoroughly
Beat the Eggs and add them with the Oil and the Oat/Milk Mixture into the dry ingredients.
Mix thoroughly and add in your fruit. I usually do mixed berries, but apples and cinnamon are good, or mashed bananas basically anything you could ever want or think of works well.

Get a muffin tin/pan/whatever they’re called. You can either grease it thoroughly or use those little paper muffin/cupcake cups. Either way, fill them 3/4 of the way with batter and cook for 20-30 mins or until the tops begin to brown. Stab with a toothpick if it comes out clean they’re done, if bits of batter stick to it, it needs more time.

Makes 2 dozen.

Enjoy =)

Happy Get Hit by a Bus and Knocked Clear the Frick into an Epic Battle Between Good and Evil at the End of the Universe Day. AKA... monday.

Last year's post pretty much sums it up.

"As fun as halloween might have been when I was a young child... and okay, yes, not so young a child... I find that as an adult it's rather annoying, I mean you've got kids running around demanding that you give them candy when they've done nothing to earn it from you, trying to act like whatever they're dressed up as... usually not very well. And then you've got the loser teens who see a night to get free candy and go for it. I can't say so much about them because I used to be one of said loser teens, but at least I went christmas caroling and worked for my free candy, unlike some rejects from society.

Anyway, I figured that if I'm going to celebrate on a day that has been completely and utterly ravaged by commercialism I'm not going to celebrate their holiday. I'm going to make up my own holiday and celebrate it instead!

Sooooooo *drum roll* I hope you all join me in celebrating Get Hit by a Bus and Knocked Clear the Frick into an Epic Battle Between Good and Evil at the End of the Universe Day on Oct 31st. This holiday marks the day I first got the ideas rolling for Spires of Infinity whilst handing out candy to greedy children and pretending to smile over their costumes. One of the aforementioned loser teens was dressed up as a lawyer that had been hit by a bus, tire treads and all, and that's where the idea for the story came from.

Get Hit by a Bus and Knocked Clear the Frick into an Epic Battle Between Good and Evil at the End of the Universe Day is typically celebrated by eating all of the candy you bought to pass out to children trick-or-treating and watching anime and/or the syfy remake of Battlestar Galactica and/or The Big Bang Theory whilst pretending not to be home so you can keep all the candy for yourself."

The Eternal Chain Chapter 3 First Draft

So I've kind of gotten a bit sidetracked over the last month or so and have not done much writing. First there was a mail count at work that sucked my will to live, then I discovered Xenoblade, and then the last few weeks have been awful at work in recovering from the Columbus day off.

Anyway, I've finally gotten around to writing again, and have completed chapter 3 of The Eternal Chain, and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

This is a much bigger and better version of the original chapter upon which it is based. Rather than Raven vs a few idiots, there's a full house at the tavern, and the entire thing errupts into a huge and deadly brawl. More importantly there are quite a few elements of character developement here that were missing in the original. Kriss is shown as something of a cold killer, which she was in the original, though I didn't do so good a job of illustrating that character trait. Raven is the most powerful sorcerer in the world, but he is prohibited from using his power because the Black Tower can trace him by his tattoo. Brand shows a bit of his sadistic side, and you get a few hints as to why Raven is such an angry douchebag. I didn't really delve into that ery much in the original, but here I plan to more fully develope his character and his reasons for doing what he does. I also found that I was relying a little too heavily on his power as a Sorcerer in the original, and used quite a bit of plot conveniance to have the Black Tower showing up wherever he went. The idea that he can be traced every time he uses his power gives him limits, an provides a much better explanation as to how the Black Tower is dogging his trail.

This chapter completes the first cycle in the viewpoint pattern I intend to use for most of the book. This one is told from Raven's point of view, the only character beside Brand in the original to recieve any chapters from his viewpoint. Next will be Brand, starting off the next cycle of Brand, Kriss, Raven, and in that cycle I will be adding Temari to the end of it.

Enjoy =)

Bravo.

I finally found an actor I believe LESS as an action star than Matt Damon. Yes, that's right, someone smaller than a man even I am taller than, and scrawny besides. Justin Timberlake. Bravo Hollywood, Bravo.

Yay!!!

Sooooo Brandon Sanderson is doing a charity drive to raise money for the Mayo Clinic (where Robert Jordan was being treated at the time of his death) and those that donate $10 or more are put into a drawing to have their names used as characters in teh final Wheel of Time book Details can be found here on his blog. And my name got drawn almost right off. Woohoo, my name is going to be used for a character in the finale of my favorite book series of all time ^^V. The character is a soldier in the White Tower Guard, though I doubt many of the people who read this blog are geeky enough to know what that means.



And one of the online reviewers I follow put up a pretty awesome video here with one of the most awesome lines ever in it. "Oh, great, your total apathy has turned us all into Gray Lanterns... The defenders of not giving a crap." Of course, that joke is only hilarious to nerds. The guy in the fedora is a mormon so the language in this one is mostly ok and when it's not it's mostly bleeped out.

Book Review: The Great Hunt

Next in my reread of the entire Wheel of Time series in preparation for the next and final book is The Great Hunt, you can read my review of it here.

~_^

Found a new online reviewer that's pretty entertaining.

Obscurus Lupa Presents

She reviews action and horror movies that are so bad they're hilarious. Check her out. Her Sci-fi original movie double feature and Birdemic ones are probably the best.

I finally understand...

Well, anyone who knows me probably knows that I have a list of actors whose movies I boycott. This list includes:

Will Ferrel
Sacha Baron Cohen
Steve Carell
Ben Stiller
Vince Vaugn
Owen Wilson
Luke Wilson

They're divided into two groups, those whom I can be forced to watch if I absolutely have to and if someone else is paying (the bottom five on the list) and those whom the very mention of fill me with rage and I would rather submit myself to torture than watch, because torture, as horrible as it may be, is far less painful (the top two on the list).

I am very vocal in my hatred of Will Ferrel. Show them what I'd like to do to him Seth MacFarlane.



By the way, THAT IS THE ACTUAL MOVIE DIALOG!!!

Anyway, I can't stand the guy. I don't find him even mildly amusing, which completely defeats the purpose of any movie he's ever been in. And you know what, I actually kind of feel dirty while watching his movies. I wish that I could inflict upon him all of the suffering I've endured being forced to watch his god-awful movies on dates. There are no words for how much I dislike his movies. My hatred for him has grown so great that I've actaually started enforcing a rule with anyone I date, I will never, ever, ever, EVER watch one of his movies, EVER! In return I'll go to pretty much anything else without complaint... except musicals... I hate musicals...

Anyway, my sister is trying to set me up someone with who loves him, and that's cool, everyone's entitled to their opinions and to enjoy the things they enjoy. So I sat down last night and tried to watch one of his less stupid movies and figure out just why I don't like him.

First, I don't find Will Ferrel funny, at all, not even the slightest bit. I've never even cracked a smile during any of his movies. I don't get him. I don't understand the joke. I don't understand why the things he says and does are supposed to be funny, so they're not, and as his movies have little else beside his supposed comedy in them, they're long, dull, soul-crushingly boring, and painful to sit through. Did I mention that they make me feel kind of dirty to watch? It's like watching a movie completely based on a contextual joke, where the context isn't set so it's impossible to understand the joke.

Now, I am not an expert on film, nor am I an expert on comedy. Even still, I can tell a good movie when I see one, and a bad movie when I see one. I can tell a funny joke when I hear one, and a not so funny joke when I hear one. I do have a sense of humor, though I've been told it's rather dry and quite morbid. I do enjoy other comedy movies. Just not his.

My first encounter with him was the movie Superstar, which was, quite possible, the worst movie I've ever seen, and keep in mind that I've seen the un-MST3K-riffed version of Manos: The Hands of Fate, which is widely regarded as the worst movie of all time. I actually thought to myself during Borat, "This is the worst movie I've ever seen... no, actually, I'd rather watch this than Superstar again." I am not making that up. Every encounter with Will Ferrell after that has been worse and worse until I came to the point where I absolutely refuse to watch any of his movies ever for any reason because even the mere mention of his name fills me with rage.

At first I thought I was too smart to understand his supposed comedy. I imagined a plywood cutout with a cartoonish circus ringmaster on it holding his hand at about waist height and a little comic text bubble saying, "you must be this dumb to enjoy the movie." But that's not it. People that I know to be far more intelligent than I am like his movies. That left me stumped. I have no idea why people think he's funny. I have no idea why what he does is supposed to be funny. I have no other clues as to why I might not enjoy his supposed comedy.

I'm reminded of an interview on a latenight talk show a few years back with Robert Duval, one of the greatest actors of our time, who had the displeasure of working with Ferrel on a film, I forget which. When asked how he could keep a straight face while acting across from Ferrel, he kind of stared blankly and said he didn't understand. Thank you Robert Duval, one of the greatest actors of our time, FOR HAVING SOME FREAKING TASTE!

Anyway, I'm rambling. So I booted up my netflix and chose out the Will Ferrel movie people keep telling me is better than the others (it isn't by the way, it's the same garbage as all the rest, just with a cutesy christmas motif to it. It's still the same old crap, whether it's decked in christmas colors or not).

Again, I have no idea why this is funny. I just don't understand what makes other people laugh at this crap. It's not funny. Hell, it's not even entertaining. But I did notice something. Again, as I was watching it, I kind of felt uncomfortably dirty. Then I saw something I never noticed before. Will Ferrel is retarded. No, really, like actually, literally mentally handicapped. Watch how he talks. Listen to his tone of voice. Look at how he moves and his manerisms. And not just in his movies, in his interviews as well. He's mentally handicapped. That's why I feel dirty watching his moves. I happen to think it's horribly wrong to laugh at the mentally infirm, and when everyone else does, it makes me feel a bit soiled by it.

Anyway, I still have yet to figure out why people think he's funny, because he's not. At all. Not even a tiny bit. But I did figure out why I feel bad when I watch one of his movies. I still refuse to EVER watch a single one of his movies ever again, and I really wish that people would stop paying money to watch them so that the people making hte movies would get the hint and stop casting him.

And then...

And now I'm randomly NOT following my own blog anymore... WTF Blogspot...?

Woooo

I just got an e-mail from Goodreads.com saying that my review of The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind is the most viewed review for that book having just reached 500 hits. Amongst a tiny niche of fantasy bookworm geeks, people actually seem to care what I have to say. Either that, or people on that site just aren't used to seeing an angry douchebag ranting his hatred for all to see and want to check out the train wreck for themselves. I'm quite pleased with this, as out of the reviews I've posted on that site, that one is my favorite. I had so much to say about how awful that book was that I actually had to edit it down a bit because it wouldn't fit the 20,000 character limit that they put on reviews.

Anyway, if you haven't read it yet, check it out. I think that it's pretty entertaining to read, but then again, I think most of what I write is entertaining to read whether it actually is or not. And, if you wouldn't mind, if you would be so kind as to click "Like" at the bottom of it when you're through, it would be most appreciated. The number of likes that a review has determines how far up on the list it is when someone searches for the book.

Xenoblade: BUY IT!!!

I've just finished playing Xenoblade, and here's what I thought about it.

The word epic does not even begin to describe Xenoblade. Those familiar with Tetsuya Takahashi’s work (Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, Crisis Core, Xenogears, Xenosaga) will probably know that he’s one for epicness on a ridiculous scale. However, if you were to take all of the epic from every other game he has made and pour it all together, it would not even be half as epic as Xenoblade.

Xenoblade is a classic tale of boy meets girl. Girl meets killer robots. Boy steals magic lightsaber and runs away from home to seek vengeance. Girl is resurrected as a killer cyborg with her memory erased and sent to hunt him. Boy gathers the forces opposed to the machines to kill them all. Love conquers all, and there’s some vague threat from the mastermind behind the machines to eliminate all organic life in the world, which may also come to an end when the land itself gets bored of sleeping and wakes back up to resume its eternal fight against the other half of the land. And only the one chosen by the magic lightsaber as its master can calm the two titans that make up the land again.

Yes, it sounds cheesy, but here’s the thing. Rather than focusing on the events, and the flashy explosions—of which there are not a few, I will admit—or the excellent graphics, this game, first and foremost, focuses on the characters. I have never seen a video game put so much care and effort into developing its characters. It’s like watching a master novelist weaving his story around you. The character development is so good, in fact, that you forgive any ridiculousness in the plot. You really get to know the people that this game is about, what drives them, what they hope for and fear, and why they keep going even when the odds are completely impossible. You can feel the emotion of the main character Shulk as he pleads with the girl he loves, Fiora, to break the control over her mind that the villain has implanted in her, and the triumph when she finally does. You completely understand how deeply they love each other when he dives off of a floating city to save her, because he can’t bear to lose her again, and when they kiss while falling to what they believe is their death in each other’s arms, it actually means something to you. The effort put into foreshadowing is both excellent and subtle at the same time, giving you enough of an idea of what is to happen that it enhances the story rather than ruining it, and it makes you truly want to continue.

The characters are extremely well developed. The villains are suitably mysterious and inventively evil. The story tying them together is good enough on its own merits that I would have played the game to the end even if the character development had sucked. This game really is a masterpiece of storytelling the likes of which is rarely seen, especially in a video game. The way that it blends science fiction and fantasy together is excellent as well. The world feels real. The people in it feel real. The mythology has a lot of thought and effort put into it. It is no wonder that this game took seven years to make. To pull off a story this epic and well told with such a rich world and deep characters had to have taken a massive amount of work.

The biggest gripe that most people had about Takahashi’s previous works, mainly Final Fantasy 7, and the other games in the Xeno series, was that there were long, long, looooooooong stretches of story sequences, sometimes lasting hours, and not enough actual gameplay between. I’m happy to say that though there are story sequences in this game, and quite a few of them, they are blended very well with the game play, and you feel a lot more like you’re playing a game rather than watching a movie with this one. I’d go so far as to call the integration perfect. You still have the depth of a well-told story, but at the same time you still feel like you’re playing a game. The controls are excellent, the battle system is both extremely fun and very simple to pick up and use. It’s also very addictive. Fighting off the endless hoards of enemies is not a chore in this game. The world is HUGE and very fun to explore, and you are actually given a chance to do so.

The biggest problem I’ve seen with RPG video games over the last decade or so has been the degradation of storytelling in favor of employing more and more stunning graphics. This game gives a story told so well that you’d swear it came from the era of gaming when the stories stood out as the best thing in the game because they had to in order to overcome the constraints of the graphic technology of the times. At the same time it also has the absolute best graphics I have ever seen on the Nintendo Wii. Rather than distracting both player and game maker alike from the story, the graphics in this game enhance the story to such a degree that you can see the world and the people come alive in a way that would have been impossible even ten years ago. Every single setting in the game is simply amazing to look at, and the action sequences are both very well paced, and thrilling to watch. Imagine a sky that, at night, is full of an unbelievable amount of stars, or covered with an aurora that rains down sparkling bits of magic. Imagine an icy wasteland where the ice crystals bathe everything in a warm yellow glow and shine upward like ten thousand spotlights into the sky, or a swamp with a multicolored haze of latent magical energy hovering over everything. Imagine one of the characters having one of the most epic duels I've ever seen as an avalanche crashes down all around them, and enemy fighters circle around the sky firing their weapons down at the the two, or a floating city exploding all around the characters as they desperately try to make it to safety before everything comes crashing down. The large scale ariel and ground battles in this game are breathtaking, but so are the quiet moments of characters looking to the horizon as they try to deal with their inner turmoil. Rather than being a special effects and highly choreographed snorefest like the star wars prequels, the duels are meaningful because you know why the characters are fighting and what the fight means. The flashy effects like a city exploding all around them, or an avalanche crashing down only enhance what is happening because you're so invested in the characters themselves that even if it was done with sixteen bit graphics you'd still be on the edge of your seat. The flashy graphics and effects enhance the story spectacularly rather than trying to replace it as so many games and movies are trying to do lately.

It is no secret that the voice acting in video games is hardly award-winning. In fact, most times it’s downright awful. However, the British cast of this game is excellent. I don’t know if it’s just that it’s harder for me to spot bad acting because of the accents, but in my opinion the acting was some of the best ever featured in a video game. Every single voice fit the characters, and the translation of the script was done very well, so none of the dialog sounded fake, forced, or strange. The music was so great that after playing the prologue of the game I immediately bought the soundtrack off of Amazon. It enhances the mood of the scenes and the world to make it feel so much more real than the already realistic graphics and story make it. The only gripe that I can give is that the words do not match up very well with the movements of the characters mouths, but, then again, they’re not supposed to. The game has the option to use the original Japanese audio track, and that doesn’t match up very well either.

I absolutely HATE motion sensitive gaming. It is, in my opinion, the most retarded thing that anyone has ever thought of. It is the reason that I took me so very long to get a Wii, and I do not buy any games that require the use of motion control, because I think it is stupid, and should never have been implemented. Xenoblade is one of the few games on the Wii that completely ignores the fact that the motion control even exists. You cannot even play the game with the normal Wii controller. You need either a gamecube controller or a Wii classic controller to play this game. I count that as an EXTREMELY big plus and I hope the idiot that first came up with the idea of motion controls is currently addicted to heroine and blowing a guy for his next fix.

This game was excellent. It is probably the best RPG I have ever played, and I have played a LOT of RPGs. I lost two weeks to this game because I literally could do nothing else until I finished it. Lately I've had trouble rousing the interest and patience to play a game this long, even old favorites, but this one sucked me in and wouldn't let me go. Every single element of it was perfectly done, and blended together so well that it’s flaws are barely noticed, and few and far between. The English version of the game is translated and acted extremely well. The story is beyond epic, and if there is a word for how good the character development is, I don’t know it. For fans of Tetsuya Takahashi’s games, and of RPG video games in general, this one is a must. Unfortunately, Nintendo of America has refused to release this game in the Americas, and the only way that you will be able to play it is by importing it. If you have the means of obtaining a PAL version Wii, or a region modded one, or have a good PC emulator to run the disc on, and have the time to sit down and play this game, you will not regret it. Even my brother who absolutely hates video games was drawn in by this one. The storytelling is just so good that even someone who considers games to be a complete waste of time can't stop playing it.

Book Review: The Eye of the World

I've posted a new book review, the next in my complete reread of the Wheel of Time Series in preparation for the final volume which will be coming out next year, possibly as soon as march.

Click Here To Read It.

Bwaahaahaa take that, nintendo of america

Soooo, a game taking place in the xenogears/saga universe was announced a few years ago and i was waaaay excited about it because i loved those games. Rather than being on playstation as previous games in the series, this one was going to be on wii. Luckily, i owned a wii so all was well. The game came out in japan and was named rpg of the decade. This got me even more excited for it. And then... Nintendo of america annoumced last year that they had decided never to release xenoblade in rhe usa. I was incredibly pissed about this, as you might imagine. I'd waited years for this game. It takes place in the world of some of my favorite games of all time. It was named rpg of the freakin decade! And it was written by one of my favorite japanese writers on top of it all. But then, earlier this year, nintendo of europe announced that they would be releasing the game in english and french in the pal format. Sooooo, i hopped on ebay, found a pal format wii for about $20 used, did some creative rigging to hook it up to my ntsc tv, and ordered the game from amazon.co.uk. When the game finally arroved it was all i hoped it would be and more. In fact, i would go so far as to say that it is probably the best rpg i've ever played in my life. Go kill yourselves, nintendo of america!!!!!!! You can suck my pal version wiimote. You conspired to keep this game away from me, but i got it anyway and i looooooove it.

... *sigh*

Sarah Palin is a complete and utter moron... That is all.

You'll never believe it...

You probably won't believe it, but... Matt Damon can act. Yeah, I know, I thought hell would freeze over first too, but he was actually very good, for the first time in his life, in Contaigon. Mostly, I think, the fact that he was playing a normal, every-day guy, dealing with more realistic sorts of things made him seem far more believeable than any action role he has ever been in.

Anyway, I really liked Contaigon, however, I believe that many people (people without taste, and who prefer explosions or pratfalls to a solid and well done story) will find it a bit boring. Don't go in expecting action, or someone to have a big AHAH! moment and save the day for a happy ending and you should find it a pretty enjoyable movie to watch.

Book Review: The Demon King

I've got another book review up, this one is on The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima, you can read it by clicking here.

Enjoy =)

The Eternal Chain Chapter 2 First Draft

I've finished the next chapter of The Eternal Chain and you can read it at the bottom of this page.

In this chapter, again, much has changed from the original version. Brand shows that he knows who Raven and Kriss are, and that they are worth quite a bit of money. Raven in turn shows Brand that the Three Great ORders of Sorcery have bounties out on HIS head, and procees to explain that for some reason the Priory and the Seven want him dead, and that he may be the key to Raven's own revenge against them for the murder of his sister. Instead of Brand following after them, Raven, instead asks him to come with him so they can look for the answers to all of their collective questions together.

In the original Beyond the Lost Horizon, almost the entire book was written from Brand's point of view. In this book i'm going to try something different. Each chapter will be from the point of view of a different character, going in order, Brand Kriss Raven, and repeating. When Temari joins the crew her point of view will also be added to the rotation. In my opinion this will give a broader view of the story and the world, a more intimate experience with each of the characters, and make for a deeper and more detailed story. Also, it will allow for me to break the pattern in the end to make things seem a little more hectic and frazzled.

Book Review: New Spring

I've put up another book review on Goodreads.com for New Spring by Robert Jordan and you can read it by clicking here.

Rocket Man

Once upon a time, long, long, loooooooooooong ago, William Shatner considered himself to be a serious actor. Then came Star Trek and ruined that notion for him. It took him several decades to realize that his entire career was basically one big joke, but once he did, he just sorta rolled with it, and every single thing that he did became utterly hilarious. Nothing really changed outwardly, but you could tell that once he just accepted the fact that he was the world's biggest joke, he was having fun. Then you could look back on some of the things he'd done and see that he'd really been joking with us for a very long time.

Things like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQwXOCKNLY

and this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Ar79f8aN8&NR=1

I am Nobody - Chapter 4

Ive finished chapter 4 of I am Nobody and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

In this chapter the Hunter arrives and leaves a gruesome message for Mia. You get to see a of her whole Grim Reaper work.

The plot of this story is going to move along rather rapidly once I get it going, because I'm shooting to keep it under 70,000 words as a young adult book should be, it's going to be short and simple to follow. One thing that is nice about writing a book geared for young adults rather than adults is that you don't really have to explain how everything works perfectly. Young adults are a little more willing to accept that supernatural things just happen and that's the end of it so I don't have to spend too much time giving you explanations and that will cut a pretty big chunk out of the length of the story. When I don't have to tell you HOW Death's magic sword works, just that it sucks the life out of anything it touches, it makes it a lot easier to focus on the more important elements of the story and make it a lot more compact.

I Am Nobody - Prologue-Chapter 3

I've finally gotten around to posting the first few chapters of the young adult supernatural thriller I've been writing very slowly in my free time called I am Nobody.

This is a story about a teenaged girl who happens to be the daughter of Death. She is a part time Grim Reaper, and she is being hunted by a supernatural serial killer that devours the souls of the dead, seeking the ultimate delicasy of a Reaper's soul.

You can read what I've posted of this story so far by clicking here.

Enjoy =)

Book Review: The Omen Machine

I've written up my review of The Omen Machine so you can read exactly how bad I thought it was. click here to read it.

Enjoy =)

New Book Review Host

So rather than spend the time building a new site to put my book reviews on I'm sticking them up on goodreads.com. You can read all of my reviews by clicking here. Click the link marked "View" to the far right side of the book to get to the review.

I've also added two new reviews that I wrote while my site was down: The Gunslinger, by Stephen King, and The Law of Nines by Terry Goodkind.

Patrick Rothfuss is a Goodreads member and I IMed him to be sure to check out my review of his book on a site that he CANT get it taken down from.

Enjoy =)

The Omen Machine

For those of you who are fans of Terry Goodkind, you may want to steer clear of his new book, The Omen Machine. He makes it blatantly and painfully obvious that he couldn't care any less about his fans with it, only the money in their pockets. The book is badly written, poorly paced, relies heavily on deus ex machina solutions to problems rather than letting the characters work out their own innovative solutions, and every single chapter, every single page, and every single word in this book is extraordinarily contrived. The entire story just feels fake and forced. Things happen and people do things not for any particular reason excapt because the plot says so, and they find answers to their uestions seemingly out of thin air. It's full of false tension, (that's when the writer tells you there's tension rather than actually making you feel that there's tension), unbelievable events and character reactions to them, and it just plain sucked. After the abortion he dared to publish as a "sequel to The Sword of Truth" called The Law of Nines, I'm starting to think I'm just going to stop buying his books now that I've read this one.

Once I get a ew book review site put up I'll write a more detailed review of it, and possibly The Law of Nines as well. These are two books that deserve to be torn apart by my cynacism.

The Eternal Chain Chapter 1 first draft

Okay, so, I'm rewriting Beyond the Lost Horizon. As this book will be including the story of all three books in the trilogy that Beyond the Lost Horizon was starting I've decided that the title no longer fits, and have changed the name to what the third book would have been called: The Eternal Chain.

Anyway, I've finished the first chapter of The Eternal Chain and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

Almost everything in this chapter has changed from the original. The setting is different, the characters are different, they meet under different circumstances. However, at the same time, it is generally the same area of the world, and generally the same things are going on in the world. The motivations for the characters are different than they were, but they're still relatively the same people. In this version Raven is no longer trying to save Maree, the love of his youth. He's trying to avenge the death of Mari, his twin sister, and he's recruiting people who have a grudge against the Seven to hunt them down and kill them all. He's also protecting those whom the Seven want dead, which is where Kriss and Brand both come in. Brand is a bit older than he was, and a bit more bitter at the world, and Kriss is failing miserably at trying to pass herself off as a boy to hide herself from the Seven. She's fleeing ritual sacrifice at the hands of the Priory of the Blessed Radiance, a third order of sorcery that I've added to this book, rather than an arranged marriage.

The fact that Brand feels strong deja vu, and the fact that he feels he once knew and horribly lost Kriss are new elements to the story as well. Though they would have been brought in somewhere in the third volume of hte original trilogy, I felt that I should introduce them as early as possible in the new version so that I don't have to rely on the tired and ridiculous premise of love at first sight as I did in the original.

Also, in the original all of the characters had a distinct way of speaking that gave them a bit more color and personality. I haven't done much of that here yet. That is something that i typically change in later drafts once I've got the story and what people need to say at what parts more solidified.

Anyway, Enjoy =)

P.S. well, it looks like Google is pussing out over my book review site. Patrick Rothfuss actually filed a lawsuit against them if they don't keep it down and, understandably, they'd rather just take down my site rather than pay legal fees to protect the first amendment rights of someone they know as an e-mail address in a database. If I felt the great urge I could file my own lawsuit against him, but meh, it's not that huge of a deal. I find it far more entertaining to publically ridicule him on hs own forums and twitter feed for it, as well as make a new site with a different host and just put the review back up for people to read, as well as a detailed explaination added to it about what a dick he is.

Wow, Patrick Rothfuss is a dick...

Ok, this is REALLY funny.

So, you know how I've been writing book reviews in my spare time for fun? Yeah, so I submitted the page I was posting on them to google.

Aparently Patrick Rothfuss, the writer of one of the books I reviewed was surfing around to see what people thought of his newest book and came across my review. He was so offended by it that he actually submitted a complaint to google (the ones hosting my site) that I had infringed upon his copyrighted material by reviewing it and they took down my review site. He then wrote me an incredibly nasty e-mail about it. I'll spare the details, but aparently the dude doesn't do well with criticism AT ALL. The really funny thing about it is that the e-mail was actually better written than his god-awful book was.

I've submitted an appeal to Google over this and I am certain that my site will be restored, because reviews of books are protected under the same copyright laws that protect the books themselves. I'm not infringing upon copyrights, I'm telling about a book I read and didn't like very much. Just because I didn't like it, and had some very bad things to say about it doesn't mean I'm breaking copyright laws, and Im sure google will agree with me on that once they've reviewed the case, so Patrick Rothfuss can suck it, and his next book better not suck or I'll post another awul review.

btw, somehow I'm now following my own blog and I can't figure out how that happened, or how to undo it hahaha.

Ok, this time I'm REALLY done, I promise

well, my agent has gotten back to me on my recent batch edits on Spires of Infinity, and we both decided together that there were a few more small changes that needed to be made, especially Gabriel's conveniant deus ex machina escape from the Children of the Chosen. So now I've pretty much removed all use or mention of magic except for Kari, whose use of it I've changed somewhat to better reflect the differences between Humans and Heretics. There are also a few more changes I've made here and there. In all I added about 5000 words in this draft to explain a few things a bit better, add a bit more humor here and there, and make for a bit more realistic personalities for some of the characters, mostly Sam, because reading through this time I felt her personality was a tad bit over the top of where I wanted it to be. And this time my Agent promises that He's done asking for changes and once he's proofread the final, final, final, FINAL draft he'll start pimpin it out to publishers.

Anyway, if you feel the great urge to read the final final final final draft i've uploaded it all to my website here.

hmmm...

Gee... It only took them 5 days to hook my internet up at the new apartment...

Man, what did I do with my life before the internet?

Doooooooooom aaaaaand gloooooooom

So there i was, all ready to move. I have literally everything packed away and ready to go. I was planning to spend the whole day moving crap over. I'm making this post from my phone at a carls jr because my computer, my dishes, and my food are packed away. The apartment management seemed not to realize that when they told me i could move in today that i would show up first thing in the morning to do so. The apartment will not be ready until 5 pm. Meanwhile, i took today off work to move, but not tomorrow, the cable guy sent me an email saying he'd be here at 3:30, my power gets shut off this evening, and with everything packed away the only thing i have to do today is play with my phone and the battery is at50% with my charger packed away. I could have been almost done by 5!!!

does anyone happen to have a basket full of bunnies i could punch?

Anyway i have to get everything moved today or pay an extra day of rent on my current apartment, which completely sucks because it was their mistake, and i could really use some help from anyone that is able. Pizza and drinks are on me.

AVALAAAAAAAAANCHE!!!!!

The packing continues, the mountains of junk rise, I found a hermit living in my closet, and I think my brother might be buried alive.


Yes, those banana chairs are mating, where did you think little banana chairs come from?








And just because they're freakin' amusing...


totoro totoro, totoro totoro... I knew I couldn't trust that smile.


This is the most epic think i've seen since Cowboys and Aliens.

moving suuuuucks

To give you an idea of how much anime and books I own here are the boxes i have packed of JUST anime and books (more books than anime) click the top picture to see the whole thing, my blog kinda cut off half of it.

Book Review: A Dance with Dragons

I've finished and posted my book review of A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin.

Enjoy =)

BTLH 2.0 Prologue

So I've finished up the new prologue for Beyond the Lost Horizon 2.0 and it can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

This chapter is a very good example of what I'm doing with this story as a whole. It is generally the same as the original version, but at the same time it is completely different.

Looking back, I think i relied a little too heavily on the prologue of the original being a dream sequence, and I kept pointing out that it was a dream while it was happening which completely kills any suspense at all. I decided that with this version it would just be a straight up flashback.

The premise for this new version of the story is that there are 3 powers in the world, rather than the two from the original. The first is the Black Tower, a group of mercenary sorcerers. Then there's the Crusade, a new religious order with its own standing army, sorcerers, and millions of orphaned children that they took in and taught the ways of their new god after the world almost ended. And the Church of the Blessed Radiance, run by the Seven, servants of the Blessed Radiance, Aidyn, a god that teaches that all sins and pain can be washed away through something called the Eternal Chain, which will erase everything and return it to peaceful nothingness as the only way men can be freed of their sins and the pains of life. All three of these orders have prophecies that the Eternal Chain will be broken by an evil being, and he must be killed before the Promised Day or the salvation of mankind from their sins will never be possible.

The Seven are a bit of a redo on the Covenant from the original story and rather than showing up in book 2 they're going to play a far more prominant role in the story from the beginning.

Basically, what makes this story different from other stories following hte same achetype of a young man discovering himself to be the heir to some grand and noble destiny and going on to save the world is that he's actually kind of the bad guy. My protagonist is actually the antagonist. He's going to destroy the only means of salvation that these people have from their god. This is more a story about the bad guy overcoming the chosen one rather than the other way around, which I think makes for a far more interesting story. What if the Dark Lord wins, and the one chosen to defeat him dies? That's the big change that i'm making in this story.

Anyway, you can read and compare. The whole world stuck in a time loop and grinding slowly toward oblivion at Cain's command, Cain controlling the Gate, and all of that stuff that I would have written into the third and final book of hte original trilogy is still going to be remaining in this story to keep with continuity in other stories i've written, but a whole lot of other things are going to change.

Anyway, enjoy =)

Work on this project will be slow because I'm still working out a few details of the plot and brainstorming for ideas. I've got a general outline done, but not a detailed one, so until I've got that worked out i'm going to be going pretty slow.

Beyond Beyond the Lost Horizon

So, you may have noticed that I haven't posted anything but book reviews over the last few weeks, and I've got another one that I'm going to post tomorrow or saturday on A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin that I'm still putting some finishing touches on.

There are several reasons for this.

First and foremost is that I'm moving next thursday and I've been packing things and cleaning up, and figuring new and inventive ways to steal tubs from work unnoticed to move my junk over in rather than using boxes. When it comes to cleaning my apartment I am rather lazy sometimes, and I don't exactly do the best job of it, so there is lots that needs cleaning before I move out.

The next reason is that I've been working a bit more than usual the last couple of weeks due to one of hte other carriers being out for a knee replacement, and it's been freakin HOT lately. The heat just saps your will to do anything productive away.

And then I've been having some second thoughts about the project that I'm currently working on that I needed to deal with. The Path is a sequel to Spires of Infinity and it can, in no way, be sold as a stand alone if my agent is unable to sell Spires. The other project I had in my bag of tricks is the beginning of a very long series and I don't really want to try and sell that until I've made a bit of a name for myself. There are other ideas, of course, but they're not as well developed and ready to go at the moment.

That led me to start thinking on another story I could be writing right now, something new that, if Spires of Infinity fails to sell, I can put up as my next work to try and sell, something that stands alone, and is not overly long. And, being overworked and dead tired from the heat, I couldn't really think of anything.

For about a year now I've been having some thoughts on Beyond the Lost Horizon, and why my agent couldn't sell it. Most often the reply he got from publishers were that it was too generic, and it really kinda is. It's predictable, and follows the most overused story archetype of all time. The world was really good, and the characters were excellent, but the plot just wasn't on the same level. They deserved a better story.

So I started to think of what changes I could make to the story to make it less generic and more original, taking these characters, and this world, and doing something with them that hasn't ever been done before. Unfortunately I couldn't think of any way to do that without doing almost a complete rewrite of the entire story, or without changing the characters far beyond recognition.

When my agent was in town to go over my edits for Spires of Infinity with me, this was one of the things we talked about. What could I do to make a generic story like this more original, and we both came to the conclusion that if it was going to be done, I'd have to do quite a bit of work rewriting and overhauling the plot, so I decided to set that aside for now and focus on The Path. However, I've been thinking very hard lately on a sort of new retelling of Beyond the Lost Horizon, a much better story to tell. And I think I've finally come up with a much better and far more original version of Beyond the Lost Horizon to write.

Anyway, I started outlining BTLH 2.0 and it's really starting to come together. There will be some things that are the same, and some things that are different. The characters will change a bit, most notably Brand, but they'll still be recognizable as the same people. The basic plot structure won't get messed with too much, but at the same time, it will be almost a completely different story. But how can the plot structure stay the same and the story be completely different you ask? Well, the characters will meet up at about the same time in the plot, most of the big events will remain, and they'll be at the same places at the same times, but their reasons for going there, and what's happening in the world will be much different. Their personal struggles, and the changes in their characters and motivations will make the story take a different course even within the same basic outline. The ending will be completely different, and at the same time, it will remain the same. I'm still using that same tired old story archetype to some small extent, however, I'm putting a new spin on it that NO ONE is going to see coming.

Anyway, that is why I've put The Path on hold, because I want to have a book deal in the works before I actually start writing a sequel, and I've found a more intriguing and challenging project to work on, fixing Beyond the Lost Horizon. I think that all of the work i've done on Exile and Spires of Infinity, and various side projects has helped to develope my writing skills as well. I don't just have a better story idea, I'm a better writer now than I was when I wrote the original Beyond the Lost Horizon. Reading back through the final draft of BTLH now in preparation, I think it's a miracle i ever attracted an agent at all in the first place. It's not exactly horribly written, but it's not exactly well written either. I've had a lot of practice between now and then, almost a million words worth of manuscripts of practice actually, and hopefully i can craft something great out of what I have here. But yeah, don't expect much until I've gotten myself settled into my new apartment. I'll probably post a prologue sometime in the next week or so.

The Green Lantern

So I went out to the Green Lantern last night. This movie was supposed to be a mega-blockbuster summer action movie from DC comic studios to compete against Marvel's X-men: First Class. Unfortunately they did several things wrong. They showed too much of the CG effects in the trailers, making people have Star Wars prequel flashbacks, They used the DC Ultimate Universe storyline rather than the original, they put unneeded 3D effects into a movie that takes place almost entirely in the dark (3D needs a lot of light to really be effective, on dark scenes it's very hard to see), and they cast Ryan Reynolds as the Green Lantern. And of course, they put it up against X-men which both looked like a better movie, an WAS a better movie.

Now, I will admit, that it would ahve been impossible to make a Green Lantern movie without some use of CG effects, however, there are quite a few scenes in the movie where it's one actor in a completely blue room trying to figure out what he's supposed to be looking at and talking to, just like the Star Wars prequels. You don't NEED to use CG effects that much. They make the movie look sterile and fake, when the entire point of a movie like this is to make you believe that these things actually exist.

The Green Lantern cost $200,000,000 to make, and since it's release in mid june has only made back half of that. In other words, it flopped big time, leaving the production company a hundred million dollars in the hole.

Now for the uninitiated, DC comics has two sides. There is the DC Original Universe and the DC Ultimate Universe. The DC Original Universe is basically all of original versions of all of thier comic book heroes. The DC Ultimate Universe came along in the mid 90s when DC decided that they were sick of adding onto all of these 50 year old comics and it was time for a change. They ended every single one of their big series, including superman, batman, and the green lantern, and started them over with more modern artwork, and new storylines that the people of today would hopefully connect with better than the Original Universe. Many of these Ultimate Universe comics completely flopped and DC was forced to revive many of the Original Universe series, they also tried many more Ultimate Universe reboots, but most of them were never as popular as the Original Universe stories for those same heroes. One of the ones that did not see a return to the Original Universe was the Green Lantern. And this movie was based on the Ultimate Version of the Green Lantern rather than the Original Universe version. This is something that annoyed me from teh very beginning of the movie, because I never did like the Ultimate Universe Green Lantern very much, and I loved the Original Universe. Also, there are two Green Lanterns, there is Hal Jordan, and there is Guy Gardner, who took over as Green Lantern from Hal Jordan when the original writers decided that his character wasn't interesting enough, and the series needed something new to interest comicbook fans. Guy Gardner is BY FAR the more entertaining of the two, btw.

The movie wasn't completely horrible. It did have some good parts, but the bad outweighed the good. Of course I was biased from the beginning becuse they used the Ultimate Universe storyline. Their casting was horrible, I get that they wanted a sarcastic douchebag that could crack jokes to be the Green Lantern, but there's plenty of those around that aren't as goofy as Ryan Reynolds. He's not superhero material, and he plays the role like it's another gross out comedy, when there are no gross out jokes. At least half of the movie takes place in completely CGed environments like the Star Wars prequels, and it looks just as bad and fake as they did. There are too many completely CGed characters, including the entire green lanter corp beside Ryan Reynolds and the guy he got his ring from (who, funny enough, was played by the guy who was Jango Fett/the clones in the star wars prequels). The thing that put it over the edge as unredeemable to me was that his suit was completely CG. I get that they wanted to have the animated glow on it and all, but you see, there's this thing called rotoscoping where you add an animated glow to objects already on screen, and it both a.) looks more real, and b.) costs way less to do than CGing his suit on every time he wears it.

There was very little in the way of character developement, which is odd, because they spent most of the movie supposedly developing the characters. The villain is completely flat, with no personality and absolutely no reason given to be evil. A cardboard cutout might have given a more believable performance as the love interest, and Ryan Reynolds can't decide whether he's taking the role seriously or not.

They got Hal Jordan's personality completely wrong in an effort to make him a more likable character. In the comics he's supposed to be a complete douchbag that cares about no one but himself, and the extent that he doesn't give a crap, and the lengths to which he will go to avoid having to do anything that doesn't directly benefit him are normally hilarious. You can make an unlikeable character likeable with the right writers and the right actor. Look at Ironman. Tony Stark is not a likable person, but the writing and the performance given by Robert Downey Jr. make him entertaining enough that you don't care he's a sarcastic dickhole. The Green Lantern is supposed to be the same way. He's an unlikable, sarcastic dickhole, but he's usually written in such a way that it's funny and entertaining. Seriously, if your writers aren't talented enough to pull something like that off in a movie, FIRE THEM AND GET NEW WRITERS THAT ARE!!! Don't completely change the character to fit the movie. I always liked the Guy Gardner Green Lantern more, because he was even worse than Hal Jordan in not caring. Half the time he wouldn't even wear his suit becuse he just didn't care who knew he was the Green Lantern, and that was really funny.

Anyway, Green Lantern wasn't horrible, and someone who has no clue what I've been talking about for most of this mini-review will probably find it rather enjoyable, but to comicbook fans this movie was basically an attrocity. It's worth seeing once, just to know how bad it was, and to see Tim Robbins finally returning to movies, but wait for it to be at the dollar theaters, or redbox/netflix it.

Thundercats remake

When I was like 10, Thundercats was one of my favorite cartoons. It was freaking awesome. So, when I saw that they were remaking the series I thought it could be either incredibly awesome, or incredibly awful.

Fortunately, it was incredibly awesome. I you liked the original, or are looking for an awesome animated show to watch, check out cartoon network's remake of Thundercats.

The show is basically completely different, about the only things that are the same are the characters and the villain. Rather than having a technologically advanced race of cat people in space fleeing their dying world for a new one, they are a more primitive culture without technology overrun by an ancient enemy thought defeated. Their entire race is almost exterminated or enslaved, and a few survivors must search for a book with the secrets to defeat the villain.

I liked it a lot, it had pretty good character developement for a cartoon on cartoon network, the animation and music were excellent, and the voice actors were pretty good too. The original Lion-o made a cameo as the new Loin-o's father. And it had quite a few other good references to the older series without trying too hard to copy it, or remake it exactly as it was. It's its own show that remembers where it came from let's say. So yeah, check it out.

Adventures in Mail Delivery - Part 2: Revenge of the Stupid

So, like people at any job, every now and then crazy things happen to Mail Carriers as well. Such as a stray horse walking up and trying to eat mail out of your hands. Here are some of the crazy things that have happened in the last few days at the West Jordan Post Office.

First of all, something that didn't happen to me personally, but the post master and the supervisors have been making sure everyone knows about so it doesn't happen again. We're currently understaffed, meaning on saturdays several routes have to be split up and people have to deliver a route and a half. We were so short handed last saturday that we actually had to borrow a weekend carrier (the job I used to have before getting my not quite route) from another office, a dude that has been working for the post office in this job for almost twelve years. He was on the easiest route, so we all figured that someone that experienced would be able to figure it all out on his own. He sorted the mail out quickly enough in the morning, and got out of the office faster than I did, as I had to sort two routes that day.

The gearshift in mail trucks trucks is rather odd. It's not like normal automatic transmissions which usually go P R N D 2 3. The gearshift on the postal trucks goes P D N R 2 3. The retarded logic behind this is that mail trucks have HUGE blind spots and they don't want us backing up, so they put the reverse gear further away from park to discourage it. Stupid, yes, I know. This leads to a huge design flaw in that the vibrations of the engine when idling in park can actually cause the gears to shift from park to drive, which leads to runaway vehicles.

It is post office policy ever since they started using these vehicles rather than the Jeeps that every time you get out of your vehicle, you put it in park, curb the wheels, turn the engine off, and set the parking break, even if you're just walking 2 feet to reach a blocked mailbox. That way there's no chance of the vehicle getting away from you. If putting it in park, setting the brake and turning the engine off all fail, it's angled at the curb and will stop rolling when it hits it.

Anyway, this guy that we borrowed actually managed to run HIMSELF over with his own mail truck. There's a Monty Python sketch that is an obstacle course to determine the twit of the year and as a joke one of the contestants ran himself over with his own car, because the impossibility and ridiculousness of it makes it hilarious. But this guy actually managed to do it.

He pulled up to a mailbox that was blocked, someone parked in front of it. He didn't turn the engine off, didn't curb the wheels, and didn't set the parking brake. He took two steps away from the vehicle and that was all the time that the vibrations from the engine idling needed to pop it from park into drive and the truck started coasting down the steep hill he was on. Naturally he ran after it, but it was starting to pick up speed, with a final sprint he managed to reach the door and tried to jump into the seat. He missed, fell out, and the back tire rolled over both his legs at the thigh, breaking one and severely bruising the other.

AND THEN he got back up, on his broken leg and proceeded to chase the runaway vehicle the rest of the way down the hill until he collapsed from the pain, only to watch his truck zoom miraculously untouched through a busy intersection, and crash into the side of a maverick.

Needless to say, he's become the joke of the West Jordan Post Office this week. Crashing a vehicle due to a rollaway like he had is one of the few things that you can be fired for at the Post Office without the supervisors having to jump through hoops for the unions. Your vehicle rolls away on you due to negligence like he showed, you're gone. Especially if you manage to total your vehicle in the process. Even the unions recognize the need to get rid of people who will endanger themselves and the lives and property of other people in that way. So this genius returned to his own post office monday to fill out paperwork for workman's comp, thinking that he was going to coast by because it wasn't his post office it happened at to find that he was now unemployed.

Honestly, you'd think someone that has worked for the post office as long as he has would know the value of following the rules, especially when they drill them into you in weekly staff meetings.

This next story actually did happen to me.

So, yesterday I was delivering mail to a row of community boxes. There were four of them in a row, with a parking lot to one side, and houses across the street. I had my mail truck parked in the street between the mail boxes and the house across from them rather than in the parking lot so I wouldn't have to back up. As I'm delivering my mail I hear something hit the side of the truck. I look around and see nothing, so I go back to work. Then I hear it again. It sounded like a kid chucking a rock at the side of it, so I looked around for kids, but didn't see any, and went back to work.

Then something slammed into the lens of my sunglasses hard enough to crack it and knock the glasses off my face, and I hear a kid laughing his butt off. I look up and see a 5 year old in an attic window with a BB gun. Naturally I'm pissed, because those were prescription sunglasses that cost me $180. A new lens will probably run a good $50 if not more.

Ducking another BB, I get back in the truck where I'm out of the line of fire, and call my supervisor. Meanwhile the kid continues to pelt the truck. It rings loud enough on the inside that my supervisor can actually hear it over the phone. She tells me to call the police, and says that she will be there in 15 mins with a postal inspector (who, by the way, have the same authority as US marshals).

I call the police, and they show up about the same time as my supervisor and the postal inspector. The kid sees the police car and knows he's in big trouble so he disappears from the window and I explain to everyone what happened, show them my broken glasses, and we all walk over together to the house an knock on the door.

The boy's father opens the door. He is the epitome of white trash. Shoulder length hair, shirtless, hairy chest, side burns all the way down his jaw, porn stash, tattoo of a naked chick on his shoulder, and a beer in one hand.

The policeman explains what has happened to the guy, shows him my glasses, and takes him over to see the dents in the side of the truck that the BBs made. Then we walk back to his house.

He says, "So why the hell you talkin' to me 'bout it? I ain't the one that did it."

The police officer explains that as the child is under age and in his care he is responsible for his every action, and that assaulting a government employeed on the job with a weapon, even a BB gun is a federal offense for which he, not his son, will be held accountable for.

He just laughs, takes a swig of his beer and says, "Well hell then, arresst the little bastard." like my coming half an inch from being blinded in one eye while trying to do my job is just a big joke to him.

The policeman looks at the postal inspector. The postal inspector looks at the policeman and they both shrug. It was so perfect that I'd swear it had been scripted ahead of time if I didn't know better.

"You're under arrest for negligence of a child and the assault of a government employee."

That wiped the smile off of his face. He threw his beer at the cop and tried to close the door, but the postal inpector pulled his gun and blocked the door from closing with it then kicked it back open like a freakin' action movie hero, and proceeded to tackle the guy to the floor and cuff him while the beer soaked cop began reading him his rights.

Long story short, the dude was arrested and taken off to lockup. I get to testify at a hearing tomorrow, and child services were called and the 4 children in the house taken into custody because he was the only adult present, and had been so incredibly negligent in his parently duties. And I get a completely AWESOME story to tell. And I plan to make that dickwad pay for my glasses to be fixed too. And the very best part is that this man now has a lifetime hold on his mail, meaning we will NEVER deliver to him again for the rest of his life. If he wants his mail he has to pick it up at the post office, and if he misses more than 10 days in a row we return it all to sender.

So yeah, there's a whole lotta stupid in the world. And people wonder why I profess to dislike people in general...

A River Runs Through It...

...my parking lot that is. I didn't think to take a picture of it with my phone until later on when the water had gone down, but the murray canal runs right past the parking lot of my apartment complex. The levels have been really high the last few weeks already because of melting snow in the mountains. With the ridiculous amount of rain today the level rose enough to flood the lower part of the apartment parking lot, and part of the hospital parking lot. Vine Street was under a foot and a half of water where the canal goes under it, and the trax parking lot also got flooded. It was freaking AWESOME!!!

Captain America

Captain America was awesome!!! Like Thor it didn't overuse CG effects, and gave character developement as much care as it did the action scenes. I did not see it in 3D because a.) Im boycotting 3D, and b.) being half blind in one eye 3D isn't in 3D for me, it only looks blurry. It's definitely one of the better done comic book movies, and certainly one of the better movies to come out this year. It felt more like the older adventure movies like Raider's of the Lost Ark rather than a modern day special effects brain dead action movie, and I really liked that. They even make a couple allusions to raiders of the lost ark for laughs, which I found funny... but aparently I was the only one in the audience that got the jokes, because i was the only one laughing at them. I had to explain them to the girl I went to the show with afterward. Come on people, it's freakin indiana jones!!! who hasn't seen Indiana Jones?

Hugo Weaving (Elrond in Lord of the Rings, Agent Smith in the Matrix, V in V for Vendetta) is perfect as the Red Skull, and you can tell he's having the time of his life with the role, which makes him a really fun character in the movie. The makeup effects are WAY better than older captain america movies too, he actually looks like his head is a red skull. The guy they got for Captain America is pretty good too, i forget his name. It was a little weird to have his head CGed onto a scrawny guy's body before he became Captain America, but most of the time they did a good enough job of it that you can't tell it's been CGed. There are a few times, though, when it's really obvious and looks really strange.

Anyway, I really liked it, and I definitely reccomend it to anyone looking for a fun action adventure movie this summer. And remember to stay until the end of the credits there is a teaser trailer for the Avengers afterward.

Book review: The Gathering Storm

I've finished my book review of The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.

Enjoy

Moving Date Set ^^V

I've got my new lease all worked out with the apartment management and it looks like my moving date is set. I'll be moving on August 11th (and probably the 12th too) which is a thursday and friday. it will be soooo nice to have my own bedroom again... and not to be living next to the inconsiderate prick that calls himself my neighbor. If anyone would care to volunteer their services in hauling my junk across the yard (about a grand total of about 300 feet or so) any help would be welcome. Basically all we'd really need help with would be the dressers and bookshelves, but as my dad likes to say, "Many hands make light work" and the more people we have to move boxes the less time it will take.

OOPS!!!!

Sooooo, I was flipping through my copy of Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, the latest Wheel of Time book.

I found something in the glossary that I find extremely amusing.

For over a decade it has been one of the biggest questions in the world of fantasy nerds. Who killed Asmodean? I, for one, figured it out after having read the book in which it happened and never understood how anyone could not know who did it. (rather than looking for the person who killed asmodean, it's a simple matter of eliminating those that could NOT have killed him and you're only left with one character that could have been the killer) Aparently, most people are not as sharp as I am, and it's been building and building for years. Robert Jordan said that in the final book he'd have a big reveal of who did it just for the fans because of how many people had become obsessed with it.

Well, in the glossary, under the character that I knew all along was the one that killed the dude, it actually SAYS that she killed him, which kinda ruins the big reveal scene in the final book.

OOPS!!!!

After a bit of looking on the internet i found that the first printing of the book contains this gigantic spoiler in the glossary, but all further printings have removed it. This problem had nothing to do with Brandon Sanderson, the writer completing the series after Robert Jordan's death, as the contents and text of the glossary were chosen by the editor, though that has not stopped the nerd rage against him from exploding amongst fans.

Moving

Sooooo, my brother's complaining about having no room in my apartment for any of his things has finally gotten to me and I've decided that maybe it's time to move to a somewhat bigger apartment. I'm not exactly thrilled about having to share a bedroom, I haven't had to do that since I was 10.

Anyway, the Lost Creek apartments where I live recently lowered rates on their two bedroom apartments and so I figured that I might as well switch my lease over to one of those. Normally there is a $150 fee for this sort of thing, but with how many complaints that I have given them on my new neighbor they decided to waive it for me. Honestly, it was the new neighbor, who STILL blasts his stereo, though not as loudly as before, that finally pushed me over the "OMFG I NEED TO NOT LIVE HERE ANYMORE" edge.

It's not a huge move. I'm simply moving to the building across from the one I'm living in. Having an extra bedroom will be extremely nice. My brother goes to bed at 4 AM and I get up for work at 6 AM, so he always wakes me and I always wake him. Plus he has a ton of stuff that he has been unable to unpack yet due to the fact that there simply isn't any room for it in this dinky little apartment of ours.

Unfortunately the apartment I'm moving to is also on the third floor so we'll have to carry all of our stuff down three flights of stairs, and then back up three more, but you know what, it'll be worth it to get away from the retarded punk jackass next door. I pity whoever moves in here after me. He's going to really hate life. The extra room and not having to share a bedroom will be very nice as well. Plus, my brother's friend has asked if he might be able to move in with us and share my brother's bedroom, which would be great because it would mean less rent for me to pay, and I'd still get a bedroom to myself.

They're not sure when the apartment will be ready for me to move into, the best guess is 3-4 weeks depending on how much they've got to clean up after the previous tennant, but I'll be spending pretty much all of that 3-4 weeks packing up stuff and cleaning up this apartment to get ready for the move. So I'm probably not going to be getting much in the way of writing done until the move is done with.