talkingsoup (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
talkingsoup) wrote2007-03-19 12:21 pm
talkingsoup) wrote2007-03-19 12:21 pm
Holy Shit, Batman! Most LJ-Cuts in a Post EVAR! (Take Two)
Quite the double-post, innit? I hadn't realized I hadn't updated at all in two weeks.
Anyway, continuing in the amazing story of my life...
So yeah, the last half of break we spent doing the book thing and hanging with my people. I think it was Friday night we went to Caleb and Asher's (the cousins) school to hear a jazz and poetry thing--Caleb plays guitar, Asher plays drums. The only way I can really describe it is that it was very, very New York. It was interesting the way the poems and the music melted together, though I don't know if I actually liked it or not. Though some of the poems were pretty awesome. One was a poem about being in the primordial soup and amoeba love, haha. Brilliant.
Speaking of primordial soup, holy FUCK, Spore is coming out this fall apparently. What is Spore? Spore is only the most awesome computer game probably to ever grace geekdom. Pretty much, in the game you start out as a one-celled organism, and then you evolve. You choose what lines you want to evolve along, giving yourself X number appendages and so on. And according to their new video
you can do a lot more than that. *squee!* I've been anticipating this game ever since I heard about it about two years ago.
The only problem being that I'll need a new laptop to handle this game. Septimus is getting up there, but he still works and he's still mostly reliable, like an old dog. I don't want to get rid of him yet. I'm one of those people who keeps using my things until they fall apart ^.^
Had a bit of a surreal moment when we drove by the World Trade Center. I'm still sort of torn about visiting places like that. It was the same when we went to Dachau in Germany--just the idea of a place of such suffering becoming a tourist attraction. But I did tell myself this time that I wanted to go there, because 9/11 I think played a major role in my anxiety disorder, and I need to start facing that. We never actually made it to the WTC, but we did drive past it, and it was just like, "wow...there used to be towers there. There used to be people there." Ah, man. I dunno.
But, enough with the depressing. I can't be entirely depressed right now because there's an icicle hanging outside my window that looks like an alien's hand, no joke.
Last day spent in NYC we went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, kind of like a smaller version of the Met, though it was still all kinds of brilliant. We only had time for two floors (there were five), so we checked out the floor with American art (woot) and the floor with the Egyptian stuff (holy crap, Batman!). No mummies, but it was all very awesome.
And now we're back in good old Ithaca and it's cold and wet and there are classes to attend and Julie and I are still sick. *sigh*
And now the requisite reports on the various and sundry things that came out in the past week. Though first, another book I read.
Have I mentioned the Retriever's Series here? The series is about Wren, a Retriever living in NYC. A Retriever is like a Get Backer (lol) in that she "retrieves" things for people, which usually means steals them. Except that in this world there is magic, and it takes a very interesting form. In any case, Wren has gotten up to some shit in the last two books, but the most recent one out, the third, is definitely my favorite. At this point, it looks like war's about to break out between the Mage Council (the organized group of magic users), the lonejacks (the live-free-or-die types of magic users) and the fatae (the non-human people living in the city). It's gotten very awesome, and it's an excellent example of modern urban fantasy. If you like Dresden, you'll probably like Wren, though this series falls a bit more on the female side of things, though not to a chick-lit degree. Wren is an awesome character, and the book has its own voice that is a blatantly New York voice. Love it.
So what have we? No House on Tuesday due to March Madness, but Crossing Jordan and Lost were both on Wednesday, of course, and they were both ALL KINDS of awesome. I'm really impressed with this season of Jordan so far, since it's really branching out and doing some interesting things. And Lost is no longer sucking! It's getting back into the mysterious and strange that made the first season and the first part of the second season so brilliant.
However, there are things I must report and speculate on. For instance, in
Jordan has a brain tumor.
I know, WHAT?! Oh my god, they couldn't have done anything more surprising. Admittedly, this season has been a bit over-the-top with things that have happened--the riot in Boston a few episodes ago, and a hantavirus outbreak in this most recent episode--but I think this one packed just the right amount of punch.
I mean, those of you who have been in this show for awhile, you know our Jordan. She's stubborn, brazen, unashamedly straightforward, not above breaking the law to get what she wants, and a blatant liar when it comes to her own personal issues. The whole thing with her mother was cleared up last season and the season before it, sporadically, and in a very effective way, I thought. But in any event, she's Jordan. This is the girl who has survived everything possible without going crazy or getting herself or the people she cares about killed.
And now, a brain tumor?? It's big enough to kill her whether it's cancer or not, is what Macy said. The way they introduced it was so brilliant, too. Pretty much, the whole time there's this hantavirus outbreak going on, and Jordan is working at a control site. Suddenly she starts getting symptoms, like aversion to light, blurred vision, and then weakness and shaking in her right hand. She did the Jordan thing the whole time and didn't tell anyone, worrying inside her own Jordan head the way she does. Haha, she's kind of predictable that way, but that's why we love her. But then the test comes back and it turns out she doesn't have hantavirus, but she knows something is up. So in the last few minutes she's back in the morgue and sits down at this chair thingy to take sort of like a brain scan. Then, a scene later, Macy walks in and the image of a brain is up on the wall. Jordan asks him to take a look at it, and RIGHT THERE within the frontal lobe is this massive tumor. Jordan, being Jordan, acts like it's from a patient's head. Macy takes one look at it, notes the massive tumor, and says, "A tumor that big, doesn't matter if it's cancer or not."
And I was so proud of Jordan, because she was about to tell him! But then he cut her off and said he was proud of her for her work, etc. etc. Augh! Macy's going to die when he finds out. They all are! But Macy in particular, because he has always, always, always been Jordan's father figure, and he has always seen her as like a daughter. Oh man, oh man, how will they resolve this?! Jordan, go get it fixed soon! Chemo! Operation! It worked for Dr. Green for awhile, didn't it?!
As if that wasn't intense enough, we follow it up immediately with...
Holy shit, Claire backstory!!
I knew it, though. Way back when in that flashback episode last season, when we saw Jack's dad trying to muscle his way into some Australian woman's house, and all we heard him say was "my daughter." I knew it meant that "the daughter" would be on the Island with them. And since we've run out of women, Claire was the only remaining choice.
Claire is Jack's half-sister!!
Only I'm not sure Jack much cares right now, since Jack is now an Other.
Holy fuck! Jack's an Other. How the hell did they turn him so fast? Or is it an act? Pretty much, the last scene in the episode was Locke, Sayid and company coming up on the Others' hideout--suburbia--and seeing Jack playing football with, what was his name, Tim? Tom? He was certainly all buddy-buddy, though. They must have some lightning-fast brainwashing techniques, or something else is going on here. I want to know! Oh man.
It was a really well done episode overall, too, and I liked what we got of Claire's backstory.
And of course, of course, there were the Narutos that came out, being the latest manga chapter and the latest Shippuden episode.
Oh my fucking God, I totally understand now why Sasuke is so popular. He just fucking PWNED Orochimaru and has TAKEN OVER the Sound ninja. Okay! Do you know what this means?! Sasuke has become a crime boss!! He's like the Don of the mafia, except he's the Don of killer ninja! Wow. Just wow.
And it looks like Naruto's new jutsu is as awesome as it is dangerous, which is nothing new with poor fox-boy. Tsunade says he can never use it again, which of course means that he has to. Man, he attacked that Akatsuki on the cellular level. How badass is that?
Augh! The pieces are moving! It's looking more and more like we're finally going to get a three-way confrontation, sometime soon! Akatsuki and Naruto and Sasuke the new crime lord. Oo-wah!
As for the episode, well, it's following the manga, and it continues to be brilliant, although it was lacking on the crazy music front.
Back in my world, in terms of writing, I didn't get half as much done of the rewrite over break as I wanted. Between being sick and hitting a snag that Pat pointed out, it just kind of came to a standstill. But I'm going to get back in it now, and keep thinking about that snag. Mostly the thing is, do I want to overhaul the beginning in order to get things moving faster, or draw it out so things are more dramatic? I'm long-winded, in case you couldn't tell, but that's something I'm trying to fix. So I dunno. There are a few things I'm going to extend because they kind of have to be.
Also, a lot's been coming together for some of my other projects. Mot has been niggling me again. The thing with Ramsey--my white haired, cloak-wielding heroine--is taking shape in my head. Have I mentioned Skye? Skye is the main character of Ramsey's story--I don't know her last name, but she's a snarky tattoo artist in Berkely who was diagnosed with schizophrenia some years ago. This was because she could see the things that Ramsey fights--critters I have dubbed darksouls for now, who are kind of shadow creatures that haunt people at their best and kill them at their worst. Anyway, Skye could see those things, and ghosts and stuff, but it made her a strange kid and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She believes now that all the things she saw when she was younger were hallucinations, but when she meets Ramsey she realizes she's been sane all along. Should be fun.
Things are also really coming together for North, though I'm still not sure how far I am from actually starting it. I've got a better sense of what's going on in the Whodden--where the Folk, the spirits and non-humans live--and what's going on in North's own life. I just need to figure out certain things about the beginning of the story.
And now I have to get some things done before Women and Writing. Another long post! Lol, and these two were supposed to be all one. Nya-ha.
Anyway, continuing in the amazing story of my life...
So yeah, the last half of break we spent doing the book thing and hanging with my people. I think it was Friday night we went to Caleb and Asher's (the cousins) school to hear a jazz and poetry thing--Caleb plays guitar, Asher plays drums. The only way I can really describe it is that it was very, very New York. It was interesting the way the poems and the music melted together, though I don't know if I actually liked it or not. Though some of the poems were pretty awesome. One was a poem about being in the primordial soup and amoeba love, haha. Brilliant.
Speaking of primordial soup, holy FUCK, Spore is coming out this fall apparently. What is Spore? Spore is only the most awesome computer game probably to ever grace geekdom. Pretty much, in the game you start out as a one-celled organism, and then you evolve. You choose what lines you want to evolve along, giving yourself X number appendages and so on. And according to their new video
you can do a lot more than that. *squee!* I've been anticipating this game ever since I heard about it about two years ago.
The only problem being that I'll need a new laptop to handle this game. Septimus is getting up there, but he still works and he's still mostly reliable, like an old dog. I don't want to get rid of him yet. I'm one of those people who keeps using my things until they fall apart ^.^
Had a bit of a surreal moment when we drove by the World Trade Center. I'm still sort of torn about visiting places like that. It was the same when we went to Dachau in Germany--just the idea of a place of such suffering becoming a tourist attraction. But I did tell myself this time that I wanted to go there, because 9/11 I think played a major role in my anxiety disorder, and I need to start facing that. We never actually made it to the WTC, but we did drive past it, and it was just like, "wow...there used to be towers there. There used to be people there." Ah, man. I dunno.
But, enough with the depressing. I can't be entirely depressed right now because there's an icicle hanging outside my window that looks like an alien's hand, no joke.
Last day spent in NYC we went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, kind of like a smaller version of the Met, though it was still all kinds of brilliant. We only had time for two floors (there were five), so we checked out the floor with American art (woot) and the floor with the Egyptian stuff (holy crap, Batman!). No mummies, but it was all very awesome.
And now we're back in good old Ithaca and it's cold and wet and there are classes to attend and Julie and I are still sick. *sigh*
And now the requisite reports on the various and sundry things that came out in the past week. Though first, another book I read.
Have I mentioned the Retriever's Series here? The series is about Wren, a Retriever living in NYC. A Retriever is like a Get Backer (lol) in that she "retrieves" things for people, which usually means steals them. Except that in this world there is magic, and it takes a very interesting form. In any case, Wren has gotten up to some shit in the last two books, but the most recent one out, the third, is definitely my favorite. At this point, it looks like war's about to break out between the Mage Council (the organized group of magic users), the lonejacks (the live-free-or-die types of magic users) and the fatae (the non-human people living in the city). It's gotten very awesome, and it's an excellent example of modern urban fantasy. If you like Dresden, you'll probably like Wren, though this series falls a bit more on the female side of things, though not to a chick-lit degree. Wren is an awesome character, and the book has its own voice that is a blatantly New York voice. Love it.
So what have we? No House on Tuesday due to March Madness, but Crossing Jordan and Lost were both on Wednesday, of course, and they were both ALL KINDS of awesome. I'm really impressed with this season of Jordan so far, since it's really branching out and doing some interesting things. And Lost is no longer sucking! It's getting back into the mysterious and strange that made the first season and the first part of the second season so brilliant.
However, there are things I must report and speculate on. For instance, in
Jordan has a brain tumor.
I know, WHAT?! Oh my god, they couldn't have done anything more surprising. Admittedly, this season has been a bit over-the-top with things that have happened--the riot in Boston a few episodes ago, and a hantavirus outbreak in this most recent episode--but I think this one packed just the right amount of punch.
I mean, those of you who have been in this show for awhile, you know our Jordan. She's stubborn, brazen, unashamedly straightforward, not above breaking the law to get what she wants, and a blatant liar when it comes to her own personal issues. The whole thing with her mother was cleared up last season and the season before it, sporadically, and in a very effective way, I thought. But in any event, she's Jordan. This is the girl who has survived everything possible without going crazy or getting herself or the people she cares about killed.
And now, a brain tumor?? It's big enough to kill her whether it's cancer or not, is what Macy said. The way they introduced it was so brilliant, too. Pretty much, the whole time there's this hantavirus outbreak going on, and Jordan is working at a control site. Suddenly she starts getting symptoms, like aversion to light, blurred vision, and then weakness and shaking in her right hand. She did the Jordan thing the whole time and didn't tell anyone, worrying inside her own Jordan head the way she does. Haha, she's kind of predictable that way, but that's why we love her. But then the test comes back and it turns out she doesn't have hantavirus, but she knows something is up. So in the last few minutes she's back in the morgue and sits down at this chair thingy to take sort of like a brain scan. Then, a scene later, Macy walks in and the image of a brain is up on the wall. Jordan asks him to take a look at it, and RIGHT THERE within the frontal lobe is this massive tumor. Jordan, being Jordan, acts like it's from a patient's head. Macy takes one look at it, notes the massive tumor, and says, "A tumor that big, doesn't matter if it's cancer or not."
And I was so proud of Jordan, because she was about to tell him! But then he cut her off and said he was proud of her for her work, etc. etc. Augh! Macy's going to die when he finds out. They all are! But Macy in particular, because he has always, always, always been Jordan's father figure, and he has always seen her as like a daughter. Oh man, oh man, how will they resolve this?! Jordan, go get it fixed soon! Chemo! Operation! It worked for Dr. Green for awhile, didn't it?!
As if that wasn't intense enough, we follow it up immediately with...
Holy shit, Claire backstory!!
I knew it, though. Way back when in that flashback episode last season, when we saw Jack's dad trying to muscle his way into some Australian woman's house, and all we heard him say was "my daughter." I knew it meant that "the daughter" would be on the Island with them. And since we've run out of women, Claire was the only remaining choice.
Claire is Jack's half-sister!!
Only I'm not sure Jack much cares right now, since Jack is now an Other.
Holy fuck! Jack's an Other. How the hell did they turn him so fast? Or is it an act? Pretty much, the last scene in the episode was Locke, Sayid and company coming up on the Others' hideout--suburbia--and seeing Jack playing football with, what was his name, Tim? Tom? He was certainly all buddy-buddy, though. They must have some lightning-fast brainwashing techniques, or something else is going on here. I want to know! Oh man.
It was a really well done episode overall, too, and I liked what we got of Claire's backstory.
And of course, of course, there were the Narutos that came out, being the latest manga chapter and the latest Shippuden episode.
Oh my fucking God, I totally understand now why Sasuke is so popular. He just fucking PWNED Orochimaru and has TAKEN OVER the Sound ninja. Okay! Do you know what this means?! Sasuke has become a crime boss!! He's like the Don of the mafia, except he's the Don of killer ninja! Wow. Just wow.
And it looks like Naruto's new jutsu is as awesome as it is dangerous, which is nothing new with poor fox-boy. Tsunade says he can never use it again, which of course means that he has to. Man, he attacked that Akatsuki on the cellular level. How badass is that?
Augh! The pieces are moving! It's looking more and more like we're finally going to get a three-way confrontation, sometime soon! Akatsuki and Naruto and Sasuke the new crime lord. Oo-wah!
As for the episode, well, it's following the manga, and it continues to be brilliant, although it was lacking on the crazy music front.
Back in my world, in terms of writing, I didn't get half as much done of the rewrite over break as I wanted. Between being sick and hitting a snag that Pat pointed out, it just kind of came to a standstill. But I'm going to get back in it now, and keep thinking about that snag. Mostly the thing is, do I want to overhaul the beginning in order to get things moving faster, or draw it out so things are more dramatic? I'm long-winded, in case you couldn't tell, but that's something I'm trying to fix. So I dunno. There are a few things I'm going to extend because they kind of have to be.
Also, a lot's been coming together for some of my other projects. Mot has been niggling me again. The thing with Ramsey--my white haired, cloak-wielding heroine--is taking shape in my head. Have I mentioned Skye? Skye is the main character of Ramsey's story--I don't know her last name, but she's a snarky tattoo artist in Berkely who was diagnosed with schizophrenia some years ago. This was because she could see the things that Ramsey fights--critters I have dubbed darksouls for now, who are kind of shadow creatures that haunt people at their best and kill them at their worst. Anyway, Skye could see those things, and ghosts and stuff, but it made her a strange kid and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She believes now that all the things she saw when she was younger were hallucinations, but when she meets Ramsey she realizes she's been sane all along. Should be fun.
Things are also really coming together for North, though I'm still not sure how far I am from actually starting it. I've got a better sense of what's going on in the Whodden--where the Folk, the spirits and non-humans live--and what's going on in North's own life. I just need to figure out certain things about the beginning of the story.
And now I have to get some things done before Women and Writing. Another long post! Lol, and these two were supposed to be all one. Nya-ha.