My own self

I've never been one for sharing personal information online, and I'm not about to start now. However, I've been asked quite strongly today to post something or other in my weblog here, and as I'm not feeling like reviewing anything on my rather long list of stuff to get around to writing posts on, that means it has to be on some whim of my own instead. As I additionally don't have any specific thought, idea, objection or opinion about anything in particular going on these days that would make for a post on its own, that kind of means I just have to give an update of who I am and what I am doing these days. Those of you who could not be less interested, and I'm sure that within the modest confines of this weblog's readership there's a lot of you, well, just don't read behind the cut. Thanks.

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Oh, Obdormio, what have you gotten me into?




It's a mere handful of my books for now, but suddenly I'll have something better to do one day and it'll grow like nobody's business.

Appropriately titled. Very good episode.




And ninety percent of the reason I've kept watching the show for seven seasons literally out the window.



MAN that guy brought a presence to the screen.

DC has a history with this kind of bullshit - they've even made it into a plot-device of its own, horribly abused maybe, but still by now a (sadly) established part of the DC universe. But Marvel has no excuse to start doing this kind of insane retconning. Really. I can get quality comic books elsewhere. From people who actually cares about things like "character development" and, oh, say, "continuity".

I mean come on! It includes The Lost Tales AND it's smaller than the old one!



I WANT TO BE RICH ENOUGH TO BUY THIS.



Also, this fantastical beauty of a box is 50% off at Amazon.com these days, meaning you can get all of Angel for 69,99$ if you're somehow one of the neanderthals who doesn't already own the show on DVD. I can't justify spending even that ridiculously small amounts of money on this since I already have it, but SOMEONE should jump at this for me.

Rowling doesn’t reach Gaiman to his ankles in a technical study, but she had a brilliant idea at a time that every teenager and child was growing cynical and losing faith in the idea of Magic. Harry Potter became the modern version of a fairy tale, making adults and youths alike imagining a world much like our own, but flavored with something of the extraordinary.

Seems it is inescapable these days, so here goes.

In response to a blog-post by Lothair Mantelar.

What you’re saying, about HP being the first fantasy (or even the first more or less adult literature) one’s introduced to, might explain a lot of people’s relationship to these books. I quite loved the first three, but I didn’t start reading the series ’til all the first three were already released (and that in Norwegian), ’cause it just looked plain silly to me. (I did, though, in the interest of full disclosure, find them to be far less silly than I'd expected, this I will readily admit) I’d been reading fantasy for… I guess at least four years at that point, probably more, and while the books were entertaining enough, never, ever did they blow me away. The world struck me as simplistic and childish, at that point in time I think I’d probably called it the least impressive fantasy world I’d read anything out of. The prose was fast-paced, at least in the first three books it felt like that to me, and captivating, but it never felt extraordinary. Nor did the characters. The four only characters I remember to this day with some fondness (I’ve read the first four books, so you know what basis I’m saying this from) is Hagrid (not a very original character but maybe the one with the most depth that I can remember from this particular series), Snape (who’d be the possible tie in the depth-department, and slightly more original, to my great joy. Was thrilled to find Rickman would portray him in the movies, I recall), Lupus and obviously Dumbledore. I also liked Sirius and Malfoy Sr. a good bit back then, but all these are sadly stereotypical and flat characters (though for all I know they could be deeply fleshed out in subsequent books) The Big Bad himself was never interesting at all, save in his incarnation as his younger self in the journal Harry finds in the second book. Nor were really any of the three main characters remotely exciting beyond the “Adequate protagonist material”-level. Hands down, though, I did enjoy the books, and I probably will finish this series at some point.

The reason I went off on this ramble, anyway, was that you made me realize, I read the books too late in my reading-process. When you’ve read, I guess at that point, five books in WoT, a handful in SoT, everything Tolkien wrote on Middle-Earth more or less, The Solitaire-mystery and Sofie’s World, the Chronicles of Narnia, half the first Deverry-cycle, all of the Belgariad, the Riftwar Trilogy, a couple of Thomas Covenant-books and a bunch of Verne and Dumas a handful of times each, there is nothing about Hogwarts and its world that seem remotely original or extraordinarily interesting. If anything, the world struck me as kind of cheesy, much like Artemis Fowl’s world would some years later. And the writing, as you say, isn’t all that, though to my young eyes at least it was far from weak, that must be said.

So I’ve never been able to resummon the first spike of interest I had in the series all those years ago for the much-needed reread I have to do before I can keep on reading it. And even if I could, it wouldn’t be prioritixzed over catching up on Malazan, Sword of Truth, Deverry, Midkemia, or even Wheel of Time. Nor would I put it above reading, say, more Gaiman or giving authors like Robin Hobb or your much-pimped Lynch a shot.

Thus my conundrum. I seem doomed to forever be stuck in a HP-limbo where I want to read the rest of the series, I just don’t want it enough to actually do so.

Thanks very much for making me feel slightly better about never getting around to it with this post of yours.

...I've had a wish.


To get my hands on this show again in a language I could understand (i.e. English or Norwegian).


When I was little, my dad used to rent me one video from this series every weekend if I'd been good. The local video-rental in my town later went bankrupt, and I to this day still wish it could've held out with doing that for another couple of years so I'd have been old and coherent enough to realize I could probably buy the whole series from them at that point. I loved that show. It's no overstatement to say it pretty much shaped the way my imagination worked for years and years.



Since then, I've been more or less constantly looking, though with less and less hope I'll ever find anything.


For all my searching, I've only found three old VHS'es, of two episodes each (3-4, 5-6 and 7-8). One I found in my early teens, one two years later, and then nothing for years until I some thirty months ago stumbled over another one in a VHS-rental-shop making the transfer to DVDs and selling out their hold VHS'es. They had another one, too, but obviously, that was one of the two I already had.


Sigh.

Despite the somewhat boring title, this is probably easily the best Disney-sequel ever.


And it's so ooold! ;_; I have it on VHS, and when I saw the dates of the new releases in the previews before the actual movie on the tape, I realized it's fourteen years since I got this movie.


Fourteen.


Dear gods, FOURTEEN! ;_;

Today I spent 100 kroner on a cinema-ticket, 420 on "Battlestar Galactica"-DVDs (the miniseries and seasons 1-2), 160 on the complete "Fawlty Towers"-series and 200 on "Scrubs"'s fourth season. And yesterday I spent 200 on an impulse-buy of some cardgame I fancied in passing just to celebrate being done with this term's exams and 50 on a baguette 'cause I couldn't be bothered with making dinner before the evening.


Sigh.



(wheee! pretty DVDs!)

is over. Really over. Very good finale, of course, and I'm glad, they deserved to get it right with their last episodes after having been forced into the mediocre run that has been the third season.

But it is over.


Sigh.





I'll need to start re-watching "Galaxy Quest" monthly just to get my Enrico Colantoni-shots now. And where will I get Kristen Bell's snark now?



Double-sigh.


At least there's DVDs. At least there's DVDs.

I have to say this, and I have to say this now:

I have no clue - no clue - how this show got picked up, if this was what the network based its decision upon. Because this was very smart, very fast-paced, very subtle in both drama and comedy and, to say the least, very political. And at the point in time that it was made, Aaron Sorkin wasn't exactly the famous creator of hit-show "West Wing" that he is today. So I have no clue how this show ever got past the pilot, not the slightest itty bitty inkling of a hint of one.

But wow, am I glad it did. 'Cause this was one great pilot.


With the possible exception of the first episodes of "Studio 60 at the Sunset Strip" and, of course, "Firefly", I cannot remember a single series I've seen with a better pilot. (Unless you count the Battlestar Galactica opening miniseries, but that'd be cheating.) And I've seen pilots like "My First Day", "Presenting Señor Zorro" and, of course, "City of...". So when I say that, that's supposed to be a big deal, people.

This episode was of a level of quality I usually don't expect from a show until it's at least half-way through its first season, often far later. So hooray for Mr. Sorkin, and boo-fracking-hoo for my exam-preperations, 'cause by a dozen drooling dromedaries, I am watching the second one now, too.

"If you die without suffering, you haven't deserved death."
- Orcish Credo

"Suffering? Aye, one once was told of such concepts. 'Tis when the cost-effectiveness of living goes down, is it not?"
- Tjohn Grumkarv, First Merchant of The Gnomen City of Sezth, son of The Revered Fohmas Grekling

"Life is pain, my poor friend."
- Anonymous Elf, probably of French descent

"Suffering is to the living like cold to the stars."
- Centaurian proverb

" 'To suffer'? There is no word for this in the Goblin tongue. Closest equivalent would be 'lehrben', 'to live'."
- Master Scholar Timothy Merenville, Senior Librarian of the Imperial Archives of Nopas

"If you suffer alone, get company"
- Dwarven Saying/Drinking Game


(Inspiration fo this post was an MSN-conversation with Obdormio on the subject of DiceWars, thanks dude.)

On the first test, which was only rated as passed or failed, I passed. This should count for whether or not you were tipped up or down when calculating the final grade, which is found by finding the average on the three other tests.

On the second test, I got a B. And wow, did I ever not expect THAT.

On the third test - which was a hand-in - I got a C. And I'm miffed about that. Having worked on it for a while, at home, with a friend, I was kind of assuming I'd do as well as I did on a test with no books or help available and little time. But, oh, well.

On the fourth and last test, I don't know what I got yet. I hope I'll get to know on Friday. I think it went to hell, though.

Anyway, I felt pretty certain I at least passed on it, though, which makes for rather simple math - I had to get a C in the course. One B, one C, and one test where I knew I did badly... I could get an E or a D or maybe (I had a faint hope) a C on the last one, but it would all give me a C in total.

And that's what I got. 'Cause the grades of the course were just released.


I'm not sure if I'm to be happy of malcontent. After all, I don't need the subject for anything, it doesn't go into my degree, and I'm taking it on top of studying history full-time. My aim when I signed up for the course was just getting a passing grade. Of course, getting that B early on readjusted my aims a little, but still, I've had modest aims.

On the other hand, I now have a C in a course I'm not going to re-take, and that's a dent in a rather long line of exam-results I've been shocked (but very happy and proud) to get.

Then again, I'll probably not do too well in my history courses this term, either, so then it doesn't matter at all.



So, basically... YAAAAY, I GOT A C IN LATIN!

They sold volume 1 of "Y the Last Man", "Fables", "Lucifer", "Preacher" and "100 Bullets" for 50 kroners (a little over 8 USD at the current rate) each. Which is a quarter of their regular price in Norway. You can almost hear the people behind the counter wheezing "First one's free..." behind your back.

And yes, I bought them all. Only one of them I've read before is "Lucifer", and in its case, it was actually quite the coup, 'cause I'm going to buy the entire Lucifer-series at some point anyway, this got me volume 1 cheaply.

But the other four... all widely recognized as quality-comics, all stuff I've thought I'd one day read... but not priorities I was actually going to buy (more than maybe one of, at some point) any time soon at all.

And the bastards do this to me.

I won't have time to read any of'em for weeks yet. I want to finish "Bone" and the Bone-prequel I picked up earlier this week. I still think I'll end up picking up "The Fountain" next week, and if I do, I'll read that first, too. And there's always books of the non-graphic variety, of which I've got plenty. Oh, and there's, like, 2000 pages of unread curriculum in plastic bags beneath my table, don't tell anyone.

But I've bought them. At some point, I'll read them.



And we all know it. I know it. You know it. The weasels behind the counter, oh, don't they know it. Everybody knows it.


'Cause, seriously, there is no doubt about it at all. There'll simply be no such thing as "stopping at volume 1".



I'm fracked.

Yeah, yeah, I forgot to post this Sunday, give me a break, I've got two exams to study for and I'm spending like maybe four hours on it every day. That's half a work-day. *shudders* The pressure is insane. INSANE, I tell you. I'm so glad I only have this insane amounts of work to do something like two months every year year. ()


Seeing as I got à jour (see? I learn) on Colbert Report this week, and I've been studying (see above) quite a bit, so there has been little-to-no other surfing meriting linkage.

So, enjoy:

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=77985 Sweeet ;D

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=78204 Don't do it, Senator!

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=78206 Rumsfeld lost the election!

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=78275 XD JINGLE! SING-ALONG!

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=78379 You're confusing honesty with consistancy!