My own self

It has been pointed out to me - quite needlessly, but also flatteringly, and accordingly I don't mind at all - that there's been a sad amount of updates in this weblog of mine these last few weeks. Months. And what there has been, I'll usually reply with mindful self-deprecation, has been little amusing quotes. No posts of substance.

My posts of attempted substance have usually centred, with some few exceptions, on TV-reviews. I have no capacity this autumn to do many of those. Nor do I have the time to do book-reviews (heck, I don't even have the time to read non-curricular books), comic-reviews, movie-reviews... or, for that matter, the odd nonsense and musings on fanciful topics. I'm in the middle of putting an (unwanted) end to this university education of mine with an attempt to do twice the amount of courses you're intended to. I'm simultaneously digging through the bureaucracies of two countries, trying to figure out the whys and hows of next year without getting anything fatefully wrong. And, people, I still watch all that TV I don't take the time to review.

But tonight, I found myself with the urge to post, as it were, and so I'll do a composite post of what I am, have been, and will be watching this autumn. Some of it's started, some of it's already over, and some of it won't come around for quite a number of weeks yet. So please, come with me down the rabbit hole of much too much American television.


The story so far
As the summer was ending, and my Kings-abstinences were finally starting to subside, a lovely show named Easy Money was also waving its last goodbye. Having only ever gotten to finish eight episodes, this excellent little drama about a family of loan-sharks only managed to get four of them on the air last autumn. When the network finally started dumping the remaining four at the end of the summer nearly a year later, I was delirious to revisit the Buffkins and their morally ambiguous lives. Four weeks later, I was once again left hanging, all the more bitter this time for the certain knowledge there will never be more.

Then the beginning of the autumn proper was marked by the exit of True Blood's second season, which impressed me by being a good step above its predecessor. While I'm still not crazy about the show, it has solidified itself as a show in the upper end of the middle-tier of shows I deem good enough to bother with. Back when I first saw the pilot, I'd honestly not expected it to ever creep up to the midle-tier at all. So congratulations to Alan Ball and company. May your days be many and conveniently clouded.

Finally, Mad Men started back up. And while at first, I was still feeling like before about the show (everything is exquisite beyond belief except the dramatical confrontations and pay-offs), I have by now, especially in light of the most recent episode, started thinking that woah, the show might even be starting to do the big pay-offs right. While I can't claim to watch them all, I have to say, Mad Men is very likely to be the best made show in current American TV. If it is actually starting to improve in the one area I felt it was lacking, the sky's the limit.

Apocalypse, nowish
Boom. Mid-september hit, and so did premieres. Dexter, starting next week, and How I Met Your Mother, already on into its autumn roll, are both stockpile-shows that I'll catch up with come late December, but they're far from alone. New shows and returning shows, September's been a rich month for TV. Almost too rich - they're raining down on me so fast I ended up quoting an Angel-episode just to find a title for this section of the post.

In chronological order, as it were, this month of fresh TV started with Glee. I saw and liked the pilot this spring, and despite its dreary high-school premise, my fondness for musicals combined with the show's great humour is quickly bringing it up among my favourites this fall.

Another newcomer was Community, a half hour sitcom about a lawyer whose college diploma has been discovered as a fake and who ends up having to attend a crappy community college or face disbarment. So far, the two episodes have entertained and shown promise, but the great jokes, while there, are still too far between for a show that tries to be an outright comedy. For a drama, this show'd be hilarious, but for a sitcom, I feel it is a bit lacking. Still, when it's good, it's good, and I'll likely end up following it all fall in the hopes it will get better yet.

On the same day as Community leaped into the fray, Fringe came back with its second season. Crime procedurals don't really enthuse me much, no matter how much the try to disguise themselves as science fiction. But with a couple of really charming characters in a really distinct and unique father-son-relationship combined with an admittedly flawless execution of the plots-of-the-week, the show remains good enough to be worth the bother. With a little luck, the show will trap itself in its own mythos like Lost did, only quicker and with less obvious fillers on the road there. Not among my favourites this autumn, but given my standing investment of an entire season, I'm more willing to follow it further than I otherwise would be. Odds are that by Christmas, I'll have committed to this one for good, even if its basic structure is rather underwhelming.

Then followed another new sitcom, Bored to Death. With only one episode under its belt as of yet, this laid-back HBO comedy centres on a young author stuck with a writer's block on his work with his second novel. He turns to weed and white wine for inspiration, and his addiction eventually makes his girlfriend leave him. In desperation, he starts an impromptu career as an unlicensed private investigator. Yet another show I'm not sold on, but again one that seems to hold some promise. In particular the main character's best friend, a kid comic book artist trapped in a man's body, was hilarious. The show can also boast Ted Danson as a regular, which helps with the draw. Depending on how overwhelmed my TV-plate gets, this one might get the boot, but for now, I'm sticking with it out of curiosity.

Third and last of the new sitcoms I've tried this month is Accidentally on Purpose, where Jenna Elfman stars as a movie critic in her late thirties who gets pregnant on a one-night stand with a much, much younger man. The show was consistently funny - more so than Bored to Death or Community - but had less charm and identity. The pilot felt like it could have been an episode from any given sitcom of the last ten years, albeit a well-written one. However, one should not ever judge a show by its pilot, and once again, I'll be back for at least one more.

House M.D. is also back this month, and true to form, Hugh Laurie's magnificent as the title character. With the exception of a small Robert Sean Leonard-cameo, the remaining regular cast is absent in the double-episode season premiere. While I don't mind the regular cast at all, this is extremely good - because it also means that the premiere doesn't follow the show's regular episode formula. By the sixth season, the medical procedural with the House-twist has gotten incredibly old, and the only reason I'm still watching is because House himself is so compelling. The show, then, is by far at its best when it breaks this formula, and for two blessed hours including commercial breaks, it did so here. Stellar job, people. I can only hope and pray it'll retain a fragment of the awesome when it returns to predictable form next week.

On the very same day, Heroes returned, joining Fringe as the bottom of my barrel of expectations. Interestingly, my low expectations combined with a quite decent episode and Robert bloody Knepper made me quite happy with the premiere. If they keep going in this direction, the season could at least measure up to "volume 4" (the second half of season 3), which was rather decent too. In all honestly - anything that avoids the utter miserable crap that was "volume 3" will be appreciated. I'd even take the aimless-feeling season 2 again if we could avoid that. The trick to enjoying this show seems to be low expectations and accepting that Hiro simply will never die no matter how many stupid things he does, and I'm getting there. At least on the former half of that sentence. And as I said, the premiere was very decent indeed. Downright good in some aspects. I'm finding myself strangely up for more.

The third component to my barrel-bottom is traditionally Smallville which, despite its gradual improvement over the last four seasons (it has started season NINE now, if you can believe that), can never really shake my old, first-four-seasons' worth of "good LORD, this show's bad"-impressions. Admittedly, those first four seasons also had some really awesome nuggets of pure gold sprinkled in, usually involving Lex and Lionel Luthor. With both those characters gone by season 9, it is odd to see how the show can have improved so much on its average episode, and at the same time also never really reach the heights of those stellar masterpieces here and there that originally committed me to the show. Even so, all my prejudices aside, there is nothing to do but admit hands down that by now, for the most part, Smallville is a downright good show. And with the addition of the charming Callum Blue to the cast this season, I might almost forget how much I miss Lex and Lionel. Almost.

Final among the September Arrivals is also the one I've been looking forward to the most. In fact, I just watched it in the middle of writing this post. Dollhouse. An unabashed Joss Whedon-fan I might be, but the first five episodes of season 1 were really nothing special at all. Luckily, the show improved vastly starting with episode 6, and the thirteenth episode was nothing short of epic. This season premiere had a lot to live up to, and in my book, it did. Keeping everything that was good about episodes 6-12 alive and building it to new heights was exactly what I expected and wanted from this premiere, and it was exactly what I got. That, and razor sharp dialogue, great emotional moments, and wonderful characters. I even got an episode plot that wasn't standalone so much as it was a season plot cleverly disguised as a standalone. And Jamie Bamber being awesome and British and mean. And Amy Acker and Fran Kranz blowing my emotional equilibrium with every single scene. And Alexis Denishof as a Republican politician on a righteous rampage. And a hundred other, awesome little things. And beyond it all, looming in the horizon, chillingly conspicuous in its absence of overt reference, was episode thirteen and the both sad and scary taint it puts on every single little plot-development. As last season ended, I was hopeful about the show. As the thirteenth episode got out with the DVD, I got quite enthusiastic. Now, I'm sold for good. This show will be my favourite this autumn, I'm almost sure of it. Now let's just hope that episode 2 won't let down my soaring expectations.

Tomorrow, tomorrow
So is that all? Oh no. Oh no no no, is it ever not. Next month comes Star Wars: The Clone Wars back with its second season, a digitally animated show that in the latter half of season 1 quite surprised me with its (for Star Wars) rather complex stories and ethical dilemmas. I find myself almost embarrassingly excited to see if season 2 will make it even better. Also new in science fiction franchises next month will be Stargate: Universe, the Stargate-series' try at doing a Trek'y show with a darker frame than the predecessors in the vast SG-continuity. While I'm not a big fan of the old two, I've seen every single episode, which amounts to an ungodly amount of hours. There is no way I'm not following that continuity to its end now. Also? Robert Carlyle! So yeah. But still, my expectations are rather low, and checking this out is almost more of a duty I have to my standing previously mentioned ungodly commitment of time to this universe than it is any real interest.

Also in October is the final piece in the Battlestar Galactica-puzzle, as The Plan is released on DVD a good many months before it'll apparently air on Syfy. Seeing as I'm obviously a huge fan, and also wasn't as disappointed by the show's ending as many others were, I'm quite besides myself with anticipation for this promised answer to (hopefully all) remaining little nagging questions.

Finally, Legend of the Seeker will start back up towards the end of the autumn. Can't say I'm at all excited. I love the books, for all their flaws, but season 1 was as big a departure from those books as Quack Pack is from The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck. Entertaining in its own, cheesy, blatantly Xena-esque style and way, but not at all what I was wanting. Nor really a show quite suited for my tastes. Still, there is very little by the way of fantasy shows on air, and I sort of feel I should take what I can get. There's also the undeniable fact that season 1's very best episodes were in many ways rather good, even if the season as a whole was an insufferable cheesefest. So I might end up caving to my completism and deciding to follow this show yet another few steps further. We shall see.


-------

There. My autumn in TV-shows. I'm sure some additional surprises will turn up along the way in one form or another. Of shows airing this autumn, I should probably also check out Entourage, but with the six season head-start it has, that's severely unlikely to happen. Of other old shows, I'm coupling the new stuff with my first ever rewatch of Ally McBeal, where I'm currently mid-way in the penultimate season, and my first structured watch-through of the eminent Batman: the Animated Series. I've recently finished its spin-off Justice League: Unlimited as well as the British The Office, the miniseries State of Play, and a rewatch of the brilliant West Wing, so if you're interested in hearing what I think of any of these things, you should give a shout-out in the comments as I like mentioned probably won't find the time and energy to write proper reviews. (There should be some of West Wing already, though, if you're up to doing a little search).


Hopefully, there's one person out there who actually bothered to read all this. If not, well, that's another hour of my life wasted, I suppose. Cheers! And thanks for reading.

David Eddings has passed away. His books never failed to amuse me, and reading - and loving - the Belgariad was a huge part of my childhood and my still on-going fascination with fantasy both. Thank you, Mr. Eddings. For all those moments where your words made others happy, I hope that somewhere, you're now happy and with your wife again.

I think I was ten. Possibly eleven. The globalisation and centralisation and all that jazz that we people on the fringes of civilisation (i.e. "people who doesn't live in, or within an hour's drive from, cities") blame all our problems on hadn't gotten particularly far yet, and thus we still had a video rental shop in my hometown. (Technically we still do - there's one shelf of DVDs at the Narvesen and three at the local gas station - but I'm talking a proper one, with an entire shop filled with nothing but videos for rent) On a whim, I think, and probably because I loved the book, I had my dad check out the first VHS with episodes of an animated series simply marked as "The Jungle Book". It was Norwegian-dubbed - except for the opening credits, which were in English, and the title-text on screen, which was French. As I grew older and wiser and realised the animation-style was Japanese (but not so old we had The Mighty Internet to answer All Questions You Might Have About Anything) I remember this utter salad of languages and cultures peeking through confusing me a little.

Anyway, I obviously liked it. Why else would I be writing this post? And so, some nagging was applied, and my dad rented me the next installment next week. And so it went. It quickly turned into a contract of sorts - if I was good one week, I'd get to rent the next installment next week. I was usually good, seeing as I didn't have a backbone back then either, so I liked this arrangement.

All good things must come to an end. I don't recall if it was the shop running out of VHS'es or if they simply didn't translate more of them to Norwegian - or even if the shop went bankrupt already back then - but somewhere about halfway through the show, I ran out of videos to rent one way or another. Since then, I've been looking for them.

A couple of years later, I found one for sale somewhere. The second VHS-tape, annoyingly with three of the episodes I'd liked the least on it. I bought it, of course, it was better than nothing, and for that decision I will forever be grateful, because in hindsight, the main plot on that tape is probably among the best the show ever had. It didn't have Shere Khan, though, so twelve-year-old-me didn't particularly care for it...

It would take many years before I found the next one - yes, literally the next one, it was tape number three. I believe I might have been fifteen at the time. The shop, of course, also had tape number two, but no other ones. Gritting my teeth at the combined luck and misfortune, I bought it, only barely wrestling myself to not buy their copy of the second tape just to have a backup for my own - and joy! It was an awesome collection of three episodes among which two were among the favourites I could remember from when I was younger.

This was all I would have for almost a decade, despite looking for these tapes wherever I went. True, I did whilst still in my early teens stumble over some German-dubbed episodes I hadn't even seen before on some channel - possibly Nicelodeon - that my grandparents got on their satelite dish. But seeing as I didn't speak German, it only served to tease me further. Two years after high school, however, I was nearing twenty years of age and had just moved to Bergen some months before. A video rental right next to where I lived was finally paid a long-postponed visit - and lo! It had Jungle Book-VHS'es. Three of them.

Tapes 2, 3 and 4.

I mean, seriously, at this point I figured someone was having a costly laugh at my expense. At this rate, I'd find them all by my 254th birthday, at that point having re-found that blasted tape number two seventy-three-thousand times. Asking the guy behind the counter if they had any more and getting an expected no, I rented tape number four, and went home to watch it. It was nice and all, but hardly Awesome. Not comparable in quality to the two I already had, and that wasn't just my by then incredibly nostalgic committment to those two tapes talking - these were simply weaker episodes. Still, I was just so happy to have found ANYTHING. I considered re-renting it to bring it home to my parents where there'd be two VHS-players so I could copy it - anything to not lose the thing again. But then the video rental apparently finally realised that nobody had sold VHSes for four or five years, and put their stock of such out for sale.

Miracles do still occur, you see. They're slimy and hard to spot, but they do occur.


Joy upon joy, I now had three tapes. Of the, what, fifteen or so I remembered. I never stopped looking for them online, though, but couldn't find anything in either Norwegian or English. Finally, I found someone who'd put the very first two episodes with English dubs out on YouTube. But that was sadly it.

But then! Out of nowhere! Some silly shop in Italy, of all places, decided to start selling them with Italian AND English dubs on. I had to pay through the nose, but this last December, for my own 24th birthday, I got the entire show.

It's in English, and as all Norwegians my age with a pseudo-geeky bone in their bodies know, English dubbing is on the whole horribly, horribly inferior to Norwegian. They never dare to actually act their lines, these English voice actors, and the few times they do it's so overdone it just sounds out of place. So, sadly, it was not as enjoyable as the voices I grew up with would have been by far, rewatching this.

But that's one laugh I'll let the trickster gods of fate have, and happily. I got to rewatch the entire show this December. All the way to the end that I never saw before. Corny voice work can't take that away from me. (Even Fox can't take that away from me, and gods know they've probably tried.)

I seriously never thought I'd get to finish this show. While the Dream of finding them with Norwegian voice work will probably still go unrealised, this is as good a silver medal as it gets.

So, what did I think? It was alright. Some plotlines and characters are really deep, and the show does a surprisingly good job (just like I remembered!) at staying true to Kipling's original work whilst adding a score of characters and nuances, and removing some of the really dark stuff. The save-the-environment-vibe of the late eighties is impossible to escape in this show, though, and this is very annoying. Luckily, you don't notice it much in the episodes without humans in them, and those are by far the best ones anyway. The score, the drawings and the characters are the ones I grew up with, and that probably coloured my imagination more than any other single thing I've ever experienced. (That includes Disney and Tolkien. I know. Freaky.) The ending is thoroughly unsatisfactory, by the way, but that's just like Kipling's own ending. I get the whole journey-to-manhood-thing. But who can hear the story of Mowgli and not wish he'd stay in the jungle at the end? Bah.

I have it now. The only feeling of joyous nostalgic closure that's ever come remotely close to this was when Wesley chose the lie and Angel decided he kinda wanted to slay the dragon. And I only had to wait for that one for five years. This took almost fifteen.

Thank you, Italy.

I have it now.

There is no better use of having your children noisy and troublesome than this of plaguing all your acquaintances. For you may suffer them, when you have visitors, to make such a racket that you cannot hear one another speak. Let them also, with their greasy fingers, soil and besmear your visitors' clothes, put their fingers and dirty noses, if you are drinking tea, into the cream pot and dribble over the sugar, throw the remainder of the cream over somebody's clean gown, thrust bread and butter down the ladies' backs, and in short be more troublesome and offensive than squirrels, parrots, or monkeys.

- Jane Collier, 1753,
in her Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting,
as rendered in Jeffery Kacirk's Forgotten English - A 365-Day Calendar of Vanishing Vocabulary and Folklore for 2009.

Yesterday was a big day! Why? Because I finally watched the one and only The Adventures of Sinbad-episode I missed back when Norwegian television-channel TV2 aired it in my early-and-still-able-to-take-even-the-super-corny-shows-for-awesome-as-long-as-they-were-fantasy-themed-teens! (Also, I didn't pay much attention to the actual English back then, apparently, because the show turns out to have been FILLED with deliciously horrid puns!) It was the season 1 finale, Rumina's Vengeance. I know for sure, because I taped every episode I watched and re-watched them at least twice each.

And oh-my-gods. It explained who this Scratch-guy was way better than his other two episodes. And much more importantly, it resurrected Torak! Torak! And then he survived the episode! And now I'm back in the horrid, horrid limbo-land of cancelled shows! All the litttle plot-threads they had going in season 1 that they largely ignored in season 2! Where did Rumina go, I used to wonder, blissfully ignorant I'd missed an episode until years later, and now suddenly I also have to ask where did Torak go?!

Still, huge day! Big childhood hole was filled. Wonderous. Too bad I couldn't see it back when I would've been able to look past all the corny stuff more easily and truly enjoy it. But still. Wow. Awesomeness by the bucketload, finally getting to see one such giant piece of an admittedly grossly unfinished puzzle.


Hooray!

Don't ask. Somehow, I'm filling out another meme.

Read more...

This post will contain spoilers for the entire series, but mostly just by implication and broad outlines. Few specific events are described outright.

Read more...

Ah, so here we finally are. I hope you'll excuse that this post will probably be far less detailed than it would've been when it was planned some nineteen months ago...



So were were we?

Ah, that's right:



By the way, I sincerely hope you'll also excuse that my maps in this post will look even more shitty than usual, due to having had to piece them together from old files with programs they were never intended to be used in.


Now, that was the situation 200 BD on North Geona.

Enter year 49:



(Duh-duh-duh-duuuh.)


In the year 49 BD, history seemed about to repeat itself as a gigantic confederation of Orcish armies sprawled up from the south much like the Ogres some 2000 years before. There was, however, a vast difference. The Orcs were no immense gathering of nomadic tribes on a rampage - they were an organized, disciplined invasion, bent on conquest first, plunder second. With them came also a host of Leonin tribes, allied to the various Orc-clans, but far inferior in numbers.

The armies moved northwards through the Goblin lands, annexing the Goblin tribes who surrendered and destroying the rest. An ancient alliance of southeastern Goblin peoples originally set up to ward against what might have been crusades from the eastern Human nations went to meet the Orc threat head on towards the end of the year. The Orcs crushed them, and, rightfully concluding they'd broken the neck of organized Goblin resistance, they split into two main forces, going north and west.

As the southeastern Goblin lands were pacified and brought under the rule of the Orcs, the armies came to a halt for just over seven years. The reasons are unknown, but there was likely a change in leadership at this point, as well as some efforts to consolidate their rule over the Goblin lands conquered and negotiating terms with bordering Goblin tribes outside their new-won territories.



The method appears to have been simple - the allied Goblins were treated with great respect and largely let be, while the Goblins showing resistance were thoroughly crushed - there are rather certain evidence that entire villages and towns were burned to the ground due to individual Goblins attempting to undermine the Orcish rule.

Then, in early 41 BD, the Orcs pushed further. The administrative division in two main forces seem to have segmented over the course of the years, and the northeastern armies moved further north while the western ones ventured out towards the coast.


Oddly, they never got there. The Goblin tribes along the coast had been torn apart over the previous years with internal tribal wars fueled by the angst of the sudden presene of the Orcish empire to the east, and when the Orcs got further west, they were met by a Goblin west loosely unified under a collegium of five warchiefs who all swore friendship and alliance to the Orcs rather than to fight them. This marked the beginning of Goblin repression under Orcish rule, as the western Goblins considered themselves to be more or less equal to their new Orcish allies, and demanded the same priviliges as the Leonin tribes had enjoyed. This was given, to the great resentment of the Leonin. In order to satisfy both parties, the Orcs put their own, eastern Goblins into all positions and tasks the Leonin and western Goblins found risky or shameful. With the exception of a small, priviliged elite, all the already meekened easterners were quickly placed in servile, disliked positions, and within few months, the eastern Goblin tribes functioned as little more than slaves not only to their Orcish overlords, but to their own western cousins as well.



With their newfound Goblin allies, the western Orc Empire had also gotten a foothold among the Goblin-friendly Human tribes of the southwest. The massive amounts of invaders - Orcs, who each consume far more than the average Goblin, and Leonin who are accustomed to large, far-ranging Nomadic lifestyles and vast territories - as well as the decade of warring and plunder had left the southern plains rather crowded and exploited, and the temperate hills of the now bordering Humans seemed to offer much-desired space and lumber. Through their Goblin allies, they started probing these odd beings, finding information about their languages, cultures, numbers and organizations. Certain of the Human tribes had long-standing enimosity against the western Goblins, and by the middle of year 40 BD this gave the Orcs a prerequisite to attack a number of these tribes without causing too much of an unsettling among the less Goblin-hating neighbouring tribes. To their immediate north, though, the more civilized coastal city-states were growing uneasy with Orcish expansion.





Seeing as I'd like to keep going in this much detail about the Orcish invasion and I still have a lot to cover, I think I'll call it the day for this series. What follows, while technically a migration, should more accurately be described as what it was, the Great Orc War, and I shall try to keep from letting another year and a half pass before I get to it. After all, this time, I've already made the maps...

And as ever, any comments, feedback, constructive ideas, critical questions or even mocking ones are appreciated. (What can I say; I like the attention. )

I'm currently trying to attend lectures in eight courses, four of which I've actually signed up for. Add to that 1300 pages of rather heavy curriculum on Ancient Egyptian religion as well as another 1300 pages (40 out of which is in bleeding German!) on Roman same, an unwritten 6000-word assignment on the cult and worship of Victoria and an equally unwritten project draft for my Master's thesis, and I'm quite stressed out. All of that is somewhat doable, though.


What really Zaps My Energy is the constant knowledge that I on top of this should be cramming Latin vocabulary and grammar-tables every day, and hardly ever do.


On the bright side, I'm channeling my Need To Remidy My Guilty Conscience By Doing Something Constructive into finally sorting my Magic: The Gathering-cards which have been a complete and unapproachable constant presence of mess on my desktop for three years now. Thinking I've finally reached the collection-size-point where ever colour of magic will need its own folder. Also, yay, they've finally errata'ed all those class-only creatures into having proper creature-types, so now I can sort all the soldiers and knights and clerics and whatnot under Humans. (Every fiber of my being resented a filing system which sorted some cards under "Elves" and some under "Wizards". Shudders.) Hopefully, on a slightly longer-term basis, I will also be able to channel some of this into reading my Stack of Unread Comic Books. However, my stack of unread fiction and non-curricular-nonfiction which I only made some meager progress with this Christmas (better than last year, though!) will probably be on stand-by for now. I just cannot justify sitting down to read anything which isn't about Roman emperor worship or the possibility of an Egyptian pantheism or similar. Sigh.


So, there you have it. This is why I don't seem to have the will to post here lately. That being said, there should at some point, when exactly being very much in the unknown, appear some form of posts on/reviews of the movies Waitress, Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons 2: Wrath of the Dragon God and Hocus Pocus. So the silence isn't for lack of topics.

This has been an Utterly Unnecessary Update (also known as a triple-u), you will now return with my permission to your regularly scheduled activities.

I usually don't write this kind of "what's up in my life"-posts, but I need to vent.


FUCKING University screwed me over. I've been waiting for years to get to do a specialization-course in Norse religion. First time it fit in my study-plan was spring 2006, but back then the Norse religion-specialization was lectured in during the autumn terms. Fair enough, I sign up for Hinduism instead, and make room in my study-plan for an additional specialization the upcoming fall. That fall, of course, they decide to move it to springs, and I end up taking "Religions in the Classical World" instead, i.e. Early Christianity and Roman and Greek religion. There's no way you can fit more than two such specializations into your Bachelor, so I wait patiently until I'm done with mine, knowing that in the second term of your first year on the Master, you can choose one (or two!) more of them. And that term would be a spring.

That term is coming up. I've signed up for the course and everything. And wonders above and below, they also started up a specialization in Egyptian religion this term, which I took as my optional second.


Then I just got an email they're cancelling the Norse specialization this term and putting up one in Christianity instead.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

Wow, this was very good indeed.

I don't think there was a single thing about this movie I didn't like. I love the way the line between the Tall Tales and the reality and the facts is never quite defined, and how the Tales all were weaved together into a grand mythology that the father maintained his entire life. And the ending is pure prettyness.

Weak 9,5/10. Best movie so far this year, and challengers have quite a bit to live up to.

I believe "swashbuckling" to be the first word that comes to mind, trying to recapitulate my thoughts on this book by Scott Lynch.

Having been nagged to read this book time and time and time again, I finally buggered everything on my reading-list and made time for it this Christmas at the expense of Cicero and Suetonius. I hardly regretted it.

At first, the book felt like a more intelligent, less stereotyped David Eddings-book. And while it never quite shook that association, I must confess, about half-way in it came very close to do just that. I will still say this, though: If you enjoy Eddings' more intelligent characters and witty form of dialogue, but feel his plots and some of his other characters delve in the way-too-unoriginal-direction, I do think this book would be right up your alley. The sarcastic wit is here, all over the place, but feels strangely less repetitive than in Eddings. And so are the arch, amazing, captivating übercharacters.

And therein lies the book's main (or maybe even only) weakness. Lynch does as I've always thought I'd end up doing if I was to write a book - he makes super-beings. Every character is as cool as the character could possibly be. Chains is the ultimate mischiveous mentor. Jean Tannen is the ultimate killing machine. As is his mentor in the art. Locke himself is the ultimate con-artist. Barsavi is the ultimate control-freak. No, wait, The Spider is, no, wait, the Grey King is. Oh, and the Grey King is the ultimate swordsman, pirate AND con-artist, too. And they're all stuffed with money.

While I love this because it makes every single character Awesome, it's also a problem. It's what keeps the book from becoming a dark, realistic novel in the vein of Erikson, Martin or even Jordan or Goodkind. Tywin Lannister isn't Tywin Lannister anymore if there's another two or three of him in every concievable fraction of the kingdom.

So "swashbuckling" seems to me to be the term that fits this - one of it's main captivating qualities is also the only weakness as it detracts a good bit of realism, something "swashbuckling" encompasses neatly.

That being said, this is only a weakness in the casting, not in the plot. The plot is marvellously well done. It balances neatly between very simplistic and very intricate without ever completely falling in either camp. And as mentioned, half-way through the book, it takes a very abrupt turn towards stark realism which REALLY helps with the emotional investment.

The title is very apt and summons a lot of interest in the title character right away, and rightfully so. While the awesomeness of every single character detracts from the cast's believability as a whole, they're all very interesting and well done when seen on their own, and with the possible exception of Chains and the Grey King, none more so than Master Lamora. When a book is built around a single character like this, his being interesting and captivating is more important than any other one element. And he truly is. If The Belgariad's Silk, if I for a second might be allowed to mention Eddings again, was a believable human character, he would be Locke Lamora. And to me, there is no higher praise when it comes to thieving bastards.

Another thing is due fond mention - the Interludes. While they in my opinion should've been a little differently aesthetically shaped into the chapters, I'll choose to blame that on the publisher (along with the lack of a handy map in the front) and not on Mr. Lynch. Because they are, almost to a one, marvellous. With TWO (two!) exceptions, I never, ever felt annoyed they showed up to cut off the main story because they were always interesting and exciting enough on their own accord to warrant the disturbance. Furthermore, an excellent job has been done by the author in making them all relevant to whatever came right before or right after in the main plot. Absolutely an exquisite way of dealing with a lot of backstory which would otherwise have been a hard fit in the book. A very dangerous way - this could quickly have ruined the reading-experience - but when pulled off this well, there's nothing to do but stand up and applaud.

Last, I should say a little something about the world Lynch has created here - and it's very, very good. It's not quite fleshed out enough to be brilliant, but it's indeed very good. The choice of setting the main narrative in a medieval culture based on Italy instead of Western Europe is a surprisingly uncommon touch, and it really adds a lot of distinctive flavour to the story. I'm looking very much forward to exploring more of Lynch's world in subsequent books.

I am not in the habit of grading books, nor will I grade this one. But I will say this - this books is probably easily among the fifteen best fantasy-novels I've ever read. It might even be in the top ten. I hardly read at all anymore, and this book managed to make me miss reading at times when I was doing something else. I haven't truly experienced that in the last four years or so. So thanks to Mr. Lynch. I will make sure to read its sequel "Read Seas under Red Skies" with relative haste - it might have to wait all the while 'til June, but that is the definite worst estimate.

Teena: "For thousands of days? That's almost forever!"
O'Neill: "Almost."

- Stargate SG-1 1x8: Brief Candle,
on the planet Argos where the inhabitants live only 100 days

Huh. This was not at all what I suspected. (There will be no spoilers here beyond a basic discussion of the premise of the how and the general direction the premise has been taken in the first eight episodes)



I did see it coming this being so much like Dead Like Me. By extension, I also expected it to remind me of Wonderfalls. What I did not see coming was that it'd also remind me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (There's even a Scooby-gang, of sorts) And what I certainly did not expect at all was finding this show to be a comedy show above all else.


So far, it's funny. It really is. It isn't particularily intelligent in its jokes, but it is also not particularily dumb, which makes it okay. In scenes where you'd expect the character(s) to react with fear, shock, joy, etc, they'll make a joke instead - so the focus is clearly on making the show funny first, dramatic second. They're succeeding, though, so I don't mind.

What this means, however, is that the drama-bits get pushed aside a lot. (And the action-bits gets maybe two scenes per episode, so this really isn't what you'd expect of a show about the Devil's personal bounty hunter.) While shows like "Battlestar Galactica" can set off with the heavy drama from square one, a show focusing this much on the lighter elements need time - see, for instance, Buffy, getting increasingly dark in seasons 2, 3, 5 and 6 - before the dramatic elements can unfold enough to really play out. This, to me, keeps the show from being briliant yet, but definitely allows for the potential to some day GET brilliant - maybe even some day this season.

Because, to my joy, they are putting out plot-points irrelevant for the individual episodes that all logic would dictate they will start picking up on later in the season and tie together into a (hopefully very interesting) season-plot. There's just no (to me, anyway) detectible pattern to them yet. They are, however, getting more prominent with almost every new episode.

So, the premise? (If you don't know it, yay you for sticking with this post for this long without knowing it!) As mentioned, this is a show about the Devil's bounty hunter. Yup. So you'd totally expect an action-show, that might or might not be good (read: might or might not have a big chunk of drama stirred in). But this is, as mentioned, a comedy. Once, however, that's getting increasingly black.

Because, people? The hero works for the Devil. There's more dramatic potential to moral conflicts in this basic premise than just about any other one-sentence premise I've heard for a tv-show. (The premise, in this, reminds me a lot of both Marvel's "Ghost Rider" and Image Comics' "Spawn", but is, obviously, far lighter) Whip in the juggling of a normal (shitty) life with his secret new job, and you've got another show in the tradition of Buffy, Smallville and even Wonderfalls, right?

Well, yeah. But with some interesting little changes. Like, for instance, the parents' role. Very different. Very different. And the fact that his powers, if you can call it that, as mentioned, come from, explicitly, the Devil. There's no room for moral leeway, here, our hero works for Hell. Deal with it.

Before I wrap this up, I should mention that the cast is very good. I think that I already by the second episode liked every single regular character and most supporting ones. And, of course, Ray Wise as the Devil himself is hilarious yet always somehow a little menacing. The rest of the cast is what makes the show great, but everything is really centred around the portrayal of the Enemy himself, and if he hadn't been this funnily done (and written, kudos to the writers for his dialogue!) the show would not have been interesting at all, no matter how well the rest of them did.


I'll be watching this with great optimism. If it just gets to keep on going for a while, this might end up being a very good show indeed.

I have to say, Ledger is starting to sound very promising...

New Iron-Man-teaser!