Exclusive Insanity

So, I recently purchased a couple of new books on the kindle. The first two books (combined) in the Adrien English series by Josh Lanyon, and The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey.

I'm really enjoying Adrien English. So much that I've already gone ahead and purchased the third book, since it only took me about a day and a half to get from the beginning of the first book to six chapters into the second (and that's in between work and workouts and shoveling snow). Some of you may not know this about me, but I adore mysteries. The reason this may not be so well-known is because I'm fairly picky about which ones I adore, so I don't read or watch them often. Most of what's out there and popular just isn't to my taste, for whatever reason. I suspect it's a lot to do with whether or not I feel like I'm connecting with the characters. These ones were recommended by several people on my friends list, and the kindle has this handy little feature of allowing you to download free samples of books and try them out before purchasing, so I went ahead and gave them a try. I'm glad I did, because they're excellent.

I'm kind of sad that there are only five books, because I think I'm really going to miss reading about Adrien when I'm through them all. That won't stop me from plowing through them in two or three days, but still. At least Josh Lanyon has a number of other titles I can try out as well.

It's probably a good thing I read The Fairy Godmother before starting on Adrien English, because while it was cute and entertaining, it wasn't nearly as engaging. This one is also the first in a five-book sequence, and basically is a fantasy/romance with some naughty bits. I think it's even published as a harlequin. I've read Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series (most of it, anyway), and her style is famliar to me. The world is interesting, the characters and fun to follow around... the romance fell a little flat. I was with it when she turned him into a donkey. I was with it when they were exchanging insults. I was with it when there was the inappropriate sexual tension. Then it actually started to happen, and... to be honest, I felt a little let down. Something was missing; I'm not sure what, but I felt very 'meh' about the whole thing. Fortunately, since the story was not ALL about the romance, I didn't lose interest completely, but it was still disappointing.

Since these books all seem to be stories about completely different people that just happen to take place in the same world, I'll probably give the next one a try once I've burned through the Adrien English series. Maybe the romance will be more interesting in that one. We'll see.

Last night, Cody and I went to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

It was really good! I was a little apprehensive after seeing Prince Caspian, but they actually went ahead and did a very good job with the adaption on this one! They changed a whole heck of a lot of things about it, but for the most part, those changes made sense to me (in terms of moving from a book to a movie) and were executed well. Nothing like that whole pointless 'attacking the castle' scene that went nowhere in Prince Caspian.

( More about the changes )

The mention of Jill Pole at the end makes me hopeful that they will make The Silver Chair next. We'll see, I guess.

This is my official Happy Holidays post, since I'm not sure if I'll have time to post anything else before Christmas. I'm off to work, then home to collect the cake, cookies, presents, and Cody's and my overnight bags. And then off to my parents' for Christmas dinner #1, followed by drinking and goofy gift exchange. Then breakfast the next morning, serious gift exchange, and off to Cody's parents' for more gift exchange, Christmas dinner #2, and general shenanigans.

It will be busy, but fun. Hehe.

I'm about five pounds lighter this year than I was at this time last year. I consider this a step in the right direction. The exercise program I've been working hard at is clearly paying off. Around Christmas time, I always pack on some extra baggage, but usually around February I get the motivation to knock it all back off. Now that I'm established in a decent routine (45 minutes per day on the elliptical, 5 days a week), the main thing I need to work on is my eating habits - which are, frankly, terrible.

But that's not something I'm going to worry about over Christmas, of course!

I honestly forgot to do the traditional Christmas card thing this year, but that's more because I've been pretty busy through this season. I don't think I'd have done it even if I did remember. But for all those who I'd normally send cards to, I still love you all!

Hope everyone has a great holiday!

I just noticed I haven't updated since Cody's birthday... wow. I've been slacking. Or busy. A lot of both, really. Mostly Christmas stuff. It snowed here, too, so there's been some time spent shoveling, and of course going out with friends.

The cat has been put on a diet, and seems to be adapting well (as well as can be expected, anyway). The vet recommended reduced intakes of protein and fat so that he can avoid coming down with diabetes. We're hoping it'll help him lose some weight. Because seriously? He's huge. Like a real life Garfield, except not orange. I wouldn't care since he seems happy enough, but I figure he'll end up with joint problems later in life, and that would suck.

In my spare time, I've been reading manga. In particular, I picked up some romance series. The ones I've finished so far are Lovely Complex and Special A.

Lovely Complex was actually a fairly decent shoujo manga series. Like most shoujo manga, it suffers from a certain degree of melodrama, love triangles, unnecessary complications, and - of course - the warm happy stuff (this is what I'm in it for). I wouldn't say it's particularly spectacular or unique (although the concept of taller-girl-shorter-boy isn't exactly a common premise), but it won points with me for having genuine compatibility between the two main characters. Many romances seem content to forget this business of common interests and the spending of time together and what happens during that time, what the two talk about in casual conversation, etc, etc. Lovely Complex had two characters who were very similar and who enjoyed spending time together as friends before romantic feelings were even a question. Granted (as is typical for shoujo manga), they hated each other at first, but the building of the friendship was nice to see as a lead-in to the romance.

Special A... I'd heard good things about this one before I read it, but I don't really know why. Not that it's bad or anything, but what exactly is special about this series? Plucky, clueless girl - check. Boy utterly devoted to her in secret - check. They don't get along - check. Odd side characters - check. Everyone paired off by the end - check (note that this is not exactly a bad thing in my opinion, but it is pretty common). Wacky hi-jicks that may or may not have relevance to the main plot (is there a main plot? It bounced around a lot) - check. Honestly, I... got a little bored before the end of this series. It became too predictable and I didn't feel like I got to know the characters well enough to care much about them. I finished it, but that was more because I was curious about what they'd do to end it than because I really wanted to spend more time reading it.

I'm currently reading Suzuka. It's... kinda meh so far. The constant fanservice is a bit of a turnoff and the main characters tend to irritate me. I may or may not stick it out to the end, but I want to give it a fair chance first.

I think I'm not sleeping well (again). I've been very tired lately. Bleh.

Since I finished Heroic Age, I've been watching Soul Eater and Tetsuwan Birdy Decode during my workouts. Birdy is so far a pretty mediocre series, but I've heard that the sequel series is pretty awesome, so I'm going to try and get through this one so I can watch it and still know what's going on.

Soul Eater... well, this is one of Cody's recent favorites. It's kind of a neat idea and it has some really funny moments, but I find the majority of the characters annoying, which really doesn't help.

I'm really hoping Maka ends up growing on me, since she and Soul are the main characters, but her voice is so irritating and she does the whole bitchily-beating-up-the-guy-for-no-good-reason cliche that bugs me so much - ugh! Soul is... eh. Okay.

Black Star is the single most irritating character in the entire thing. He is a twit! I want to strangle him! It doesn't help that Tsubaki is so damn wishy-washy, either.

Death the Kid is actually kind of an interesting character, despite the whole 'OCD being used as humor' thing. Patty is an annoying bimbo. Liz seems okay so far.

I've been assured that these characters grow and change as the series progresses. I will give it some time, and hope that they stop irritating the crap out of me.

I'm also going to try out Towards the Terra at some point and see if I get into that one. It's supposed to be pretty good, and the animation is kind of pretty, in a 70s anime sort of way. So we'll see.

So, I watched the third episode of Tales of Symphonia: Tethe'alla Arc yesterday, and it was awesome. Awesome music, awesome fight scenes, awesome animation - and then the cliffhanger revelation at the end. It was fantastic.

I went online today to confirm that the fourth episode is coming out in February (as far as I can tell, it is) and came across this tidbit of info.

So, like I thought, the rest of the story (there's a lot still to go) won't be stuffed into the final episode of the Tethe'alla arc. I figured they'd be doing this, since they've been taking their time and pacing everything very well in this OVA (unlike in the first OVA, where they were rushing through everything up until the point where the sequel was greenlit and they realized they could take their time).

The only question now is how long it's going to take them to start releasing the final OVAs. I really, really hope it's not going to be another two years...

Originally posted by neo_prodigy at Spirit Day

Now that FFXIV is out, I've changed the top banner on my site, and I think it looks pretty cool.

Cody and I spent pretty much all weekend playing. It's a fun game.

( More on FFXIV )

You know something I don't really understand about eBook publishing? The fact that they release some of the books in an older series but not all. And I'm not talking about the last couple of books not being released yet. I'm talking about random books in the middle not being released.

I've seen this four times so far. Diane Duane's Young Wizards series has books 1-2, 4-5, and 7-9 out. Where are 3 and 6? And then Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series has books 1-2 and 4-5 but not book 3. David Eddings' Belgariad/Mallorean series seems to be there, but we're missing books 2 and 3 of his Elenium and somehow are given books 1 and 2 of its sequel series. And Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series - well, that isn't there at all, but ONE book in its sequel series is there (I think book 3 of 4), plus the sequel book to that. What's up with this?

I wish I could say it's just Amazon, because I could probably buy ebooks from anywhere else. But it's not. It has to be whoever is releasing ebook versions of these novels, because no matter which store I go to, those are the available books.

What the hell ever possessed them to do it this way?

Cody drew me pictures of our FFXIV characters! He hasn't put them up on deviantArt, but I have them on my webspace, and they can be found here:

Messenjari and Athynn

Messenjari and Brynne

All three looking adorable

Any comments will be passed along to him, so let me know what you think of them!

Also, I forgot to mention in my last post that I made some changes to my website. I basically made the menu a little more interactive. I did a javascript version and a php version, so if you visit the site with javascript disabled, it should redirect you to the php version and you shouldn't notice much of a difference. I like how the menu turned out.

The address (for those who don't want to visit my LJ page) is http://www.hiddenlegacy.net