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Mar

Day two

By rei 4 Comments

Categories: Books, random links and weather

Second day of spring break…I blissfully spent most of yesterday being rather unproductive…generally a necessity for at least the first day of a break, regardless of what else I have on the docket. Then I made dinner (apparently way too spicy…I really need to just set down the cayenne jar and take two giant steps backward…but I figured, heck, it was Indian food–it was supposed to be spicy!) and did the dishes, only reverse of that chronology. Although, I suppose I did do the dinner dishes after we ate as well, so, with dinner thus bookended, either timeline works equally well.

I have begun reading, as I never did back when I was in junior high and everyone else did, V.C. Andrews’s Flowers in the Attic. I read a few of her other books around that earlier time, and I remember the contents as fluffily enthralling and somewhat scandalous. As FitA is probably her very best known book of gloomy mansions and illicit affairs, I figured I might as well give it a read, as, if nothing else the story would be a bit of silly fun to pass time on my spring break.

The book is truly dreadful. The writing is — and I say this as one who is rather fond of purple prose — ridiculously flowery and overdone. The characters are similarly so, and generally not very believable. The intense dialogue and heartfelt confessions make me giggle at their absurdity.

(I have to mention, as a side-note…the page I found the cover image on was a blog called “Book Reviews for teens, by teens”…and the reviewer had this to say about the book: “This book is a beautifully written story about love,family and hope. This book will have you hooked right from the beginning, and you’ll be turning the pages quite quickly to it’s conclusion. Though quite sad and realistic…” I don’t believe that anyone over the age of 20 will hold with this opinion of Andrews’ writing, but as an amusing contrasting viewpoint that, in all honesty, I mock, I wanted to share it with you.)

The skies are clear today and I expected warmer weather than we have been subjected to over the past few chilly, rainy days. A glance at Weatherbug, however, suggests that is not the case, with temperatures in the high thirties and low forties. Ahh well. At least it’s not raining.

Edit: I trudged my way through to the very end, and FitA never got any better. I have no desire to pick up the rest of the series to find out what happens to the ill fated “Dresden Dolls”…but I do have a mild interest in hunting down the V.C. Andrews books I read as a teen to discover the magnitude of crappy writing that I overlooked in my innocent youth.

Mar

spring break. woo. hoo.

By rei 0 Comments

Categories: Books, movies and tv, random links, rants, school and work

So.

Winter quarter is over. No more art history at least, which is a relief.

My Sweethearts candies box designs went over very well and are getting showcased. My photobook on the other hand…well, I’m not finished with it, but I got enough completed to turn in…however, my final assessment of what I have done so far is that it came out okay. I saw a few of the other completed designs and they were lovely, really lovely. I think that the combination of my lack of strong layout and typography skills and OH YEAH, having to rework my whole design last minute, might just have worked against me a bit. On the positive side, as my new partner in the project is a graduate and therefore has no deadline looming, I can finish it at my leisure, and after getting the chance to look at some other people’s work, maybe I’ll have a few ideas of how to refine what I have into something better.

I’m a little depressed and annoyed by the fact that spring break is only a week long. Not long enough to recharge and certainly not long enough to complete the giant list of Stuff To Get Done during this time off. I’m also a little depressed by the realization I had last night that the usual end of the quarter freedom I enjoy so much isn’t available this time around — that sudden awareness that my work for the the quarter past is done, for better or for worse, that I’m free for a brief time to pursue my own desires with no one else’s artistic demands weighing upon me. This break, instead, I still have a half-completed photobook to attend to, as well as promised illustrations for the children’s book a friend (not in art school) is writing for a class. *sigh* Both projects I’m happy to be a part of, of course…just spring break continuing to disappoint me with it’s brevity and I have a million things of my own I would like to work on as well.

On a more happy note, my tablet should be arriving in just about 2 weeks. I’m massively excited. Of course, I’ll be back in school by the time it gets here and won’t have my break to spend goofing around and getting used to it, but still…I’m getting my tablet. Last night Briggs had me watch a video review on it, and now I’m more excited than before.

Other than that…

The weather is grey and drizzly, but definitely spring. I’m hoping to find time to plant some of my perennial wildflower mix this week.

I’ve been rewatching the utter lack of any redeeming quality that is Smallville. I’m mid-Season 1 and have decided that Lex is totally gay for Clark. Also that some third-graders have a better grasp of writing and character development. Oh, right. I already knew that.

Briggs and I have been watching Caprica, and have been quite pleasantly surprised. If you are a Battlestar fan and haven’t checked it out yet, I recommend doing so. Honestly, even if you haven’t seen Battlestar – there ae plenty of easter-eggs for fans of the series, but I think it’s totally watchable without prior knowledge of the world. Caprica also isn’t quite as heavy and inaccessible as Battlestar could be from time to time…a bit brighter and flashier, but still well-written with good acting and character development (take a hint, Smallville!)

I watched this week’s episode of Chuck last night, and I’m wondering if they might actually let the show and the character evolve, or if they’ll find a way to put everything right back how it was again next week.

I have been reading a bunch of random stuff, as usual, and enjoying some of my choices more than others. If you are interested in actual literature, both Things Fall Apart and July’s People (books from my World Lit class) are excellent choices. Oh, and I suppose that Heart of Darkness is pretty good too… RE my recreational reading, Beauty Sleep, a YA retelling of Sleeping Beauty, really surprised me. Very fast read, but very fun, well written and hard to put down. Most recently, I finished Malice…not great, but interesting enough that I’m thinking of finding the second book in the series…I suspect that it would be quite enthralling to it’s intended age group. Not a lot else that really grabbed me, except the weighty Tawny Man trilogy, the third trilogy of Robin Hobb’s series in the Six Duchies world–a story that excited and annoyed me by turns, largely because, yet again, the ever-irritating Fitz was the central character and narrator again.

As usual, not a lot else in my life is noteworthy. School, blah blah blah, I love my cats. As the first day of my break — official decompression day — I have spent the afternoon so far goofing off on the internet, drinking coffee, finishing my book and writing a blog.

Maybe tomorrow The Doctor will show up and take me away. If he does, I’ll blog it.

’till my alien abduction or some other interesting update, later skaters.

Jan

defeats and triumphs

By rei 5 Comments

Categories: Books, movies and tv, my cats, random links, rants and weather

Yesterday brought the latest installment in the quest to move the title of our car into my name. Yesterday was intended to bring the quest to its glorious conclusion…but the fates continued to bar my way, their foul breath filling my senses as they laughed in my face.

After previous experiences, I had finally acquired my PA license, Briggs had gotten paid so we could afford the transfer fee, and we headed to the AAA so that we could finally make the bank happy by putting the title of our perky blue Subaru in my name.

We stood in line for half an hour, finally had our number called and excitedly approached the desk only to have the clerk coldly inform us that — contrary to what we had been lead to understand…contrary to the information given to me when I called the AAA to find out what documentation and information we would need for the process and I was told I just needed a PA license or ID and the title — the car ALSO needs to be both registered AND insured in my name. Oh, sure, we could have switched the title over, but if we did that we were required by law to immediately remove the plates from the car and park it until the afore mentioned actions had been taken.

As Briggs is the only one who actually ever drives the car (I think I have driven it…I don’t know…twice?), we would, of course, also have to continue an insurance policy in his name. Not only that, but when a vehicle is registered, it has to pass inspection. The car just got its annual inspection about two months ago, and a switch in registration would mean we would have to pay the rather hefty inspection fee all over again, along with the registration fee, the cost of insurance and the cost of the actual title change.

I don’t know if this has ever come up, but we are pretty darn poor at this particular moment — we certainly can’t afford all those expenses this week. Meanwhile, the bank gets more irritated at each delay.

…but it isn’t all bad. The moon is very close to the earth right now, and last night when we came up the driveway, it was just rising over the hill behind our house. The heavenly body glowing through the winter bare trees led us to momentarily believe that we had left the house with all the lights on inside, until we realized that the glow was too immense for that. Then there was a brief flash of fear that the house was burning with that eerie golden glow before we realized that the source of the illumination did not came not from our dwelling, our yard, or even our home planet, but from the giant moon cresting a gentle rise.

Then, I imagined the moon swooping down and biting a chunk out of the earth.

I went outside later and the moon had risen further in the sky and no longer seemed quite so immense…but it shone with such intense silvery brightness that I almost could not gaze upon it with unshielded eyes. I later turned off all the lights in the house and marveled at the inky shadows the illumination cast on the white snow in our yard.

Another mark in the ‘pros’ column — I repaired our kitten. (No, not fixed…not yet. Soon.) On Monday, Robin G was very obviously ill…he kept vomiting, with nothing left in his stomach to eject, was lethargic and obviously miserable. With no other options at the time, I made sure he got fluids and nutrients via syringe, and by Tuesday night he seemed back to his regular trouble-making self, as he walked around on the headboard of the bed and meowed at me to wake up and entertain him over and over again. (He almost died right there, despite his recovery.) After three days of apparently perfect health, yesterday he got sick again. He had no energy and no appetite, was lethargic and throwing up…I figured he must be getting into something he shouldn’t. I gave him broth every couple hours, checked on him concernedly, then finally went to bed and crossed my fingers for a recovery like he had experienced previously.

A short while later, I heard him hacking something up, yet again. With a heavy heart, I went into the living room to check on him and clean up whatever there was to clean up. And as I bent down to do so, I noticed that he was attempting to dislodge something dangling out of his mouth. I quickly caught it an pulled it — all two or so feet of it — out of his throat. It was a piece of plastic ribbon, like those used to wrap presents. My eternal troublemaker had found a piece of ribbon and decided that ingestion was a fitting death for his shiny victim. Then, of course, it got caught in his stomach and started causing him problems. Almost as soon as I removed it, he started feeling better and perking up. By the time I fell fully asleep, he was energetic enough to come wake me up. Repeatedly.

But it’s not all evil moons and cat vomit around here — oh no! I made tuna melts for dinner last night, and they were delicious and a perfect comfort food after a stressful day. I followed them with the comfort food of desserts — home-made chocolate chip cookies. Which means I also got to have breakfast cookies today!

We watched the finale of Dollhouse on last night, and, though perhaps not the BEST finale ever (something about the format of that show made it a little hard to get really emotionally invested, I think. Still a great show. Just weird.) but still pretty darn sweet.

On the topic of finales, we did a back-to-back Doctor Who night with Anna and Aaron this week, because we were at the end of season two and it just didn’t seem right to break up ‘Army of Ghosts’ and ‘Doomsday’. In accordance with my master plan, Anna cried. Quite right too.

Other portions of my fictional life are less satisfying at the moment, however. After finishing Robin Hobb’s ‘Liveship Traders’ trilogy, which became increasingly difficult to put down as I approached the conclusion, I decided that, as Briggs and I have been watching Legend of the Seeker for a while now, I should read the series it’s based on — ‘The Sword of Truth’ by Terry Goodkind.

…I do apologize if anyone out there sincerely loves T.G.’s writing…but I don’t know when I last read such utter, awful crap. Just…crap. I’m barely halfway through and harbor no excitement at the thought of continuing. I will, because I can’t not finish a book, but I will get no enjoyment from it. The characters spend half the book hugging — hugging each other, random kindly strangers, magical chipmunks…any time one of them starts to get angry at another, they immediately change their mind after thinking about what their dear, dear friend must have gone through keeping the secret from them/choosing to do the right thing…the male protagonist stops his female companion (who he is deeply enamored of) in the middle of sexing him up, because he can’t be with her unless she can be fully honest about her past…the writing is dreadful, the characters are unconvincing, and at least one NPC is an almost direct rip-off or Tolkien’s creature, Gollum.

I’m also currently watching through the show ‘Bones’. So far it is mostly diverting and entertaining, though there have been one or two deeply annoying points when the writers bent science to suit the plot, and many of the secondary characters are much more interesting than the two leads. David Boreanaz’s ex-Army Ranger character perhaps a bit more gung-ho and slightly less brooding than the one he played on Angel and Buffy, but otherwise largely indistinguishable.

The weather right now is bloody cold and very clear…lip balm is hardly noticed by my chapping.

Tonight I plan to do my taxes.

Jan

This post made me happy

By rei 3 Comments

Categories: art, Books, random links and work

via Bookshelves of Doom, gorgeous cover art by Jason Chan — BoD theorized that with art this gorgeous, this author is likely to begin garnering the fans her writing deserves…and she’s right – I’d buy this, likely for the art alone.

I found this post particularly heartening in a very selfish way. Illustrating book covers is pretty high up on my list of What I Really Want To Do, but lately, I have been seeing the trends go more and more in this direction:

A lot of photos, mostly cropped human bodies. A lot of girls with historically inaccurate ‘period’ clothing. Some of them are even very appropriate and nicely done…but I have ALWAYS loved illustrated work on book covers…especially if the story is set in a time or place that photography wasn’t really an option (a Victorian boarding school, for example) , a photo cover seems somehow wrong to me…but even for contemporary story lines, nine times out of ten I would rather see an illustration than a photo.

So, it does my heart good to see such a beautiful piece of cover art getting some decent recognition (and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason for the prevalence of photos for covers was due to some of the truly sub-par illustration that was out there as well…maybe this cover will remind the publishing world that an illustrated cover CAN be done well?)