When a new year rolls around, it seems custom dictates that we look back upon it and those of us so inclined to waffle on do so in that retrospective manner. Those of us so inclined take to using bizarrely structured sentences with big words to make themselves sound ever so more eloquent than they really are, to promote the idea of intelligence. That or the person in question has just watched the last episode of Sherlock again and as such is feeling like prancing around and being a smartass. Unfortunately, that is all I'd be able to do as I lack Sherlock Holmes' rather brilliant deductive processes.
Anyway, that's a digression. Back to the matter at hand, which is the retrospective look at 2013. Blame old Janus for that one, two-headed know-it-all. Thanks to that particular god - who, fun fact, has no equivalent in Greek mythology - we spend a lot of January (shockingly enough named after him, vain little bugger) looking back at the year before and planning on doing so many wonderful things in the year ahead. We call them New Year's Resolutions, more commonly known as "sign up for the gym in January then stop going in February because I can't be arsed". Disclaimer - there are those in this world who do manage to actually stick to their resolutions and kudos to them, but I'm one of the little naysayers who doesn't even bother them. No definite philosophical aversion that I'm going to jam down your throats, I've just never felt the need for them. Simple apathy really.
Oh bollocks, I'm digressing ONCE AGAIN. Ahem. All right then. 2013.
First off, thirteen. The number has itself a bit of an unlovely rep. In the western world we have this undue obsession with thirteen being unlucky. In fact, in the later months of 2013, I was serving a customer - as my job requires - and as they had ordered food, I gave them an order number. It happened to be thirteen. So they said "Can I have another number?" Now I'm usually one to just bend over backwards and say "Yes, sir, of course, sir, no problem, whatever you like, sir." But I developed an affinity for thirteen in my old age. I happen to think it's a bit of a misunderstood number, the underdog that everyone should be rooting for. So my less-than-composed response was something along the lines of "Really?" The gentleman did not seem entirely impressed, especially when I tried to explain my off-hand objection in the context of my feelings towards thirteen. Epitomised by the serial number of my Colonial Fleet dogtags, 428813. I changed the number despite him apparently yielding to my defence of thirteen. Just to attempt to keep the customer happy, even though I'm 99.9% certain that he was distinctly unimpressed by the whole exchange.
But that's the latter half of 2013. Let's talk about the beginning. Now the last time I did a retrospective, I talked a lot about movies, babbled a little about books and went all gushing about people. Not sure if I'm going to do all of that, but there is some kind of abstract exploration I want to do. You see, when 2014 rolled around, I noted many people on the dread website Facebook noting how glad they were it was over. Indeed, I managed to blunder myself into one of my trademark hole-digging session on New Year's Day, just after the stroke of midnight, when I decided that there was really only one person I wanted to text and did so, expressing the sentiments to the effect of a hope that the coming year would prove as awesome as the last. Only to discover that in spite of several awesome things having happened to this person, a lot of crap happened afterwards. I sense, from the tidal wave of Facebook sighs of relief that many people felt that way about 2013.
Given my affinity for the number, I had some pretty high hopes that 2013 was going to be my year. It's been hinted and intimated on many an occasion (or maybe not, so some exposition will follow) that I have been attempting to woo/impress the object of my affections. First of all, object of my affections is an awfully unfortunate phrase. This person is not an object, they're a rather fantastic human being who on several occasions I was quite absolutely sure I'd completely blown it with. The beginning of the year being the first roll of a tiny snowball down the mountain, that eventually tumbled down and exploded at the end of June. Thank the Lords of Kobol that when it did, I discovered the lady in question did not in fact revile me or want me gone, they actually quite value my friendship and thus my affections have safely died away and some seem to be stirring elsewhere, but what becomes of that remains to be seen.
So, a little more geeky context. Earlier in 2013, I mentioned a television show called The Almighty Johnsons, the main thrust of which is the mortal incarnation of Odin seeking to reunited with his true love, the mortal incarnation of Frigg. Since watching the show, this has been something of a theme, the quest to find the Frigg to my Odin. Let's face it, if I could be Odin going around defeating frost giants and looking particularly badass with an eye-patch, it wouldn't be so bad. But I'm not exactly Odin, I just like the phrasing, "the Frigg to my Odin". Other potentials are "the Starbuck to my Apollo" and "the Holmes to my Watson". All in keeping with a theme of finding...companionship. I hesitate to say more because it feels a little too much like tempting the gods and they have an awfully annoying habit of making things awkward and pissing themselves laughing at the folly of mortals. That and it seems to me that there is a perception, nay even a prejudice, against those who seek to bestow affection on those they deem worthy of it. Phrases such as "You'll find it when you're not looking" are commonly thrown at you, should you dare to actually believe that you can find your Frigg. Or Odin. I can testify that things seem to work best when someone comes out of the clear blue sky, tearing through the little bubble world you've been in and drop-kicking you in all of the complicated feels, but nonetheless I do hope that I can find my Frigg. And if not, I can definitely say I've made some wonderful friends along the way.
AHEM. I think it's time to move swiftly on to a point that I've kind of been building up to. It's kind of a life philosophy. About six years ago, the world as I had wanted it to be crumbled down around me. The woman I believed I loved promptly turned around and jumped on some other donkey, dangling the false carrot of possible friendship as opposed to reconciliation and pretty much left me to emotionally bleed to death. Gods, that was awfully melodramatic. Anyway. As a result, I became even more of determinist in order to reconcile what had happened with the way I believe the world should be. Eventually, this evolved into a simple mantra - "Bad fortune is merely good fortune in a very clever disguise". Now in some cases, this is extremely hard to follow. I know because by sheer virtue of believing something, you invite others to criticise and challenge you. By way of example, 2013 put one of my friends through the absolute frakkin' ringer. Hades himself couldn't have been more sadistically evil in torturing them. Yet I believe that all that bad fortune, all the bad things that have happened, happened with good reason. It may not show itself immediately, but the reason is frakkin' out there.
Before this life philosophy attracts more raised eyebrows and strenuous objections, time to move on to the housekeeping. Well, the little details, more relevant to my journey through 2013. I've covered the big, nearly screwed-it-up-with-amazing-person-who-still-wants-to-be-my-friend, but 2013 wasn't all me bumbling around trying to love someone who loved me back, but only as a friend. In fact, in terms of my working life, 2013 was frakkin' epic. On the front of my paying job, I had a boss who unlike the last two jokers actually had the vaguest hint of a clue what they are doing. A revelation after the abject hell me and my colleagues had been through in the previous year. Then, as I mentioned in my last blog entry of 2013, I actually started and finished the first draft of my novel! Backtracking to the bad fortune/good fortune thing, I want to say that 2013 is almost...part one of a trilogy. Or maybe part two. Heck, it's Empire Strikes Back. The bad guys have one, the good guys are on the run, but all the crap we've been through, all the things that have happened good or bad have set us up for where we're going to be next. So 2014, if it turns out to be as awesome as everyone hopes, might just owe a frakton of thanks to 2013 for being so crap.
Also in 2013 where some other artistic, non-writing touches, but not by me. First of all, I had my first ever tattoo:
In keeping with my nerdiness and obsession with Battlestar Galactica, this is the Colonial symbol for Scorpia. To put it as simply as I hope I can, each of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol is named after the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. So, if you go by my logic, to figure out which colony you're from and which symbol is yours, look at this simple table, pick out your star sign and BOOM, that's your colony:
Aries - Aerilon.
Taurus - Tauron.
Gemini - Gemenon.
Cancer - Canceron.
Leo - Leonis.
Virgo - Virgon.
Libra - Libran.
Scorpio - Scorpia.
Sagittarius - Sagittaron.
Capricorn - Caprica.
Aquarius - Aquaria.
Picses - Picon.
For further information on the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, visit the helpful Battlstar Galactica wiki or, if you're in anyway obsessed with Galactica like me, go to Quantum Mechanix and buy the Map of the Twelve Colonies. It's where I took the symbol from that is now permanently inked on my arm. So say we all. Straight-faced this time. Also, photo credit goes to my colleague, call sign "Sonic" on account of his mohawk (not blue though), who as of Monday, 13th January 2014, has become my wingman. This could turn into a very interesting year...
The next subject of art is also in a similar tattoo vein. You see, I've wanted a tattoo for ages. Before I decided on the Scorpia Colonial symbol as my first tattoo, I came up with the idea of a dragon and a wolf in a Yin-Yang pattern. As luck would have it, I'm friends with a rather brilliant artist, Jennie Gyllblad. Click the name to discover her website and the brilliance of her work. Further good fortune smiled upon me, as she accepts commissions, so I commissioned her to design it. Now, given that I am something of a fan of The Song of Ice and Fire books and the associated television show, the design is a Targaryen dragon and a Stark direwolf. It now sits, beautifully framed, on my desk, right next to my computer. It looks (sans frame) a little something like the link you can click on which is these words. It is supremely beautifully awesome and much kudos goes to Jennie for her hard work and artistic genius. Still debating the tattooing of it upon my body, but by gods I still have an awesome piece of artwork to proudly display in my humble hall.
I suspect I have waffled on for a lot longer than I usually do and about subjects I don't usually waffle about, though I suppose that just goes to show that I feel a bit strongly about some of these things. Especially the bad fortune/good fortune thing. It's not the most popular life philosophy, mostly because people look on it as a cop-out, a cheap way of excusing bad things. It doesn't excuse them, barely explains them. What I hope it says, what I want to say to the people who have had a shit 2013, the people I care about who know who they are and will punch me repeatedly for being so stupidly sentimental, is that the bad things don't have to rule us. They happened because they needed to, to put us on the path we're on now. Hell, at the risk of getting myself shot, it's time for a final thought.
This year, I started out being completely in love with this incredible girl. I still love her in this moment right now, but I cannot stress enough how platonic that feeling is. She is my friend. For the very good reason that without falling in love with her, without expressing my feelings to her, putting myself through the ringer with own neuroses and insecurity, I could not be the man I am now. Slightly more confident than yesterday. Looking at 2014 with Mal's pistol strapped to his hip, the promise of Vera on the horizon (see QMx's Facebook page for context), high hopes for a Mk II Viper one day and hoping that maybe, just maybe, out there somewhere, is the Frigg to his Odin, the Starbuck to his Apollo.
So it may have, by some curious means of me babbling about it in several posts, come to light that I am something of a fan of the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin. Known in the more common vernacular as Game of Thrones, after the first book in the series. This is largely because the TV series is named such. Thus far, I have only watched two seasons of the series, though I have been told that the impending British broadcast of the third season finale depicts quite a momentous event. I will not speak of such things, of course, but in honour of this series finale, I'm going to be babbling on Song of Ice and Fire lines today.
As a fan of the books, I have, somewhat naturally, developed an affinity for a particular noble house. My allegiance is owed to House Stark and my words are simple. Winter is Coming. And it is for these words that I am writing a whole frak ton of my own today. Many a day I have spent "meditating" of a sort on the deeper meanings of the words of the major noble house of Westeros. For the purposes of this post, I have chosen six of the houses. So, without further ado...
House Stark - "Winter is Coming"
The words of the Starks of Winterfell are quite interesting - it is noted in other sources that their words aren't a threat or a boast...they're an ominous warning. On the surface, it's the ominous warning of the inevitability of winter's arrival. A simple statement of fact, really. But to me, it feels like so much more than that. Winter is Coming is a promise, a declaration of intent. It is the nature of the Starks - no matter what happens, if you mess with the Starks, their friends, their loved ones...they will come for you. Today, tomorrow. Time is of no consequence. Winter is a fact. It is coming and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.
House Baratheon - "Ours is the Fury"
This one is an obvious threat. Rage. Fury. Vengeance. The Baratheons are a mighty house, historically not ones to be frakked with or take anything lying down. They're warriors, but they're immediate warriors. Their nature is not like the Starks, they're not patient. They don't do sitting around waiting for this to happen. They're energetic, vigorous, they swing their swords and warhammers at anyone or anything that looks at them cross-eyed. The Baratheons do not wait. Cross them and they'll come for you. No grace period, no thinking. Pure, animal fury.
House Lannister - "Hear Me Roar"
On the surface, it's an obvious reference to their sigil, the golden lion. But when you look into the depths of the Lannister soul...well, it's a boast. It's their pride and their vanity. Epitomised, I feel, by the patriarch of their house, Lord Tywin Lannister. Not content to sit on all the gold in Casterly Rock and be the richest man in the Seven Kingdoms, Tywin Lannister needs attention, validation. For a time, he had the power. Hand of the King for twenty years, the balance to Aerys II's considerable madness. The craving for power and recognition is continued with Cersei, highlighted by her relentless scheming and behind-the-scenes backstabbing she perpetrates in King's Landing. Hear Me Roar is not merely a boast. It's a cry for attention.
House Targaryen - "Fire and Blood"
Not a boast, nor a warning or a threat. Fire and Blood are the values of House Targaryen - the blood of the dragon, the blood Old Valyria. Fire
is radiant, beautiful. Dangerous if mishandled. Fire burns and yes, it's
dangerous. But if you know how to handle it, you meet the other half,
Blood. Family is everything to those of House Targaryen. Hurt their Blood, they will spills yours. Fire and Blood is a double-edged sword. They are the dragon blood, Fire runs in their veins and they treasure their kin, their Blood. If you hurt their Blood, they will rain Fire upon you. On the surface it may not sound like a threat...well, Fire does suggest being threatening, but Fire is also a comfort in times of cold, in places of darkness.
House Greyjoy - "We Do Not Sow"
A matter-of-fact statement. House Greyjoy do not ask for things, they do not compromise. They take what they want, what is theirs. There is an edge of warning to their words. Do not expect anything from them, they do not play by your rules. The Greyjoys may be part of the Seven Kingdoms, but they do not play the laws of the rest of Westeros. They continue to be pirates and raiders, only just about keeping the King's Peace. We Do Not Sow. Our ways are our own. We will fight, raid and pillage anyone who means to stamp us under their heel. Like the direwolves of House Stark, the krakens of House Greyjoy are patient. Water connects everything. The kraken moves fast, but it can also move slow. When it strikes...there is no mercy. The kraken takes what it wants, leaves the rest to the sea.
House Martell - "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"
To wrap my meditations, I present what I consider one of the most intriguing noble houses in Westeros - House Martell, the ruling house of Dorne. In the Seven Kingdoms, Dorne is a curiosity. Ruled not by lords, but princes. Their words, on the surface, may be seen to reflect their history - the only part of the Seven Kingdoms that successfully stood against Aegon the Conqueror's dragons, as well as the retention of the royal style for their rulers. Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken speaks of proud resilience, an unyielding defiance, but the actions of their house speak other words. Some can be shrewd, patient, biding their time. Others, while just as canny thinkers, are hot-tempered, quicker in their need for vengeance. The Martells are unpredictable in terms of when they will strike and how. In a way, it seems that the Martells very easily live up to the surface of their words. But only insofar as they are one of the more...shy? Reserved. They're more reserved. But that does not mean they have yielded. They're just waiting for the right moment to strike.
I suspect my babbling has made...well, not a huge amount of sense. It never really does. Regardless, these have been my meditations on the house words of some of my favourite houses (/those houses that friends of mine hold dear to as well). They make sense to me at least.
And for those of you about to watch Game of Thrones this evening who have not yet read A Storm of Swords...
Enjoy :D
I have chosen Gandalf's words of wisdom on wizards' sense of temporal mechanics for two reasons. The first is obvious - my shameful neglect in the up keep of this blog. The second, is talk in a little more depth about my history with Lord of the Rings and very specifically about my thoughts and feelings on the latest movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Unlike many of my geeky friends, in fact unlike pretty much ALL of my friends, the non-geeks included, I did not see any of the Lord of the Rings movies when they came out. I had not read the books as a child and held to the incredibly strange and continually baffling logic that, at the time, one could either be loyal to watching The Matrix movies or Lord of the Rings. In retrospect, by gods I really did bet on the wrong horse.
It emerged in later years that not seeing or reading Lord of the Rings is pretty much considered treason in the geek world. Liking them may not necessarily be required, but you at least have to see them and read them so you can form an opinion, which can then lead to late night, Mountain Dew-fuelled discussions on the subject. So far I have completed the watching them requirement, with the full intention of obtaining the trilogy of books and reading them. I already have, and have read, The Hobbit, so I suppose that's something a start. My geek credentials, taken from me by the benevolence of Spike, have since been returned by the same token of benevolence, with the stipulation that I must get my arse into gear and read the frakking things.
But enough on that. Time for my thoughts and feelings on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
I'd heard some quite mixed things about this movie. Some said I should prepare to be disappointed, others said I would enjoy it and that it wasn't a bad movie. In short...I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Now I read The Hobbit at the beginning of 2012, just before the GRRM Reaper and Song of Ice and Fire entered and thoroughly took up residence in my life. So by the time I saw The Hobbit in early 2013, my memories of the book had faded a little bit. So I didn't necessarily recognise all of it, but there were a lot of points where I was thinking "Aha, I remember that" and, of course, points where I thought "Hang on a second, I'm fairly certain that didn't happen". However, I was prepared for this. As always, after the release of the movie, the Internet and die-hard Tolkien fans erupted in various states of outrage regarding deviations from the source text. Unfortunately, this is a reality of the movie industry we have to live with. Which is why I take the Douglas Adams, Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy approach and view such things as separate entities to be enjoyed on their own merits. That said, comparative studies can be quite fun too.
The obvious trickiness of movie adaptations is bringing the characters to life. You have to be real careful about who you pick to embody certain characters, because the fanbase you're relying on to bringing in those opening weekend bucks are going to have some pretty firm ideas about what those characters are like. In this, I think there was much success. Thorin Oakenshield's company of Dwarves are indeed a very merry gathering and Martin Freeman quite brilliantly portrays Bilbo Baggins' confusion over the presence of them in his neat little Hobbit-hole. Or at least it was neat before they arrived to pillage the pantry and trod mud into the carpets.
So far, I'm enjoying this trilogy. I know it's only one movie in, but hey, I'll start calling it a trilogy anyway. Saves time later. It felt like they had added a lot of things in that I didn't remember from the books, but regardless of that I really enjoyed it. I imagine that the original Lord of the Rings trilogy will stick out as my favourites, but that'll probably be for all the battles. Saying that, we do have the Battle of the Five Armies to look forward to. Along with many, many other things.
I feel like I should be saying more but it was a fair few weeks ago that I saw it and my mind draws blanks. I really, really have been atrocious with updating. I blame my parade of early morning starts at work. Getting up at 5 am five days in a row doesn't do great things for the energy levels. But I'm getting close to getting used to it (so Sod's Law dictates that my shift pattern is going to drastically change now), so with any luck I'll be able to update more often. That and I'm not playing anymore Skyrim until I send my novel out to at least five agents. Yeah, I'm getting to that exceptionally scary point in my writing career. Actually trying to get paid for this so-called career.
So until next time, here is a little musical gem by a gifted fellow named Peter Hollens that I discovered and relates quite nicely to what I've been babbling about: Misty Mountains Acappella.
Today I'm going to be doing something a little bit different. Well, kind of mixing things up a little. Something from Column A and something from Column B. On this particular day, Column A is similar to a little something I did back in June. Anyone remember this little gem? I talked a lot here about being a writer, about the community of writers that exist in this wonderful world of ours. Or, as I called it, The Writerverse. It is in the name of The Writerverse that I commence babbling this particular eve.
The quotation in the title is a reference to one specific writer. Her callsign is Spike. As a fellow fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it was only fitting to name her after one of the most awesome characters from the series. Especially as she is, in some respects, my sire. If it weren't for Spike, I may never have discovered that I enjoyed dancing. Going out...having fun. Having that funny odd thing called...a Life.
So there it is. She is my sire, man.
Anyway, Spike is a fellow alumnus from university. In the intervening years between graduation and now, my sire's been up to a lot of very productive things. Take her blog, Review Diaries. I was about to say for example. I wouldn't say for example. I'd say this is pretty big really. While I'm here babbling every which-a-way about all the geeky sci-fi things I love and occasionally talking about awesome books in a vaguely review-like context, she's been solidly reviewing all of the things she loves. And has become something of a big deal in the blogging circles for Young Adult publishing. So much so, she's made it into the top ten for a competition to become the new in-house blogger for Mira Ink Publishing.
Now, this is where we get to the substance of this ramble. Round two of the competition involves making a video, posted to YouTube, wherein the finalist explains what makes them so perfect to be the new voice of Mira Ink Publishing. In this very, very energetic video, Spike very awesomely explains why she is the best choice. To further convince the judges of this...well, this is where we need the good will of you, the gracious people of the Internet. Watch this video. Like the video. Share the video. Rinse and repeat. Ensure that your friends do the same thing. That random kid who walks past Ebenezer Scrooge's house in A Christmas Carol, make sure he does it too.
So there you have it. My sire is awesome. Help her prove it to the Mira Ink judges. Like and share the video. Pretty please!
Lastly, there's the Column B ramble. It's slightly sire related. For this, my sires are Thief and Dragon. And the GRRM Reaper himself, George R.R. Martin. You see, reading the Song of Ice and Fire and a lot about all of the awesome dragons, I actually found myself listening to the whispers of dragons in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I found myself reading up more, investigating the game more and being very tempted to buy it.
Finally, last week, during Steam's autumn sale, I caved. I mean, Skyrim and both DLC add-ons for £26 when the non-sale price is £34.99. Pretty good deal. And now, as a result of this, I am incredibly addicted. Well, maybe not incredibly as instead of spending every waking moment playing Skyrim I'm babbling here, but hey-ho. I'm finding it to be a very compelling game. Don't know how far am I at the moment. So far, I'm a level eleven Dark Elf with a particularly speciality for burning things. What can I say. I like fire. It works for me.
That's the news from my end of the worlds so far. In summation, dear readers, I'm hooked on Skyrim and please, please help out my dear friend Spike.
Also, totally indulging in some old school music from the 90s. To whit...
(Song of the Mind: My Favourite Game - The Cardigans)
I'm going with the wisdom of Marvin the Paranoid Android today because, well, Life has been really rather irritating lately with its consistent need to get in the way of pretty much everything. I've been meaning to update this blog for a long while but something always seem to come up. Once upon a many Moon ago, I never understood how people couldn't keep up with these kinds of things. In my youthful naivety, I thought it was easy. I am learning just how little I knew back then...
Anyway...
There's been a couple of things occurring in Life lately that I mean to babble about. The first being a subject that, I'll be perfectly honest, I never, ever thought in a thousand Moons that I would be blogging about. It's an event that occurred on Saturday. I went to the theatre. The proper theatre, with stages, plays, actors and all that jazz. I went to the theatre...to see a Jane Austen play.
Honest to gods. This happened. Something else happened...
...I...enjoyed it.
Okay, so a little historical context might help here. I've never read Jane Austen. It just never seemed like my cup of tea - I like spaceships, epic space battles, things going *BOOM* in spectacular ways. So to be sitting in a theatre watching a stage adaptation of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park was not a natural state of being for me. But it's what happens when my beloved Oracle and I make very, very fast with one of the actresses (henceforth known by the call sign "Ember"), who portrayed a smouldering bad girl. Basically. She was cool and when she said "You have to come and see the show"(/words to that effect), one can hardly say no.
This is how I ended up watching Mansfield Park. And thoroughly enjoying it. Now, okay, it was 90% Ember's fault for being such a brilliant bad girl character, but...well, I realised something that was epitomised by something someone later said in the pub after the show - Jane Austen is basically all about the sex. It may be hidden beneath layers and layers of pomp and propriety, but dear gods...the majority of the characters spent the whole time trying to get into each other's pants. And for some reason, that tense undercurrent is extremely compelling. I've always been sucked in by intrigue amongst characters - let's face it, half of the fun of reading the Song of Ice and Fire series is all the back-stabbing and betrayal that goes on. Then the copious coitus.
So yeah...Jane Austen gets a thumbs up. Kudos, Ember. And Oracle. Between the two of you, you compelled me to enjoy Jane Austen.
Anyway, back in the world I normally inhabit, I watched The Cabin in the Woods.
Initially, I had not been too enticed to watch this film, despite the fact that Joss Whedon was involved. Yes, I'm pretty much a Joss Whedon fanboy. I have faith that if he's involved in it, I will watch it. But The Cabin in the Woods was a horror movie. I don't watch horror movies. I scare easily. Plus nowadays, most horror movies seem intent on just grossing you out with gore and torture. Well, actually, I think they're shifting to the psychological end of the spectrum again, but in the early 2000s it was all about the gore and the torture.
With all this in mind, The Cabin in the Woods looked like something I should have probably avoided. As is the theme for this blog entry, I was proven very much mistaken.
Though it must be said, there's lots of blood. I'd say it's easy on the gore, not as much as there could be, but bucket loads of blood.
The beauty, I think, with The Cabin in the Woods, lies in not knowing what it's about and thus going into it thinking it'll just be your average slasher flick. I had been told, long ago, that it wasn't, but my informant failed to elaborate. In his failure to elaborate, I enjoyed the film so, so much more when I discovered what it was all about. So in this vain...I'm not actually going to say much more. Other than it's a brilliant film, Fran Kranz steals the show (sorry ladies, Chris Hemsworth is pretty much eye candy here) and for a horror movie...it can be genuinely hilarious. So go forth and watch it!
And finally, I would like to touch upon something that is confusing and befuddling the living frak out of me since I first discovered it.
Ladies and menfolk...
...Gangnam style.
It's one of those things that was floating around the Internet and didn't quite know what it was. I had no desire to, really, until I found a video of MythBusters' Grant Imahara parodying Gangnam style. As a fan of MythBusters I had to investigate.
I found this.
And for some reason, I can't help but watch it. I still don't understand entirely what the frak is going on, only that this is mildly addictive and dear gods that tune is going to be in my head for the rest of the day!
Luckily this is one of those half-past midnight, nocturnal writing incidents, so the rest of the day isn't likely to be too much longer.
Oh, but this might be the most amusing parody - *Klingon* style!
So there we have it for my latest mad ramble through the scattered neurological chaos of my synaptic processes. It's nearly one o'clock in the morning and I've been talking about Gangnam style, so time for bed. But as my final thought, something to flush the addictive Gangnam style away.
(Song of the Mind: Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters)
Today I'm using the wise words of Xander Harris, mostly in a sort of ironic context. I'm actually a little guilty that I've been so quiet. July was quite the prolific month for me, then August was somewhat swallowed up in an eerie silence. But there's context for that, which naturally I'm going to explain.
The Song of Ice and Fire.
It's hardly unknown that I've been powering through this brilliant series of books since July. Last week I finally came to the end...well, the end so far. Now that I've completed A Dance with Dragons: After the Feast, I have to wait for a while (a good long while, everyone theorises) for The Winds of Winter. But now that chapter that George R.R. Martin read out at the talk in April makes so much sense. So I get to sit here giddily, incurring the wrath of every Ice and Fire geek who wasn't there and is equally champing at the bit waiting for The Winds of Winter to be released. Let it be known, however, that I am just as every bit anxious.
Now the usual tradition after I've finished a book is the Sitting Under the Tree segment, but instead of summing up my feelings for A Feast for Crows or A Dance with Dragons, I'm going to do a huge blab about my feelings on the whole series.
It all started in January, really. For months before my housemate had been raving about the TV show Game of Thrones. I've gone over this story before, but I'm going to briefly recap. My friend Phoenix found out George R.R. Martin was coming to Bath, but found it coincided with Korn playing in Bristol. It turned out that Korn was the day before, but in January she didn't know and I offered to go in her place, get a book signed. At this point I had not read any of the books, I only knew about the TV show. I had, however, bought my housemate the paperback boxset of the first four volumes for her birthday. So in February, after having bought the tickets for the George R.R. Martin event, with my laptop dead, I borrowed A Game of Thrones and took it out in a week. One of my prevailing thoughts was "Frakking Lannisters!" and my overwhelming feeling was that there was only one forgivable Lannister. Tyrion.
Boy was I wrong.
Tyrion Lannister is still, undeniably, one of my favourite characters and quite possibly the best Lannister, but George R.R. Martin is deviously brilliant and managed to make me like Ser Jaime Lannister. He gave me a begrudging respect for Lord Tywin Lannister and made sure I still disliked Queen Cersei Lannister because she is a total nutjob. I love the Starks, especially Arya and her bastard half-brother, Jon Snow. I want Daenerys Targaryen to take the Iron Throne and...
Well, there's a lot of things I want to say, but no spoilers. None at all, no. So now I'm going to try and be vague and general about my feelings on the subject.
It may be surprising to know that the seven paperbacks/five volumes of Song of Ice and Fire are, aside from The Hobbit are the only straight up fantasy books in my book collection. I will (before I have threats hurled at me from various quarters) be rectifying this, but it's going to be slow-going, so be patient. But I've always enjoyed fantasy and Song of Ice and Fire...well, I was hooked from the first second. A Game of Thrones was brilliant, gripping. A Clash of Kings was equally brilliant (and it was the hardback book that I had signed) and A Storm of Swords completely blew my mind. A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons had a lot to live up to and did admirably, but I think A Storm of Swords is still the high point. I'm sure I mentioned it before, but I'll mention it once again. I wish that I had gotten that book signed. Next time. Definitely next time!
Overall though, I loved Song of Ice and Fire. It's brilliant and I can't wait for more. But Song of Ice and Fire hasn't been the only thing that's kept me busy. At the end of August, I was tied up for one brilliant evening watching Brave.
Yes, I have a soft spot for animated films. I have Kung Fu Panda and its sequel in my DVD collection. I intend to add The Incredibles and How to Train Your Dragon at the very least, more likely to follow. Including Brave. It was absolutely brilliant.
So the plot was a tiny bit on the predictable side, but that is a hazard of having watched a whole frak ton of movies and briefly studying film in my first year of university. And being a writer and usually thinking "well, this is what I would do..." resulting in often being right. It's very nice when I'm wrong. Sometimes I'm not, like with Brave, but it was so funny and enjoyable that I forgive it entirely. That and I had the great company of Thief and Oracle for the movie. It was an awesome evening.
Finally, backtracking slightly to Song of Ice and Fire, my fantasy nerve has been repeatedly jumped on. I want more. And not just books or movies. For some reason (mostly because people keep telling me it's amazing), Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is enticing me. That and watching the trailer for the Dawnguard add-on and my affinity for vampires (proper, blood-sucking, bursting-into-flames-in-sunlight vampires). Right now though, I'm going to bide my time, see if this is just a phase that passes or something more. We'll see. And I'll probably have a few people whispering "Get Skyrim" in my ear. That's going to be fun.
For now, this is me being not so quiet and hoping that I stay not being so quiet.
