aceofkittens

I went to see Stardust and one of the previews was for the travesty that will be the new movie based very loosely on Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, which happens to be one of my favorite books. It is now called The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, because... well, I don't know why. I can't even begin to describe what an utter shitpile this looks like it's going to be.

vaznetti, if I could have called you from the theatre, howling in outrage, I would have.

DO NOT WANT!!!! :(

Waldo has peppered!

I'm so happy! They're so small and cute, these little green peppers. So adorable! And my potatoes are mighty. I don't think I've ever had potato plants this robust.

( Pics )

Also, I finally saw Howl's Moving Castle, which is one of the only books by Diana Wynne Jones that I haven't read. The movie was great, right up until the end, when it stopped making sense.

In a weird coincidence, I discovered Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair at baogirl & bugjism's house the same day that vaznetti had been writing about it in her LJ. I'm slowly working through a rather neglected reading list, and finished Eyre Affair this morning on the train.

Well. vaznetti had said that people either really take to the Fforde books and love them, or else loathe them. I can't say that I had that strong an opinion in either direction, but I definitely disliked it more than I liked it. It made me kind of annoyed. I would read the sequel, sure, but there's a kind of — smugness — which permeates the writing, and which I tend to really dislike. It's one of the reasons I don't like Laurell Hamilton's books (especially the Anita Blake ones) — a sense that the author is entirely too pleased with themselves and how very very very clever they are.

Maybe I react badly to so-called "clever wordplay" because of overdosing on Piers Anthony...

Some kind of -- demonstration -- has been going on near here since about 7 a.m. I can hear them shouting and cheering and they've been getting cars to honk. I don't know what the hell it's about, but if it continues into the afternoon, I'm sure I'll still not go over there to check it out.

Meanwhile, here is my book review for Sunshine, by Robin McKinley.

( Book Review )

I got sidetracked; now I have to go.

I can't believe I've never read this book before.

...Wow.

I was up pretty late judging this thing on the game. We got through round one of the big combat, so it's a good thing I set two nights aside for it, but now I am thinking maybe I should have been less optimistic and set aside three or four nights for it. This is the kind of scene that takes forever on a MUSH and getting people there for it is half the battle. Literally.

I know I am a soft, marshmallowy GM, because I don't like combat, I prefer psychological torture. I don't like PKing people in combat, and I think it's lame if one bad roll of the dice dooms a character that someone's been playing for a long time. At the same time, if someone is stupid and rolls badly, I am a lot less merciful. But anyway, I have sworn to myself that I will let the dice decide; if people die, so be it. Now, to get a grip on the guilt.

Anyway, after the scene, I stayed up for another hour reading Storm of Swords some more, and let me tell you, GRRM is one fucked up man.

I was having a dream that I was trying to fly to Boston to see my friend. There was some sort of special weekend fare for $300, but by the time I got the the airport, it was $670. I realized that all I had with me was my backpack, and apparently I hadn't packed anything I would need. I was trying to explain this to the clerks at the counter, who were only going to charge me $300 to start, and bill the rest later. I was crying that I couldn't afford a $670 ticket and feeling confused all of a sudden about where I was actually going...

Then the phone rang. It was probably a decent enough hour, but I'm never at my most coherent when the phone rings and I am deeply asleep. It was the main line, which is in the roommate's name. I kind of would like to stop paying her for it, because I no longer use it to make any outgoing calls and I can train the two or three people who actually call me to use my cell phone instead.

"Hello, (roommate), this is Professor McClitoris...

SAY WHAT?!!

"...and I'm calling about..."

HE DID NOT SAY THAT!

"....bla bla bla bla..."

It sounded like it could have been an actual phone call, but most likely a telemarketer of some sort, but I know the roommate has been looking into doing some sort of class teaching at the Learning Annex, so... plus, I was asleep. But the guy seemed to be slipping subliminal sexual messages into his pitch. My fuzzy mind turned things over. Professor Mc... surely, I had misheard.

"I'm sorry, (roommate) isn't home right now, would you like to leave a message?"
"Who am I speaking with? What's your name?"
"This is just (roomate)'s roommate." (Oh, I learned long ago never to give my name!)
"Well, maybe you'd be interested in this opportunity to spread yourself out...

And I don't remember exactly what he said next, but I realized that for sure he was slipping in subliminal obscene comments in between his pitch, so I hung up and went back to sleep.

I hate bastards who prey on people's tendency to be polite on the phone. The roommate gets so many obscene phone calls and I invariably reap the "benefits." But that's a story for another time.