2016-10-01 11:32:16

Welcome to October, your month of ghosties and ghoulies and long leggedy beasties, ---- or at least towards the end of it if you do halloween. Likewise it's when the weather is remembering it's getting cold and supposed to be autumn, albeit where I am it tends to think it should be autumn in about March big_smile.

Feel free to talk about anything in your life in this topic, what your reading/playing/watching/listening to/inserting into your nose, how school/work/university/life of crime/anything else is going, and generally how you are.

A brief one this morning from me since I'm about to dash off for a long all day 7th sea roleplay session, me playing a lost fate witch (for once I'm not a combat monster but a magician). It's also Mrs. Dark's first tabletop game so should be rather interesting, she's playing an assassin who can transport objects around space.
I'll say more later when I have a little more time to write, either way, hope everyone is having a good October and not too cold, ---- or indeed freaked out by monstrous doings! big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-02 10:03:32

Well the rp session was a lot of fun and I think I got my lady addicted to roleplaying :d.

I had great fun playing a very confused fifteen year old fate which who is extremely naive, endlessly bubly  but has this mysterious knack for being lucky at things. What was especially amusing was when 6 ghouls attacked her who all mysteriously fell into each other and ended up injuring each other while she sat and sketched.
Then again thingss have got dark, someone turned up and literally wants her body, --- - apparently dead for nasty rituals, two characters turned out to be each other's long lost brother and sister, and Mrs. Dark's  assassin got the best severance package ever by having a portal open, someone jump out and try to kill her.   

Great fun, and very frenetic, it's just a shame we can't rp every week the way we used to due to the gm having a baby.

Other than that life is good, we're getting settled in and things are working out even if we are both a little stunned still.


Oh, and for the readers among everyone, I'm currently doing Hero of ages, the third mistborn novel by sanderson. Tis much better than well of assention and actually rather good, I particularly likee that we're finally! seeing other than that very grim city the series is set in for nearly the hole trilogy,though mostly what we're seeing is two equally grim citties, ---- big_smile.

i really wish Sanderson changed the landscape here just a little.

Oh, and I've sent off reviews for David Brin's Startide rising, and Susan fletcher's Dragon's milk which will be appearing soon, though they've already posted my review for Harry potter and the cursed child, check out my reviews page here
How's everyone else?

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-02 15:57:25

I'm pretty good, amazed to still have a job after all my unpredictable health issues, happy to be reading and playing games again, and praying that I will survive the rest of the election season here in the USA. *smiles*

I am currently rereading "The Passage" by Justin Cronin, and also a huge American History book called "The Glory and the Dream" by William Manchester.
I am also playing the seemingly neverending Invisible Dragons, Lost Cities, and trying to get back into Alteraeon if I can get MushZ to cooperate.

I hope everyone is doing well this month.

2016-10-02 19:22:30

nothing special, i'm currently reading blood of the fold, it's pretty fun, though if you don't like killing, blood and guts everywhere you should stay away.
hey dark, you've read harry potter and the cursed child or something? i'm considering to buy the book but i'm not sure if i should. could you give a review about what the book will be about?

yea! rick riordan releases a new book! thors hammer! magnuss chase and the gods of asgaard book 2, the first one, if you want to check it out is the sword of summer.
the book comes out october 4'th, and another book i'm waiting for, spy sky school by stuird cant remember his last name comes out october 11'th, so i will have a busy week.
i'm currently playing invisible dragons, though the game... well, let's say i expected something more fun then upgrade upgrade upgrade btn's. considering to hop into celtic tribes, also known as clone of  lords and knights. play lords and knights for a month or 2 then switch to celtic tribes, you'll see almost no differents.
playing alter aeon a bit, though i switched to stw, it seems more fun. i still play alter, just not as offen, not when the cost for leveling your mage goes up to like 96000000, i maxed out my druid to 37 and that's all i wanted, i wish the puzzlewood forest was open and never closed, it had grate exp, in 2h i ran like  200mill, no joke. alright, off for now.

2016-10-03 03:42:56

@amerikranian your in luck as regards Harry Potter and the cursed child, The fantasybookreview.co.uk site posted my review up the other day and you can find it here Though I also discussed it in the topic about harry potter on this forum.

I read Rick Riordens five Percey Jackson books a while ago. They were okay and had some fun moments, I especially liked the takes on modern griek gods like crusty's bed emporium or seeing Hephaestus as a new York mechanic. However the plot was too similar to harry potter, ---- magical half god summer camp, prophecy involving the main character, ending with an examination of the villain's childhood, the characters a little too thin like the way Anabeth is only ever shown to be intelligent because we're told she talks about architecture, and also I disliked the final book basically for having the structure of noooo! the badguys are attacking but wait! more reinforcements from friends you met earlier, but noooo! the badguys attack more but wait!  more friends turn up, but nooo! it got quite repetitive and lacked a lot of tention, speaking of which, celestial bronze that makes monsters magically disappear? Really! how blatantly "this is not a pg rated book" can you get!

I did enjoy the series, they were fun, but probably not something i'd specifically read again, and since I imagine the norse god ones are basically the same thing with norse rather than griek gods I don't know if they're on the lsit.

Is blood of the fold the sword of truth book 3 by Terry goodkind?
Again, not a bad series but after the first I felt they kept trying to repeat, more torture, bigger moral speeches etc, indeed I didn't like the way that goodkind had such blatant "Look at my awesome right wing preaching!" in all of his books, even when inappropriate. Oh, and times when the good guys behaved pretty much as badly as the bad guys?

I read up to confessor, book eleven but more out of duty than anything else, and while I do feel a nurve to see where goodkind takes the series since there was a lot I liked, the monsters, the land, characters I did enjoy moments with, and yes, very awesome combat on occasion there are other authors who can give me that without goodkind's huge glaring flaws.

@mirage, glad your liking The passage, as I said in the books thread it's an awesome series and one i really like, also glad to hear about the job, I remember how pleased you were when you got it.

As for me, I'm continuing with hero of ages which is proving rather better than well of assention since we're finally seeing more of the world, albeit I do wish Sanderson had created more of the world than yet more grim cities. Still compared to well of assention where eveyrone just sat in one city worrying about the armies outside for two thirds of the book it is a refreshing change since at least people are proactive.
I also sent off a review for Dragonsmilk by susan fletcher which was fun.

Well I had a great weekend since the the tabletop rp session was amazing, and Mrs. Dark loved it, even if due to the rules of 7th sea her knife throwing assassin was far less affective than by rights she should've been.
I was also lacking in combat and my magic wa slimited in some ways, though i did manage to get someone eaten by vampires which was good and I wasn't trying to play a combat character anyway.
Actually playing a sweet, ditsy ifteen year old girl who basically just had a tendency to be mysteriously lucky, had very little idea about the world but always managed to be lucky and meet nice people, but was surprisingly bubbly and likeable with it was great. Indeed to say the vodacci in 7th sea are the cunning manipulative Italian style courtiers, playing one who was blatantly naive and very sheltered and caused general trouble was hilarious! though i do wish the system had let me do a little more in combat in terms of what my luck based magic would let me, indeed it was rather annoying that the game was highly combat heavy and everyone who wasn't directly a duelest, ---- namely myself and mrs. dark's characters was really less effective than everyone who was (I would've recommended Mrs. Dark give her assassin character a duelest school if I'd known how ineffective she was against most things other than standard moocs).

Then again the social bits of rp were great, acting in character, indeed I got to be sweet, ditsy and naive (which I hope is moderately out of character), as well as fifteen and female, where mrs. Dark got to be a very dry, laconic assassin, which is definitely not! her (she! actually manages sweet extremely well, and perhaps a little ditsy on occasion, particularly after wine).

The only sad thing is that as the gm has a baby of two, we probably won't get another game in for a while, albeit the gm's wife (who played one of the duelist characters), is really eager for another game sooner.


So that's what I've been up to recently. Hope everyone else is having fun.

Btw, given the amount of book discussing in this thread, and how long! this post is perhaps we could revive Grryf's topic from a few posts back just to discuss what we're reading currently? since otherwise this will get to be a very long thread, since as you gather I get quite effusive whilst talking about books (one reason i write book reviews).

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-03 06:02:43 (edited by The Dwarfer 2016-10-03 06:04:43)

Well, I guess recently I've got back into coding my games, though in Python this time.
Oh, and also did I mention the 50 hour and 10 minute collection of mp3 files of dragon ball z abridged, red dwarf, and futurama I have on my Stream's SD card?
  I'm actually more into these shows than I expected I would be. Though I can't remember quotes and exact small detailed situations as some people can, I still find them nice for the following reasons:
Futurama is hilarious, but the episodes always seem to have some sort of well thought deeper meaning to them if you pay close enough attention.
Red Dwarf, because the adventures that series takes you on are rather unique. It amazes me how a set of television show writers can create so much comedy and adventure with just 4 main characters. And Dragon Ball Z? How could you not like that abridgement. Its episodes, though only 8 or 9 minutes long, make me burst out laughing. Only watched 11 of the 55 so far, and maybe it gets old after a while, but lol. I love it.
In other news, just chillin' with my best friend, resenting myself for taking college level government in high school, and you know, forgetting to blog even though I really should since I enjoy it so much. *Thinks maybe he should quit setting development deadlines for himself, which is why the fact that I've resumed development hasn't been publicized as much as it was last year. I'm trying to tone down on that.
  And dark, as you did in your first post, please don't ask about my crime life. The potato people will be angry if they figure out my naughty business over the last few weeks, and hints forth they could force Rimmer to lock me up again. And this time, without oxygen.

If you have issues with Scramble, please contact support at the link below. I check here at least once a day, so this is the best avenue for submitting your issues and bug reports.
https://stevend.net/scramble/support

2016-10-03 16:42:43

I've been very good as well but tired. Sorry I haven't been on here as much lately. I did just destroy a spambot though which was very satisfying. It's particularly satisfying when someone replies to the topic and says it's spam, and destroying it is like a double "take that" to the bot. Although it's also fun when you catch a one-post spam topic and utterly nuke it as well.
So at the moment I'm primarily tired because on Friday 30 September I went to Peterborough for an event on October 1, this year's version of Feel The Force.
Which reminds me... Dark the reason I didn't contact you about the event this year was because your life was getting busy and I wanted to give you some space and let you settle in and stuff.
However, next year is going to be Feel The Force 5 and the date is September 30. Not only that, but tickets are already on sale and I think it might be first come first serve this time, because this year's event was a bit more  busy.
So, for people who don't know, Feel The Force is basically an event where lots of people dress up in character, it's designed so that people with disabilities cantouch and talk to these characters. They aren't the actual people from the films but they are very dedicated, costuming fans. However, there are some special guests too. The thing is, some of the characters do stuff in character, so the Disney princesses will talk with an accent.
below I've pasted a document with some stories from the day. Real names have been removed.

I got to have a get together with some of the costumers on Friday, we got invited round someone's house for a meal. They had some really lovely pork! I also got to try a victoria sponge, which I've never done before. It's a cake, and it was quite nice.
I found out that the person wouldn't be bringing their Steampunk costume, however as a reward for trying something new, they braught out a couple of the Steampunk props from their old costume that I could touch.
Then, it was time to go back to the hotel and time to sleep for the next day.

So the day came.
We encountered a Predator creature that was playing music, headbanging and it was hilarious because he kept on playing really poppy songs and everyone was laughing at my reactions.
I met a clockwork droid, of modern Doctor Who fame, that kept on ticking. It was funny because I felt the mask, then I ended up touching the gloves, which felt very soft, and suddenly didn't quite find it as creepy. I hope I didn't annoy the person, because I kept on touching the gloves after that.
In the Doctor Who room there was a dalek voice changer. Me and a friend of mine who is also blind, (audiogames forum note: it's SightlessKombat!) ended up doing some dalek improvisation. I ended up mentioning another costuming group, specifically the princess group. I tried going all pantomime and Sightless was having none of it, which made it even funnier!
I met Marc Silk, he's a voice actor from tv mostly, but he's doe some stuff in Star Wars episode 1, something about the senate. He ended up doing a bunch and I really do mean a bunch of voices, scooby doo, bob the builder, it was hilarious. It was even more funny when I sung bounce bounce tigger to him he said it took him back, then we ended up doing the song together! It was from an advert for a toy.
I met a friend's Poison Ivy (met this person last year, so it was nice to see this person after 12 months). Then, she braught over Harley Quin and Riddler. Well, the blues brothers came on stage, and, I ended up dancing the whole way through with Riddler and Harley, at the front! One of the blues brothers gave me the mic and I sung along to minnie the mocher! hidey hidey hidey high!
I was eating a chocolate chip cookie and someone I've heard about through Facebook, spotted me, this person's costume honey monster comes up next to me. I hope I didn't mess up the costume because I ended up touching it with cookie all over my hands.
The food stuff isn't done yet. This gets funnier, I learned my lesson. I was eating a burger and Princess Belle actually joined us for a bit which was a lovely surprise! It was hilarious because she spoke with the accent, then dropped into her normal voice, which I'd never heard before. This time, I made a conscious effort: I said I would not touch the costume until my hands were clean.
I finished the burger and Voldemort from Harry Potter was next to me, that person had an awesome voice.
Then I stood up and I am not kidding, as soon as I left my chair I was quite literally surrounded by the Disney princesses, they came and found me. It was Elsa, then everyone after that started describing all their outfits. I think there were five of them!
I met Batman and another Poison Ivy, I wasn't quite expecting another one. Next thing you know, they go off and minutes later they come back with Joker in toe and we had a good chat. We ended up comparing Joker voices and cackling to each other!
All in all an awesome day.

2016-10-06 05:31:02

@Dark I'm sorry you didn't like Rick Riordens books I think they are awesome! Its inaccurate to say that it is like Harry Potter because the magic is different and not every half-blood can do magic. This is shown more in the Lost Hero’s series when one of the main character's skill is charmed speak. Also there were no gods in Harry Potter just wizards and witches. If you are talking about Luke as the Villon he was more used than he was the actual Villon. The reason Annabeth is intelligent is because her mother is Athena the goddess of wisdom. Half-bloods have the skills that their Greek parent is known for at a lesser degree. I’ll agree that the battle was a bit of a mess in the 5th book but there are better battles in the Lost Hero’s series as well where each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective. This book was written for a middle school age group and not only that Rick Riorden wrote the books for his son that has ADHD and Dyslexia. Which is why the characters in the book had ADHD and dyslexia I think that was cool I don’t know of books that have a superhero with some type of disorder. Perhaps though maybe you prefer a darker genre. One such dark series of books that still gives me the creeps today is called Unwind by r Neal Shustermand fair warning the topic of this series is really messed up.

Kingdom of Loathing name JB77

2016-10-06 17:56:17

@Steve, I'm definitely a huge fan of both Red dwarf and futurama, indeed I've been a fan of red dwarf ever since I first saw the series a frighteningly long time ago at my grandmars back in the nineties big_smile.
Have you read the books? I've just got Mrs. Dark into those and she definitely enjoyed, i particularly like how in Last human (one of the alternative third books), the series actually ends, indeed I've got to read and review last human and indeed backwards for fantasybookreview.co.uk since I've done the first two.

If you've not done the books I can recommend them, especially the first two read by Chris Barry, rimmer himself.

futurama is awesome too, albeit that came along much later in my life big_smile.

i've recently been fololowing a rather fun rewatch blog from a guy who did a similarly good one about the simpsons, find it here

@Aaron, sounds awesome but your right, I'm a little busy to do such this year, though next year is possible, heck I've only just got back from the states though I think my lady would've loved that princess moment given she's a fan of frozen (and does a very awesome let it go herself, albeit she's more a classical singer).

@Jeffb, in terms of the riorden books I don't mean they're similar to harry potter in terms of having wizards and magic, I mean the structure of the plot. boy discovers special powers, goes to magical version of normal institution, has intelligent girl as friend, discovers prophecy etc, it was like harry potter wearing god costumes, over all feeling rather thin.

Similarly, my issue with anabeth is that people who are intelligent don't show themselves to be such just by going on about academic subjects all the time, especially subjects which the author planely didn't understand himself since his usual way of showing anabeth was intelligent was saying "she talked about architecture" rather than having her be! intelligent in terms of how she talks, how she interacts with people or what she's able to figure out. Indeed many of the characters were rather like this, Riorden tells! us that someone is clever or cunning or loyal or whatever and just expects us to go along rather than showing them to be such by what they do.

I did enjoy the books weerd takes on Griek myths I recognized, like Polyphemus everything sheep based collection, and I really liked the way Riorden didn't always use the bits of myths you expected or even the nice ones (the hundred handed ones were a lovely idea especially since they're based on very ancient sources), I just found them rather like coca cola, fun, fizzy, but not really something with substance or something that stayed with me, which is why I don't especially fancy the norse ones, since there is too much else I have to read which i've been recommended as having a lot more by way of punch, eg, three dimentional characters, more style etc.

Right now for example I'm finishing the third mistborn novel, the hero of ages, which is actually getting pretty intensive towards the end, especially working out all the twists and turns of Sanderson's plot. While I don't think mistborn is his best series, it's had some great moments, albeit the second book dragged rather, still the third we're now getting answers and indeed questions and I actually can't remember how it all resolves, still as I've only got about five hours to go I should find out.

I am not sure what I'm doing after that, I'm tempted to go and read last human to do the review, though I'd also like to check out seanon mcguire sincce as I said in the other topic i'd love to see a good! urban fantasy, though tomorrow another friend is coming around to do insane amounts of cookery and such so I'll be rather busy.

Game wise I've been playing Frandum, the mud with the quests. it's been harder to get into but now I'm getting the swing of things is actually pretty awesome, I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in a mud that isn't a kill fest, though I do also need to play some cosmic rage and write a db entry for it as well.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-06 18:29:58

First let me say I'm loving all the book recommendations, I'm currently in the state where I don't know what to  read next .  I'm currently taking a course to learn Microsoft Excel.  It's a night school kind of thing, and the college were even kind enough to give me a support worker for it .  I'm incredibly grateful for that, because due to the fact that there are quite a few of us in the room, the teacher teaches in quite a visual way .
Game wise I've recently discovered brogue speak  and  having a ton of fun with it.  Not only am I learning something new each time, but it gives me hope that someday, other rogue likes might become accessible . .

2016-10-07 17:19:30

@Dan, the site I write reviews for also has recommendations, though admitedly I don't always agree with them that much, and I'm always finding new stuff, indeed my lady and I often recommend each other books (she's currently reading Alan Dean Foster's spellsinger).

Broguespeak I loved the idea of since I've always wanted to play the original rogue or nethack, but I could never get it to work. I downloaded the files, but then the voice was so dam quiet it was inaudible, and when i tried turning it up it just became distorted, but since I don't know if this is an xp thing I'll wait until I get a new machine to try properly.

Tonight a friend is popping around to make us a five course meal! he's an awesome cook and has promised fresh court turbert and crab which should be amazing, albeit he'll go on all night and probably turn the kitchin into a bomb site when he's done big_smile.


I've finished hero of ages, which was much better than well of assention, and am thinking what to read next.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-08 06:29:39

As for me, I'll be setting up a new Windows 10 machine soon, as this Vista machine lags to heck for over 48 hours whenever it updates. I'm currently waiting for my JAWS 17 DVD to get here. I had to upgrade it to 17.

I did some research into 10 and was dismayed to learn that if you have a single account tied to a Microsoft account and no local accounts, you could be locked out of your own local machine should you lose internet access for one reason or another. I asked about this in the Microsoft Community forum and was told to just create a user account tied to a Microsoft account for normal use, and a local account for when that fails. Pretty silly, but whatever works. I want to be able to use Cortana, and it appears you need to be logged into a user account tied to a Microsoft account to take full advantage of it. Hopefully JAWS behaves well on the login screen with multiple accounts are present, as I remember that being an issue in earlier Windows versions starting with Vista.

It also appears that Narrator will read things when you set the machine up from what I've been hearing, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the process goes. The annoying bit will be waiting for it to update to the latest version.

I also listened to and read through the webinar Freedom Scientific did about JAWS and Windows 10, so I know a bit of what to expect in regards to the start menu and file explorer.

2016-10-08 07:12:19

Sounds like everyone is keeping busy... Always nice. Dark, I'm horribly envious of all that food... I've wanted to actually cook something elaborate myself for a while now, but it's no fun at all without someone to cook with and for. As it is, I'm just kinda throwing myself at what few things I have to do, like school and... Well, school. My latest project has been fun at least... Been slowly learning a new harpsichord piece that's easily the hardest thing I've ever had to play... Fortunately I finished it a few days ago. Now I just have to smooth it out.

Also, as you all may have seen, I recently purchased a Zoom H4N Pro digital recorder. I was getting quite tired of dragging in my laptop and audio interface every time I wanted to record some music... Fortunately, this will no longer be the case. I'm immensely impressed with this lovely new toy so far, and am very much looking forward to testing it out in a musical application on Sunday. Meanwhile though, I have been making some recordings of background ambiances, so I figured I'd share one here. Highlights include a brief comparison of sound with vs. without a windscreen, lots of crickets, loud neighbors, and a spectacularly realistic pass-by of a train at the end. Enjoy!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/606 … biance.mp3

As far as books... It's mostly been Star Trek DS9 books for me. I'm faithfully following the relaunch of the series, which is quite intriguing so far... Well, with the exception of the current book I'm reading. It's really a shame how drab a series can be, just because the current writer isn't doing it justice. Hopefully things will improve once I move on past this book. I'm also rereading a few favorites. Currently it's 14, by Peter Clines, and after that I'll go through the Monster Hunter International series, or perhaps Ready Player One...

I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance, is futile. Your life, as it has been, is over. From this time forward, you will service---us.

2016-10-08 11:45:37

Speaking of Star Trek, the Borg in Voyager always make this weird wet grinding sound. I wonder what's up with that.

2016-10-08 19:21:20

@Locutus, The elf queen sends her greetings :d.
Actually I can't claim to be a particularly good cook, though it is usually me who cooks. I'd like to get better now I have someone else to cook for though. My friend who cooked us the awesome meal is a fantastic gourmet chef, who likes experimenting on me (and now on my lady as well), with various creations.

this usually goes on well into the night complete with wine, liqueurs and various fun doings, albeit I've never actually got totally drunk.
Last night we started with the crab, then had the freshly court halibut, which was gorgious!
We then had beef cheeks slow cooked in red wine with roast parsnips, potatoes and carrots with honey and cinnamon, followed by sticky toffee pudding (though that one my friend hadn't made he'd just bought it in).

it was lovely but basically we didn't get to sleep until about three and have spent today sort of dead, plus yes, the kitchin is a right bomb sight! big_smile.

Books wise, I tend to avoid stuff written from specific series like startrek, starwars or even doctor who since I tend to find the quality is usually a bit off mostly because there isn't a producer and authors can go really crazy! like having Palpatine's new apprentice who is sooo much harder than darth vader, or reveal that Picard went back in time and had an affair with uhura and that Guinan is actually Picard's daughter, having the federation invaded by the Gemhadar's cousins who are twenty times worse, and mutate, and have cyborg limbs and can raise the dead and who have laser canons bolted to their forheads and neuclear missile launchers for arms big_smile. (I might be exaggerating a little but you get my point).

It's one reason even with doctor who I tend to confine myself more either to novelizations of actual tv stories or to the big finish audios which have an actual producer to say "no! author! that's off the rail! tone it down a bit!!" albeit sometimes they do still go nuts and overly epic occasionally which can be a bit urcsome.

Ready player 1 I have on my victor currently, and need to read, especially with it being read by will weaton. As to peter clines, I did read the x heroes series but I really didn't like them much. Far too much cliche and really not an enspired writing style, then again super heroes aren't my thing and while I thought a zombocalypse might have interesting affects I was mistaken. fourteen though i hear is more a specific horror, which might be good, heck the second x heroes book and the one that played with reality had some nice twists, albeit I didn't like how the heroes basically punched their way out of things big_smile.


As for me, I'm currently I've just started rosemery and rue by seanon mcguire. it's an urban fantasy ala dresden, about a woman called october day who is half faefae, in a world where the fae courts are still around and playing politics.
It's looking interesting thus far albeit the writing is a bit abrupt. I do like the way that unlike  Dresden and most characters who go all the "Oooooh! look at my super aaaaanxt! my life is so terrible!" October day actually does have a reason given the first thing that happens is she gets transformed into a fish and stuck in a pond for fourteen years while her daughter grows up without her and her boyfriend moves on, so while she's very pissed at the start of the novel and being quite a git it at least does make sence, she's not just being an arse for the sake of being arsy.

I'll see where this one goes, my lady enjoyed it and usually I appreciate her recommendations.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-09 01:11:55

@Dark: how do you get your books, if you don't mind me asking?

2016-10-09 07:10:57

Dark, as I have said previously, you should consider getting books from Bookshare in addition to Audible. You get about 1200 books per year for about 50 pounds.

2016-10-09 08:31:50

@Aaron, wherever I can! The Rnib, big finish, pretty much anywhere. Right now I'm heavily plundering my lady's book collection since as an American X pat she has access to bard, and the amount of stuff they have is literally ridiculous! (it makes the rnib look rather sick).

@Tjt, I first thought bookshare was only text stuff, as I have said before i really don't like reading actual novels with a synth. I then thought bookshare wasn't available outside the states, though admitedly the same is theoretically true of the Bard stuff too.

Amusingly enough, a very scuzzy arsehole who was attempting to be vile to my lady once accused her of marying me just to get a Uk entrance visa (which is absolute rubbish if you know anything about the visa application process), I actually told her if anything i could be accused of marrying her just to get access to her audiobook collection :d.

Well rosemery and rue is proving interesting. The start was a bit rocky since it was a huge infodump and it did strike me the author was working a little too hard to make October day overly snarky, however things are settling down now, and we're finding out more about the world.
Two things I already like is that where in most urban fantasy noire type books the hole "Aaaanxt! my life is so terrible!" of the main character feels a bit excessive, in this case it really doesn't given the book basically starts with October Day being turned into a fish for fourteen years and entirely missing her daughter's life, also since she neglected to tell her fiance that she happened to be a changeling, half fey, he wasn't exactly forgiving when she turned up again. It does look though like she's going to cheer up and get things more together in course of the book, but it is quite a good start and actually makes the grim toned earned rather than forced. The comments as well of someone who gets turned into a fish in 1995 and then reappears in 2009 are sort of amusing, particularly about mobile phones.


The other thing I'm really liking is that the world of the fey and the way Mcguires doing them is very, very! alien, and incredibly dangerous. It's definitely a world with it's own rules and politics, and not just "woooo! there are werwolves in the back streets and vampires with crime lords" heck, even as a changeling october Day's world is a little weerd given that she has to walk around with a perminant glammer to stop people seeing her as a fey, and be inside each dawn since at dawn all enchantments get a bit scarred.

Whether this will change my opinion on urban fantasy in general I'm not sure, but we'll see.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-09 09:22:27

Dark, to clarify, Bookshare is definitely available outside the US, but their books are only available in pregenerated synthetic audio, text or braille.

2016-10-10 06:41:11

@tjt, ah good to know, though i really don't like reading with a synth and I don't have a braille display.

Well last night we finished our watch of audio described Lotr, since my lady has never seen them with description. Annoyingly i thought I had the extended versions but it turns out the audio described copies I have are just the theatrical ones, then again since I got them from blindmice mart I shouldn't really complain too much (I have the extended editions on dvd but those don't come with description unfortunately, and my lady specifically wanted them descrigbed).

it's been quite some time since I last watched them, and one thing I now found odd is that the films for most part felt a bit flat. The battles were huge and dramatic, even silly bits like the shield surfing, indeed it amused me that my lady started talking in roleplay terms about the battles (that when she wasn't upset at the deaths of so many redshirts), and the landscape is awesome (the description did a great job with both), but in general I just found my enthusiasm waning throughout much of things.

I think I do now see the problem. When i first watched the films, I pretty much concentrated on the bits that are my favourite from the books or the bits that Jackson had altered and liked and hated  accordingly (A topic we've run through before so I won't repeat).

The problem now is I'm familiar with the films, I know what to expect and I know what they've done to Tolkien, and I was just watching for emotional content, ---- and the emotional content has the subtlety of a battering ram on the head!

Everyone! emphasises! all! the! Words! (That when they're not whispering in an attempt to be romantic, ---- really Arwen is dreadful for this.

Most of the characters who are likable in the books, Faramir, Elrond, Theoden, Aragorn, heck even Sam have been made edgy! and actually come across as total gits.

This isn't to say there was nothing I liked, it just surprised me how often I just sat there thinking "get over yourself!" for most of it or just "oh yes another big speech and more enspired yelling!"

Don't get me wrong, I love epic, but for something to feel truly epic I have to actually identify with the characters, see them as real, and increasingly in watching the three films I just didn't get that, they just yelled speeches and talked in a pressured way and went through horribly flashy action sequences.
Is this to say I disliked the films this time through? No, not at all, heck there will always be a good bit of nostalgia, but it did rather scare me that without concentrating on them as adaptations of tolkien's works, just how little there was left.

What scared me even more, is that this was a total contrast to when my lady and I did the original starwars trilogy, (My lady got quite teerful at the redemption of Darth Vader in Jedi).

We're probably going to wait a bit before doing the hobbit films described, (though I do remember long expected journey being fun at least).

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-16 11:19:04

Well appologies for the double postage here but I do have things to report.
On friday Mrs. Dark and I toddled down to London for a couple of days singing course. Well I say "toddled" accept it meant basically a three hour train journey and an hour's drive, though i was able to get more of Timecrest played on the way and I'm reading through brandon sanderson's alloy of lore too which is proving fun. Actually I've discovered the perfect combination of activities, I play a bit of Timecrest, wait until Ash gets busy, then swap my earbuds over to my victor and read a bit more sanderson, setting the sleep function for the amount of time Ash will be off doing whatever big_smile.


We stayed at an absolutely wonderful place in London called the federation of St. Catharine. it's actually a theology colidge and retreat center who have the most wonderful guarden, (nice to find somewhere with grass for the dogs in the middle of London, not to mention amazing breakfasts!

It was good, accept on Saturday we went to the vox integra singing course and ended up getting shattered. The duette we did is from The Secret Guarden, a small scene qabout a guy talking to the ghost of his dead wife and woo nelly, being that upset is exhausting, accept that we did make everyone cry on multiple occasions which is good, and heard a couple of other really good performances too.

then however the journey back was nearly a potential disaster, since the course was in the royal opera studio, which is in a random part of london and the driver ended up being a little late (not as bad as last year when we stood out in the rain for nearly two hours minutes bbut nearly), but it finished with us literally running into the train station with ten minutes to spare to try and get our train back.
we managed it, thanks to a very nice taxi driver who literally charged with us across kings cross station (which is massive and very busy), to find the customer service desk.

It's very silly, the railway service did announce to me proudly that there is now "an assistance button!" accept that the button is actually by the taxi rank (which is literally up and down half a mile of road), also how your supposed to find the smegging button when you can't see it I have no idea.
Last year when this happened I was nearly at the point of yelling loudly that there was a bomb just to get the attention of the security guard since trying to find any helpful staff on the railway when not being able to see is quite the nightmare, and not one they make particularly easier (they couldn't say put the button just as you come in the door).

Either  way we managed it, and apart from my mum having the bright idea to phone at 20 to twelve just as we were going to sleep (I told her I'd be back at eleven), it was good, though today we're both a bit frazled to say the least. Still, nice to go and get some serious performing done, a shame we don't get to do it more often.

Now I have to decide what for today, though probably continuing timecrest. I do want to get back to frandum, but also there are always more games to try, actually we've had a slue of good ones recently. I also need to write my review of rosemery and rue by Seanon mcguire, though whether I'll get that done today I am not sure.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-16 22:26:00

Smegging? Did I just hear a reference to Red Dwarf? big_smile

Oh no! Somebody released the h key! Everybody run and hide!

2016-10-18 09:05:44

What? me refer to red dwarf? i've never heard of red dwarf, not that I've Written reviews like this sad guy My opinion about Red dwarf is the same as These very enlightened daleks on youtube

Well Frandum is actually proving awesome, indeed today i have to be online for my acceptance ceremony into the church of galahir which should be cool. It's odd it's probably the closest to actual rp I've got in a mud, but is more about the exploring and such, though I do wish I wasn't getting killed so much in that blasted volcano big_smile.

I'm still finishing mistborn owing to the fact that after being very awake sunday night I absolutely crashed yesterday, and I still! need to get my rosemery and rue review done, ---- fantasybookreview.co.uk have now posted my reviews for both star tide rising and the bfg, so I'll need to get another one up to stay ahead big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-18 14:01:46

Oh my gosh, I didn't think to use the sleep timers for things like that. I'd often do a little in timecrest, I'm on like Chapter 8 now, missed the swordsman guy, not A.C. I don't think but someone else that I could have built relationship points with... Had a relationship with... lol. Anyways, I feel bad for having Ash walk so much, because getting enough gold stored up is hard when it's just one deposit a day of just a little gold, less than half of what is required for teleport orbs. But then I don't wanna spend all the time crystals on more gold. I hope making ash walk won't change the content of the story, just the ammount of time ash is busy.

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2016-10-18 22:44:49

@Devin, yeah, the sleep timer thing works well, I actually might go on to some of the three minute games when I'm finished with timecrest since it's a nice combination of activities. As far as I've been able to determin, those bits where ash needs teleport orbs are choices that say "should I teleport there or go somewhere else", like when Ash goes to Ion, at other times teleport orbs are basically just like time crystals, a way to save time in the game.

I do feel a little stingy because I want to contribute to the developers of the game, but just haven't seen the point in buying time crystals or most of the time teleport orbs, and on those few occasions I've needed orbs (only one or two), the dayly gold deposit has covered it.
I would! like to buy the soundtrack, but I don't want it just in the game, or even just in Itunes, I'd prefer an actual mp3 or other sound version I can play on whatever devices, actually the music here is really good, rather like some of the final fantasy games.

Despite how good timecrest is though I am getting a little irritated at chapter four since I've died twice now and the speed of message scrolling is a bit slow when I need to replay bits, indeed that is one thing which does concern me a bit about in game purchice of items, since they only effect the one playthrough of the game.

Apart from timecrest I've been playing frandum today which has been fun and my lady and I watched harry potter and the philosopher's stone audio described, which actually irritated me far less than I recall the first time. I've also finished alloy of law and will be going on to the new mistborn novels soon, indeed I might start bands of mourning tonight as the ending of alloy of law was  definitely open ended.
I do like the society in alloy of law and the combination of magic that works on metals and guns is interesting, as is a lot of the society being sort of a bit steam punky with some western elements, though I didn't find the characters quite as appealing as in the first trilogy.

The only slightly worrying thing is my lady's dog has a cough and we might need to take him to the vet tomorrow so hopefully he'll be okay, ---- only now dam! I'm sounding like one of those annoying people on facebook I was complaining about in the other thread, so methinks I'd better stop before I show myself to be a large african semi aquatic large mamal in a shiping container, ---- ie, a hippo crate :d.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)