2018-11-01 16:12:59

Okay well hope   everyone who was doing something had a nice Halloween last night.

I don't think Haloween is quite as major a deal in England as it is in some parts of the world Like the united states, but I will admit I had an interesting time myself.

A local writer's group were hosting an evening of scary stories, unfortunately I didn't find out in time to write something, but the couple of people that did present stories had some interesting ones, my  favourite was probably the one a local author presented about a group of kids spending the night in haunted catacombs, with the group getting steadily larger as they told stories of the ghosts who were down there.

The hole evening was great fun, even if we basically wound up sitting around and discussing various book series. I hopefully have now also found a nice writer's association to join, and since writing is sort of what I'd like to do these days post my phd that should help.

I'll also say as per my recent announcement, I'm happy things are calming down on the forum. Things have been waaaay too stressful of late, it'll be nice to just go along with playing games and writing about them.

November of course in Britain is the time when we celabrate how some poor sap was involved in a failed plot to blow up the houses of parliament, ended up being tortured and burned alive for it while the organisers got away scot free (yeah its a strange holliday).

We actually already went to a pretty cool fireworks display last weekend, and despite having a rotten cold I did rather enjoy it, actually, as well as relieving forum stress, I hope my cold is clearing up since I do have a music festival later this month and a concert as well.

Other than that, things continue. I'm watching through Angel at the moment, though series 4 isn't as good as series 3 imho. I'm going to have to think of a new series to watch when I finish with Buffy and angel. Also I'm continuing writing the book reviews over on fantasybookreview.co.uk.
Hopefully I can get more writing done this month, I was trying stephen King's thousand words a day target (weird stuff about games not included), I had to stop due to said cold and extreme amounts of stress, but it'll be nice to get back to it now.

Hope  everyone else is having a good time too, despite the fact that the northern hemisphere is definitely going into the grimmest, coldest and most miserable part of the year weather wise.

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.)

2018-11-01 16:26:54

Let’s start like this:
Remember remember the fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and plot. I see no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
Next:
November is a month of ups and downs for me. Good news first: I got a massively discounted statue I wanted, we’re supposed to get an Avengers 4 trailer, and it’s coming up on rifle season for deer. Bad news: I get my wisdom teeth out on the 16th. Not fun.

Heroes need foes to test them. Not all teachers can afford to be kind, and some lessons must be harsh.

2018-11-01 19:52:02

My house is falling apart and I am sooo bored and can't do anything and I think I got to the brink of sunburn a couple days ago because of Global Warming or something. I notice I am saying "or whatever" a lot all of a sudden. Eh, I guess I could go back to starting every other sentence with "I mean," or "You see," or "Honestly."
I wanna make something sad

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2018-11-02 10:00:51

I didn't really like the ending of Angel, you'll see what I mean when you get to it.

Buffy, at least had an ending.

They probably wrapped it up in comics, which I think is the lazy way of wrapping up a series, all because the networks claim the ratings aren't doing so well.

There's a few shows that have done this, unfortunately comics is a medium we can't enjoy.

I don't care if there are comics that are described like the ones at comics empower, they're not the same.

They read like something from old time radio.

I've recently been playing about with reddit, and found some pretty good communities, there's even one for audio games, although it's pretty quiet at the moment.

I'll keep an eye on it, who knows, maybe it'll take off, if not, I'll simply move on.

2018-11-02 16:30:03

Ah, the month of November, where the festival of Diwali takes place. (If Indian callender aligns with the English one.)

Also, the time where everyone has just finished cleaning up their houses, offices, workplaces, etc. and the time of social formalities, which I hate. I mean what is the point of formalities when I don't even see these people most of the year?

Also, in my programming class, my teacher invited an old veteran of the industry, who apparently managed to go to US at the time of 80's.

While his knowledge was good, I honestly think he was quite condesending towards us, because he was constantly mentioning how easy we have these days, forgeting how complacated the operating systems have become in the process.

@Dark:

I know this is late, but I am glad that despite leaving the position of a moderater, you are still here.

Also, the winter is coming, the polution in deli continues to increase, politicians proved to be useless as always, and even the farmers proved that doing things the triditional way is no longer possible in this world.

2018-11-02 16:57:25 (edited by Dark 2018-11-02 17:00:22)

@Dragomier, I can't hear that poem without remembering the version that began the old 1960's Doctor who and the Dalek's stage play:

"Remember remember the Dalek December, with London in Ruins and Paris an Embar" as you can gather it was an incredibly cheerful stage play big_smile.

Sorry about the housing issues there Cae, hope those and the grammar problems work themselves out soon enough.
@Cooltirk, I've heard that about the ending to Angel, though I can't complain too much about commics continuing series since Big finish have been doing that with Doctor who audios which generally have been more hit than miss.

Season 1 of angel took a while to get going but was worth it when it did, and two and three were amazing, actually rather better imho than buffy seasons 5 and 6, albeit season 6 was going some very interesting places.
Season 4 of Angel though I'm less taken with thus far, the hole "amnesia" plotline seemed waaaay too overdone and in a series that pretty much ends the world every  week its slightly difficult to get too excited over yet another apocalypse. Then again, most of the character stuff is still worth watching, and as with Buffy the dialogue is just so well written, albeit the amnesia cordelia getting together with Angel's son is waaaay too soap opera for my liking.

When I finish with Buffy and angel I'll have to decide what series to try next. I've heard good things about stargate, and so far I've only seen up to season 4 of game of thrones.
Generally I tend to have one series on the go at a time which I then watch rather slowly over several weeks, (since watching a series with my remaining vision takes a wee bit more concentration than reading), this is why I don't fansy streaming or subscribing to netflicks, though interestingly enough, its far cheaper to buy stuff on dvd anyway.

@Dark eagle, thanks for the kind words. As I said in the site and forum feedback area, its actually a relief given how stressful the forum has got recently, it'll be nice to just be able to kick back, relax, play games and write about them.
As for Diwali, as far as I know its at the same time here in Britain as it is in India, or at least I recall various Indian neighborhoods having some lovely looking Diwali  decorations up this time of year.
Oh, and don't mention politicians, with the hole business of Brexit and leaving the EU things over here are pretty damn crazy politics wise at the moment.

As to other things, I'm working on a book review of Silverthorn by Raymand E Feist. It was a bit better than Magician, but not much, though I'm told the hole series improves later on.

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.)

2018-11-03 02:27:24

That's true about big finish, at least we can enjoy those, unlike comics.

Speaking of doctor who, I can't remember if it's the 6th or 7th doctor that comes across  better in the audio series than the TV.

Maybe the scripts are better I dunno.

Now, you mentioned stargate, that isn't a bad series, if you don't mind the episode wrapping up quickly.

I don't like Deus ex machinas, but I guess they need to fit the episodes into a certain amount of time.

That is what I like about netflix, even if most of the shows are slow.

2018-11-04 18:08:43

So, I completed three out of five programs given to me by my teacher, the final one is proving to be a annoying one to solve. I think I even posted that one here on this site in the developer room.

On the matters of festivals, yeah, I am not so thrilled about the upcoming time, seeing that the next six months will be filled with marriges, honestly, if it is one thing after another.

At least I get to eat some of the nice dishes made by my mother.

In other news, my BetaReader finally started to work on my chapters, also, I managed to get another knowledgable guy to help me.

And finally I think I have managed to sort out what questions I want to get answer of regarding composing with music.

*Puts the head in the hands,* Too tired.

2018-11-05 06:22:58 (edited by Dark 2018-11-05 06:29:20)

kool_turk, its the sixth doctor, Colin Baker that got a slight rewrite in audio, though I wouldn't say they completely changed him, they just toned down the level of sniping at his assistants. Colin Baker has always been a favourite of mine, heck I have even met the man in person at a Dr. Who convention, its nice though  others are getting to see the best of his personality too. Of course, some of the audios are better than others, but the fact that they actually have a main show runner who steps in and checks continuity, and makes sure things don't get too fanficky in terms of just being excuses to have lots of different characters meet up together or rewriting the series with an even bigger threat than ever.

I can't decide on series at the second, but we'll see, I've still got a lot of buffy and angel to get  through anyway.

Funny Dark Eagle, when I got married in 16, we ended up going to a restaurant which was nice, though we had a fairly small wedding, especially since as it was in the states rather than in Britain the entire groom's party basically consisted of the groom, that is me big_smile.

Hope the composition etc work out.

As for me, I'm currently trying to get myself a bit de-stressed from everything that is happening on the forum, I hope matters calm down soon.

Reading Stephen King's the long walk was probably not the best idea at this point, since its bloody grim, though I'll probably wait until I've finished and then talk  it in the books by stephen king topic.
I also need to prepare for a music festival later this month as well as get back to my own writing.

Speaking of writing, my review of Mort (e) by Robert Ripino is now hup, Read it here the book was truly, and completely terrible and has got my lowest rating ever!

Hopefully this also means the webmaster of fantasybookreview.co.uk, who has  going through some pretty bad times of late will be able to get back  updating the website himself and posting more reviews, both mine and other peoples.

I'd like to start writing articles to appear on their blog too.

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.)

2018-11-05 09:43:09

@Dark:

If you are in India, you can forget having a nice and quiet wedding.

2018-11-06 12:57:38

After a year fraught with unexpected and tragic losses of friends and family, I hope things are calming down.
I also found a medication that worked wonderfully, only to have it discontinued.
So I'm back to square one healthwise.

But I make a point in looking for the positive and the blessings in life, and I have more than I could ever list. Loyal friends, unconditionally loving family, great doctors, sweet pets, my hearing, my ability to speak and write, . . and on and on.

I love November. It's a month of good food, cool weather, and it seems to me, a lot more socializing. It's a month for fuzzy socks and reading long books. It makes me happy.

As for gaming, I am on the Gathering Mud, and loving it. The people are friendly, I've gotten into RP, and it's just an interesting and fun place to be. They had a scavenger hunt on Halloween, so because deep down inside I am seven years old forever, I ran around collecting virtual candy and being attacked by ghouls. It was fun though!

I have also started playing Feer. My highest score is only six thousand, but it's improving, and I'm having fun trying to develop the combination of listening skills and coordination needed to win at the game.

I'm playing a bit of Night Commander too, although I haven't gotten far into it. (may have spelled the name wrong)

Blindfold Games has a new pet sim, and you care for your own dog. It looks to be quite detailed, so I'm planning to play that sometime.

I haven't done any reading lately, which is very strange. I hope to get back into it soon.

A new TV show is out called Crikey!, it's the Irwins. The late Steve Irwin, known as the Crocodile Hunter, had two children who are now grown up and carrying on his legacy of wildlife education and conservation. It is on Animal Planet.
Happy November, everyone.

2018-11-07 07:15:24

@Mirage,  sorry medication is going a bit wrong but glad your having a good time otherwise.
As I said for me, I have been incredibly stressed lately so am trying to calm down and do different things, in particular I look forward to the point the db is fixed and I can get back to doing the job I originally started out doing. The blindfold games are on the list of stuff that I need to try, and then update the db with, as in fact is night commander.

I enjoyed previous versions of the game, but I'm not sure where updates have gone with things recently ever since the team thing got introduced.
Feer is a game I'm genuinely very fond of, I just can't resist the urge to pick it up   and do an extra quest or two. Its interesting, for a simple game the different quests and tasks give a massive replay value. I am feeling like I need to get back into a major mud or online game, something engrossing but I haven't decided what at this point in time.

tomorrow I have another session at the writer's studio, it will be good in terms of going out and doing things, but I am less sure about whether this one will be full of psycho babble, we shall see.

My latest article is now up on the fantasybookreview.co.uk blog, its entitled the succeedinator and is my take on the often maligned concept of the Mary sue read it here

I'd really like to write some more articles, so hopefully this will provide a place to do it.

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.)

2018-11-07 07:52:41

I'm glad you're writing for pleasure instead of work now, Dark.
Not only do I think you'll really enjoy it, I also believe you'll be great at it.

2018-11-07 11:16:41

@Dark:

I really liked your article. you have used great examples like Richi rich, which was used to be quite popular in Cartoon Network India around 2005.

But the thing which I liked the most that after all the struggles the characters have suffered throughout the story, they still wouldn't get all of their desires fulfilled, but at least some of them. and watching that end is very sattasfying.

Kind of like a person in the real life, who struggles with the financial condition, have to study hard for their education, and if luckey enough they will manage to get the opportunity to live rest of their life in peace.

I know that is not the best example, but I think it still does explain what I am trying to say.

as for the debate example? they were very amusing. honestly, I admit in the past, females did not have a good time. but in the modern times, some of them are just as worse as a sexist men of the past.

2018-11-07 12:02:46 (edited by Dark 2018-11-07 12:03:57)

@Mirage thanks for that. Writing is really what I want to do with my life (well assuming I can't actually do singing and performance, which unfortunately due to the cruddy attitude people have towards disabled people in Britain it seems I can't).

Up until now I've been busy finishing my bloody phd, which took waaaaay longer than it should have done.
I'd like to now get back to writing other things. I am working on an sf novella at the moment as well as a couple of short stories, and have been trying to do a bit more with my poetry. I have joined a writer's studio which I've been going to a couple of events for, and intend to start a creative writing course next year to help with finding a few more avinues of how to get my writing out there.

I would also like to start writing a few more fun articles about writing itself, like the one on the succeedinator which I posted about previously, and of course I keep on with the book reviews, (I'm currently doing one for Stephen King's book the Long walk).

In a way actually, while I confess the situation on the forum has been extremely upsetting, it will be nice to focus on things I enjoy  once again.

@Dark eagle, glad you liked the article. I wrote it for two reasons. Firstly, I really hate superhero characters who  are endlessly good at everything (one reason why I really don't like the hole marvel films thing however much action they have), and because these days it seems any debate about this sort of thing turns into a debate about gender politics, especially if that dreaded word "Mary sue" is mentioned.

That is why I thought it would be better to first define what the problem of a too successful character was, and then give it a gender neutral name that could be applied to any character without the massive storm of cultural baggage that the hole "mary sue, garry stew" thing always tends to leed to.

Indeed, these days I am getting a little sick of any debate about books, fiction, films etc automatically turning into a long rant about gender politics rather than the virtues of the thing your discussing.

After all, Buffy the vampire slayer is a really good series because it is amazingly well written, while the recent ghost busters film was a crappy film because it was badly written. The fact that both have  female main characters is tangential to the goodness or badness of the writing at best.

Okay I'll get off my soapbox now 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.)

2018-11-08 20:07:16

On the topic of female representation in media, so far I have two types.

First, cute and shy girls, and if the female in question is older, just shy.

Second, fiery tomboy, ranging from "just another character trate, to downright hostility for the opposit gender."

Well, I could be wrong, but that is what I have observed.

2018-11-08 20:56:41

Dark,
That book review was phenomenal!
The premis was like a magnet, something I would love to read . . . until you reviewed it and saved me the agony.
What a sad thing, that such an awesome idea was ruined.
It could have been such a great book!

2018-11-09 00:21:11 (edited by Dark 2018-11-09 12:18:24)

@Dark eagle, the shy thing is actually falling off a lot these days, these days your more likely to find the super wise cracking girl or the tecky girl, and of course in any literature worth the price you should find reasonably good female characters, though this is something I cover in my reviews.

@Mirage, glad you liked the review of Mort (e), actually what you describe is  exactly how I found the book, I heard the premise thought "that sounds awesome" and then was amazingly disappointed.
Usually I always try to be fair in my reviews and   go into both the good and bad points, with the final score and summation being a general summing up of what I thought, but in the case of Mort (e), other than a very unique idea there really wasn't much to recommend it at all.

that's why while my review scores usually hover somewhere around a 6-8, with the ocasional 5 or 9 and some  problematic  offerings earning a four, Mort got the lowest mark I've ever given.

Well today was nice.
My lady and I are at my parents at the moment fo rvarious things from hospital appointments to singing lessons. One thing I've been rather dreading is sorting out the laptop I keep here, since  the vocaliser lisence credentials needed to be updated with my new email address, and for some reason my copy of office had decided to stop working.
fortunately, though I've been not looking forward to the hassle in sorting these things out, both wer fixed surprisingly quickly and with far less trouble than I imagined, I just updated the vocaliser driver, then put in my new details and the license worked fine (its even reacting  better I think), and with word it just took signing in to the ms account again.

this evening I went to another writer's event, but this one was rather less fun, more life coaching than writing, and really sitting around and having a  person  ask you "what are you believing about yourself that is stopping you from fulfilling your goals" is not exactly helpful, since what is stopping me from fulfilling my goals is other people's beliefs, ad what I actually need to find to solve the problem are people who  will actually like the stuff I'm doing.

similarly while I've nothing against! life coaching, I'd have  more direct discussion of writing and how to do it.

Really it was a slightly disappointing session, but at least I  tried.

On the plus side, i did a great amount of doctor who today. The monthly adventures from big finish are a bit disappointing but the early adventures are proving awesome! we've had the first two of season 5 and both have been wonderfully complex and very ambiguous bits of scifi.

also, speaking of writing, the db editing is back up! hurrah! I've already done a page  for dragon village, and will likely be able to sit down and  get to  more entries over the weekend, both restoring some of the stuff lost in the great september data crash, like the Swarm simulator entry, and also getting down to writing some new  entries and updating the old ones.

Other than that the weather is horrible, though I can definitely say for Dark Eagle's bennifit there  was apparently a huge Diwali celibration going on in Leicester a few days ago, albeit I imagine a rather colder, wetter and more myserable one than   anything going on in India  right now, this being Bria Britain, the country cursed by bad weather.

that's where the stereotype  of British people always talking about  weather comes from, there is so little good, weather, its a major news event 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.)

2018-11-09 02:59:33

@Dark:

it is interesting that people of this country do not take the festivals here seriously, (though they still selibrate nicely,) but when people go to foreign countries for whatever reason, they selibrate them propperly.

as for whether, I whish there was a rainfall here. at least it would have stopped those idiots overusing the fireworks.

I don't know whether the rest of the world cares or not, but currently the capital of India is literally struggling against the polution, not only because people refuse to listen, (honestly, fireworks weren't even involve in the festival, Diwali is older than fireworks!) I think sometimes, people here want everything. they want a polution free city, yet, they still want their fireworks.

well, I think something has to give, and I am leaning towards the thing which cause polution in the first place.

at this rate, might as well start calling the earth second Venus.

2018-11-09 04:44:41

Well, after stepping down from staff dutys on the site, i can breathe! I really tryed to hang on after so many of us stepped down, but something inside me just lost the desire to keep going. I told my self to soldier on, but i think the abrupt change was just a little too much for me to comfortably deal with. I'll be around, but in a much less official copacity lol. I just want to play games, and read, and not worry about people having intellectual brawls anymore.

2018-11-09 09:49:21

@Arq, sorry to hear your stepping down as well, though I certainly understand the impulse behind it, things here have been down right toxic of late. Hope your still around though since I'd miss your sense of humour if you did indeed leave the forum.

@Dark Eagle,  interesting you mention fireworks. there have been plenty over here, what with  it being bonfire night as well, though I don't think many have caused polution etc. Equally though these days the larger and more dangerous fireworks are only possible to see at massive organised displays and you can't just buy them in shops, which likely cuts down on the danger factor.

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.)

2018-11-14 16:01:49

I am happy to announce that Eagle solutions, my new company has finally opened, we will take the world to the new stage!

...I meant I finally achieved my target of 50 push ups in one go.

Yeah, that was what I wanted to say.

Well, maybe it is my dream that could open a company in the future.

But honestly, my target has been long over do. each time I got close to it, something would cause me to lose the will to exercise. like exams, exams, and more exams.

But now I have done it, and my next target will be to do 50 squots in one go, starting from 2019. I have a lot of leg pain to look forward.

It might come as strange, why I am suddenly talking about exercise, since I never did that before. the simple thing is, I don't go out much. thus, to keep my body in good as condition as possible, I do exercise at home, without any equipments.

Though I have been telling my father to get me barbells, for three years, but he haven't bought me yet.

2018-11-16 16:38:38

@Dark eagle, Does the name "Eagle solutions" come from the fact that an eagle would be the solution to your pushups problem by hoisting you off the floorr? big_smile.
congrats on the pushups though.


Actually I need to get back to exercising myself, I used to do a ten minute sprint on the spot plus about fifteen minutes doing various things with weights each day, though unfortunately all my equipment is sort of a bit inaccessible due to us not quite having sorted out where to put everything after we moved here big_smile.

Well it doesn't help the exercise that yesterday Mrs. Dark and I went to our local lovely Italian restaurant for a really awesome meal out which was gorgious but probably not helping the exercise bit big_smile.

Actually I've been feeling better generally recently which is good. I've got a lot of work done on the db and should have enough for another site updates soon, in particular it's been nice to play so many games though I still need to give echoes of leevia a try, as well as six ages, text space and likely lots of other stuff, actually rekindling my interest in games has been really nice, from simple but brain teasing things like BG Tablic solitare, to action games like Feer, I even bustered the blind swordsman out of retirement (though I still can't get past that rotten knight on level 9).

I am also continuing with the work on reviews and the reading, I just finished Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey which was really good this way around, in particular I love the way she describes learning music.
Its a relief, I used to really like the pern books as a teenager, but flight and quest I found a wee bit disappointing, then again Song was good and singer is better and my lady reread drumbs recently and liked it.

I actually feel that I need to defend McCaffrey a bit these days, since she gets a lot of flack for writing about a world which was consciously sexist with medieval attitudes which these days seems to automatically put someone in the firing line.

Okay, some of her female characters and her romances have been rather iffy (there was a really dodgy one in Dragonquest which I talked about in my review), but this certainly wasn't all the time. Indeed, my lady, whose read far more McCaffrey than I have says she's one of these writers who is either on or off, and unfortunately when she's off she does write sort of cliched romance fiction in space, but when she's on she's really good, something which was born out by Dragonsinger.

I'm also continuing work on my own novella though I've not quite got back to Stephen King's thousand words a day rule as yet.

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.)

2018-11-23 21:31:22

Wow. 50 pushups is prittey good. I can do 26 of them.

I post sounds I record to freesound. Click here to visit my freesound page
I usually post game recordings to anyaudio. Click here to visit my anyaudio page

2018-11-28 11:36:31

Okay things are rather interesting.
My lady and I went to the Selston music  last Saturday which was a tad disappointing, indeed my lady  if the ajudicator had a bit of a thing against blind people given her marks, actually my lady is particularly bothered with her own performance.

We do have a charity concert coming up though, and even though most of that is fairly standard music theatre stuff it should be fun at least, we are learning try the priest from Sweeney tod which should be good as a duette big_smile.

In other news, I finished Angel season 4. Okay,this was an odd one. Several plots in the season were really! getting on my wick. Beware! big angel season 4 spoilers incomming).  particularly the hole recurring thing with Cordelia's amnesia  and her sleeping with Connor, and getting pregnant it all got waaaaay too soap opera despite the appocalyptic beast, blotting out the sun, rain of fire etc.

Then I was completely wrong footed by a revelation that what I thoughht was a poorly written character actually wasn't at all, but was Cordelia being possessed. I always love it when writing does that makes you think @hay what is going wrong here@ and then  explains the wrongness.
, the total direction shift with Jasmin towards the end of the season was fantastic.
There was me expecting some huge firey doom appocalypse, and what we get is the peace movement from hell?

This one really changed matters wich I always appreciate.

Okay end spoilage!

I'm now starting buffy season 7. My brother's fiance has suggested doing a swap over at Christmas, my buffy/angel collection for her Stargate collection, and since I probably won't be wanting to watch buffy again for a while this does make sense to me, and it'd be nice to have a series to run until Game of thrones finishes and I can pick up and start marathoning the hole thing.

Book wise things have been interesting. I've just finished the healer's war by Elizabeth Anne Scarborough, which is a really  view of the Vietnam war from the perspective of a nurse with a bit of a fantasy twist.
I really enjoyed it, particularly since I don't actually know that much about Vietnam other than books like Hearts in Atlantis, writing a review will be interesting I think.

Speaking of reviews, the webmaster of fantasybookreview.co.uk has put up another of mine, the second of David Brin's new uplift trilogy and fifth uplift book over all Infinity's shore which you can Read here

I've also sent off one for the third book, heaven't reach.
Sadly neither the second or third books were as good as the first, but it did have an awesome conclusion all the same.

Well today should be interesting, I'm going to take harp lessons. Yes you heard that right, harp lessons!

It's been quite a few years since I learned a new instrument, and while I've never had any particular aptitude for things with strings i'm more than willing to give it a try as I do adore the sound of the harp and the feeling of playing one, and post my phd its always good to keep my brain busy.

I'm also going to two creative writing workshops later this week, one on thursday on microfiction, I've even written a story for it (well a 617 word story, it is on microfiction after all).

I'm continuing with my sf novella and things are working out fiarly well, I keep thinking of new ideas and characters to put into the main plot which is nice. I don't know where one publishers short stories these days but it'll be interesting to find out, and I'd rather try short fiction, poetry etc at first rather than work on a full time novel and then find I can't publish the thing.

I still of course have lots of gaming to do for the db, in partiuclar I need to investigate some pretty big projects like six   ages, text spaced, six swords and echoes of leevia, though I suspect that one won't be as big a project as I'd like it to be big_smile.

so rather busy at the second.

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.)