I read Unshapely Things be Marc Del Franco because it was the latest pick from The Sword and Laser podcast. Unshapely Things falls under the category elf punk. It takes place in modern-day Boston where you see people along with creatures like fairies, elves, and druids (collectively called the fey). There’s an area of Boston called The Weird where the most of the Boston-area fey live.
It was an ok book, but not something that I liked a lot. It took about a month to read a 300-page book, which means that it was very easy to put the book down and do other things. This was the author’s first book and I know that there’s at least one other book in the Connor Grey series. I’m not sure if I’ll read the next book. I have a feeling it’s much better than the first, but I may just read the Harry Dresden series instead.
I first started watching Babylon 5 near the end of its thirds season when I was still in high school. I immediately liked it and watched all the remaining episodes and TV movies while in high school and college. I got caught up on the previous episodes during my freshman year in college when TNT started airing them 5 nights a week. I remember trying to be sure to be back in my dorm room every night or recording the episode if I wasn’t going to be there.
I’ve been meaning to re-watch B5 for a while now. I bought season 1 recently and finished watching it earlier this week. I hadn’t seen these episodes in over years. I had heard people say that season 1 is bad compared to the rest and I remembered the later seasons as being much better than the first. There were some moments here and there where I cringed a little on the inside, but I really enjoyed the first season.
Part of my enjoyment may have come from the fact that I know what’s going to happen later. Each season has a title, which is also the title of one of the episodes from that season. The title of season one is “Signs and Portents’’. I can see them planting the seeds for future storylines. I remember why I liked this show so much. I can’t wait to jump into season 2.
Well, not brand new but new to me. I finally got a new car yesterday.
My mom’s car was stolen recently and when she got it back it was in pretty bad shape. Since I had planned on getting a new car in the near future, I let her have the old car that I had been driving since 1999 until she’s ready to get something else. I just had to get a new car earlier than I had planned, but oh well.
My new car is a gray Nissan Altima. I realized today that a lot of people around here drive Altimas, probably because MSU employees get discounts on Nissan cars. It had 29000 miles on it. It drives well. It has a lot of room. It’s great for me. The previous owner left his Sirius satellite radio receiver in the car and it’s still activated. It’s not something I would have bought on my own, but since it’s there I’m going to use it. When it gets deactivated, I’ll start up my own account.
Anyway, I’m happy and I’m itching to go on a road trip.
I got a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice yesterday. A postal carrier was found to be in possession of multiple Gamefly and Netflix rentals. One of the rentals in her possession was either on its way to me or on its way back from me. Her illegal activities had been going on since August 2007. She’s out of custody and her trial was supposed to take place this week. I went to the victims’ website that the DoJ has set up and I can stay up-to-date on the developments of the case.
Since this trial is taking place in California, I’m assuming that the crime took place there and it’s a Gamefly rental. I wish I knew exactly which game it was. It was probably a game that I sent back and marked as sent on their website when they didn’t get it after a while. I think there has been a game or two that I didn’t receive after a week, so I asked for another copy. Whatever the case, at least somebody is doing something about it. The long turnaround time annoys me sometimes. I figured that this kind of thing does happen. Gotta have my games and movies 🙂
Bailey is my former roommates’ dog. Yes, he was named after the drink. We got him last September when he was about 2 months old. I always took care of him when everybody else was gone. He is a cool dog and the best dog I’ve ever known. This past weekend it was time for Bailey to move away too. I hope I’ll get to see him from time to time. Unfortunately, most of these pictures were taken with my phone, which doesn’t take good pictures.
I became interested in Brandon Sanderson when I found out that he was finishing The Wheel of Time for Robert Jordan. I decided to start with his first book, Elantris.
Elantris was a city of magical people whose inhabitants were thought of as gods. Something has changed and now Elantrians are thought of as being cursed. It’s been 10 years since the fall of the city, and book focuses on 3 characters with related plot lines. The story takes place both inside and outside of Elantris.
One thing that attracted me to this book is that it’s a standalone story. It’s not one part of an epic series. Nice! As always with fantasy novels, it took a little while to get into. I think part of it had to do with learning a new universe. I was having a little trouble in my head figuring out how some of his terms should be pronounced and somebody else’s pronunciations might be different. I just had to make myself not worry about that and get on with the book. I also didn’t like the frequency in which Sanderson was throwing out new terms and not really explaining what they mean. There’s no glossary in the back to help clear things up. Eventually, everything was explained enough to understand what he was talking about. Once I started getting into the book, I really enjoyed it. I do remember thinking that there were a lot of surprising twists happening, but that’s okay. I found it interesting that there weren’t many battles. There was a great deal of intellectual maneuvering, but not much physical fighting. I’m pretty sure I’m going to read Sanderson’s Mistborn series when I get a chance.
F.Y.I. – There’s an Elantris glossary on Sanderson’s website. I wish I had known this when I was reading the book.
The Sword and Laser’s current book is Unshapely Things and I’m already reading it. I don’t think I had ever heard of elf punk until now.
Yeah, I’ve gotten hooked on Twitter too. I wasn’t really interested in it at first, but once I started I just couldn’t stop. My profile is here. I’ll probably put a widget in the sidebar one day. If you don’t know what Twitter is, then that might be a good thing.
In this dream I was driving to Brandon to visit John. Somehow I made a wrong turn and drove my car into a body of water. I escaped from the car and got out of the water. I soon realized that I had ended up in Vicksburg and that I had driven into the Mississippi River. It was pouring down rain and the river was flooding. I walked down a road trying to find a place where I could call for help. I finally came to a McDonald’s out in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by trees. It was small, cramped little place on the inside. There were many freaky-looking people there. I placed an order and then sat down at an empty table to wait for them to fix my food. Everybody was looking at me funny for some reason. Then I woke up.
I buy songs from iTunes every once in a while. Sometimes a band that I like will release songs exclusively on iTunes. Sometimes I’m at work and I get an urge to hear a song right away and iTunes seemed like the best option in that situation. Now I think I’m going to start using Amazon MP3 when I want to download a song if it’s available there. Why? Because it has no DRM. With iTunes I can only listen to it on one of the 5 computers that are authorized on my account. I don’t even have an iPod. If I get it from Amazon MP3, I can listen to it on any device I want to that plays MP3s. Also, I don’t really like the iTunes software. I REALLY don’t like it.
Amazon just came out with a new widget that you can put on your website that allows people to preview songs. The owner of the website gets a small percentage of each sale. I decided to try it out.
I bought a set of CUTCO knives last summer and I’m so glad that I did. I’ve never had good cutlery like this. They are so sharp. I get a little nervous about hurting myself sometimes because of how sharp they are. If I did accidentally cut something off, I’m sure it would be such a clean cut that it could easily be reattached. Just having the knives around makes me want to cook more. Hopefully in the near future I’ll get back in the habit of cooking on a regular basis (I’ve been saying that since last summer). Maybe I’ll get some forks and spoons next.
I read Unshapely Things be Marc Del Franco because it was the latest pick from The Sword and Laser podcast. Unshapely Things falls under the category elf punk. It takes place in modern-day Boston where you see people along with creatures like fairies, elves, and druids (collectively called the fey). There’s an area of Boston called The Weird where the most of the Boston-area fey live.
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