Mar. 17th, 2006

thistlechaser: (Unf sandwich)
Yay, new icon! I need to edit it a little when I get home. I want to add 'Unf!' to it. Heehee.

Okay, since I'll never talk about that second book if I wait till my usual nighttime post (I only have time to rush some FFXI stuff out then), I'll do it now!

A few months ago I saw a movie called Riverworld. I loved the plot: people die in the real world and are resurrected along a river. People of all time periods. Everyone's reborn naked, healthy, and of about 25 years of age. I goggled it once it was finished, and found out that it was based on a series of books (by Philip Jose Farmer), so I ran right out and bought them.

It wasn't until many months later that I started reading them, and boy was I disappointed. I knew the books would be nothing like the movie, but hey, even if the basic ideas remained the same I should still enjoy the tale!

WRONG-O. I learned a lesson: No matter how good the story is, no matter how much potential an idea has, if the main character is utterly unlikeable, how can you enjoy the story?

Book #1's main character was the type of person I would avoid like the plague in RL. He wasn't unlikeable because he had faults (it's a good thing to have faults in a character!), it was his personality that was so unpleasant.

I was happy to see that Book #2 was about totally different people. Yay! No more unlikeable main character! But the main character in book 2 was actually worse. Ugh.

And worse than that, the other main character in book 2 talked in an lisp and an accent. The writer typed both out. The results were something like this:

"Tham, ah thee tha thu don't apprethiate tha ah can thee that he distunithests..."

I wish I had the book with me, because the actual text was actually worse than that. A main character in the book, one who talked a lot, and his dialogue was nearly impossible to read. (I gave up trying after the first chapter.)

If that wasn't enough, the books aren't believable at all: The only tools these people have are ones made out of flint. When a meteor falls to earth, they make a riverboat (three stories tall! Sonar! Electric power! TV!) out of it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

The reason I'm boggling over this and not just tossing them aside as bad books is that this guy won many awards for this series. Hugo award and others. I don't understand it, not one little bit.

Luckily I have only one more left to read (there are more in the series, but I own just the first three), then I can toss them all out.

---

FFXI: It's such a good thing that I LJ post after logging off, it gets things out of my system. Happily I settled down after ranting/posting and actually was able to sleep last night.

Somehow I succeeded in pulling a muscle in my leg while playing last night. o.O I guess I was so tense for so long, it must have kinked up. Hurts like heck to walk (it's directly behind my ankle).

Tonight and Saturday I will be doing NOTHING. Or rather, nothing stressful or hard. No XPing. Not helping with anything which requires sneaking/invisibling. Nothing.

I have a crapload of crafting I need and want to do, and I need to do some farming along with that. (Maybe mining too, but I might just buy zinc instead. I hate mining.) I also want to work on skilling throwing (will do it as RDM with darts, they get a F in throwing, but that's still good enough for now.)

And two things I must do:

1) Call out my NPC and see the GK I spent 700K on. He's had it for two days now and I haven't even seen it yet. Bitch, I paid a lot of money for that weapon, I want to see it! You will show it to me! Tonight!
2) I might solo a mob or two as NIN, because I just got a gun and I was dying to use it last night (but instead of getting to use it I was just dying! Haw haw haw). I really want to see how it works and how much damage it does.
3) Related to #1: Must use up the charges on my tactics pearl. Not to mention the main pearl, which I haven't used in days...

I really, really, really want to XP NIN, but I have no idea when I'll get a chance to. I'm betting Tuesday will be my first chance. Maybe starting Tuesday I'll XP NIN every day and not stop until I get this out of my system...
thistlechaser: (Unf sandwich)
Yay, new icon! I need to edit it a little when I get home. I want to add 'Unf!' to it. Heehee.

Okay, since I'll never talk about that second book if I wait till my usual nighttime post (I only have time to rush some FFXI stuff out then), I'll do it now!

A few months ago I saw a movie called Riverworld. I loved the plot: people die in the real world and are resurrected along a river. People of all time periods. Everyone's reborn naked, healthy, and of about 25 years of age. I goggled it once it was finished, and found out that it was based on a series of books (by Philip Jose Farmer), so I ran right out and bought them.

It wasn't until many months later that I started reading them, and boy was I disappointed. I knew the books would be nothing like the movie, but hey, even if the basic ideas remained the same I should still enjoy the tale!

WRONG-O. I learned a lesson: No matter how good the story is, no matter how much potential an idea has, if the main character is utterly unlikeable, how can you enjoy the story?

Book #1's main character was the type of person I would avoid like the plague in RL. He wasn't unlikeable because he had faults (it's a good thing to have faults in a character!), it was his personality that was so unpleasant.

I was happy to see that Book #2 was about totally different people. Yay! No more unlikeable main character! But the main character in book 2 was actually worse. Ugh.

And worse than that, the other main character in book 2 talked in an lisp and an accent. The writer typed both out. The results were something like this:

"Tham, ah thee tha thu don't apprethiate tha ah can thee that he distunithests..."

I wish I had the book with me, because the actual text was actually worse than that. A main character in the book, one who talked a lot, and his dialogue was nearly impossible to read. (I gave up trying after the first chapter.)

If that wasn't enough, the books aren't believable at all: The only tools these people have are ones made out of flint. When a meteor falls to earth, they make a riverboat (three stories tall! Sonar! Electric power! TV!) out of it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

The reason I'm boggling over this and not just tossing them aside as bad books is that this guy won many awards for this series. Hugo award and others. I don't understand it, not one little bit.

Luckily I have only one more left to read (there are more in the series, but I own just the first three), then I can toss them all out.

---

FFXI: It's such a good thing that I LJ post after logging off, it gets things out of my system. Happily I settled down after ranting/posting and actually was able to sleep last night.

Somehow I succeeded in pulling a muscle in my leg while playing last night. o.O I guess I was so tense for so long, it must have kinked up. Hurts like heck to walk (it's directly behind my ankle).

Tonight and Saturday I will be doing NOTHING. Or rather, nothing stressful or hard. No XPing. Not helping with anything which requires sneaking/invisibling. Nothing.

I have a crapload of crafting I need and want to do, and I need to do some farming along with that. (Maybe mining too, but I might just buy zinc instead. I hate mining.) I also want to work on skilling throwing (will do it as RDM with darts, they get a F in throwing, but that's still good enough for now.)

And two things I must do:

1) Call out my NPC and see the GK I spent 700K on. He's had it for two days now and I haven't even seen it yet. Bitch, I paid a lot of money for that weapon, I want to see it! You will show it to me! Tonight!
2) I might solo a mob or two as NIN, because I just got a gun and I was dying to use it last night (but instead of getting to use it I was just dying! Haw haw haw). I really want to see how it works and how much damage it does.
3) Related to #1: Must use up the charges on my tactics pearl. Not to mention the main pearl, which I haven't used in days...

I really, really, really want to XP NIN, but I have no idea when I'll get a chance to. I'm betting Tuesday will be my first chance. Maybe starting Tuesday I'll XP NIN every day and not stop until I get this out of my system...
thistlechaser: (Golden cat)
I was going to log off early, but the new Dr. Who series started on SciFi channel, so I stuck around an extra hour to watch it. Ha ha ha ha ha. *dies* I can only guess (and hope) that they were trying to duplicate the series from the 70s (80s?). The effects sucked ass, the plot wasn't the least bit believable, and oh nos! Mannequins come to life and attacking people! (Not to mention, rather heavy accents. I actually had to pay attention if I wanted to understand what they were saying.) I didn't even bother watching the last 10 minutes of it. It's really too bad that SGA was pushed back two hours for Dr Who. Hope that will not be a regular thing, because this new series is just awful.

FFXI: Nice relaxing productive day! Yay!

I did a small part of the crafting that's waiting for me (bullets: skilling goldsmithing (got two levels!), plus I can use them, plus I make a profit selling them. All sold in a couple hours). I have to do way more crafting and a lot of farming tomorrow. Plus: More bullets!

After that I went out to skill throwing some (want it for NIN). Went from level 6 -> 20 in under an hour. (I wasn't in the best area or on the best job for it.) Hopefully will work on it more tomorrow.

Then I went out to XP NPC. Eee, his new great katana looks so so so sexy! It looks like a really, really long knife. :D (And what in the world are the Gigas and Bugard plotting back there? o.O ) He also got his final head armor upgrade, which means that other than hitting 65, he's 100% done. That's cool but sort of sad, too. (And annoying: Two charges used, full kills on both, and he didn't change an XP message. He's been on the same XP message for four charges now.)

A screenshot from last night's O-Hat fights. I like this shot because you can see all the important people from the night: Thousand is the nice (poor) JP SAM who lost two clusters in two days, Sacsac is the idiot who wanted to do the fight with no WHM and then traded before the PLD was buffed, Bigdax was the "leader" of the event (and the only person who successfully got a hat -- won the /random on the only fight we won on), Momo was the only WHM for the first two fights (and the only one with horrible connection problems). And of course: dead me. I suspect that's from the first (successful) fight, since on both of the others most people fell into yellow HP right off the bat...
thistlechaser: (Golden cat)
I was going to log off early, but the new Dr. Who series started on SciFi channel, so I stuck around an extra hour to watch it. Ha ha ha ha ha. *dies* I can only guess (and hope) that they were trying to duplicate the series from the 70s (80s?). The effects sucked ass, the plot wasn't the least bit believable, and oh nos! Mannequins come to life and attacking people! (Not to mention, rather heavy accents. I actually had to pay attention if I wanted to understand what they were saying.) I didn't even bother watching the last 10 minutes of it. It's really too bad that SGA was pushed back two hours for Dr Who. Hope that will not be a regular thing, because this new series is just awful.

FFXI: Nice relaxing productive day! Yay!

I did a small part of the crafting that's waiting for me (bullets: skilling goldsmithing (got two levels!), plus I can use them, plus I make a profit selling them. All sold in a couple hours). I have to do way more crafting and a lot of farming tomorrow. Plus: More bullets!

After that I went out to skill throwing some (want it for NIN). Went from level 6 -> 20 in under an hour. (I wasn't in the best area or on the best job for it.) Hopefully will work on it more tomorrow.

Then I went out to XP NPC. Eee, his new great katana looks so so so sexy! It looks like a really, really long knife. :D (And what in the world are the Gigas and Bugard plotting back there? o.O ) He also got his final head armor upgrade, which means that other than hitting 65, he's 100% done. That's cool but sort of sad, too. (And annoying: Two charges used, full kills on both, and he didn't change an XP message. He's been on the same XP message for four charges now.)

A screenshot from last night's O-Hat fights. I like this shot because you can see all the important people from the night: Thousand is the nice (poor) JP SAM who lost two clusters in two days, Sacsac is the idiot who wanted to do the fight with no WHM and then traded before the PLD was buffed, Bigdax was the "leader" of the event (and the only person who successfully got a hat -- won the /random on the only fight we won on), Momo was the only WHM for the first two fights (and the only one with horrible connection problems). And of course: dead me. I suspect that's from the first (successful) fight, since on both of the others most people fell into yellow HP right off the bat...

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