thistlechaser: (Catboy Takuto love! (FMwS))
thistlechaser ([personal profile] thistlechaser) wrote2005-05-05 10:38 am

<3 <3 <3 (FFXI and then RL/ books)

I'm just overflowing with love today. <3 I'd like to grab each and every person in this screenshot and hug them all! (Screenshot not taken by me, mostly I was too distracted to take any!)

I had considered asking everyone to gather before the DRK AF3 battle so I could take a group shot, but people were getting twitchy and wanted to start it, so I didn't want to waste more time. So the above shot is the closest thing to a group shot that we have! :)

Would you believe I actually forgot to bring food? Eek. I had a dozen hi-potions, eye drops, all sorts of meds... yet I forgot food. "Noob!" Yes yes.

I hadn't mentioned anything in my last post about the fight, other than it was fast. At the very beginning, it had actually worried me for a moment: Ebin spawned the mobs, and the very first thing one of them did? Sleepga'ed us! (Non-players: A sleep spell that hits a whole area instead of one person.) So there we all were, just standing there asleep! Heehee. Eventually people woke up one by one, and the mages woke some folks, and we got to work.

While we were planning things, it looked like we wouldn't even have two full parties of people, but as you can see in the shot, we ended up with nearly a full alliance. Handy.

I get such a warm feeling inside at all the people who turned out to help just two of us. Nothing at all in it for them, other than a chance to help LS members. Such good people, I love them all. :)

Much <3 to CTY!

----

RL/book foo:

As I mentioned a while back, I'm trying to catch up on the Stephen King books I haven't read yet. I bought five or so of them from Amazon, and I'm reading them in the order I pulled them out of the box. Insomnia had been first, then next I read Desperation.

I'm not sure if Desperation didn't work for me because of the writing/characters, or if I hadn't been in the mood to read it. I finished reading it last week but never mentioned it because I didn't like it much. (I didn't dislike it at all, I just didn't like it much either.) It was a classic "haunted house" story, just set in a town instead of one single house. I didn't like most of the characters, I didn't believe a lot of the plot, and in general it just didn't work for me. (I really, really liked the kid character, the boy with a connection to God. I wish King had focused the story more around him than the others.) The book did have one really high point for me: The ending. As much as most of the book hadn't worked for me, I almost cried on the last page. King's so good. :)

As I had been hoping, Desperation did have a few small connections to the Dark Tower series. Just little things, like use of words from the other books. (Can Toi and others.)

Well, I finished Desperation, stuck it onto the shelf, and reached blindly into the box to pick my next one to read. Salem's Lot. (Go ahead, laugh at me for having not read one of his biggest books.)

While a number of the books I ordered were just at random, Salem's Lot hadn't been. I knew one of the Tower's characters was from Lot, so I wanted to read it to see his background. (I really, really, really liked him a lot in the Tower book (books? I think he was in more than one), so I wanted to find out all there was to know about him.) Not mentioning his name here so as not to spoil a certain someone who hasn't finished the Tower series yet. :)

I'm only a chapter or so in, but I'm enjoying it muchly so far. I only have one or two books left in the box, so I suppose I should put another order in soon...

[identity profile] tersa.livejournal.com 2005-05-05 06:07 pm (UTC)(link)
I know this goes counter to your 'live in your cave and have things delivered to you', but rather than ordering all these old books from Amazon, I would recommend checking out Book Buyers in Mountain View, which is a used bookstore. You can frequently find things for half-price.

I wound up buying 12 books in the Brother Cadfael mystery series there a couple weeks ago for about $36, on top of the 6 or 7 I already owned.

[identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com 2005-05-05 06:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Heehee! While I enjoy living in my little cave and having things delivered, I wouldn't want to buy used books even if I did like to go out and shop in person. People are gross! I used to get used books all the time, and wonder at the various stains (let alone smells) on some of the pages! Then someone on my flist posted about finding "boogers" in a library book and that just totally ended any willingness to ever buy/read a used book.

I know it would save money, but people are icky and so I'd rather get my books fresh, new, and snot-free. :P

[identity profile] loneguardian.livejournal.com 2005-05-05 06:21 pm (UTC)(link)
And you woulda had a full alliance if you people hadn't scheduled the run on a bloody Wednesday night! *fistshakes!!* ;3 Glad you guys had such a good turnout. :3 It's lacking purple, though!

[identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com 2005-05-05 06:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Heeheehee! Sorry! Maybe the next one will be on a Wednesday! :)

And yeah. Foxworth (I think it was her?) had wanted to go as DRG, but Beanie asked that she come as RDM for Dispel. Turned out not to be necessary, but we hadn't known at the time what a turn-out we'd get!

*panty-dances for you*

Yay Salem's Lot!

[identity profile] philia.livejournal.com 2005-05-05 06:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Many of King's earlier stuff is frankly the best. I guess it goes with that sort of Artist Syndrome: the earlier stuff, the stuff that a person puts out not only to show their range and depth, is the best... and as time goes on, they get lazy and it turns to crap.

... Now I have a want to read Pet Cemetery. z.z Though not watch the movie; I'm not the biggest fan of kids, but there's one scene in there that even makes me cringe slightly.

Re: Yay Salem's Lot!

[identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com 2005-05-05 06:36 pm (UTC)(link)
While I read Pet Cemetery, it must have been 15 or so years ago (I was still in... grade school? Junior high? Way pre-college), so I very much want to read it again. I think I saw the movie as well, but it would have been long ago, too.

Once I get done reading the books I never read, I'll probably go back and grab these old ones. So much good reading ahead of me! :)

Artist Syndrome

While there's some of his later stuff I liked a lot, I mostly agree with that.

Yay reading!
ext_2822: (<3 (Matthew))

*fangirls your icon*

[identity profile] metron-ariston.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
Dude, that's Sigrd, right?

Re: *fangirls your icon*

[identity profile] philia.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 12:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, it is, drawn by the Xenogears character concept artist Clio Saga. :3

[identity profile] quasilemur.livejournal.com 2005-05-05 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
As far as Desperation is concerned...Have you read The Regulators yet? They're weird alternate versions of the same story.

[identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com 2005-05-05 06:43 pm (UTC)(link)
No, the reader reviews of it said it sucked. Is that untrue? Your description of it makes it sound interesting...

[identity profile] wanderingscribe.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 03:38 am (UTC)(link)
Aha, so that's the name of the book! I was going to suggest it as well (considering I read one after the other and it made the whole story that much clearer), but couldn't remember what it was called. Thanks for jogging my memory.

[identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 03:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Sounds good enough for me! Will grab it with my next order.
ext_2822: (dork dork dork)

[identity profile] metron-ariston.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
Have you by any chance read The Talisman and Black House, by King and Peter Straub? The Talisman started my Dark Tower Reading Project because I'd heard that the universe was related to the DT one. It's one of the very few Stephen King books I've unreservedly adored. (Black House related kind of interestingly with The Talisman and has some DT connections, and also has one really great thing going for it, but it also had a lot of baaaaaadness, which I will surely rant about at you if you've already read it or plan to.)

[identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 02:58 pm (UTC)(link)
I read (and loved loved loved) The Black House for sure. I'm not sure if I read Talisman though...

(Black House related kind of interestingly with The Talisman and has some DT connections, and also has one really great thing going for it, but it also had a lot of baaaaaadness, which I will surely rant about at you if you've already read it or plan to.)

It's been a number of years since I read House, so I'm not sure if I'll remember if you describe it to me, but which were the things you liked and didn't like?
ext_2822: (*grump*)

[identity profile] metron-ariston.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I might spoil you if you haven't read The Talisman if I get too into it.

I'll just say I have Big Fat Issues with the death of Henry Leyden (another one of my favorite fictional characters ever, I cried for about two straight hours). And that King & Straub pulled a similar stunt in The Talisman so it pissed me off a LOT to see it in the sequel.

(Also, I was really annoyed by the device (or whatever you call it) of speaking to the reader in the narrative. It was annoying and took me out of the story every time it happened... I'm pretty sure King's done it in other novels, too, but I hadn't really read him for at least five years before I started reading the DT series.)

[identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 03:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm going to have to read House again. I hardly even remember that name!

(Also, I was really annoyed by the device (or whatever you call it) of speaking to the reader in the narrative. It was annoying and took me out of the story every time it happened... I'm pretty sure King's done it in other novels, too, but I hadn't really read him for at least five years before I started reading the DT series.)

Unfortunately he does that (and what I feel is a worse trick/device) a lot in the later DT books. The last two (or three?) especially. That's one of the few things I really, really didn't like about the series.
ext_2822: (not for the reasons you think [by Livia])

[identity profile] metron-ariston.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
Argh, and also post when you finish 'Salem's Lot. There is something I wish to discuss with someone who won't call me a Giant Perv (or who might, but will at least be understanding of my Giant Pervness).

[identity profile] thistle-chaser.livejournal.com 2005-05-06 02:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Heehee, will do!