Friday Friday Friday

[annathepiper]

+0: Hi there chamois_shimi! I know you've been reading already, but welcome to the list of Folks What Have Friended Me. ^_^



+1: I have finished off The Face of a Stranger and have found it to be a diverting read. Not hit-me-over-the-head fabulous, but still fun in a subtler kind of way. There are some things about the story that kind of annoyed me; for example, as previously mentioned, I didn't like that Monk was constantly questioning himself about what kind of man he was, and in particular there is one part where he went off into several side paragraphs of such while he was supposed to be actively questioning someone about the case. That kind of took me out of the story a little.

Also, it annoyed me at first that we were introduced to Imogen and Hester and the story seemed to set it up that Imogen was going to be William's love interest. It therefore annoyed me that we got reams and reams of paragraphs about Hester and what she's been doing with her life... until I realized, 'Well, duh, Hester is actually the interesting one here.' Later parts of the story bore that out. However, the reams and reams of paragraphs about her backstory still kind of annoyed me in that 'aagh don't tell me all of this, show it to me!' way. And I kept finding myself annoyed every time the point of view shifted off of Monk--there's a big chunk from Hester's point of view, and it didn't feel like it served the purpose of the story terribly well.

And, having actually broken my arm in real life, I went 'Now wait a minute...' at the description of how Monk broke his arm in his accident, and yet, there was NO SIGN WHATSOEVER of this having impaired him during his recovery. No mention of his having difficulty dressing. No mention of his having to handle things one-handed. Not even a mention of his having to favor that arm for a little while or wear a sling. Apparently, broken arms in the Victorian era were a lot easier to recover from than broken arms NOW. ;P :) I must assume that he had a much less severe break than I did, maybe just a fracture, but it would have been nice to see at least SOME hint that the injury actually bothered him.

Now, all this said, I was actually entertained by the book. I liked that we just don't KNOW why Runcorn has it in for Monk, and I liked the heavy implication that the guy clearly knows that Monk has lost his memory. I did actually like that Hester, not Imogen, turned out to be the Interesting Sister; I was very much expecting that since Imogen was the one with whom Monk was infatuated, she was going to be the love interest. But no! And that's actually more satisfying, since we'll get to see Hester and William matching wits. So that'll be cool.

I liked that a not inconsiderable amount of his past did actually come back to Monk: his childhood, his sister, his mother. I'm very curious to know more about why this man who apparently comes from a humble background is in fact conducting himself like a gentleman, and who the still-unnamed mentor who guided him in his youth might have been. And I did like that two initially seemingly unrelated threads of the story did finally prove to be related--and I really liked the ultimate motive for the crime, which was something I didn't expect.

So yeah, I'll be buying the next one. :)



+2: The Amazon.com Recommendations engine is horribly addictive. I've spent several hours this week adding items I own to the thing just to see what it does to the list of items it recommends for me. It's been amusing watching the list change based on what I add. ;)



+3: I have lost a pound this week due to severely reducing my soda intake and drinking more water. I don't know yet if this trend will continue, but it is nevertheless very interesting to note. I've felt my appetite begin to shift a little; I've been feeling more genuinely hungry at my usual mealtimes, and food has been tasting startlingly good as well, even the granola-and-yogurt bars I've been eating for breakfast.

My sleep continues to be affected as well. I've been sleeping more heavily, and remember vividly dreaming the last couple of mornings--but even though I've been waking up right out of dreams, I haven't been quite so fried during the rest of the day as a result. I've noticed myself looking more tired, but this might be due to my system trying to readjust to altering sleep patterns. We'll see how I catch up over the weekend, when I usually have the time to get in extra sleep.



+4: solarbird came by to pick me up from work in the middle of the day yesterday, as she and I had to go over to Capitol Hill and sign us some Important Papers(TM) with a local attorney. I mention this mostly because it meant I had a sudden two-hour break in the middle of my workday, as we had to show up, chat with the lady, then wander off and have lunch while she drew up the papers. We went just down the street to the B&O Cafe, at which I actually remembered I've eaten before once I set foot in the place. And, to tie this in with item #3 in this entry, I had a salmon sandwich that tasted incredibly good. Yum yum yum.

Anyway, we got the papers drawn up, and that was all good, and I wound up having to stay at work a couple extra hours to make up for the time. Which I needed, as yesterday's test pass was all wonky anyway. But my beloved came and fetched me from work even after having driven around a lot all day. ^_^



-5: Courtesy of my beloved Dara, I went over to nihilistic_kid's journal and read this post about a company who apparently mangles old classics in the public domain by 'customizing' them with names selected by the customer. So you can go and insert yourself into Romeo and Juliet or Moby Dick or whatever.

And I just have to say how utterly appalled I am by this entire concept. How conceited and self-centered do you have to be to mangle a classic work just for the fleeting egoboo of seeing your own name inserted in place of the protagonist's? I suppose that on some level it's slightly more honest than going the Mary Sue route, but at least if you're writing Mary Sue fiction, you're exercising some glimmer of personal creativity rather than going and mangling somebody else's work. Bah.

Comments

[solarbird]

Don't forget - you can't change the gender of any character, either, so NO FAG CLASSICS FOR YOU! No Linda of the Apes and her lover Jane - no Romeo and Andre'! NOT FOR YOU!

You didn't even mention that one of their suggested uses is as a company present, with the name of the CEO substituted in for the hero in an adventure novel. That's the best part.

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

Don't forget - you can't change the gender of any character, either, so NO FAG CLASSICS FOR YOU! No Linda of the Apes and her lover Jane - no Romeo and Andre'! NOT FOR YOU!

Oh damn... there goes that idea down the shitter...

[wrog]

I'm going to guess it was more a matter of not wanting to bother with changing the pronouns rather than caving to the fundies.

You could use names like Pat and Chris, though without pronoun support, it's still gonna suck.

[solarbird]

Fine, bring in reality. I'm just having fun saying NO FAG CLASSICS FOR YOU!

[annathepiper]

The whole concept sucks, as far as I'm concerned. :)

[annathepiper]

You didn't even mention that one of their suggested uses is as a company present, with the name of the CEO substituted in for the hero in an adventure novel. That's the best part.

I'm trying very hard to block that out of my memory. ;)

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

+2: The Amazon.com Recommendations engine is horribly addictive. I've spent several hours this week adding items I own to the thing just to see what it does to the list of items it recommends for me. It's been amusing watching the list change based on what I add. ;)

Almost as bad as EBay... ugh... I try to stay away from all of those sites, but end up giving in at one point or another...

[annathepiper]

Nah, Amazon is FINE. I mean, you know what you're getting with Amazon when you order from them, and it's not like you have to bid to get the book. It's just a matter of having the willpower to not log on and buy oh, say, a zillion books.

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

I guess you have a point there... but when you don't have the money, any temptation is evil... when you see somehting you really want, like a new gaming manual or such, and don't have the money, it just blows the whole day...

[annathepiper]

Very true! Though there's very little difference temptation-wise between, say, Amazon.com and a gaming store, Amazon.com takes a lot less physical effort and is therefore harder to avoid.

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

Very true! Though there's very little difference temptation-wise between, say, Amazon.com and a gaming store, Amazon.com takes a lot less physical effort and is therefore harder to avoid.

yup yup... I look at those and am like daaaaaaaaaaamn... i see new dragonlance books I want to read, gaming supplements, etc etc... arghhhh... ok, time to win the lotto...

[annathepiper]

Or save your pennies. Takes longer, but it'll eventually get you there. :)

I've been throwing my extra change into a jar and carrying around only two bucks in quarters for the sake of having change when I need it. I find that this lets me build up to fifteen or twenty bucks every few months, and then I go throw the resulting coinage into a savings account. You might try that, perhaps, and save it up for buying fun things?

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to save change, etc... but being as I'm STILL the only one here that is working a steady job, every penny I save ends up getting scrounged for bread or gas or some other necessity later in the week... grr... Was going to get the Extended version of ROTK this week, and ended up having to use my paycheck to pay the Satellite bill, and paying to get Kat's phone turned back on... I'm chalking up the "she now owes me 'X' amount of money" when she gets it...

[annathepiper]

I would submit for consideration that if you want these other persons to start pulling their weight around the household, stop paying for things such as THEIR bills. That shouldn't be your responsibility. It should be THEIRS. There's only so much you can do out of the goodness of your own heart, and you need to keep a balance between helping your friends and not making a beggar of yourself.

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

well, I use the satellite tv as much as she does... but she should be able to work full-time while going to school... granted, it's tough, but I did it last year because I HAD to...

[annathepiper]

What people are able to pull off will vary from person to person; you might have been able to work full-time while attending school, but that doesn't necessarily mean she will. She may not be able to spare proper energy for studies while holding down a job.

My general point, though, was more about the phone bill you mentioned paying for her. If it's a bill for something you also use, that's fine, but don't go paying someone else's bills if your own finances are under strain. The only thing you're likely to get out of that is a further strain on your finances.

[solarbird]

No mention of his having to handle things one-handed. Not even a mention of his having to favor that arm for a little while or wear a sling. Apparently, broken arms in the Victorian era were a lot easier to recover from than broken arms NOW. ;P :) I must assume that he had a much less severe break than I did, maybe just a fracture, but it would have been nice to see at least SOME hint that the injury actually bothered him.

They weren't, but if you had two servants attending on your every move, it probably would have been a bit easier to handle for you, too. ^_^

[annathepiper]

*snicker* Yeah, but this guy didn't have any servants. He was a POLICEMAN. And much was made about him coming from a humble background to begin with.

But okay, yeah, he did have a landlady. ;)

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

But okay, yeah, he did have a landlady. ;)

Landladies do that? Man, I've really gotten all the wrong landladies.

[annathepiper]

Well, this is what you get for not living in Victorian-era England and being a policeman who's lost his memory in a (still as of yet uninvestigated as of the end of Book One) accident!

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

Well, this is what you get for not living in Victorian-era England and being a policeman who's lost his memory in a (still as of yet uninvestigated as of the end of Book One) accident!

Ok, who has the time machine?lets go...

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

Hi! (belatedly- was gone all weekend ;) )

The antagonist's name is Runcorn, in Face of a Stranger? Aie. That would weird me out a bit- but then, names of people I've known IRL showing up that way, or vice versa, always make my brain skip a step. Like when I first saw Paul Quantrill pitch on TV... what did they say his name was?? *laugh*

[annathepiper]

Runcorn is not the actual antagonist in the story--he's Monk's superior on the police force, and from what we have revealed in the book he clearly has it in for Monk for some reason. But Monk, being Amnesia Boy, doesn't remember why and has to assume that Runcorn found him a threat to his own position.

So you actually know somebody with that name? That'd weird me out too. :) I haven't actually experienced this yet, though I've had similar reactions when people email me out of the blue to ask me where I came up with a certain character name--and it turns out that while I might have made up the name independently, it's actually their name in real life or the name of a character they'd come up with as well.

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

Well, knew, actually- not well, he was a professor and I was just a lowly student not even in his field, but he was a pretty darn kickass professor.

http://www.alaska.edu/opa/eInfo/index.xml?StoryID=196

[annathepiper]

Ah! Still, that's enough to make one blink. :)

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

Definitely!

Have you read _The Godmother_ by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough? One of the characters is named Raydir Quantrill, which seemed like a made-up name if I'd ever heard one... until I saw Paul Quantrill pitch in a MLB game on TV. I made my SO's ears ring with the shout of WHAT did they say his name was??? I don't know why, but I just can't get over that. Quantrill!

[annathepiper]

I have indeed read that book--and yeah, I read that name as "made up". But more in the context of "made up by the character" than "made up by the author", since the guy did seem like the type who would make up such a silly-sounding name. :)

Though "Quantrill" by itself isn't silly, just odd--and yeah, I'd boggle, too, if I'd run into that name in so totally unrelated a context. :)