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Jordan v. Eddings
2001-10-05 12:46:38
Lee Thompson had less patience for Robert Jordan than I did. (I'm compelled to finish books and series, even if I don't like them very much. I find myself by turns amazed that I kept reading that damned series as long as I did, and amazed that I didn't finish despite the bone-jarring pain of it.)
By the way, have Journals become the new anti-forum? Works for me.
LeeT recommends Eddings for character development. Having just skimmed through Castle of Wizardry for fun last night, I'll offer a cautious agreement with that recommendation. The Eddings formula isn't really about character DEVELOPMENT per se, but about well-written and intelligent characters overall. It works best in the Belgariad/Malloreon sets, especially since the characters serve the story rather than vice versa. The Elenium/Tamuli plays much faster and looser with plot continuity but has insanely "fun" characters; you love watching them all interact even though the second series has "interchangeable dialog parties." (By the middle of the Tamuli you start noticing that NO character is held to their original characterization, and all the witty by-play could be spoken by any random selection of first- and second-rank characters. Ugh.)
Read Eddings for fun, but not if you're prone to picking nits over continuity and characterization. I read random Eddings novels when I'm bored, and so far it hasn't turned my brain to mush. -
Things that shouldn't thrill me as much as they do
2001-10-05 12:31:21
Hsien's journal entry was also partly devoted to kicking Robert Jordan's ass. Maybe it's silly, but I'm getting a big kick out of the whup-on-RJ journal theme.
I'm here at the office and so far there are no emails or voicemails reporting any sort of problem at all. What a nice morning this is, and certainly a helluva lot better than yesterday morning... pages, voicemails, emails, AMV.org offline, cramp in my right calf... Basically any quiet morning beats the living hell out of yesterday.
No, I didn't get any work done on my Iria project. Sorry. I did put all of the short clips I've pulled into the Premiere project file Wednesday evening. My next move is to slice-n-dice the longer sequences I pulled into seperate folders... I'm going to cut each and every shot out of things like the hanging firefight and the sequence where Iria goes up the tower to visit Puntabai. (Lots of good gunfire, explosions and other mayhem there.)
Why yes, I AM doing an action video. How perceptive of you. I figured it would be the next natural step in my "evolution" as a creator. (That would be, the step after doing the lame, low-key short video. *g*) -
Asskicking fantasy writers
2001-10-03 16:02:40
Reading EK's journal entry prompted me to spout forth thusly:
<rant>
Robert Jordan's ass needs kicking. I've never been exposed to such a useless set of novels in my life. My friends insisted, back when the 5th book in that stupid series had just come out, that I absolutely HAD to read the Wheel of Time series. So I tried.
I plowed through the first, waded through the second, endured the third, suffered the fourth, and halfway through the fifth I just gave it all up when I realized that the only two characters I cared about had been effectively written out of the story two or three novels previously. The rest were a bunch of whiney, pathetic backstabbing twits with almost no redeeming value whatsoever. I found myself actively rooting for the Bad Guys to come in and beat the living crap out of every single remaining main character.
Maybe the books get better from there. Too bad. I've got better things to do with my time.</rant>
If you happen to be a fan... good for you. Different strokes, and all that. You probably don't like most of the stuff I like, and that's okay. That's why they call it a free country. -
Progress report and a great quote
2001-10-03 13:01:56
YEAH! I finally finished pre-processing Iria source material for the bits I want to use! Now I can start... working... in... Premiere.
Um, why am I so happy, again?
Oh yes, the quote. Slashdot has a fun discussion going about the SciFi picking up two more years of Farscape, and one of the many folks actively praising the show brought up this gem:
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Re:Why I like it. (Score:3, Funny)
by Rogerborg on Wed 03 Oct 04:46AM (#2382584)
(User #306625 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
"4. Their technical voodoo bullshit sounds reasonable"
Joyously so. "Spare me the technobabble, gadget girl, let's just get on with it." I nearly wet myself.
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Bwahahaha! -
To those who see these presents, greetings
2001-10-02 13:12:19
Oh yeah, I should mention that my good friend Mari bought me some trinkets the other day: An honest-to-goodness Grey Duck, and two of the three sets of "Super D" Tenchi character figures from Cartoon Network/Toonami.
I'm going to have to do something about the lip (beak? bill?) ring on that rubber duckie, but it's still damned cool. If you're curious, check out http://www.rubbaducks.com.
JOURNAL: GreyDuck (Karel Kerezman)
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