Messages

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General Chat / Re: Books

« on: March 06, 2020, 08:20:23 PM »

My bad, July 14. But yes, Peace Talks is out this summer! It spurred my re-read.

I read Side Jobs FOREVER ago, like after Changes came out, and I was planning to read it again soon. I did read the Christmas story, too, but I didn't know of any others. I'll round those up probably after I finish reading the series again.

I read the first 3 of the Red Rising series. Liked them well enough, didn't care to keep going on to the Iron Gold trilogy or the comics. Uprooted is one of those books I keep seeing but never manage to read so I guess I'll add that one to the list. Never heard of The Raven Cycle but I'm down for anything with ravens in the name. Cool.

Book clubs are for people who can stand socializing. Mostly I just have to find something on the web that catches my eye, or the recommendation from an author I already like, or Amazon's algorithm, to find the next thing. It's terrible, I know.

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General Chat / Re: Books

« on: March 05, 2020, 11:56:39 PM »

Books bear that out, super.

--

I've continued reading a book every couple of days, so now I'm up to #13. They definitely get progressively more complex, and Harry's story fills itself out as one big long continuous narrative with episodic elements (as opposed to a bunch of episodes loosely connected by a central character). Case in point is Harry's relationship to Susan and where that leads. That one ties together the original vampires, the new vampires, Susan, Susan and Harry's relationship, the Swords, the White/Black/Grey Councils, the Faerie, the Winter Knight, etc., into ONE SINGLE STORYLINE. Which basically just did not happen in any of the previous books. Also, that one had the most obnoxious ending of any book yet, what with Harry mysteriously DYING on the last page and that thing not getting resolved until the start of the next book (which is actually not resolved, because that's what the whole book is actually about).

So I'm nearing the end of the re-read because there's only #13, #14, and #15 of the series available. #16 is the one that comes out in June. I'm going to have to start figuring what else I'm going to read. I've put in a hold for N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy because I haven't read it yet but was really impressed by the Broken Earth trilogy (plus she's coming to SF with a new book). My goal is to read 100 books this year and I'm more or less on pace to do that now, but I know I'm going to need to pick up the speed a bit in order to build the buffer I'll undoubtedly use.

How do people even find new books anymore?

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General Chat / Re: Books

« on: February 06, 2020, 12:10:10 AM »

Haven't gone on to reading Death Masks (Dresden Files #5) yet because it's one of those ones my library doesn't have an ebook copy of so I either have to buy it ($10) or trudge down to the library for a phy-si-cal copy, neither of which I feel like doing.

Instead, I finished Impossible Times #2 and started reading The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2, Scalzi).

Limited Wish was okay. I enjoyed it well enough but it didn't end up turning into a book I felt like I had to come back and read the next bit of. I guess I just find the story too unrelatable -- I have no terminal illness (or potentially terminal), I'm not a subject-matter genius and definitely not for mathematics, I'm not from the UK, I'm not male, I'm not attracted to women, I've never had a literal mortal enemy, and I've definitely never been involved in time travel (that I remember) -- and that was enough to push it to the outside bounds of entertainment. I'll undoubtedly read another if it came out, and probably something else he writes, but it will remain firmly in the Kindle Unlimited closet.

The Scalzi book is a Scalzi book. I have fuzzy memories of the previous book and story set so I'm kind of starting from scratch, but I am being fed the important bits so that's good. The snarky science fiction philosophy is exactly what I expect it to be. I'm only about a chapter or two in so there's plenty of room, but I expect I'll like it much like I like the rest of Scalzi's stuff.

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General Chat / Re: Books

« on: January 23, 2020, 07:03:02 PM »

Since Peace Talks got a release date (July 14, 2020 - the 20th anniversary of Dresden Files' debut), I've joined a re-reading group. I'm more or less reading at my own pace but the timing also varies based on how annoyed I am at having to pay $10 for an eBook when my library doesn't have a copy. Past Ashley was a jerk and donated the hard copies figuring Future Ashley could just buy them again if she wanted to read them, forgetting that she reads things 10 at a time and dropping $100 on paperback books is never fun.

Anyway, I'm reading Summer Knight now (#4) and a few things have stood out to me.

• I forgot that basically none of the pivotal characters in the later books show up in the first 4.
• God that white knight chivalry thing is obnoxious.
• References to 90s tech (and assumptions thereof) amuses me.
• I really enjoy how these books build upon one another. While they're self-contained, each new book really does add something more and something new and something which changes your understanding of what you already thought you knew.

I'm currently on pace to finish the re-read ahead of schedule but that's cool. I'm also reading other books in between. Turns out when I take lunch breaks and read, I polish off books pretty fast.

--

Other book I am concurrently reading is Impossible Times #2, Limited Wish, through Kindle Unlimited. I specify the source because Kindle Unlimited is where I go to find the shelf remainders. When I used to go to the library a lot as a kid, I exhausted their main SF/F section and had to start digging the back collection for other things. The things no one really read, that hadn't been checked out in years. In modern parlance, Kindle Unlimited is that - it just also includes brand new stuff by midlist authors. Mark Lawrence wrote The Broken Empire series. I don't think I ever read it, but I think I got the first book in this particular series off of the Kindle First newsletter that lets me choose 1 book a month of a small selection that I get to read for free.

Anyway, I definitely consider this a midlist title. It's interesting but it lacks the kind of depth that pulls a story up from the "serviceable entertainment" category. Not that I mind - I read a lot of stuff, especially SF/F, that fits that category.

Core concept is it's the 80s in England and there's a kid who has leukemia that is met by his future self and given the knowledge that the work he will do is pivotal in creating the future where he survives this rare cancer. Kid, being a kid, needs his D&D friends to help him navigate the weirdness and Get Stuff Done.

I like it enough that I'm reading it. It won't go down as a favorite for me, at least not yet. Time travel in semi-modern England is, weirdly, a thoroughly explored topic and I'm not seeing too much here that really sets this approach apart. But I do like how it tackles the social side of things, the realism against the surreal, how a precocious pre-genius kid navigates this stuff happening to him -- the cancer, the time travel, the implications that time travel has on his relationships.

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General Chat / Re: Books

« on: December 23, 2019, 07:11:31 PM »

Three Body Problem- A mix of Chinese cultural history with a dash of extremely hard scifi. Pretty good even if I had to google some of the math concepts involved.

This was a very interesting book, pretty high on the list of "I guess I liked it but I couldn't exactly tell you why." It had the same generally floaty psychological feel as 1Q84, I think because in both cases I was as lost culturally as I was philosophically in the exploration of what the hell was going on.

--

Since Peace Talks officially has a release date now, the re-reading has begun. There's a Facebook group that was started by someone in my Wayward Backers group (a sub-group from Name of the Wind, Worldbuilders fundraiser, and Kickstarters) that's dedicated to this, and discussion of such. It just so happens that if you start now (well, on December 17, but finishing #1 by December 30) you'll re-read Skin Game down to the day of Peace Talks release.

Group for people who have read the books and would enjoy spoiler-y conversation covering the whole series: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2504519489769768/
Group for everyone else: https://www.facebook.com/groups/800762033703721/

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General Chat / Re: Good Morning 2019- Glow Up Edition

« on: December 23, 2019, 07:06:45 PM »

That China trip sounded fun. And hey, you got to live the bachelor(ess) lifestyle for a bit of time again, which is always interesting.

My standards have dropped dramatically. A six-hour train ride in coach was so nice because I got to listen to music and nap and talk to adults with no interruptions!

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General Chat / Re: Good Morning 2019- Glow Up Edition

« on: December 06, 2019, 06:18:49 PM »

Party planning is fun. I prefer the planning & execution to the actual having of the party. See: my senior year of high school, end of year, drama club party; I was president, I was getting a drama society award, we were having a party, and even during the party I was arranging the chips and drinks and making sure the A/V was working rather than, like, eating or drinking or watching the movies.

--

I went to China and returned again! I even brought my Adderall and no one asked about it. I have yet to talk to my pdoc about changing the prescription, but I think I can still manage to run with what I'm given. Every 30 days I get 9 pills. If I take 4 every week day, I'd need 80 pills. So the only real change is that I'll be requesting a refill every 4-5 weeks instead of every 6. But the prescription allows for every 4 weeks. So... non-crisis, for now!

I got to feed a panda in China. I walked up so many goddamn stairs I plan to use the elevators or escalators only for the rest of 2019. I ate SO MUCH FOOD because they gave us banquet meals for lunch and dinner every day. I got dehydrated and learned what it's like to try vomiting in a traditional Chinese toilet (spoiler: don't do it). I spent 16 hours in United economy seating and neither died nor caused anyone else to die. I got told I had the highest spicy tolerance of anyone else in my group - Sichuan spice murdered me, but everything else was a pleasant burn. As someone who doesn't Do Spicy at home, this was amusing as hell.

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General Chat / Re: Good Morning 2019- Glow Up Edition

« on: November 14, 2019, 07:04:49 PM »

I leave for China on Saturday and I have a hard time really believing this. But I'm also super stressed because one third of my department left last week (which was 1 person) and that plus my impending departure equals GODDAMNIT IT'S ALMOST 2020 ALREADY HOW IS THIS GETTING DONE.

My birthday was yesterday and I realized, maybe for the first time, I actually do like celebrating my birthday but I just never had the confidence in myself to ask for that recognition from others. (For the record, my birthday was just fine. But I kind of want to CELEBRATE it instead of just having a pleasant day about it.)

I also doubled my daily dosage of Adderall as an experiment. It's still a small dose on the grander scale of dosages, but it's a big enough leap that I'll have to talk to my prescribing doctor about changing the Rx. I do fine by it because I only take it Monday through Friday so my prescription already lasts longer than the prescription period, but if I were to do this dosage Monday through Friday it wouldn't last. I don't like my pdoc and avoid talking to him at all costs, but I also don't want to switch because this one's at least pretty hands off. I just dread having to have an appointment.

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General Chat / Re: Books

« on: November 13, 2019, 12:18:37 AM »

Finished the Lightbringer series a week or two ago (time is fluid). It was... weird? Not bad. Not great, either. It was dense and though I read it as an ebook I can imagine the physical copy is pretty large - a lot happened over a lot of pages. I was mostly satisfied with the resolution but I did feel like it made a few too many concessions to epic fantasy cliches.  Stakes were huge and non-existent at the same time and no balance was struck. It felt like a very different book from the previous four, kind of like another author stepped in with some crib notes about characterization and world building while having skimmed the earlier books in the series. (That said, the transition between the previous books was moderately jarring too so this isn't expressly a problem for book 5.)

Overall, eh? I'll appreciate the series for taking on some character types that get ignored -- namely the older ones, the ones who don't have or lose their world dominating powers magical or otherwise, women who exist for more than to serve male plot lines even if they still exist to be sexual objects in one way or another, the value of global interpretations of magic -- and watching the practical applications of magic, but I don't think this will be a series I revisit in the future.

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Discussion / Re: Politics 2019- Impeach the daughter-fu-

« on: November 07, 2019, 01:27:24 AM »

memes for d a y s.

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Discussion / Re: Politics 2019- Impeach the daughter-fu-

« on: November 05, 2019, 08:11:36 PM »

I wrote a bunch of stuff about sociolinguistics and generational historical introspection but I'm tired of defending myself so you get this instead:

We've reached "ok boomer" because we have tried conversation and empathy and personalization, and been met with a variegated "you don't know what you're talking about so I'll talk louder." (I don't think that's a controversial take since that's exactly how she wraps up her Twitter thread anyway.)

You can Not All Boomers all you want but as with Not All Men or any other "hey but -" response to a general call it's preeeeeeeetty likely to come across as apologism and get appropriately canned.

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Discussion / Re: Politics 2019- Impeach the daughter-fu-

« on: October 21, 2019, 11:52:09 PM »

So are the comments on that site always so ... antagonistic?

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General Chat / Re: Good Morning 2019- Glow Up Edition

« on: October 07, 2019, 08:06:40 PM »

I'm going to China for 9 days in November, for work but also since my work is in travel it's a 'vacation.' I'm more apprehensive about this trip than any of the others I've taken and it has nothing to do with language barriers and everything to do with cultural ones. But hey, I get to see pandas! And Zhangjiajie! And a condiment factory!

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General Chat / Re: What's for dinner, DL?

« on: July 23, 2019, 12:48:54 AM »

This seemed relevant to slide in here: Berkeley first city in California to ban natural gas in new buildings

So be grateful for your ability to use gas ranges, I guess. They're so cool even Berkeley banned them.

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Discussion / Re: An Aesthetic Discussion Spanning 17 Years - Andrew vs Pokemon - DAILY UPDATES!

« on: July 23, 2019, 12:31:48 AM »

I like Finneon as a design, but I don't think of it as a Pokemon. It's one of the few I can think of off the top of my head where the shiny version actually looks like a decent color scheme and not just subjected to some washed-out or yellow-ified filter.



I mean, yeah, it's still yellow-ified, but at least it looks coherent.

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General Chat / Re: Movies

« on: July 08, 2019, 06:58:29 PM »

I liked Spider-man. Tom Holland is my perfect Spider-man. Jake Gyllenhaal played his role perfectly. The mindfucks were mindfucky in a way where you knew it was happening but you knew as much as the PoV character you experienced it with, which was great (though maybe not if you get carsick). The ending, mid-credits, and post-credits scenes were succinct HEY LOOK WE HAVE MORE MOVIES, START WONDERING WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT and included the only cameo that was 100% required for this series to continue.

But Tom Holland is what sold it. He IS the next Iron Man because, like RDJ, I just can't imagine another actor playing his character (and this with several other attempts having already been made!).

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General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2019?

« on: July 02, 2019, 10:36:10 PM »

Super Mario Odyssey, because I can. Also known as the game that makes it painfully obvious I haven't played a game with 360 camera control in literal decades.

My need to 100% games with achievements is warring with my desire to avoid tedium. Well, yeah, I could spend the next hour scouring this level for the last 3 purple coins, orrrrr I could go play something else. I could look it up online but what's the point of that? I like Talkatoo giving you the name of the quest without any further detail because it makes me think the devs spent a little bit of time naming the 500+ achievements since they do turn out to be related to the location or activity required to get them.

Otherwise I'm playing the non-raiding lines of Pokemon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unlimited Unite, because I am a scrub that has gone full casual. Hunting shinies is way more fun than min-maxing even though every time I catch Pokemon I have to decide if they're worth keeping even though 90% of them have no use in battle and I have yet to use my TM scrolls because I'm waiting for the right one and

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Discussion / Re: An Aesthetic Discussion Spanning 17 Years - Andrew vs Pokemon - DAILY UPDATES!

« on: June 04, 2019, 05:35:31 PM »

"Okay, let's start with a nice, cute round head. And give it a spheroid little body. Oh, and add four legs! We like things with four legs. And then I guess since it's a bug we'll have to add in, like, angular eyes? And --"
"HORNS!"
"What?"
"IT NEEDS HORNS! ON ITS TAIL!"
"It has a tail? Well, alright, I guess, it can have a tail too. Oh, I know! Slinky Pops are kind of neat, let's do one of those."
"WITH HORNS."
"Okay, sure. So then because it's a bug we can give it some mandibles, and --"
"MORE HORNS."
"... what? Where? On its head? I guess --"
"NO! ON BALLS ON ITS HEAD."
"... what? Wh -- you know what, nevermind. Sure. Extra pokey things on balls on its head. Why not. We have like 80 more of these things to finish. We'll do better on the next one."

OR WILL THEY

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Discussion / Re: An Aesthetic Discussion Spanning 17 Years - Andrew vs Pokemon - DAILY UPDATES!

« on: June 03, 2019, 11:38:08 PM »

Babymon, edgymon.

Hippopopopopotas looks like a clay pot that someone threw, saw wasn't working very well, and slapped some extra slip of various colors on to make it look cool. Then they abandoned the idea and tried to bury it in the sand. Then a frog found it and got stuck trying to get out of the hole at the top.

Hippodown is like someone made a Digimon of the failed art project (it's those metal bracers that do it). While I get that eyes may become irritated and itchy when exposed to large amounts of sand, this seems like it's maybe overdoing it? Maybe?? I do feel a little sad for him, though, because his attempt to drag himself out of the quicksand is not going so well, even though his body is trying to bail out the extra sand.

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General Chat / Re: TV Shows

« on: June 03, 2019, 08:34:47 PM »

Good Omens is pretty great (I've just finished episode 3 of 6 last night). David Tennant's Bill Nighy impression was distracting for the entirety of the first episode, but it smooths out going onward. I barely remember the book, having read it about 20 years ago, so I won't comment on adaptations. I will, however, commend Gaiman for his TV writing because this thing is ineffably British and also does a great job blocking out big characters and refining them down again along the way. Michael Sheen is my favorite, I just want to wrap Aziraphael up and give him some cocoa and a good book and leave him to it. (Tennant is my favorite in general and he does a great job with what he's got, but Crowley is a very different kind of character.)

The third episode is my favorite so far, by far. The ways the characters change -- character's we've so far known for just barely 2 hours going into this one! -- and get set for what's to come is beautifully done. I can't wait to see what's next (while also fully recognizing the irony in the fact that I don't have to wait, because all the episodes are there, I just am doing so).

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Discussion / Re: An Aesthetic Discussion Spanning 17 Years - Andrew vs Pokemon - DAILY UPDATES!

« on: May 23, 2019, 06:33:54 PM »

The clay pot hippopotamus has traumatized Andy so much he has lost the will to carry on. That or the fact that he picked up Pokemon Go again and is busy hating Magikarp or Ditto or whatever he's stuck on at the moment.

--

I like Lucario a lot without his spikes and pants-legs. But then he also talks in the anime and I am extremely offended by this, yet still not quite so offended as when Pikachu spoke in I Choose You! (the latter mostly because of the words he spoke because if he's going to speak only short phrases in the 20 YEARS he has been a character, did they seriously have to be like that?).

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Discussion / Re: CK's Cartoon Corner

« on: May 06, 2019, 11:25:50 PM »

Seasons are an affectation for Steve Universe. Someone needed to market it for things.

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General Chat / Re: What's for dinner, DL?

« on: May 06, 2019, 10:39:50 PM »

How fascinating.

ETA: This was in response to a spam post, since removed, wherein the person wrote a story about trying a recipe for the first time after buying a house in the French Riveria (which was linked) and oh by the way he was going to propose to his girlfriend.

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Discussion / Re: An Aesthetic Discussion Spanning 17 Years - Andrew vs Pokemon - DAILY UPDATES!

« on: May 06, 2019, 08:22:47 PM »

Munchlax is cute but also super weird in the Ultra Sun & Moon anime. He's small so the animators are like, "Let's have him dog-pile on top of the other Pokemon and humans!" but then he's dense like a motherfucking baby blackhole, like having a 2-foot-tall toddler weighing like an obese adult would not break bones and/or organs.

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Discussion / Re: An Aesthetic Discussion Spanning 17 Years - Andrew vs Pokemon - DAILY UPDATES!

« on: April 25, 2019, 08:11:10 PM »

If people would be less dumb, I wouldn't have to be here tearing things apart, would I. (I don't anyway, but I feel a calling.)

--

Chatot and Spiritomb both feel like cartoons more than any other Pokemon I can think of so far. Maybe it's because of the weird 2D angles that make them look best? And yes, I DO distinguish Pokemon from cartoons thank you very much.

I mean, Chatot's got some serious side eye going on a la . But it also has a lot of highlighting? And a ridiculous ruff/head note thing that is too "this is an animal, only WaCkY" to live outside a cartoon.

And Spiritomb has irregular edges and neon colors and unclear facial features. He's just begging to be a completely non-corporeal mist beast. Apropos of nothing, this is what you get when you image search "ghost rock":