I just finished watching Primeval.

I liked Series 1, LOVED Series 2 and ( Series 3... )

agh this is terrible.

I wanted to cheer myself up from a slightly mild bout of post-holiday lonliness sadness by playing my favorite song.

Listening to it, I got invigorated with flights of fancy and imagination.

I heard a ring go off on my cellphone, and rushing off to check on it, I don't know whether it was because I was hyper or distracted-

I fell down and my foot cracked and now it's sprained.

FFFFFFFfffu

I made it through the first audiobook and, lacking anything else easily accessible at the time, started on the second of the trilogy. The second book introduces a character that I quite like, and it adds some much needed spookiness to the whole affair (tomb-robbing, whee!), but it drags even more than the first did. I'm now of the opinion that as talented as Stroud is from one setence to the next (and he is talented), he cannot refrain from indulgences at all and hasn't yet met a backspace button he'd call friend. Or an editor. Every description, every pointless filler scene, is too precious to cut.

I'm also running into another problem, which I shall attempt to describe in the most non-spoilery way possible. The first book has two main characters--let's call them A) Young Draco Malfoy, and B) Lucifer the Much Put-Upon. Lucifer the Much Put-Upon is the far more interesting of the two, but at least in book 1 Young Draco Malfoy has some redeeming value as a lead. He's brave, and he's useful, and he's idealistic, and he's not entirely without moral fiber.

By book 2, of course, all that is down the drain, and Young Draco Malfoy has morphed into Draco Malfoy Alone. At this point it's like reading a book where the protagonist isn't on of the Hogwarts Trio, it's Draco. Canon Draco, the sniveling and despicable character of book 5. Not even the mildly sympathetic Movie 6 Draco, that's how bad it is. I like the demon character quite a bit, but I spend half the book wishing that the character I'm reading about would A) join a cloister and discover human decency, B) join the army and discovery even a mild sense of comradeship, honor, or loyalty if that's still possible for him, or C) jump into the Thames River and die.

Actually, Canon Draco is still better than Nathaniel.

Thankfully this book is saved by having 1/3 of it be about Disaffected Rebel Leader Hermione Granger. She and the demon make the book bearable. I'm fairly sure that the protagonist, Draco Malfoy Alone, is written to be grossly irritating, though with a strain of sympathy (a strain utterly lost on me--I'd like to kick him in the balls even if he is just 14), and that we are supposed to sympathize with Lucifer and Hermione. Which I do. But that doesn't make reading about Draco any more pleasant. It actually makes it worse.

Is he supposed to be redeemed by the end, or will he ultimately be the villain? I don't know. I've got two disks left of Book 2 and I'm seriously considering ignoring the third book entirely.

Unless someone on my flist can convince me it's worth it? Like promising me the entire book is about the djinni and Malfoy magically dies or something? That'd be nice.

Title: Coffee
Fandom: Alice/Hatter
Notes: Fanart inspired by the awesome AU fic Foam by alittleoddish, in which "David" is a barista in a coffee shop.




( She looked at him oddly, her eyes still sparkling slightly and her expression more open than he had ever seen it. 'You have a nice hat', she said. )

I had to remotely activate Windows 7 for the second time. I hated doing so before and I hated it this time. For some reason the online activation doesn't work, so I have to call in.

The automated service seems incapable of understanding the word "continue" despite my repeating it over 14 times, at different volumes, with different levels of emphasis, and different pitch and tone. All while being repeated in a California-accented American Standard English, which is, might I point out, just two states south of the same fucking accent that Bill Fucking Gates speaks.

I am simultaneously irritated and mollified that Bill Gates probably doesn't get recognized by the automated system either. Not that he has to.

After the untold attempt for me to get the computer person to understand the syllables "con-tin-ue", the system automatically transferred me to an agent who gave me the activation code in less than 1/6th the time I spent arguing with the automated system.

My computer assistance person was an Indian accented woman named Audrey. I'm pretty sure it was outsourced, since only someone actually born in a Western country would actually name their daughter something dowdy like Audrey anyway, and a first-generation North American or UK person would have a domestic accent. I wish she'd said her real name, or similar sounding code-name; I despise the culture sham and I'd rather talk to someone as themselves rather than as what they think makes me, the white English-speaking American on the other end of the line, more comfortable. In fact it makes me UNCOMFORTABLE.

Ah well. Maybe her name really was Audrey. Probably not though. I'd have believed Karen or Jennifer or something--Audrey sounds like someone went down an outdated list and picked out something at random.

For all the animation nerds on my list:

The Princess Tutu/Anastasia movie trailer, by neko_no_hanashi.

It's an absolutely perfect trailer vid melding the audio for Anastasia to the imagery of Princess Tutu. It's everything that I love about AMVs and crossover vids, and really nicely edited to boot.



In other news, I plan to watch Sherlock Holmes this afternoon! And then tonight, it's DOCTOR WHO REGENERATION ANGST.

If I can scrounge up the cash, I'm totally buying "The Art of The Princess and the Frog" book.

for myself.

for Christmas.

LAWL *awesomeface*

But they probably don't sell it at my barnes and nobles at all, because that is just how things tend to work out.
But it is the season for hope, and I must hope they do.

*HOPEHOPEHOPE*

EDIT:
Nevermind, they didn't have it.
SO I ORDERED THAT BYITCH 8DDD

Wheeee! Avatar was fun. Highly predictable (see subject line), but entertaining, no doubt. My primary reactions:

1. OW OW OWWWW MY EYEBALLS HURT. (Thanks for 20 minutes of fun and 2 hours and 25 minutes of torture.) I hope to god every movie of the future is not 3D, because it's too stressful on your eyes.

2. A lot of the stuff anyone said about this being a race fantasy is true, if you let that bother you while you're actually in the movie, which I was privileged enough not to do, and there were definite elements that impressed me alongside the ones that flagged my attention.

3. The planet was SO WICKED COOL.

4. BIRD-DRAGONS!

5. I was very impressed by the quality of the GCI. The story was okay, but the graphics were a dream.

6. It kept momentum through the whole thing, and had great actors doing competent work.

7. Unobtanium should be renamed PainInAsserium.

8. The details about the ecology and the Naavi were very interesting, very cool. I'd like to see more of their world and less of the humans.

9. On the pass/fail feminism grade, it gets a pass. I'm tolerably pleased! A moderate spread of female characters, each portrayed with competency and agency and a cupful of bad ass.

Title: Not quite right
Fandom: Alice/Hatter
Rating: Very G
Notes: What should have happened after the fabulous ending.



( Ah, much better! )

Epic Rock Ballad Song Mix for Desert 4-Wheeling on Day After Christmas (the kind you sing to at top volume)

"All These Things I've Done" the Killers
"Somebody to Love" Queen
"Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance
"Wayward Son" by Kansas
"Caroline" by Neil Diamond
"Under Pressure" by David Bowie