Jessica's Blog

Petrodor

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:35:49 +1000

Joel Shepherd

Got this a couple of days ago and wow. I have to say, yet another aussie fantasy book that I can add to my awesomeness list. I know their are a couple of series I realy love from brittish and american authors, but seriously, Australian Fantasy writers have their own spiecial flare. I am so glad I am Australian. (Isn't it funny? Books make me more patriotic than gold medals.)

WOW this book is good. I don't think I could compare it to Trudi Canavan, just because it is so amazingly different, but I think I could safely say I liked it better than Kylie Chan books, it has many of the same elements (A romance, something that Sasha was missing) and better writing. Don't get me wrong though, Kylie Chan still rocks my romance world. He he... gods.

Petrador has the amazing detail that I loved Sasha for, not the iritatingly detailed descriptions of Allison Croggon (they are good, but seriously I skip most of it) but the beautiful tactical believable descriptions of battles and fights that bring the action alive. It has the added bonus that Sasha loses some of her Mary Sue qualities, adding sexual humor, insinuation, a fair deal of swearing (She particularly likes to use Cock and Fuck) and her angry, bitchy arrogance to her previously bland personality. It was always their, it just didn't get enough screen time. Their is also another weakness that I liked the use of. Trust.

Ahh Joel Shepherd. I admire you. When you can write a serious, philisophical debate, with one person seriously ingured, humiliated and at the other persons mercy, battle is raging around them and still center the whole thing around cheese, you have won my heart. When you can use a sex scene to reveal a major plot point without making the thing seem forced, you have shown rather ingenoius ways of giving the thing a purpous (For reference, his sex scene description surparces Kylie Chans in detail by rather a lot. It might even come close to his battle descriptions, yet it's not pornographic at all, I don't feel embaresed reading it, which I think deserves extra kudos. It also involves a LOT of talking (as I said, plot points) which is probably the reason it works.)

It is a realy good read. Better than Sasha, and you can proabably get away with reading Petrodor without the first book, although I realy did enjoy Sasha, and some of the stuff about Serrin the meaning of certain Sallshen words and the interrelation of Nazi Keth, Verathain and Goren Yai might be lost on you. Yeah. read them. If you can't read Sasha at least give Petrodor a try. If you can't read Petrodor, well Page 421 is a good starting point if you want to get to the cheese bit. But then again, you won't get the start of the chapter... maybe 402? I don't know. Just read the whole book. It's realy good.

CHEESE!

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Culture QotW: It's Just Nice to Be Acknowledged

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:55:12 +1000

Do you ever read the "Acknowledgments" at the beginning or end of a book? Why or why not? Bonus points: What book contains your favorite acknowledgments?
Submitted by Strive2Be.

It depends. I always read the acknoledgements at the begginign of trudi canavan books, and I've read the locke lamora ones too. I also realy like the harry potter ones, although I suppose they are more dedicated to rather than acknoldgements. Mostly thought I don't bother, because realy they have not real relevance to the book, and none at all to my life.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: The Essential Guide to Fantasy Travel

Diana Wynne Jones

My favourite acnoledgements come form the tough guide.

"For Mum and Dad for having me
For Jeannie (or jack or debrah or donnie or...) for putting up with me so supportivly
and for my nine children for not interupting me
and for my publisher for not discouraging me
and for my writers circle fot listening to me
and for Barbie and Greta and Albertt Einstien and Aunty May
and so on.
Ignore this, even if you are wondering if Alber Einstien is in fact Albert Einstien or in fact the dog."

It is advice I usualy put to good use,

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I shall set the Bad Wolf on you

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:50:28 +1000

AVADA KADAVRA! CRUCIO! Accio Meat sauce (only a little while till full moon) Impedimenta! ummm... Pretificus Totalas! Expeliarums! GET HIM PEEVES! Bat Boggey hex, errr... CRUCIO! AVADA KADAVRA! Oh I know... Imperio!
Ok mister evil *$^%ing &^#@*& ^%*(&#%$&*(&%%& producer, what you are going to do Is go over to your press dude and web producer. The press dude will tell the world that they are moving the release date back to the stupid aussie-racist date it was at originaly and tell him he is under no circumstances to say the word Love.

Now go to the web dude and make him change the release date back on the webpage, oh and he can put up a banner that says "WB are POO POO HEADS" while he's at it. Yes I'm serious... darn curse wearing off...

Imperio! Thats better. Where were we? Ok well you do this while I modify these peoples memories, and then we will talk some more.

Done? Ok, now I want you to go to this website and sign the petition. Oh and make sure to include your full name and adress and your indetifying safe words...oh you know so people can tell if its someone impersinating you? Like Molly Wobbles? No... Don't have one?" I'll be needing a strand off your hair then.

Why am I doing this? BECAUSE EVERYONE FREAKING HATES YOU!!!!!! Therefor no-one actualy cares if I break a few wizarding laws to fix this! Arg. ARG its freaking 11 freaking months!

FOR GOD SAKE! You have released the trailer! It has the relese date writen on it! If you had just made the desision to release it later earlier on nobody would have gived a damn. But now...

Well my faith in the cinema industry, never realy that strong has now been shattered completely. I feel realy sorry for all the people who have been working on this movie trying to get it ready for a novemeber release. I feel realy realy sorry for all the children and adults all over the world that have been waiting for the thing to be realeased only to be shattered. Heck I was planning to see this for my birthday. No hope now. You know, I even feel sorry for the programer who made the release date banner for mugglenet. How disheartening would it have been to sit down at a computer somewhere and change the thing from 90 days to 334? Because thats how long we have to wait now. 334 days.

I want to believe that something will happen that will make you backtrack. I want to believe that if I boycotted every WB film then it would make a difference. But it wouldn't. So I have taken things into my own hands.

Well I'll be going now. Oh and I'd reinforce those doors if I was you. Theres a horde of angry fans outside and I think...

..yep they have a cave troll.

Have fun!

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Artness

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:17:23 +1000

Angles

Whoot I discovered a program called ArtRage studio. It is possibly the best painty program I have ever seen. It makes it practicly impossible to make something ugly, and has given some people at uni rather inaccurate ideas that I am actualy artisticly talented... Ok so here are a few of the things I have made...

Wide Eyed (2)

And the self portrait...

Clown1

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Tardis Travel

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:30:34 +1000

I was just looking for stuff I could put in my assignment from my science book (absolutly nothing thank you) and came across an entry in the index, TARDIS pg 134.
So I imediatly turn to page 134 and read the following (not direct quote).
It is good to provide a portal to science in the classroom. This could be achieved by building a blue telephone box, a character in a popular british tv show.
The 'TARDIS' should be built by you and used in the classroom to travel time and space. You can use this to show children historical events, and to take them to other planets.
(note she actualy doesnt tell you what tv series its from.)
....
So like, your saying I should build a time machine....
Go figure.

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The difficulty with Ven Diagrams

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:23:18 +1000

In learning today we had to make ven diagrams, you know the things with two overlapping circles, you put things with two different qualities in each, and anything that has both qualities in the middle? Yeah those stupid things.

Someone in our group came up with the idea of catagorising thigs into Alive and Not alive, and putting things that were not alive but had picutes of alive things on them in the middle. I couldn't be bothered arguing so I started cutting out stuff while one of the guys stuch stuff down. I tried to be realy tricky, cutting out collections of objects that looked like people, a dvd box set called Harrys amazing abs or something like that, and an picture from the cover of guitar hero.

Anyway eventually he pronounces the diagram done, and I look over to the alive section, which has pictures of men women and babies, and right in the middle is this huge picture of the torchwood team.

Torchwood_main

"Ahh, guys?"
"I think we might need to revise our deffinition of alive."
....
"Damn it! Doesn't anyone watch Doctor Who around here!"

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Introducing, "Are you Crazy like Gaius?"

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:21:10 +1000

We've all seen the show are you smarter than a 5th grader, but you may not be aware of the new spin off. It's called "Are you crazy like Gaius Baltar" in this show contestents battle it out with Battlestar Galactica's Ex President, Genius, cause of humanities downfall and resident kook Gaius Baltar. Psychologists will be in attendance, and willers of the show will recieve an all expences paid trip to a psyc ward.

In order to qualify for the grad prize, players will have to prove their insanity against the following tests:

The MRI, which fearlessly adresses fears that participants have alien chips implanted in their brain, the guilt trip where photos of the victims of participants are presented for reveiw. Double talk is an ever popular segment where particpants hold conversations with friends, real and imaginary, both at the same time. All of these have of cource been constatnts in Gaius's life, but of cource he has recently gone above and beyond normal insanity, leading us to create the show.

The begining of "The one god cult" was simple enough, a dozen insane women, one sick boy, a locked corridor and inscence, throw in a Baltar shrine and have him proform a miricle. So his insanity increases, he can heal the sick, he is the voice of god. And then comes the ultimate...

He's had imaginary girlfriends
He's had imaginary girlfriends with imaginary Gaius's
He's had imaginary girlfriends threaten him, lock him in cells, try to get him executed, stop talking to him, tell him he's insane, and generaly torture him.
And now, shes disapeared, to be replaced by...

An inaginary Gaius. Seriously. How self centered can you get?

Battlestar rocks!

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Arms and Legs and Teeth and Spikes, OH MY!

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:41:32 +1000

Spore_2008-06-17_23-08-03

Yep, thats right, I have my hands on the spore creature creator. I so didn't download it when it leaked... *caugh* lies *caugh* yes. I'ts great fun, and its surprising the range of creatures you can make with such a limited range of parts, espiecialy once you work out how to resize stuff (try the mouse wheel) its great fun and I so want the full version of the editor. And the game of cource, but realy, the editor will do me just fine for now. Now watch the videos. Oh and if you want to get the editor just go to the spore website. www.spore.com. for some reason vox wont let me link properly :-( anyway, if you get the creator, be sure to show your creatures!

Spore_2008-06-17_22-22-43

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Kids TV

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:30:24 +1000

I was flicking around this morning and switched onto ABC. Being the morning, they of course have kids tv shows on. But this one? This show expresses exactly what I have always thought it must be like to be on drugs. I'm still watching it, and the psycho colours, crazy music and people laughing have yet to convince me otherwise. I think the shows called "Boohbah" or something similar. It seems to be about fat little creatures who like in crystals in a sphere of light and fly around the world jumping on children’s heads and making them laugh. There is lots of colours and they are always moving. Its very pretty.

What most freaked me out was when the creatures started swinging there arms and there arms made noises. At this point Nagari came and started barking at them, and then ran and hid. I guess I'm not the only one freaked out by a show that must have been created on a drug high. Oh and did I mention that the narrator sounds exactly how I envisage Marvin from hitchhikers? So sarcastic and depressed and monotonal.

In the time it took me to write this, there have been four more instances of rainbow shiny things I cannot identify, lots more kids laughing, people running around with flippers on, and what must surely be a violation of water restrictions. Plus Marvin keeps talking, and people keep laughing. It's great. Oh, now they are making music with there feet, and possibly by farting. OMG this show gets more and more freakish. now there’s rainbow waves and they can fly! Also, they seem to be able to retract their heads into their necks... freakish.

Hmm, the wikipedia article has no mention of drug induced psychosis. Interesting. If you are still interested in this crazy tv show click here for the website. Seriously click on random stuff. It's crazy, or if you are just interested it the crazy dances and head retraction, click on the weird coloured things with red eyes. Yes, they scare me too.

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Plagiarism!

nobody@vox.com(Jessica) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:46:06 +1000

Ok, so I'm re-reading the gift in anticipation of The singing and I get up to Rachida where after meeting the Lady Ardina Cadvan sings the following...

"Her waking soul an orison

Of newborn joy, she fleetly ran

through twilit vales on lirion

Her voice in wonder echoing

And from the branches blossom sprang

In iron groves of leafmeal wan

And spring herself woke up and sang the gentle summer beckoning"

There are a few more verses but I can't be bothered typing it out. Loveley isn't it? Well it bugged me because all of a sudden I realised that it is completely plagerised. I give you an excerpt from the Lay of Beren and Luthien

"He heard there oft the flying sound

Of feet as light as linden-leaves,

Or music welling underground,

In hidden hollows quavering.

Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,

And one by one with sighing sound

Whispering fell the beachen leaves

In wintry woodland wavering."

You see the similarities? It's just the format and the topic the same? NO! While the format is taken from LOTR, the words are pretty much identical to The Lay of Beren and Luthien in tHoM seriously, its like she cut the damn thing up and rearranged the sentences. And then I realise. Arkan and Ardina are Beren and Luthien. I know that all high fantasy is based somewhat in Ttolkien and hers more than most, but this is way too close for comfort, its like Paloini level copying!

Evidence:

Luthien is born of a goddess and named after a star - Ardina is born from the moon
Ardina and Luthien both are immortals who fall in love with a mortal
They are both said to have left the word, but there are rumours they still walk the earth
They are both part of hidden woodland realms, protected by a Queen who has put a barrier around it
They are both considered to be the most beautiful women who ever lived
Both stories have Rings (Beren’s ring and Mearad’s ring) and pipes (Darion and Mearad)
In both cases the pipes are used for songs of loss
They both destroy the evil of the time or at least help to do so
They both change the season from winter to spring
When threatened they both turn into wolves

Ok, so some of them MAY be coincidental, but come on! There were a couple of others that have slipped my mind, I’ll add them later if I remember, but really.

Ok, enough obsessing. See you later.

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