My favourite anime series of all time

WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR ANIMATION STUDIOS TO MAKE MORE FULL METAL PANIC?!?!?!

Can you guess that I've just finished chain watching The Second Raid?  

You know how sequels normally suck?  Well, FMP is the exact opposite.  When I first watched the original FMP series, I thought that it was a pretty solid anime at the time.  It hit the action notes, mecha notes, and high school romcom notes... which is not so easy to do.

And then when Fumoffu came along, I laughed so hard that I nearly laid an egg.

Then Second Raid, in terms of anime quality, character development and story-line, was in a class of it's own.

Three days until the end of nano and I've resigned myself to the fact that I probably won't finish this year.  I am still writing stuff, and I look forward to getting back to Vert Glace in December.  

Nano no-no

Unless some miracle happens, I'm probably not going to finish nano this year.  It's disappointing, because I managed to get there last year and I was so hoping to do it twice in a row - which would be a record for me.

I'm about 20000 words in, and would need to pull a whopping 6000 words a day to finish on time.  With full time work, all these social engagements that I've managed to get suckered into, and the growing-fat-and-lazy-living-by-the-beachness, I don't think I can make it cap'n.

Nevertheless, I will continue to try and write as much as I can.

I don't volunteer as tribute!

I went to watch Hunger Games: Catching Fire with my partner this weekend and...

WTF?

I thought Katniss was suppose to be a heroine, but really, she's a pawn in the revolution?!?! Things would be easier if I actually read the books, or looked up the plot on wiki, but where's the fun in that?

Matthew Reilly's 'The Tournament'

Against my better judgement, I stayed up last night to finish the book.  I knew I had to facilitate a group today... but here I am, I survived.  All is well.

Subtlety is not Matthew Reilly's middle name.  If you like The Avengers movie (and not just for the parade of mancandy, ladies), specifically the simple and effective story line, the pace, the good vs evil stuff, and the goofy foreshadowing, then you're going to like The Tournament.  I loved it.

The only thing that raises an eyebrow for me is the punishment of sexual promiscuity in this book.  Matthew justifies it by linking it with the development of QE1 in the book, but his approach to the subject, given that it's the first book of his that I've read that goes anywhere near sexuality, is bordering on preachy.  I'm also not overly fond of the 'hero saves the day/girl' moments.  I would have hoped that when he chose to tackle this sort of POV, there would be more girl relevant stuff in there (ie.  I've been told that John Marsden occupies the mind of a teenage girl scarily well).  For those that follow Matthew Reilly's work, you'll know what I mean when I say that this book desperately needed a 'Mother'.

I can not stress enough that if a young mind were to read this, it would melt or explode.  Definitely not for anyone under, say, 15 years old.  Actually... see, I don't know about that.  Some of the themes are explicit and gross, but it's written in a way that I think young people can access.  I remember my Grade 8 teacher picking out a monologue for me about a pedophile who was trying to rationalize his actions.  So... I suppose if a young mind were to be exposed to content that it will inevitably be exposed to anyway, I would say that The Tournament is a good way to do it.

Overall?  I'ma give it 8/10.

Thank you Matthew Reilly for another great book.

Half Way Through The Tournament

I don't write book reviews.  I don't know how to review for shit.  But when my favourite author puts out a new book, I want to shout it from the mountain tops.

Matthew Reilly doesn't have a track record for being the most highbrow writer.  Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoy his work.  His books read like movies, and always includes interesting facts melded into fiction.  They are entertaining, and entertainment is the reason I read.  Many a time I have broken a reading-drought with a Matthew Reilly book.

The Tournament, in many ways, is a classic Matthew Reilly piece (gory deaths, knock-out competitions, a main character that uses his brain over brawn), however, it is also in many ways not classic Matthew.

For one, it's written in first person.
By a woman.
And not just any woman...
It's Queen Elizabeth I.

And really, at that point, I think I've said enough, but I feel compelled to rant on.

I'm halfway though the book, and it's entertaining as hell.  It's like he's written a children's book, but for adults.  The moral-of-the-story points are simple and mainstream, like his 'never give up, never say die' style in Hover Car Racer, but there are some distinctly adult notes in this book.  I never thought 'Matthew Reilly' and 'Sexed it Up' were words that would ever appear in the same sentence, but here we are.  Shows that minds can still be blown away.

God Save The Queen

Wow, procrastination is sometimes really productive.  So instead of writing more of my nano story, I pottered around on fictionpress and updated all three of my stories there.  They're all pretty quick and dirty. I don't have housemates to look over my work now, so I'm afraid that the quality may drop because me trying to edit my own work is like a dog chasing its tail.

Ok, sleep now.  9:30 pm is waaay past my bedtime.  Ha.

Wow.  Now I'm googling the Queen.  It really is past my bedtime.

Writing, puking, stealing...

Nano's teaching me a valuable lesson:

There is no limit to the amount of crap I can pull out of my hindy hole.  110% of my story so far is just made up from nothing, just like that statistic.  It's not pretty.  Not pretty at all.

So predictably, I've fallen behind on word count again today.  I really should be writing more. I could probably get a couple more hundred words out of me before I retire for the evening at the very young and hip hour of 8:30pm, but here I am, singing along to Boston by Augustana in a way that's making even the ears of the tomcats in the area bleed I'm sure. 

Tomorrow I pack for an evening flight to Brisbane.  The last trip, less than a fortnight ago, had not been pretty.  The airplane was small.  And it had... propellers.  I haven't thrown up on a plane for about ten years now - the last time was on on my sister's Star Wars book - from memory, I think it was one with Han and Leia on Dagobah, but if that was never a thing, then maybe it's just my sanity unraveling.  Something about witches that could use the force, and  Leia almost marrying a prince... Nup.  Forget it.  Point is, I have a record to uphold, but these tiny planes and the winds that toss them around like toys are not helping.

Something I didn't mention in my last blog post, and that is when I went to Optus to get my USB internet thinggie, I came up with three crimes in the first minute of waiting around.  I think that if I ever quit my day job, I'd be a pretty good petty criminal.  Of course, I've never stolen anything in my life, but there must be circumstances under which I might steal something.  Maybe if someone's service was bad enough...  Maybe if I had to wait 5 more minutes that day...

Let's face it, MTV is never going to film an episode of Cribs here.

Deleted my last post because it was too much effort to change. Man, I am getting lazy.

If I had to describe my new apartment in two words, it would be...

Spacious.
I am the first to admit that I do not have enough furniture to fit this apartment.  My bathroom could literally be another bedroom.  I can't brush my teeth in the shower because the sink and bench are too far away.  That's never happened to me before in any house I've lived in.

Charming.  
Though it's been updated over the years, every now and then you'll walk into a patch of uptown 1970's.  My living room is framed with bare brick arches, and all the toilets have ridiculous tiles.  I have not one, not two, but three chandeliers. Enough said.

I'm going to get spoilt, I really am.  I'm already getting lazy, what's not to say that the next step won't be expanding my girth to take up all the empty space.  I'd never be able to afford such a cool place near major city centers.  The apartment in Brisbane was 1/2 this size, and we were paying $480/week for it.  Ridiculous.   I can see the beach here from my bedroom window.  Tiny apartments in the city sell for 500k, whereas out here, you could buy a pretty decent house for 300k.  I'm never going to be able to live in a city again.  I'm going to become one of them.  A bogan.   I'm going to start dropping the c-word like it's rain during a storm season.

If I end up staying, I'm soooo going to open a Nandos.

Writing-wise, November is still all about nano for me.  No time for anything else.  I've caught up to the daily quota today.  I think that's important enough that it needs to be said twice.  I caught up today.

Day 2 Nano

3364 words.  Clawed my way back to breaking even on word count.  Now to sleep.

How people get time to do these awesome cartoons while doing nano, I'll never know.

Internet Withdrawal Makes People Into Poople.

Can I swear?  Is it appropriate to swear where anyone could read it?

Cause holyfuckadoolies it feels lovely to be on the web!   I mean sure, I seem to share a neighbourhood with Wailord, but there's only so many walks on the beach you can do in a week!

I should be adding to my nano word count right now, heaven knows it needs all the help it can get.

I don't know how often I will be able to update this blog due to the internet situation.  I did start a re-write of an old story one evening, just for shits and giggles.