... the IT man in LibraryLand
I finished reading this, in ebook form, in the wee hours the other night huddled under the covers lest the blue glow from the screen awaken the wrath of the sleeping Salsa Girl and her talk of under-cover device-reading induced eye-strain.
All I can say is:
Mister Sanderson, you have done a reasonable job of both emulating the style of the original series author while at the same time cutting a lot of the excess description out and having the story move along at quite an acceptable pace.
I award this book 7 "Dune Prequels" (a Dune Prequel is worth roughly one half of a star as that is the usual minimum you have to rate something to make it look like has been rated) - read it if you have invested some of your precious reading time in the Wheel of Time series as the roll towards the end is starting and I can sense some satisfying closure ahead.
Also, since finishing this those few days back, my eyes have stopped aching so much.
Now back to one's regular silence...
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The Girls
A Caution, this instalment of The Tales involves things more on the girly side of the usual rugged and manly content you may have come to expect from yours truly.
So, anyway, Salsa Girl and I spent much of the past year watching our way through the complete Sex and the City TV series as it was being shown again on real TV.
Of course as one is blessed with a smidgeon of completionism it was eventually going to come to pass that we would seek out and watch to movies which followed the series years later.
This day arrived yesterday in the form of our very own movie marathon.
Having watched the series I found the first film to be an extended episode in the style of the series and therefore as enjoyable as the show.
The second film fell a little shorter than this with a transposition of location to the Middle East and some bizarre almost slapstick comedy which seemed quite insulting to Arabic culture with its American imperialist "everyone wants to be us" overtones.
Still remove that quarter hour from the film and it was almost as enjoyable as the series.
At least now one can bask in the satisfaction of having seen all of it.
Oh and speaking of girls, for those of you who haven't heard, here is our healthy little girl Hulk - so named for the effect that all these tests will surely have had on her - and coincidentally her name also applies for the colour she has regularly made her mother turn for the past several months.
Thursday last Salsa Girl and I went for our final test of the pre-natal variety as we attended our twenty week ultrasound. Hulk spent most of the test acrobatically doing boxing practice so we are afraid we may have purchased a 20 minute DVD of blurriness.
However at a previous she was much more daddy's little girl just laying back and relaxing and hence had a much less ghostly countenance which I shall treat you to now:
Anyway that's probably enough girl stuff for now.
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So, anyway, Salsa Girl and I spent much of the past year watching our way through the complete Sex and the City TV series as it was being shown again on real TV.
Of course as one is blessed with a smidgeon of completionism it was eventually going to come to pass that we would seek out and watch to movies which followed the series years later.
This day arrived yesterday in the form of our very own movie marathon.
Having watched the series I found the first film to be an extended episode in the style of the series and therefore as enjoyable as the show.
The second film fell a little shorter than this with a transposition of location to the Middle East and some bizarre almost slapstick comedy which seemed quite insulting to Arabic culture with its American imperialist "everyone wants to be us" overtones.
Still remove that quarter hour from the film and it was almost as enjoyable as the series.
At least now one can bask in the satisfaction of having seen all of it.
Oh and speaking of girls, for those of you who haven't heard, here is our healthy little girl Hulk - so named for the effect that all these tests will surely have had on her - and coincidentally her name also applies for the colour she has regularly made her mother turn for the past several months.
 |
| Hulk in ghostly boxing action |
Thursday last Salsa Girl and I went for our final test of the pre-natal variety as we attended our twenty week ultrasound. Hulk spent most of the test acrobatically doing boxing practice so we are afraid we may have purchased a 20 minute DVD of blurriness.
However at a previous she was much more daddy's little girl just laying back and relaxing and hence had a much less ghostly countenance which I shall treat you to now:
 |
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Abundant Werewolvery
This week past has seen the subject of Werewolves arise on a couple of occasions.
The first was when the biannual free-lunch-with-some-training day ended with a presentation from Gamer Phil on his investigation into bringing gaming into libraries. To demonstrate what could fun be had he ran a game of Werewolf for a dozen of us during the snacks and wine conclusion of the days events.
You can imagine one's surprise when at the first opportunity the librarians, led far to quickly by Alltogether Heather, voted to lynch me despite my taking the job of "Friendly Mayor" to disabuse them of such notions and - even more surprisingly - choosing me while Supervisor Grand Chief K was there to be chosen!
The second werewolf incident involved an equal slaughter of oneself as the gaming group gathered for another of our regular Magic tournaments. This one involved a set with a horror theme and I chose to make my deck involve several werewolves. In succession Pirate Dave, MatrixMan and then, unsurprisingly, ArchEnemy all took my poor werewolves apart. Obviously one has top distance oneself from anything of a lupine nature.
In contrast today's activities were definitely of a non-lycanthropic nature as Salsa Girl and I enjoyed a sunny day at the Moomba parade and associated festivities. At least I'm fairly sure it was werewolf free, but you never can tell.
Anyway, I found it refreshing to get out and about and prove that I am not simple a man of a few obsessions as we made our way about the many Moomba activities following this years theme of Melbourne is Delicious - which it did prove to be.
.
The first was when the biannual free-lunch-with-some-training day ended with a presentation from Gamer Phil on his investigation into bringing gaming into libraries. To demonstrate what could fun be had he ran a game of Werewolf for a dozen of us during the snacks and wine conclusion of the days events.
You can imagine one's surprise when at the first opportunity the librarians, led far to quickly by Alltogether Heather, voted to lynch me despite my taking the job of "Friendly Mayor" to disabuse them of such notions and - even more surprisingly - choosing me while Supervisor Grand Chief K was there to be chosen!
The second werewolf incident involved an equal slaughter of oneself as the gaming group gathered for another of our regular Magic tournaments. This one involved a set with a horror theme and I chose to make my deck involve several werewolves. In succession Pirate Dave, MatrixMan and then, unsurprisingly, ArchEnemy all took my poor werewolves apart. Obviously one has top distance oneself from anything of a lupine nature.
In contrast today's activities were definitely of a non-lycanthropic nature as Salsa Girl and I enjoyed a sunny day at the Moomba parade and associated festivities. At least I'm fairly sure it was werewolf free, but you never can tell.
Anyway, I found it refreshing to get out and about and prove that I am not simple a man of a few obsessions as we made our way about the many Moomba activities following this years theme of Melbourne is Delicious - which it did prove to be.
.
The Silence of The Tales
So there has been another time of quiet from The Tales despite one's best intentions and all those promises I made to you all.
Personally I blame Judge Mingus for telling me that I was using the internet wrongly and thus paralysing me.
This happened at a stately dinner with the Judge and FridgePower on a hot evening several weekends back. Salsa Girl and I attended dinner and air conditioning at their domicile for a long overdue catch-up.
It was a great time, starting with a nice curry and ending with bowls of icecream.
We had much talking and one was even involved in a lot of educational experiences with their elder spawn Ball Boy as he introduced me to his variant of billiards wherein if you cheat the penalty is that you must take another turn - altogether my kind of game.
The following days full day of gaming may also have contributed to one's lack of blog updating time.
After that the work week becomes a blurry merry-go-round of project juggling punctuated with a sequence of beautifully timed equipment and service crashes. Of course there were the usual number of meetings and, as one has come to unfortunately expect, nary a free lunch to be seen among the lot of them.
And we come to the current weekend where one can say that a culinary trip to Fed Square to catch up with the Double Jays, their recent acquisition, and the menu at Chocolate Bhudda (not necessarily in that order) could be attributed some blame for the lack of updating The Tales.
Then today when some free time loomed was the day when one's internet router decided to push it's recent program of frustrating drop-outs into overdrive. Thankfully it is behaving itself well enough now that I am able to get this missive to you.
Oh and as to the verbal shellacking that Judge Mingus handed out to me about use of the Internet.
Apparently one has been neglecting one of the core functions of the Internetz and shall have to rectify that as of now.
Personally I blame Judge Mingus for telling me that I was using the internet wrongly and thus paralysing me.
This happened at a stately dinner with the Judge and FridgePower on a hot evening several weekends back. Salsa Girl and I attended dinner and air conditioning at their domicile for a long overdue catch-up.
It was a great time, starting with a nice curry and ending with bowls of icecream.
We had much talking and one was even involved in a lot of educational experiences with their elder spawn Ball Boy as he introduced me to his variant of billiards wherein if you cheat the penalty is that you must take another turn - altogether my kind of game.
The following days full day of gaming may also have contributed to one's lack of blog updating time.
After that the work week becomes a blurry merry-go-round of project juggling punctuated with a sequence of beautifully timed equipment and service crashes. Of course there were the usual number of meetings and, as one has come to unfortunately expect, nary a free lunch to be seen among the lot of them.
And we come to the current weekend where one can say that a culinary trip to Fed Square to catch up with the Double Jays, their recent acquisition, and the menu at Chocolate Bhudda (not necessarily in that order) could be attributed some blame for the lack of updating The Tales.
Then today when some free time loomed was the day when one's internet router decided to push it's recent program of frustrating drop-outs into overdrive. Thankfully it is behaving itself well enough now that I am able to get this missive to you.
Oh and as to the verbal shellacking that Judge Mingus handed out to me about use of the Internet.
Apparently one has been neglecting one of the core functions of the Internetz and shall have to rectify that as of now.
So here you go:
As required by international law this is my cute cat picture for this year.
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