Bullets!

[bloodyrosemccoy]

The regularly scheduled freak October blizzard came about two weeks early this year. The pumpkins are unimpressed, but that might be it for the tomatoes. And the cat has been absolutely letting us have it, grumbling and carrying on about the cold and the wet. I think she thinks it’s our doing.

And it never fails: I look out at the first snow of the year and get a surge of happy chemicals in the brain.* What’s with that? I swear I’ve got some kind of reverse-SAD or something.

---

Book club discussed Song of the Lioness! At least, I think that was a discussion. We’re not exactly a group of real conversationalists. I chatter on about books, then try to let others get a word in edgewise or engage them by asking questions, which usually gets mumbled responses, followed by awkward silence. So I fill the silence with more noise and t turns back into a monologue.

I like them, though. I just wish we could talk a little less awkwardly.

(I did get to traumatize them by telling them how the Narnia books ended. By request, of course.)

---

Latest fun topic of research for writing: pregnancy and childbirth. My Playtime Universe presented me with another story idea, but the timeline means that one of the characters will be very pregnant when it takes place. I figured that wouldn’t slow down her determination any (she's awesome like that) and it’ll actually make the story a lot more entertaining if I can swing it. I dunno, the idea of a pregnant hero in a swashbuckling pirate adventure amuses the hell out of me.

---

Also, still into Raygun Gothic for my latest project, and decided to finally watch Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I’ve wanted to see it, but the blinding sepia tone put me off. Now that I’m watching it, I still dislike the filter something fierce—I realize it was meant to echo the sci-fi serials, but prefer my old-timey future to be bright primary colors, deco pastels, and crazy halogen neons, a la Frank R Paul, and I have the feeling if they could have made them in color, the ’30s would have agreed with me. The special effects are updated to match what was in the people's heads; why not the colors, too?

Also, Jude Law really isn’t the Spaceman Spiff type.

But goddamn, the story is spot-on pulp sci-fi, damn fun and totally entertaining. I keep squeaking with happy when I see the giant robots marching, or the ridiculously implausible airplanes diving into the sea, or the big goofy monsters,**or the amphibious jet packs, or Giovanni Ribisi's gratuitous Actual Raygun. The vintage ads were a nice touch, too. And this marks the first time Gwyneth Paltrow worked for me, so hey—I can deal with sepia for that.

---

Smashed my pinkie with a book truck today. It hurts to type. So I’m gonna stop now. Off to play Zelda.

*Also an equally inexplicable overwheming urge to play Zelda games.

**Another improvement over the old serials: the critters can actually be in the shot with our heroes, and don't appear to be occupying some parallel dimension.

Comments

[beccastareyes]

I do have SAD, but I'm still all 'Snow! XD' at the first snowfall of the year.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

Also an equally inexplicable overwheming urge to play Zelda games.

Because the most famous Zelda titles were all November releases and you formed a mental association between the two?

As for swashbuckling pregnant badasses, Amy Pond was one in the last season of Who, but she wasn't showing at the time.

[beccastareyes]

Swashbuckling pregnant badasses just makes me think of this comic.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Hee hee! Battling ninjas--not bad! But does she have to deal with pirates, sharks, AND bears?

My poor little character. She's really quite put-upon.

[beccastareyes]

Not that I recall, but she is a minor character. (And I think the only shark in the comic was a paladin's mount, so...)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I've considered that explanation, but I also just get into more of a high fantasy mood when it gets chilly, too.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I've got a very dysfunctional relationship with seasonal weather. I have SAD, so I need the sunshine, but I really don't like it, and much prefer wind, cold, and rain.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

There actually is such a thing as reverse SAD, although it's much more unusual than regular SAD. And I've got it. I get very energized as we go into fall (well, not so much this year with the Virus, but in general) and come mid-summer I can barely be arsed about anything. I forget what the real name for it is.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I feel like that, get energetic in Fall, wilt in the (very moderate) Summer heat. But I also very clearly have SAD, and need sunlight, or things start going very badly.

[piccolo-pirate.livejournal.com]

I, too, get SUPERFUCKINGEXCITEDOMG at the first snowfall of the season (also the second. And the third. And many other times throughout). That said, it's supposed to hit 80 degrees today in DC which is just... what? Seriously? No. - so the only snow-citement happening in my world will have to be vicarious. =/

Sooo... hooray Utah!

[evilcresyluna.livejournal.com]

Hey, you mentioned the odd popularity of the Amish Romance books over there, yes? I thought you should know that not only are the Amish Romance Genre (tm) books very popular here in Amish-country, they're popular enough to warrant adapting to musical theater productions. Such news broke my brain a tiny trifle.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I sure did! And I shoulda guessed the play would be adapted from a Beverly Lewis book.

I am now picturing the glitteriest, Glee-est, showstoppingest Amish vaudeville experience ever, with music by Irving Berlin or the Gershwins, tap dancing, and wacky mixups driving the plot. I am pretty sure that is not what they're going for, but c'mon.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

I'm always excited to see snow, because it happens at most once a year. And even a bare dusting of it is enough to shut everything down because people do not know how to handle this kind of weather. When the sun is an enemy pounding down on you for much of the year, winter is a welcome if momentary relief.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I am really used to snow--people here complain about it, but I think I'd have trouble living in a place where it didn't snow.

Back in Eugene, my Denver buddy and I loved when it'd snow, because it was that wet half-melted inch-deep snow that usually means it's APRIL where we live. We'd alternate between griping that this isn't PROPER snow and laughing at the Eugenians as they tried to frolic in an inch of slush and panicked when required to drive. We knew it was dickish, but hey, we are snow snobs.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Pregnant swashbuckling actually sounds like a pretty fun premise.

You're the first person to actually make me kinda want to see Sky Captain.

Have you read Un Lun Dun? I just read Perdido Street Station and it was awesome, and I know you're into YA fiction, so...

BTW, on the subject of Zelda: I just got a 3DS for my birthday. And went out and bought Ocarina of Time 3D Edition (once you beat the regular game, it unlocks the Master Quest version!)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought, too! I wanted to mess with the "delicate flower" ideas of pregnancy, but I don't want to make it COMPLETELY unrealistic, which is an entertaining balance to strike.

Sky Captain was surprisingly fun--obviously they love the old serials enough to mess with them.

I haven't even heard of Un Lun Dun. What's it about?

Man, Master Quest made me nervous--too many ReDeads. But I considered getting a 3DS just for Zelda.

Oh, and I totally spaced saying it before, but happy birthday!

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, it's one of those Kids-Find-A-Secret-Magical-Parallel-World things (Un Lun Dun is Un-London). Which, frankly, is right up my alley. I love that sort of premise. I haven't read it yet, though. Perdido Street Station is the first Mieville I've read.

OoT 3D is nice. It's had a graphic upgrade, but the designs are still all the same. The 3D works well as long as you keep the 3DS fairly straight (angle it a bit and you get problems like double images). And they integrated the lower touchscreen well: it includes the item buttons (you have four), the HEY LISTEN button, and the Ocarina (now separate from the other items and always available), and replaces the Items/Map/Gear/Quest Progress pause-screens. It's very well thought out. (The other games I got were Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and Starfox 64 3D)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

My favorite magical parallel world might be the not!NYC in So You Want To Be A Wizard, if for no other reason than that it contained man-eating helicopters.

Oh, man, remember when OoT first came out and the graphics were AMAZING? Ah, those were the days. i'm indeed curious to see the update. Are they going to do Majora's Mask?

My brother loves Star Fox 64 3D. I may have to get it. It's embarrassing that much of my space opera sensibilities were shaped by the original Star Fox 64, along with a heavy dose of the Star Wars EU.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Man-eating...helicopters?

I dunno if they'll do Majora's Mask. I hope they do. The time limits make it almost tailor made for short-chunk portable gameplay. Similarly, I think Wind Waker would be great on 3DS, especially if they use the touchscreen in a similar way, like giving the wand and possibly the sail dedicated buttons so you don't have to swap item button assignments so damned often.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Okay, so Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, of which So You Want To Be A Wizard is the first, is COMPLETELY NUTS in the best possible way. It's also really hard to describe: in the first book, two kids, Nita and Kit, find library books telling them how to be wizards, try out a spell to get back the space pen bullies took from Nita, and accidentally wind up transporting the sentient portion of a white hole named Fred to Earth. Fred gets the hiccups and keeps "emitting" random things, like cars. To cure him of his hiccups they hook into a dimensional worldgate in Grand Central Station, which sucks them into an evil parallel New York where the one Evil Power in the universe(s) holds sway and apparently cars and helicopters make up the ecosystem, and then they steal a book to bargain with a dragon, and then the sun briefly goes out, and ... I lose track about there.

Sequels include something about turning into whales to fix plate tectonics, making friends with a silicon planet (yes, the planet), and a dog who can create universes from nothing. The dog fills these universes with squirrels.

The books are ridiculous, but the images are cool, and I get a huge kick out of the jargon the wizards use. And a companion book, set in the same universe, was the first urban fantasy I ever really read and enjoyed, so it's got a special place in my heart. (That one's about a group of CAT wizards. In New York. Fighting dinosaurs. That briefly eat Luciano Pavarotti. He gets better, though. Oh, and there's a bit of conlanging in that one.)

...

ANYWAY. I would very much like to have a Wind Waker 3DS, because switching back to that baton all the time is my least favorite part of the game. And I just love Majora's Mask ... in fact, I may go play it again when I'm done with my latest Epic Mickey round.