In my Last.fm shoutbox, I was recently asked by one of my readers to post more frequently in my blog, and seeing as your whim is my law, I bring you this: an essay of sorts about the last topic you’d expected me to write about!
One of the things you might not know [...]
Posts filed in Pleasant surprises
Even a pessimist can be pleasantly surprised at times. In fact, we’re probably pleasantly surprised more often than more optimistic people. After all, everything can’t go wrong all the time, while by the same token everything can’t go well all the time. Anyway, I’m usually pleasantly surprised mainly by some movie or other, or by myself, in fact. I mean, I think of myself as a lazy underachiever, so when I actually manage to do something right, I’m pleasantly surprised.
A Plague! A Plague on Our Houses!
Iron Man
So. The second most anticipated movie of the year or something, Iron Man. I was a skeptic, I have to admit as much. Sure, I’d heard from both Loki and Kalle that it was a phenomenal movie, but they’re both something resembling Marvel fanboys. And me? I’d encountered Iron Man in some minor spots in [...]
Hero
After the awkwardness of The Sword and the Sorcerer, it felt good to watch one of my favourite fantasy movies, namely Hero. (Granted, it’s more of a historically based wu xia movie, really, but seeing as its pretty much based on a myth and not on what the historian in me would call history, and [...]
Angelic Revelation
One of the reasons why I haven’t been much active online lately, is that I spend most of my evenings watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with one or more of my flatmates. We started about a year ago, when one of them asked me to show him a really fun Buffy episode. I chose “Hush”, [...]
Why I’m skeptical to Toynbee
At several occasions in the past two years, I’ve found myself in positions where I critizise other people for referring to Toynbee in discussions on the Roman Republic, but I’ve been unable to remember where I got this antipathy from. Today, I believe I learned why I’m skeptical to Toynbee.
It is often so that one’s [...]
A-braggin’ we shall go
I got the results of my last exam this weekend, and in connection to that I guess I ought to say a little more about why, exactly, it is that I’ve been absent for so long the last couple of weeks.
You see, the last month of the Fall term, I spent relatively much time on [...]
Oh. My. Fucking. Gods.
I just found out that there exists a British television show from 1990 where Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry plays the parts of P.G. Wodehouse’s Wooster and Jeeves. Naturally, all my viewing plans and schedules have been postponed until I’ve downloaded and watched all four seasons.
Not that that means much — I’ve hardly watched any [...]
Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
1982.
346 pages, Corgi/Random House paperback.
Several thousands of years ago the seven Gods created the world, and chose a people to care especially for. All of them did this, except Aldur, who became the God of magicians. He also created a powerful Orb which the evil God Torak coveted, and later stole. The sorcerer Belgarath and [...]
Hässelby by Johan Harstad
2007.
444 pages, Gyldendal hardcover.
This is a tale about Albert Åberg — the main character of a series of childrens’ books written by Gunilla Bergström in the early 1970s. What happened to him after his childhood in the quiet Stockholm suburb of Hässelby? How did he grow from a lively, enthusiastic boy to a disillusioned, bored [...]
Rip it apart and start again
One of the many reasons to look forward to Ripper.
As for Brian K. Vaughn’s (first, but hopefully not last) run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Season 8″ comics, the best compliment I can give is that I hardly noticed — if indeed I did notice at all, which is doubtful — that this wasn’t written [...]
Starship Troopers
I was supposed to go watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age with two of my flatmates, but it seems it’s on its way out. And as there wasn’t really anything else that was all that appealing, we decided to watch a DVD instead. After a lengthy discussion, we (meaning my two male flatmates and myself; out [...]
Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
Published in 2005 by Tor Books. Paperback, 313 pages.
A couple hundred years into the future, Earth is a backwater. Humans have long since mastered interstellar travel, but this technology is kept away from the humans on Earth, whose society don’t really seem much different from that we live in today. Excepting of course that people [...]
Dogma
Watched Kevin Smith’s Dogma again, for the thrid time or so, last weekend. I was hardly as enthusiastic as I was the first time I watched it, but that was three years ago, so I take this simply as a sign that I have matured somewhat. And also of me having watched it before, of [...]
Scalzi likes Sandman
“The three other new guys, Watson, Gaiman and McKean, all got the same treatment [...]“
— Narration,
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi.
Semi-stoicism by necessity
“You must understand one thing. We own nothing except ourselves. This world and its laws, allows us nothing, except ourselves. There is nothing we can leave behind when we die, except the memory of ourselves.”
— Styles,
in the township play Sizwe Bansi is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona.
‘Tis been a good day, so far…
First, I took my NwN Dwarven monk through a couple of levels. Which is always fun, as they get so many feats and special abilities, it’s a treat to play them. Then, just as I had cleared level 7 and killed Head Gaoler Aelfinn, I was roused by my flatmates who desired my company for [...]
The day I realized how much of a nerd I really am…
… was last weekend, when I and one of my flatmates (who’s a linguistics student) spent a quarter of an hour having fun with the IPA map in general, and the voiced bilabial trill in particular.
But hey, the voiced bilabial trill really is one of the funniest phonems in the world. Alright, the “schwa” and [...]
Burn Notice, season 1
A couple of months ago, one of my flatmates tipsed me of a TV show called Burn Notice, which he claimed to be some of the best stuff he has seen in years. As this is a guy whose tastes I respect, and who spends most of the day watching TV shows, I thought I’d [...]
Night of Knives, by Ian C. Esslemont
Night of Knives,
by Ian C. Esslemont.
2005.
Bantam Press.
282 pages, hardcover edition.
Even though I enjoyed the book, and ripped through it faster than I have ripped through anything since I had a severe cold about two months ago, I am not sure if I see Esslemont as an independent author. Sure, he is the co-creator of the [...]
Angel: After the Fall
This one took me somewhat by surprise. I’d heard that it was scheduled for release on 29 November, and then, last Thursday, Loki exclaims at me that this was some seriously good stuff. I, naturally, become flabbergasted, run home from downtown Trondheim (I was shopping for Christmas and November-Me presents when I got his message), [...]
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