So I’m sitting in my room, working on my linguistics home exam, and I’m trying to explain why the verb paint in the sentence his father was painting a picture is not the same verb as the paint in the sentence his father never painted again, right? My line of resoning is the kind I [...]
Posts filed in Yay!
General happiness or glee that something is the way it is, and not some other way. I used to apply alternative spelling, just because someone I know dislikes it, but this later struck me as childish and petty, and while those are both fun things, they also get tired after a while.
The Matrix
Just watched The Matrix, but seeing as I’ve already reviewed this movie somewhere else on this blog, I’m going to limit myself to pointing out how much the whole Matrix/human batteries thing seems like something out of Marx.
You’ve got your people, right, who can be likened to either the people in Marxist theory in general, [...]
The Gilded Chain by Dave Duncan
1998.
396 pages.
Eos Fantasy
Paperback.
First published novel in the Tales of the King’s Blades series.
In the kingdom of Chivial, it is the task of the Loyal and Ancient Order of the King’s Blades to supply the king and his chosen servants with bodyguards. Boys, unwanted troublemakers for the most part, are taken in around the age of [...]
WALL-E
As I went to see WALL-E (from now on Wall-E, as Nature abhors a shout, even though it’s supposed to be an acronym) last a couple of days ago, I was feeling highly ambiguous and thus also a bit scared. You see, my hopes for this movie were nothing short of astronomic, as just about [...]
I still don’t quite believe my own eyes…
Because of the extensive coverage of the American presidential election in the last couple of weeks, I’ve suddenly found myself wanting to see the complete West Wing series — of which I’ve seen the occasional season, but never the whole shebang. Subsequently, I go to Amazon.co.uk, search for “west wing”, and get this as one [...]
A Plague! A Plague on Our Houses!
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 [...]
Atheists <3 Averröes (or ibn Rushd, if you prefer)
“In the Christian intellectual environment of the thirteenth century, apparent conflicts between argumentation in natural philosophy and argumentation in matter sof theological doctrine became exceptionally acute. The newly introduced writings of from the ancients — Greek philosophy and science, accompanied by Arabic and Hebrew commentary — rigorously set forth propositions alien to fundamental dicta of [...]
Wastin’ money
Be that as it may, seeing as I don’t think I’ll fail any of my exams, I decided to take a quick trip downtown, to visit my favourite purveyors of fine leisure activities.
The first of these was Avalon, also known as Gotham. I was primarily looking for John Scalzi’s Ghost Brigades, but it as turned [...]
w00t!
Finally! Almost two years since I bought and started playing it, and some five or six years since the game’s release, I finally finished Neverwinter Nights!
I was close about half a year ago, too, when I had this rather nice Half-Orc Paladin going for me, but unfortunately, he proved to be no match for the [...]
Wee!
I just found out that episode 11 of Heroes’s season 2 wasn’t the only episode to pass me by; I also missed episode 10!
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 [...]
How to interpret a peculiar request
“‘Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed …’
(from Shakespeare’s will)
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his [...]
Veronica Mars, season 3 ep. 9…
Spoilers inside.
‘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 [...]
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 [...]
2007-11-15 — Quote of the Day
“Attacking his opponent Disraeli in Parliament, Gladstone remarked that ‘the honourable gentleman will either end on the gallows or die of some loathsome disease.’ To which Gladstone rejoined: ‘That depends on whether I embrace the honourable gentleman’s principles or his mistresses.’”
— An example of a witty repartee,
A Glossary of Literary Terms.
A Case of Tolkien Hommage
“I tipped an imaginary hat to him. ‘At your service.’
‘Yours and your family’s,’ he replied politely.”
— Kvothe and Stanchion,
The Name of the Wind, page 374.
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