Wednesday, February 4, 2009

"Use the Farce, Luke..."




Ah, a great day today!

I finished the redesign of the home page for Rug Care Central - and Mom and Josh both liked it, and we're moving ahead with implementing the changes. I'll get the art files to Josh by tomorrow, and soon, the visual upgrade with become a reality. Then when the "store" section of the site is up soon thereafter, we'll be ready to start driving jillions of people to the site. I'm excited about the future of the site.

And I got my email notice from my local Barnes & Noble that the book I ordered was finally in. Now I have Book Two of Joe Abercrombie's First Law series in my grubby little hands. Small problem: Last night, I hadn't received the email, so I had no clue how long I'd still have to wait... so I started yet another series - this one by an author named Greg Keyes. Book One of his series The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, called The Briar King.

Back in December, if you'll recall, I bought the first book in 6 different series, to try out new authors - this was one of those.

So, here I am, 35 pages into a new series - and frankly, it's quite a step down in quality from both Abercrombie and Rothfuss so far. I want to keep reading it; it deserves that much anyway, and it's not a very long book (or a hard read, for that matter), and yet, now I have Book Two of Abercrombie's series here (and Book Three as well, which I picked up last week at the book store closing), and so I'm torn.

I can hear your thoughts... "Dave, if that's the worst problem you have, you're doing darn good." Yup, I agree... life is good. If it's ok with you, I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. So, I must decide whether to continue with The Briar King, or shelve it in favor of Abercrombie, and pick it up afterwards, likely starting over from page 1 (only 35 pages in, not a big investment yet). My only fear is that my tepid reception of the first 35 pages might militate against my picking it up again... I'm tempted to read further now, while I have a modicum of momentum (pardon the alliteration) going.

I know you're dying to find out what I decide! You'll have to wait (with oh-so-baited breath) until tomorrow to find out! Oooh! A cliffhanger!

Here is today's episode of These Are A Few of My Favorite Scenes, brought to you by Beano. It's a scene from the 1984 Best Picture Winner, Amadeus.




Wonderful music, great acting, great dialog, etc. etc. This one deserved all the accolades it received. As do I.

OK, I was kidding about the "as do I" part. Forget I said it...

EDIT: I just added a link to my "Links" gadget over there on the right. A treasure trove of incredible video interviews on the TV LEGENDS channel on YouTube. I watched the 7-part interview with George Carlin back in December, and enjoyed it tremendously. While nosing around for it again, I discovered that the people that posted it run a channel called TV Legends, and they have an amazing selection of people they've interviewed - I guarantee you'll find interviews there that will interest you.

Until tomorrow, Carpe BM. ("Seize the turd")

6 comments:

havah said...

Awesome photograph!

I'd skip Keyes and get back to it when I have nothing to read. I don't like breaking the momentum of a series I'm very much enjoying...but that's just me :)

Oh my gosh. That movie came out 25 years ago? Suddenly, I feel my age! :D I love a good period piece, and the relationship between Abrahams and Hulce in this one was sooo intense and well acted. Good choice yet again, Dave.

Joe Abercrombie said...

Got to go with the Abercrombie there, man.

David Wagner said...

Umm...

Did the real Joe Abercrombie just leave a comment on my blog, or is someone playing an elaborate joke on me..?

!!!!

Anonymous said...

aight, this is ridiculously random, but i was just performing my once a month ritual of i'm going to run through the internet really quick to see if GRRM will EVER finish ADwD, and i came across a thread (on amazon.com, though i know its publish dates are bs for GRRM because he will tell us immediately when he's done on his website, but id prefer a bs date than no date) you commented on. You were in an argument with some Todd Serpico about how much GRRM had finished of dance when he released feast. I noted that your argument was correct. I am an unbiased fan in this, i have little knowledge of how publishing works so i only see what GRRM says. He implied that he had written so much it had to be split up, and that we could expect the next one (dance) 6 months to a year later. Also you mentioned joe abercrombie, i think hes the future of fantasy, his books just keep getting better, and he's better than GRRM at keeping a deadline... fantastic. Also Rothfuss is fantastic...

Anonymous said...

haha, and sorry i realize that you will see that there is another comment on your last blog entry, and i know that you will hope its "joe abercrombie" again (and i hope it is the real one). Sorry to let you down... Matt

havah said...

I believe so, Dave. Follow the link. :0