Oh, All Kinds of Good, Great and Best.

Thus endeth the... uh... weekend... and all that...

So, once upon a time, there was a happy man named Dave, who believed he had, against all logic and hope, stumbled into a new phase of his life, whereby things that he thought he understood were shown to be incontrovertibly untrue and, quite unexpectedly, a phase shift had occurred. He felt he was in an extended dream that he hoped he wouldn't wake up from for a good, long while.

A man sits in a dark, empty, windowless, door-less room, with only a single candle, burning lower and lower. He sits watching the flame, hugging his knees to his chest, with the full awareness that at any moment, the candle would flicker out and extinguish, leaving him in complete darkness. Alas, the moment comes. But in that split second between the death of the flame and the birth of the darkness, the roof rips off and disappears, flooding the room with sunlight.

Houston, we have liftoff...

So, life is wonderful. And all that.

I've been spending less and less time on the computer the past couple weeks, which is something I never thought I'd live to see. I thought I'd be married to this thing forever. Then I discovered I was already married, and now I have a new hobby. :) Of course, I still have free-lance work commitments that demand my attention, requiring me to spend time with this computer, so I can't just walk away. Plus, there's that little matter of the camp video to edit, and all that will require. But still, it feels good to sense the cords to this thing cut. Plus, it feels good to be getting into better shape (re: personal trainer). I wonder if they're connected somehow..?

So, our plans have been locked in (at somewhat substantial cost) for my upcoming birthday week of travel and fun. We're going with the combo of time in San Diego and time in Vegas. I have plenty of time to plan all the entertainment and dining activities, and am looking forward to it greatly. It's quite surreal to actually look forward to my birthday for once. My good friends Dread and Angst will have to take a year off.

Things are coming into view!



I've been reading The Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms - almost finished. I'm having problems with it, but none sufficient enough to make me want to stop reading it. I'm about 80% through it as we speak. I'll try to finish it tonight, and fire out a review soon. My main beef is that events and developments happen so quickly through the first half of the book, it's hard to track and absorb. Revelations that I know are supposed to carry significant weight simply don't, because they didn't really have sufficient time to develop and simmer. It's like under-cooked food, I guess, where you get the idea of what is supposed to happen, but nowhere near the true potential. It just evolves too quickly. I'm barely recalling which name belongs to which character, and I'm expected to appreciate the gravity of connections and twists, etc.

I hope that makes sense. It's probably not a good sign that, halfway through the book, I couldn't recall the name of the main character... and it's written from her perspective!

But from about halfway up to my current point (80%), it is going along much better.

If you're a fantasy fan, there has been a wealth of interesting videos to watch of late, including:
- A 40 minute panel discussion from Comicon with members of the cast of the HBO show A Game of Thrones, moderated by GRRM himself.
- An interesting interview with Brandon Sanderson.
- A panel discussion called "Putting the Epic Into Epic Fantasy", with such fantasy heavyweights as GRRM, Sanderson and Pat Rothfuss (among others).
- A couple great interviews with Joe Abercrombie are floating around as well.
- Melissa has an interesting post with her Top Ten Fantasy Reads, as well as the Top Ten list from a fellow blogger friend of hers. Definitely worth a look.

In fact, just keep an eye on Pat's Fantasy Hotlist for all the latest. Wertzone is also a good resource. Ah, it's a good time to be a Fantasy Fan...

I am amused by mash-ups like this. You know, for someone who isn't really that into Sci-Fi in general, and Star Wars specifically, I do tend to post more than my fair share of Star Wars-related funny pictures. I wonder why that is? Anyway, here's one more, then I'm out.

OK, I'm done for tonight. Who knows when I'll post again, eh? MUAHAHAHA! We may never know!

Dave the Uncertain