A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That...

Eye of the storm. Thought I'd take a few minutes here, while the Holiday Whirlwind pauses, to hop on here and connect with you all (aka The Ghosts of Christmas Present, lol), and let you know all is well.

Had the Christmas play today... the drama about the three wisemen. It went better than I expected... and I expected it to go well. Basically, we nailed it. Which is doubly amazing to me, since D. Garvin and M. Ortiz (the other two actors in the play with me) had a ton of lines to memorize, and they were newbies. In fact, I don't think D. had been in any sort of play before... and this was 30 minutes of pure dialog.

Anyways, it went off flawlessly, and was really well received. Yes, I was nervous beforehand, even though we've been doing plays since 1996, and they always go off well. Still, the nerves are always there, and today was no different. I justified the nerves by saying we'd never done a play like this before, which is a cop-out, of course.

But, yeah, success. Once I check the video out, if it's presentable enough, I'll upload it to YouTube and you can check it out if you'd like...

I dig this photo, for some reason.

So I finished reading the two Infinity Blade books by Brandon Sanderson since last we spoke. The first volume was a re-read, and then I followed it up with the recently-released sequel. Actually, the word "volume" is a bit misleading... the books are so short (about 150 pages each) that it almost qualifies as one book. In fact, when the third (and I presume, final?) volume comes out, they could all be considered one, as far as I see it.

Lol, look at me, going off on a tangent again. How unlike me!

Bottom line, I enjoy anything Sanderson writes, but wasn't quite sure I liked the way the second volume unfolded. I won't spoil it for you, in case you want to read them (which you should!), but he used a trope that's been better-used by others (especially Mark Lawrence). Still, if you like Fantasy with a healthy dose of sci-fi mixed in, you can't go wrong with the Infinity Blade series.

Currently reading The Red Knight, by Miles Cameron. Enjoying it greatly. Expect a full review, hopefully before the year's end.

How it will factor into my Best Reads List for 2013, I'm not sure yet... I have a lot of pages left! But here's how the Top 5 is shaping up so far...

1. Heroes Die by Matthew Stover
2. Emperor of Thorns, by Mark Lawrence
3. Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
4. The Spirit Thief, by Rachel Aaron
5. Colours in Steel, by K.J. Parker

If I take out re-reads, then remove Confederacy of Dunces, bump Aaron and Parker up a spot each, and tack on Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson to the 5 spot... with Year Zero a close 6.

I wonder if Logan will put out his annual Reading List? That's always fun...

The bottom 3 for me would be Knights of Dark Renown by David Gemmell, Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, and Terms of Enlistment by Marco Kloos... but really, they weren't terrible books... I finished them all, so they had to be good enough to carry me through a complete reading... there were a couple titles that I abandoned without finishing... those would be the true bottom, but I don't want to list them.

I didn't keep track of all the movies/TV/etc I watched this year, so I can't make an accurate Top Ten List, but ones that stand out for me include...

TV: Justified and Suits.
Movies: Iron Man 3, Mud and Gravity
Music: Five Finger Death Punch
Games: Borderlands 2, Minecraft, and Torchlight 2

OK, enough nonsense...

OK, this photo counts as nonsense....

NOW, enough nonsense...

So I'm officially on the writing team for the Web Series I'm involved with, called Beyond the Impact. I'll be writing some of the scripts! Hopefully, I'll have some news about the project I'm free to relate to you soon.

A couple days to Christmas, as I write this. Hopefully it will be a nice, relaxing time. My brother John is coming a couple days after Christmas... it will be good to see him. He's a good egg.

Gonna wind this post down. Hope you're all doing well. I'll sneak another post in before the year's end, I'm sure. Lucky you!

Dave the Languid