#332 - The sound of miscellany!

On Reading
There are many books I've enjoyed, and others that I've admired for various reasons. These days, I've mostly been reading half as a reader and half as a writer, and the writer half of me...well, let's put it this way. My comedy screenwriting professor liked to tell my class that, with all the work he's done in comedy, he never actually laughs at anything anymore. Instead, if there was something he found funny, he'd just go: "That's funny. That's really funny. That's sort of how I am with my reading-as-a-writer right now. I'll read something and go, "Hey, wow, that was really cool. I'mma try to keep that in mind for later.

Brent Weeks' The Way of Shadows was one of the rare books that made my eyes go "O_O!" and my mouth go "NO FSCKIN WAI!". I can't remember the last time I was this impressed by anything I've read. In fact, I think the last thing I read that elicited that sort of HOLY FUCKING SHIT ON A SANDWICH reaction was an epic Teen Titans fanfic of 2.5 million words and 270 chapters written by an old online friend of mine. That was about three years ago or thereabouts.

And the thing is, The Way of Shadows isn't necessarily "original" in many areas. Young street rat is frustrated with his weak status and trains to become an assassin, and becomes one of the bestest best best assassins evar; the world is standard-ish medieval fantasy fare with cobbled inspiration from various Earth cultures (I actually found the cultural worldbuilding kind of meh and a bit inconsistent); the writing isn't necessarily poetic or striking, though it's clear and clean, which is fine by me (and anyway pretty prose wouldn't work with most of the character POVs anyway). But just...the way the author handles his characters and the plot points and the progression of revealing those plot points makes me want to nail this book to the wall next to my desk with a large neon sign pointing to it that says "THIS IS HOW YOU PLOT A BOOK".

I want to buy my own copy of this book, sit down with it, and start analyzing its struture. I've got a library copy of the third book on hand and I'm waiting patiently (sort of) for the second book to arrive at my library. I am prayingprayingpraying that this trilogy doesn't pull a Matrix on me, where the first installment is practically godly while the second and third seem like the were defecated from hell.

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On Politicians
From yeloson: Dear Mr. President - Your daughter is a ninja.

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On School
Good news! I just saved money on car insurance textbooks by switching to Geico Chegg.com! According to the site, not only did I save $180 by renting my textbooks this quarter, but I also got to plant four trees in Cameroon!

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On Pretty Pictures
I have Las Vegas pictures uploaded onto Photobucket, and am working (...sort of) on the write-up.

Thanks to pinkpolarity, I have discovered the wonder that is eyeshadowsluts! Hee. I've spent some time there going through the backposts and looking at all the pictures and advice. They have some interesting looks on there. Like this one, which is freaky as fuck but also fucking awesome.

I also poked through YouTube for makeup how-to videos, and found this one, which I promptly proceeded to emulate using the tools available. I obviously didn't do a perfect job, but I think that with some practice I could get used to doing it, since this is going closer to the kind of look I've been coveting for like ages. XD I'm not sure how well you can see it in these pictures, though.

( In which Reileen also plays around with Post-It flash filters, what )

-Reileen
slippery with forgetting