Yay! :-)

My new CD arrived in the mail two days ago. I am only updating now. (Too bad. ;-)

My Sweet Man is off to Montreal (or around Montreal) for a day of fun energy-experamentation with plants and stuff. :-)
He's excited, despite having to get up at 5:30am in order to be at his destinating in time.

I am doing a progressive dinner with my family today.

My Mom wants me to invite my tenants along.

I don't think she quite gets the fact that they're *tenants*. Not room-mates, not home-stay people. And that's what they *want*.
<*grrr*> I should really get over this.

Beh.

Anyway.
I'm making the dessert for the progressive dinner.

Strawberry-Blueberry Pie and Chocolate-almond mousse (possibly with raspberry sauce).


Currently reading:
Non-Fiction
- Living Witchcraft
- Feminism and Anthropogy
- An Introduction to Theory in Anthropology

Fiction
- Sir Apropos of Nothing

Just finished: Nightengale's Lament.

Reguarding the fiction:
Nightengale's Lament is set in a world called the Nightside (where, apparently, "it's always 3am" in London England). It is full of gods, monsters, super-science stuff, and supernatural stuff. And, frankly, I expect Mr. Gaiman would be mightily pissed off at Simon R. Green for creating such a rip-off of the London Underside of Neverwhere -- except the Green is not even close to being in Gaiman's league. Sort of like comparing the original three Star Wars movies to the "Star Wars Xmas Special" (or the character of Jar Jar Binks, for that matter).
It's the sort of book that, on the shelf, looked like it would be a light read, but a fun and interesting one. Unfortunately, once opened, you find out that the characters aren't even two-dimensional and the plot is (a) a mashed-together collection of Underworld, Neverwhere, and a really pulpy Hard Boiled Private Dick detective novel.
I'd give this one a miss, if I were you.


Reguarding Sir Apropos of Nothing: This is (as most of you will know) a spoof on Fantasy Hero novels.
Unfortunately the non-hero who winds up being a hero (out of spite) is a completely crass utter dick-head.

I keep getting the feeling that the author (who has some decent writing credentials behind him) is writing this book for (and from the perspective of) all the pimply dragon-con boys who never had a hope of getting laid because they didn't have the social skills or personalities to beat out the pimply dragon-con boys who did have them (and thus had the girls as well) -- but who just assumed that it was because the girls in question were vacuous/calculating bitches who only went for the "facade" of walk-and-talk presented by the social-skills set (who, of course, were all complete bastards), rather than going for Real Men such as themselves.
The narator/protagonist tends to make rather crude remarks about his rivals' abilities in bed -- and tends to go *way* past the point of subtlety (or decency, frankly) in the making of them.

All of this being said, Terry Pratchett's first Discworld novel was a spoof of the the Fantasy/Hero genre and had a lot of the same rather crude jokes in it. (The way Cohen the Barbarian talked before he got his dentures made, for example). And look at how beautifully he developed once his world really became *his* world.
So hopefully the second Apropos novel will (a) feature Apropos as a better human being than he currently is, and (b) will show the series developing into something of its own. :-)

Anywhoo. I've got a pie (and a mousse) to make, and a bunch of people to phone. :-)

- Nam'ara, all. :-)
- Amazon. :-)