Oct 27
I just got Book 12 of the Wheel of Time this morning. I don’t actually have time to read it, but I’m going to anyway. I’ll give my thoughts once I’m done.
I’d really like to get my hands on one of those “Bela is a Darkfriend” bumper stickers they are giving out at the signings. No luck so far trying to win one from the twitter contests.
Jul 1
Alright, I’m trying to integrate the new wordpress blog with facebook so that I can cut back on my copy and paste addiction.
I’ve also been playing around with integration for google calendar and paypal donations. Not that I expect anyone to donate to my blog but it’s good practice for when we set up the secular student alliance webpage (some day I swear we ARE going to have one).
I also installed the intense debate plugins so that users can rate comments, cause you know, everyone is going to be arguing over what I have to say.
Jul 1
So for the last few months I’ve been hearing more and more about this blogging engine that can do so much more than just blogs. I have a friend who has been using it to do websites for his church and apparently the Arbiter will be transitioning to it as well. When I went to the CFI Leadership Conference they had a whole presentation about it and some of the things you could do with it. And recently I’ve been tasked with creating a few new websites for friends and organizations I care about.
As much as I used to love HTML, I’m not in 10th grade anymore and I don’t have time to learn CSS, asp, how a MySQL database works, php, Ruby on Rails, or any other of the myriad buzzwords I hear on digg. The only reason I’m learning Java is that it’s required to get my degree. But I don’t have to learn all the details to be able to use what they offer.
Enter WordPress. Depending on your hosting company you can install it to your website like an application and be up and running in moments. It’s easy to customize with free themes, plugins, and widgets. Comes with all a ton of goodies builtin, and can even import all my old blogger posts.
I’m sold. At least until Web 3.0 gets here.
Jan 30
Jan 24
We got thrown a bone. Maybe it was because of all the ruckus we’ve been raising lately. Maybe it’s a genuine desire to move past the divisiveness of the past. Maybe it’s because President Obama really is a closet atheist. For whatever reason he saw fit to include that 16.1% of the population that had never been included in an inaugural address before. He said: “… [W]e know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.” Sorry Sikhs, Pagans, and Buddhists. Better luck next time.
He threw us this bone even after we filed suit, for the third time, to keep “So help me god” out of the inaugural oath. Although there was valid legal grounding (the phrase isn’t in the constitutional version of the oath) the larger secular community was heavily divided regarding the wisdom of such a stunt. Many, perhaps rightly, feared the backlash such an obviously futile gesture would bring about in the general public. Others, also perhaps rightly, saw value in standing up for the separation of church and state.
He threw us this bone even after we angered the nation by launching an ad campaign on DC buses over Christmas asking “Why believe in a god?” That campaign lowered the national dialog to the level of bumper stickers by provoking Christian ads responding “…Because I created you! – God.” (Who knew God spoke through marketing!)
He threw us a bone as Americans which means a lot when you remember that it was only three presidents ago when #41 said “No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.” What a slap to the face of 21% of the military. I guess they were all just worm dirt.
Those three little words mean a lot coming from the new president, but what about the rest of the country? According to one blogger at the inauguration the only time there were boo’s for Obama was when non-believers were mentioned. On TV the next day, “The View” commentator Joy Behar (the liberal one!), said, “I’ve never heard a presidential speech where they also acknowledged non-believers. I mean, there was a lot of Jesus and a lot of religion, but to actually say we’re reaching out even to you pathetic atheists out there, you know, who don’t believe, I thought that was a great thing.” Sure, she was trying to show it in a positive light, but can you imagine the uproar if she had said, even in passing, pathetic Jews, pathetic blacks, or, Allah forbid, pathetic Muslims? Fatwa’s all around! Considering that there are more non-believers than Jews in America, it seems absurd that the level of disdain directed toward us is, not only unchallenged, but spurred on by the popular media!
But this gesture does give me a good feeling about the direction the new administration is taking. They are being inclusive, and maybe that’s not so surprising. Remember, Obama was raised in a very secular home. His father was born a Muslim but became an atheist as an adult. His mother was raised by non-practicing Methodists and Baptists and he freely admits that he grew up with a “healthy skepticism of organized religion.” So when the inaugural oath had to be repeated last Wednesday evening because of the flub-up during the ceremony Tuesday, perhaps it’s no surprise that it was done without the bible. Although I’m assuming they still used the “So help me IPU,” bit.
Jan 21
Jan 19
Ok I kinda watched a couple of more episodes. I’m not even in nitpick territory any more. This show sucks.
Why bother basing a show on a set of decent books if your just going to defecate on them?
When the webmaster of the forum for the book series has to delete whole threads and threaten to ban people if they aren’t ‘nice’ to the TV show you know someone has sold out. They actually split up the site into a section where comparisons to the books can be made and where they can’t. Let me repeat: They split it up so there is a section of the forum where THE BOOK THE SHOW IS BASED ON IS NOT ALLOWED TO BE COMPARED TO THE TV SHOW.
Zedd you suck, you should be leading the angry mob! Instead you’ve played the sycophant.
BUT: It’s still a good time to be a fantasy fan. Apparently Terry Goodkind isn’t the only one making TV shows behind my back. George R. R. Martin is doing it too! This is even more exciting, and scarier. Like I said I wasn’t ever a very big fan of the Sword of Truth series. But A Song of Fire and Ice? Oh yeah, me likey.
If they screw this up, I’m going to be pissed.
It is a good time to be a fan of fantasy. Apparently they started 
making a TV series based on the Sword of Truth series without telling me. Legends of the Seeker is available on Hulu up through episode 8 as of now. Now I don’t make a habit of watching television shows, especially not before a series is finished. It’s usually too much of a time investment for something that might turn out to be utterly disappointing. Given the fact that this is a fantasy series the only other shows I can even remember to really compare it to are the old Kevin Sorbo – Conan and Xena shows. Well these are definitely a step up. Of course it has been years since then so I would hope that production values have gone up.
The show certainly isn’t quite up to Heroes production levels but it’s good enough to please me. I’ve only ever been a modest fan of the SoT series (Terry always seemed to be borrowing a little too much from the Wheel of Time for me), so I’m sure I’m not as picky as other fans but that’s not going to keep me from nitpicking a little anyway.
Spoiler alert!
So knowing that Rahl is Richards father I can’t help but think that they should have cast someone older to play the ruler of D’hara. I guess that actor could be in his late 30′s but he seems more mid-30′s to me, a little young to have a 23 year old son. Even if I could forgive the age discrepancy the guy just doesn’t seem all that menacing. He’s more Snape than Voldemort if you’ll excuse the cross-creation analogy. Meh, maybe he’ll get scarier as we go.
The cheesy explosions are bothering me a little bit too. Seriously, I know it’s only TV and there are budget concerns and whatnot but I’ve seen smoother FX transitions on stop-motion lego you-tube videos. Get some new fire effects too, the wizards flame wasn’t bad but whatever they were using at the end of the 2nd episode for the battle at the boundary was weaksauce.
My last nitpick may be minor but exemplifies the problems with screen adaptations of novels. Kahlan just doesn’t seem regal enough. Sure she looks good and fits the description fairly well (am I the only one who really thinks her hair ought to be a LOT longer though?) but the TV version doesn’t strike me as a character used to being in command. In the same vein the Gar’s seemed to ugly, I know, I know, they are supposed to be ugly, but remember our boy Richard is going to be dragging one around for a long-ass time once this gets going (if it gets going…), and I’d rather it be something a little easier to look at.
That last bit brings up another concern. Are they really serious about this? I mean it took an hour and a half to get through just the first little bit of the first book. How much of the series are they planning to do? A season for each book? It seems like they would need that much time. And what will that mean for the plot? Books aren’t written with a neatly tied up mini-story every chapter, how will audiences react?
I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, and to be honest I’m more exited about it because of what it means for the Wheel of Time. Red Eagle Entertainment is now talking about making a live-action movie with Universal based on The Eye of the World to go along with some new video games and I hope they are paying attention to the mistakes being made in Legend of the Seeker. Of course this is the same group who let us down with the New Spring comics. Seriously, who puts out the first 5 of an 8 part series and then stops? That’s just rude!
Jan 8
I just ordered the Wheel of Time books 1 – 8 in hardback. I either wore out the originals I had (most were either paperback or book club editions) or never got them back after loaning them out. This will bring me up to date on the series and should give me enough time to read through the 13 volumes currently out (counting the oversized guidebook and New Spring) before Brandon Sanderson releases the final volume, A Memory of Light.
Dec 11
Finals – ugh.
