Backwards in Time

-It's been a while since I did a personal update here. Partly that's because, overall, my life is going really well, and I'm reluctant to brag. Partly it's because the new job is keeping me on my toes, and I thus have, overall, less time for posting. But, going backwards in time, here's a sketch of the past few weeks:

-Yesterday, Sunday the 21st, birthday party for a lovely and dear friend, which involved yummy little cakes with strawberry sauce on them, yummy little cakes with chocolate sauce on them, pizza, and cuddling.

-Saturday the 20th, the HOVIR party followed by the Stacks party, at both of which I saw many good friends, some of whom I don't see nearly often enough.

-Friday the 19th, dinner at The Elephant Walk in Cambridge with buxom_bey and doeeyedbunny. A bit pricy, but utterly worth it. Tres delish. We had (and shared) the Kobe beef, the lamb chops, and the Cornish game hen. Oh, and, they have a gluten-free menu, for which they get mucho points.

-Thursday . . . damn, it's amazing how fuzzy my memory gets when I don't have my calendar in front of me. More when I'm home.

Further Backwards

-Sunday the 14th, Zeph/cathijosephine visited Bey/buxom_bey and me for the evening, which was delightful. She is definitely family to me.

-Saturday the 13th was a three-fer. Bey and I first visited Annie/asciikitty and Kris/nchanter at the craft fair they were participating in. They were selling, among other stuff, beautiful scarves and pillows. I bought a scarf for me mum and a pillow for the chair in the office, and from another vendor I picked up a vase for the living room. Bey and I then went on to DePrisco, where we checked out potential stones for when I eventually buy Bey a ring. And that night, we had a Mother's Day dinner with my family at my folks' place.

Wednesday and Thursday the 10th and 11th were respectively Chad/freedomthrufire's graduation party and a soiree at J.T.'s. Chad and J.T. remain two of the most suave and handsome guys I know.

Monday the 8th was a very nice date with mizarchivist.

And the weekend before that, I had blocked out as Jon Time, and did precious close to Nothing At All.

Books: The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

-Okay, if Brooks claims the resemblance in plot between this and LotR is pure coincidence, he's deluding himself. We've got Hobbiton, Gandalf, the trip to Rivendell, during which they meet a pseduo-Aragorn, the Council of Elrond, the Fellowship of the Ring Sword, Moria, Ringwraiths, Sauron, the Gandalf-Balrog fight, the parting of the Fellowship, a Gollum figure obsessed with the Ring Sword, a Theoden-Wormtongue pair, the seige of Minas Tirith, the Ride of the Rohirrim . . . yeah, it's more than coincidence.

-I read Sword largely because of its infamy as one of the most blatant of the post-Tolkien "homages". I felt I wouldn't be able to properly criticize it if I had never read it. I'll do it the courtesy of saying it has some good ideas in it. It's also aggressively overwritten, and several of the main characters (including the Sauron-equivalent) are required to be Really Frickin' Dumb in order for the plot to move forward. I'm going to keep it, but I wouldn't really recommend it.