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Well, it's well past midnight and I'm home, but not tired. So, let's post.
All my cavalier passing of credit card details around the 'net seems to have caught up with me. :( I've never been too hung up on buying things online - I figure it's just as easy for someone to get ahold of a credit card slip or receipt from the trash as it is to hack into an online transaction. But now someone's using my card number for some UK-based internet-phone service. And, of course, I only figure this out on a Friday (and New Years Eve, to boot), and can't start any gears moving to resolve the situation until the billing people get in on Monday. Aargh. Why are people so mean? (The card stealers, not the credit card people.)
I finally finished up Book 10 of the Wheel of Time series. It took me FOREVER. I kept getting bored and going off to read manga instead. There's not much to say about Jordan that hasn't been said, but I think my biggest gripe is the pure repetitiveness of the prose. There's only so many descriptions of women fussing with their clothing or their hair as a way to hide their emotions that a person can take. And I really don't need to know the exact hair color, height, magnitude of prettiness, and extent to which s/he fits the stereotypical traits of his/her nationality/ajah for every minor character who gets a name. And yeah, I *get* that Perrin can tell what people are feeling by scent. I don't need to know how that scent changes with every other sentence, thank you. I continue to like Mat, though, and so I guess I'm stuck with this series to the bitter end.
Anime-wise, I've fallen in passionate love with Beck. I can't really describe it very well except that it's a coming-of-age story that feels much more real and gritty and urban than anything I've seen before. The art style provides characters that are all designed to actually look Japanese, except for the characters who are actually SUPPOSED to be westerners, and the story has a strong "today" sort of feel to it, with Japanese teenagers steeped in western pop culture and, especially, western music. The central storyline deals with an awkward highschool boy who starts to find his footing in life when a series of chance circumstances lead him to discover a passion for rock music that ends up with him learning guitar and playing in a soon-to-be-hot (one presumes) indy rock band. There's more to it than that, but it's a really great show. :)
All my cavalier passing of credit card details around the 'net seems to have caught up with me. :( I've never been too hung up on buying things online - I figure it's just as easy for someone to get ahold of a credit card slip or receipt from the trash as it is to hack into an online transaction. But now someone's using my card number for some UK-based internet-phone service. And, of course, I only figure this out on a Friday (and New Years Eve, to boot), and can't start any gears moving to resolve the situation until the billing people get in on Monday. Aargh. Why are people so mean? (The card stealers, not the credit card people.)
I finally finished up Book 10 of the Wheel of Time series. It took me FOREVER. I kept getting bored and going off to read manga instead. There's not much to say about Jordan that hasn't been said, but I think my biggest gripe is the pure repetitiveness of the prose. There's only so many descriptions of women fussing with their clothing or their hair as a way to hide their emotions that a person can take. And I really don't need to know the exact hair color, height, magnitude of prettiness, and extent to which s/he fits the stereotypical traits of his/her nationality/ajah for every minor character who gets a name. And yeah, I *get* that Perrin can tell what people are feeling by scent. I don't need to know how that scent changes with every other sentence, thank you. I continue to like Mat, though, and so I guess I'm stuck with this series to the bitter end.
Anime-wise, I've fallen in passionate love with Beck. I can't really describe it very well except that it's a coming-of-age story that feels much more real and gritty and urban than anything I've seen before. The art style provides characters that are all designed to actually look Japanese, except for the characters who are actually SUPPOSED to be westerners, and the story has a strong "today" sort of feel to it, with Japanese teenagers steeped in western pop culture and, especially, western music. The central storyline deals with an awkward highschool boy who starts to find his footing in life when a series of chance circumstances lead him to discover a passion for rock music that ends up with him learning guitar and playing in a soon-to-be-hot (one presumes) indy rock band. There's more to it than that, but it's a really great show. :)