tala @ so-phobic

Two of the funniest blog entries I’ve read all day from pinoy.rickey.org:

Panday - Hahaha
Panday - Cellphone

Laugh your ass off like I did.

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Testing Live+Press plugin for WordPress. Cool, it works. Well, except for the LJ Extras. I’m too lazy to tweak it right now, so this will have to do.

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I think I’ll change my mind and not ask for a Nano this Christmas. I’ll ask for 12k worth of books instead, lol!

The obligatory Christmas wishlist:

1. The Darkness That Comes Before : The Prince of Nothing Book I
2. The Warrior Prophet : The Prince of Nothing Book II
3. The Thousandfold Thought : The Prince of Nothing Book III (pre-order)
4. The Art Of George R. R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire

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I am royally pissed.

I hauled ass to Fully Booked Rockwell with a list of books recommended by the voracious readers over at the aSoIaF boards. I trust these people’s tastes, after all, they’re GRRM fans. I intended to purchase Books 1 and 2 of R. Scott Bakker’s Prince of Nothing series, the first item in my list. But after Asimov came Barclay. I searched the shelves, hoping that maybe the books just got disarranged somehow. No dice. I was hesitant to look for the 2nd item on my list, Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon. This is the 1st book in a series of 10 about Erikson’s Malazan Empire. Yes, you read that right, there’s going to be 10 books in the series. I am suffering from Randlandnophobia, so I’m thinking I’ll just skip this series for now and buy the whole set once it’s finished. Good idea or bad? People have told me that Erikson’s as painstakingly detailed as Jordan though (Jordan on clothing, Erikson on rocks), making the books a difficult read. Still, after aSoIaF and WoT, I want something that’s actually finished, or will be finished by early next year. The decision was taken out of my hands as they didn’t have Erikson in stock either. The 3rd series on the list was Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. I have been meaning to get this for my youngest brother for Christmas though, instead of Eldest or the new Artemis Fowl . He’s read the 3 Dragonlance trilogies, the Icewin Dale trilogy, the Dark Elf trilogy, and a couple of Orson Scott Card’s books (among others of different genres). I’ve read the first book, The Golden Compass, and enjoyed it immensely. It reminded me of A Wrinkle in Time. So, dilemma: if I buy the set now, I’d be tempted to read books 2 and 3. Yes, I have been known to destroy birthday and Christmas wrappings just to read the next book in the series. The good news is that both Fully Booked Rockwell and Powerbooks Greenbelt 4 had piles of the trilogy. Moving on, the last item on the list was Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Legacy. Fully Booked had Kushiel’s Dart and Kushiel’s Chosen in stock. The thing is, I really wanted to get Bakker’s books, so I decided not to buy them. I thought that maybe Powerbooks Greenbelt would have Bakker, and since I’m saving my money (Christmas calls), I wanted to spend it on something I really wanted. Ugh, now I want to slap myself! Powerbooks didn’t have Bakker or Erikson, or even Carey! What they (and even Fully Booked actually) had was miles and miles of Narnia! Scream!

Okay, I get it. There’s a movie coming out, and it’s like, the 3rd best thing to happen in the world of fantasy-books-to-feature films. Also, I’m happy for the Filipino Narnians (of which I am a member of lol). But let’s not forget the other great fantasy books out there, with authors who are actually alive and writing! Do you really have to stock every version and publisher of the Chronicles? Powerbooks had shelves and walls of Tolkien and Goodkind. They didn’t even have GRRM, who is 1/3 of the great movers of fantasy today (Bakker and Erikson comprise the 2/3). I want to read something new, dammit! And I don’t want to strain my eyes by reading the ebook versions. And the Powerbooks in Glorietta 3, the one merged with Tower Records, smelled like it had anay. I held my breath, scanned the Sci-fi/Fantasy section, and got out of there as fast as I could.

I wish I had read Wikipedia’s entry on Kushiel’s Legacy before going to the store. A Fully Booked personnel actually told me that they just misplaced the Bakker books. According to their computer, their branch has it in stock. So I left my name and contact numbers with orders (ha!) for them to call me the instant they find the books. Hmm, maybe I should call them and have the Carey books reserved. If they don’t have a Bakker book for me by tomorrow, I’m getting the Kushiel books. I’m in desperate need of something to read.

Oooh, GRRM has a non-blog blog. So does RJ, but who cares? Lol.

And has anyone else noticed that the following books have similar covers? Maybe they used the same cover artists?

• A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Edge Chronicles
• Eragon and Dragon Rider - they even seem to have the same plot

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everything is open
nothing is set in stone
rivers turn to ocean
oceans tide you home
home is where the heart is
but your heart had to roam
drifting over bridges
never to return
watching bridges burn

you’re driftwood floating underwater
breaking into pieces, pieces, pieces
just driftwood hollow and of no use
waterfalls will find you, bind you,
grind you

nobody is an island
everyone has to go
pillars turn to butter
butterflying low
low is where your heart is
but your heart has to go
drifting under bridges
never with the flow

and you really didn’t think it would happen
but it it really is the end of the line
so I’m sorry that you turned to driftwood
but you’ve been drifting for a long, long time

everywhere there’s trouble
nowhere’s safe to go
pushes turn to shovels
shoveling the snow
frozen you have chosen
the path you wish to go
drifting now forever
and forever more
until you reach your shore

you’re driftwood floating underwater
breaking into pieces, pieces, pieces
just driftwood hollow and of no use
waterfalls will find you, bind you,
grind you
and you really didn’t think it would happen
but it it really is the end of the line
so I’m sorry that you turned to driftwood
but you’ve been drifting for a long, long time
you’ve been drifting for a long, long time
you’ve been drifting for a long, long time
drifting for a long, long time

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