Things have been insanely busy at work for the last few weeks, sorry everyone. I haven't had time to read, much less write. Things are looking like they'll be busy for at least a couple weeks more, especially since we're supposed to introduce mobile support in a couple of days. It's a good thing to offer, but oh, there will be headaches at first. On the bright side they've authorized overtime pay, so yay time-and-a-half!
Pratchett's Phantom parody. I am a huge Phantom fan, the original book by Gaston Leroux as well as the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. Pterry does a great job with his parody of opera in general and Phantom in particular. And, of course, I love the witches. (Especially Nanny Ogg.) I'm not sure how much I'm going to like his rendition of Agnes/Perdita if only because there seemed to be a little bit of fat stereotyping going on, but I trust Pterry as a writer enough to think that there will probably be much more to her character in later appearances. I will admit to slight disappointment over the Agnes/Perdita dynamic. When I'd read the character description in the back of previous books it described Agnes and Perdita as being separate personalities and, this being the Discworld, I had expected it to be something more supernatural than a teenage girl and her fantasy life. More of a Jekyll and Hyde type scenario. I like what it is and would not have been disappointed at all had I not been primed to think something else.
Incidentally at the same time as I was reading this a friend on Facebook had gone to see Phantom and kept posting random snippets of songs as his status. Between the two I decided to go out and re-purchase the original soundtrack. (I loaned my previous copy to my aunt years ago and haven't seen it since.) I still don't have the register to sing along with all the songs, but when I'm alone in the car on my long commutes it's fun to make the attempt anyway. ;)
After three months out sick and another month where I was lucky enough to be able to work at home, I had forgotten just how much work it is to, well, go to work. Nine hours a day in the office (including lunch time) plus over an hour and a half of total commute time means I'm not at home very much during the week. Even though I'm feeling a lot better we're back to eating a lot of takeout and convenience meals and our laundry is piled up very high. I'm thinking of hiring the laundry pixies again to wash and fold it for me. It's either that or we spend a couple of hours on Sunday doing family laundromat time.
It is very nice to have some income again though. We've managed to pay all of my medical bills now and put a little bit of money into savings. If we keep this up we'll even be able to comfortably get Christmas presents for everyone this year and still be able to make my student loan payments. That would be nice.
Saturday is Kaitlin's school's Silly Olympics. (Yes, we just did that back in May, they've decided to move it to a Fall event instead of Spring.) That should be a lot of fun and I think I'll be able to hang out longer this time. I've got to remember to bring the camera. It's been way too long since I've spammed my friends with kid photos. :p
No, even I don't actually read this fast. I knew there were some books I'd read that I'd forgotten to add to the list before, but just couldn't remember which ones. Now I've remembered. I like this trilogy a lot because it really fills in a lot that the fifth season never managed to get to. I'd wondered for a long time what happened with David and his Keeper and now I know. It did take me a long time to decide to pony up the $20 for a used copy of the last book in the trilogy though. Books 1 and 2 are relatively easy (and cheap) to find, but not the third one. And what's the point of starting a trilogy if you don't have the whole set?!
Soul Music was fun, as are all the Discworld books. Apparently I'd have enjoyed it more if I knew a bit more about music history. And possibly Welsh. I've managed to get Josh interested in the series a little bit. He started off with Small Gods and laughed the whole way through. He never did make it through The Colour of Magic, but we watched the BBC movie (for The Light Fantastic as well). Now he's working on Reaper Man and probably later this year we'll watch the movie for Hogfather. Kaitlin is liking the movies too.
I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the Discworld books I've read so far, but this is the first one that has literally made me laugh out loud. I'm not sure if it was the binary troll, or Carrot's particular way of looking at the world, or Vimes' surly demeanor, but something in this one just struck exactly the right chord with me. I think The Watch books are becoming my favorite ones in the series. Closely followed by everything else, of course.
Now that I'm back at work I will probably be posting more often. For some reason at home I've stopped using my regular computer so much and done most of my internetting on the iPod with the Wi-Fi. I guess I feel I'm being more sociable when I'm ignoring people in the same room as them. In any case, I've got more time on my hands for it now.
I also haven't been posting as much because I just don't feel like I've got a lot to say. Even I'm getting tired of hearing myself talk about all my medical troubles (which, sadly, still aren't quite over) and since I don't feel well I never go out and do anything, so there's not much to talk about.
Kaitlin's birthday was last weekend. She's 6 years old now, which I can hardly believe even with the evidence of a 46" tall girl with her front teeth missing in front of me. I nearly forgot to plan the thing, so her party was fairly low-key, but five of her friends came over and they all had fun playing games, jumping on the bed, beating up the piñata, and eating strawberry shortcakes, so it all worked out well. I even got to see Josh's parents after the party, who I hardly ever see, so that was nice.
This weekend I'm heading down to visit my dad and see my nieces for the first time in over six months. They've got to be huge now! And I bet they're pulling themselves up and getting into all sorts of trouble. I can't wait.
I haven't been writing, but I have been reading. After seeing HP 7.5 I felt the urge to finish re-reading the series. And so...I did! Lords and Ladies is another Discworld adventure. For some reason that one took me a while to get into, but once I did I really enjoyed it. Flash and Bones is another Temperance Brennan novel and follows the usual formula. But you know what? Sometimes it's fun to read a formulaic book. As for Lies, I picked it up at Goodwill not long after Franken was elected senator figuring that if the guy is going to be in the government I should see a little of what he's like. I never saw him on SNL or any of his other shows. The book didn't quite strike the right funny bone for me, but it was interesting nonetheless. And now, I move on to more Discworld.
I've never read any horror novels or zombie books before (except for World War Z, which is about the aftermath more than the actual zombie invasion) so I don't know how Night of the Living Trekkies compares, but I thought it was fun and had a lot of good Trek and general sci-fi references. Naming every chapter after a Star Trek episode title was a nice touch.
Stardust surprised me with how different it was from the movie. Captain Shakespeare isn't in the book at all, which is quite disappointing as he was one of my favorite characters, and the ending is much more dramatic and dangerous in the movie than the book. Still it was a very nice fairy tale and a lot of fun to read.
