If you're at all interested in my NaNo related babbling, I have an LJ just for that that you're all welcome to read if you wish. A few people have suggested I share my updates so I've decided to resurrect it for that purpose.

http://isi-nanos.livejournal.com/

I have this fascination with badly written books, which is perpetuated by said books being stupidly popular (thus spawning lots of snark from anti fans). And the two obvious books (well, series) to crown this fascination are Twilight and Eragon. And yet, for some reason I still try to give these books a fighting chance to convince me they don't deserve my mockery (it usually doesn't work out. You may remember my rant on Twilight), and while I've read Eldest recently enough to recognize that yes, I do really hate it, I didn't start thinking Eragon was the Worst Book Ever until after reading other writers' opinions of it, after I had first read it. Years of following antishurtugal have formed my opinions without necessarily forming them myself. I was young when I read it! I didn't know how to be critical of what I read!

And that is why I set out to reread Eragon. Now that I am older and more knowledgeable of what makes good writing, I thought I would be better equipped to form more accurate opinions of this book.

But let's be fair. I do remember a few uninfluenced opinions I had of the book after my first reading. As mentioned, I didn't think it was particularly bad, though I remember being convinced Paolini thought he was Tolkien (please note this opinion hasn't changed). You have inexplicable glossaries and language guides at the end of the book: why is this necessary? Also, I remember keeping all the made up races straight by thinking of them as their LotR counterparts. The fact that for the most part they lined up pretty well should have been a warning sign that something wasn't quite right. In fact I think I was a bit miffed over this, especially with regards to the indexes in the back (I think I would feel the same if an author who wasn't Prachett started using footnotes. In other words, only Tolkien is allowed to be Tolkien), but whatever, right?

But enough of that. What did I think this time? How badly does this book deserve my eternal mockery?

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And that, my friends, was way longer than I expected.

Yet another long absence brought to you by yours truly, and what better way to break it than by posting a pointless meme that, at most, two people will respond to, much like my very sad music meme!

I call it "Movies I Wouldn't Mind Watching Right Now." Pick 20 or so movies, find a quote from them, and see how many people can guess.

( I can't think of anything to put here! Click me anyway! )

Everything's from imdb.com so I can blame something else if the quotes aren't exactly right.

Whoever invented 8 am Saturday morning finals needs to be slapped. Well, the official time in 8:30 to 11:30, but the prof said that isn't going to be enough time and is telling us 8:00 to noon.

We're not even taking an exam during this time; we're presenting project proposals as if we were going to run an experiment. I just started filling out the IRB application and putting my powerpoint together about three hours ago, and between my current mindset preparing my presentation, the amount of sleep I'm not going to get, and how awake I'm likely to be tomorrow morning, it'll be a wonder if I say anything coherent at all.

Hey, remember in my rant on Twilight I mentioned having a list of guidelines for writing romance that doesn't make me want to gag? I actually sort of finally finished writing it out, since last night I couldn't figure out what I wanted to write, so I opened this and worked on it instead. So, yay!

Note: I originally started writing this to be a part of our Sporker writing wiki thing that ended up never being used, so instead I'm posting it here until I figure out what else to do with it.

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And there you have it; some guidelines to how I think romance should be handled. But I’m open to feedback: tell me how I can make this better. What parts are unclear? Should I have included examples? Maybe you just want to argue with me?

Oh yeah, and, happy Easter.

Put your music player on shuffle. Write down the first lines of the first fifty songs. Make your flist guess them. Please don't Google songs (well, please don't Google songs and then post the title as if you'd guessed it--you can Google and keep the information to yourself).

Exceptions are the many songs on my computer that have no lyrics, and a few that weren't in English. There is one song on here where the first bit was a different language, but I put the first English line that came up.

Yes I know I do not have very much music on my computer, so there are many, many artist repeats. It also tended to throw music that I've listened to a lot or recently, but there's a few songs I haven't really listened to for quite a while on here.

( Lalala, lyrics la. )

It is Pi(e) Day (I'm never sure if I should put the e in or not), making this the third Pi(e) Day I have celebrated by making a LJ post about or at least acknowledging Pi(e) Day!

And that actually wasn't why I initially wanted to post, so now that I've acknowledged the day, onto other stuff!

So I found this video that's the opening sequence of Watchmen as a Saturday morning cartoon and... wow. If you know absolutely anything about Watchmen you will understand how wrong this is, and yet it's so funny. At first I wasn't sure whether to laugh or stare in horror. Nite Owl likes to party! Silk Spectre plays in a girl band and reads bedtime stories to Doctor Manhattan! The Comedian hits on Silk Spectre! Rorschach is "nutty," likes petting dogs, and says no to drugs! Doctor Manhattan can... turn into a car(!?)! And Ozymandias and his... pet thing are surely channeling Scooby Doo and Shaggy. Oh yeah, and Adrian catches the Comedian as he falls out of his window. Because that's completely what happens. And then they all hang out and eat pizza.

Rest assured that no, it isn't real. That line about Jon giving people cancer might've been a tip off. There's even a Wikipedia article about it.

In the name of not going an entire month without posting here, this is an update. *nods*

Firefox is being stupid, so I'm forced to use IE. Why is Firefox being stupid?

Permission to melt into an indiscernible and lifeless puddle of goop?