Homestuck Notifier - Spades Slick

 If you've been following me on Tumblr, you know that lately I've gotten interested in a webcomic called Homestuck. It's made up to feel like an old school text-based video game, and it incorporates a lot of audio, flash animation, and even a few flash mini-games (making it a sort of multi-media webcomic). I wont bother trying to summarize the plot, as it's a bit complicated, but it's a really intriguing storyline and I'm hooked.

The comic updates regularly, generally on a daily basis, so sometimes fans have to constantly check the site to see if there's a new page. Luckily, one such fan developed a program called the Homestuck Notifier, which checks the Homestuck RSS feed regularly, and when there's a new update, a sound will play and an image will pop up above the computer's taskbar.

The Notifier cycles through a bunch of preset fanart, but the READ ME explained that you could upload your own image or sound to the program's macro folder. Obviously I had to do this, because the preset images didn't include one of Spades Slick, one of my favorite characters.

Book Survey

Someone I'm following on Tumblr linked to this book survey on her main blog. These are 65 questions about books and things in books, and I'll try to keep it interesting (ergo, my answers my run a bit long). As I've read a lot of books in my time, I may not be able to think of the best answers for some of these; unless I have a specific example otherwise, I'm going to try to stick to the books I have on my shelf. The rule stated that you couldn't use the same answer twice, so as much as possible I'll try to follow that.

(EDIT: Also, I realized halfway through that I could count my manga as well, but since I'd already filled out most of the answers I decided not to. Just note that if I'd realized this earlier there would have been some Rurouni Kenshin or Death Note references.)

Halting State by Charles Stross

I discovered only recently that I'm a huge fan of science fiction. By 'recently' I mean a couple years ago, but considering that I've been an avid reader since before kindergarten, I'm surprised I didn't notice this before.

I specifically enjoy sci-fi stories that aren't cautionary. Cautionary tales are nice and whatever, but it has almost become a necessity for futuristic stories, and I like when writers are able to tell a story that uses the future as a setting, not a main plot point (and I feel obliged, here, to bring up "I, Robot," an Issac Asimov anthology which seemed to acknowledge that expectation and show the flip side. The 2004 movie ignored Asimov's original intention and transformed the anthology into a stereotypical cautionary tale again).

To foster this newfound love, I've been looking for enjoyable sci-fi stories, and I found one when I heard about Charles Stross' near-future novel Halting State.

The Fault in our Stars

About a year and a half ago or more, my brother told me about an online video blog series he was following called Vlogbrothers; two brothers, John and Hank Green, would 'vlog' back and forth as a way to keep in touch. Their vlogs had quite a large following over time, and mostly included them either talking about nerdy things, discussing current events, or just overall trying to make the world a better place.

The community of fans call themselves 'Nerdfighters', and a full post about that is for another time.

I didn't start avidly watching the Vlogbrothers' videos until this summer, however, at which time John Green, the older of the two brothers and an award wining novelist of YA fiction, would continuously mention his upcoming book in his videos. Late last summer, he announced that he would be signing every pre-ordered copy of the book, titled The Fault in our Stars, and John proceeded to take on the enormous challenge of signing his name over and over, 150,000 times.

I started this blog with the intention of writing a review on The Fault in our Stars, but I'm not really sure what there is I can say about it. The book finally came out on the 10th, though I didn't start reading it until a week later (After I finished re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo). I finished it in about a day or two; John Green's writing is so straightforward and easy to read that many people could finish the book in one sitting (as long as they sat for a couple of hours; it's a 300-page book).

Not only is Green's writing style very comfortable, but his characters are likable and well-developed. Hazel Grace Lancaster, the protagonist and narrator of he story, is a 16-year-old girl with lung cancer, forced to wheel around an oxygen tank wherever she goes. She doesn't gloss over her cancer story, nor does she make it seem worse than it is. She has her own life, her own likes and dislikes, and instead of taking over her story her cancer is more like an amendment to it.

Augustus Waters, the boy she falls in love with, seems at first almost too good to be true. Not only is he smart and charming and instantly likable, he shows us over time his own weaknesses; he says in the first chapter that he fears oblivion, but it's only later that we realize how much.

If you want to know more about the book, I'd suggest reading the reviews by NPR or The New York Times; that, or read the book for yourself. It's a straightforward, 'real' tale of life with cancer, unmarred by perfect characters changing the world, but also not completely without hope. The book is written with Green's trademark hilarity but, as other reviewers have warned, the "laugh to cry ratio is pretty much 1:1."

Romances to Suggest

This is just a minor list of novels sitting on my self that have a romantic leaning (whether it's the main plot or not) that I would like to suggest. Some of these may be getting full reviews later. These are in order of how they appear on my shelf (by author's last name):

-Sense and Sensibility
A Jane Austen that I think everyone's heard about. It's a bit less famous than Pride and Prejudice, which is also on my shelf but isn't being listed because I think everyone knows about it. Though Austen's style may be a bit unfamiliar to some, it's a really good story if you can get into it, and I might just like it more than the other famous Austen, though mostly out of spite (they're both really good novels).

-The Wolf Hunt
A historical fantasy/romance by Gillian Bradshaw, highly recommended by me. This is an adaptation of the earliest known werewolf story, Bisclavret, which is a French epic poem about a man with the ability to transform into a wolf, who is betrayed by his wife, trapped in wolf form, and taken up by his liege king as a sort of pet until he is able to get his revenge. It's an awesome story, and the adaptation adds a bit of romance with a female protagonist; very historically accurate, from what I can tell, and, as I mentioned before, highly recommended.

-Enchantment
Probably one of the lesser known Orson Scott Card novels, which Card himself said was one of his favorites. A Russian-born American travels back to his homeland and gets trapped in an ancient Russian fairytale, a Slavic version of Sleeping Beauty in which he and the princess must fight the evil witch Baba Yaga while Ivan, the protagonist, struggles to figure out how to return to his own time. Very much an OSCard novel, with smart characters and an intriguing plot, but an unexpected romance all the same.

-Paper Towns
A big break from the previous titles on this list, Paper Towns in a modern day YA novel by John Green. The protagonist Quentin (known as 'Q') is called out for a night of adventure by Margo Roth Spiegelman, a girl who has always been an fascinating enigma, only to discover the next day that she had disappeared. He spends the whole rest of the novel trying to balance searching for her and keeping up with his own High School life, and the conclusion makes this definitely one of my favorite YA novels.

-The Fault in our Stars
The newly released John Green novel, about a girl dying of lung cancer, the boy she meets, and the adventures they go on. This one is getting a full review next week, but I'm adding it here because it's definitely a good read; be prepared to laugh and to cry, though.

-The Phantom of the Opera
Gaston Leroux, this one is being added to the list just because I don't think many people have read it. It took me a bit to get into, but it's very goof and definitely a recommend for everyone who loves the play/movie(s).

-Much Ado about Nothing
By far my favorite Shakespeare; Shakespearean in writing but hilarious and wonderful. Beatrice is a smart woman who has refused to marry; Benedick is a sarcastic bachelor who loves his 'freedoms'; both are tricked into falling in love after a series of conspiracies between their friends. Catherine Tate and David Tennant recently acted the lead roles in a stage version, which I would have given anything to see (still hoping for a Region 1 DVD release; fingers crossed!)

-The Importance of Being Earnest
Recommending this particular Oscar Wilde play because it'll probably be the easiest to get a hold of (Colin Firth and Rupert Everett did a version recently that was wonderful). Jack fakes the name Earnest when going into town to pursue the affections of his love Gwendolyn; his friend Algernon, after hearing this, goes to the country and pretends to be Jack's fake brother Earnest, to pursue the affection of Jack's young ward Cecily. Other wonderful Wilde plays include Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband).

Thoughts on Love and Selfishness

This isn't at all what I meant to talk about today, but I read something recently that got me to thinking, and it would be sacrilege not to publish my every thought (that was sarcasm, btw). This is going to be short, and probably a bit aesthetically unappealing as I'm not going to bother finding a bunch of random, semi-related images to sprinkle around.

I just got finished reading a romance novel, and at one point the male romantic lead mentioned to the female romantic lead that, for at least one second, he thought he would be willing to let her die in order to spare her the pain of seeing him die. When MRL (I'm initializing) said this, my respect for him grew enormously.

I'm mostly talking about the Great Romantic Love today, the heroic love from romances and not real life. There seems to be a thought going around that this kind of love is completely selfless, where both romantic leads are willing to do anything in order to make their significant other happy, even risking their lives so that the other might survive. I gave it some thought a long time ago (and by 'a long time' I mean I think I was in Middle School), and I decided that I largely disagreed with this thought.

This came up again in High School, when we read Ayn Rand's Anthem for IB English in our Sophomore year. Ayn Rand, in case you don't know, created the philosophy of Objectivism, which essentially states that man's highest goal in life should be to obtain his own happiness. This idea, of course, chaffed with a lot of the students, though I found myself agreeing with it in at least some respects. Anthem itself was a sort of allegory used to explain Rand's philosophy.

A major part of the story is the fact that Equality, the name given to the main character by society, falls in love with a girl named Liberty, who he's not supposed to even know. A few students brought this up, wondering how he could be falling in love with someone if he's supposed to be thinking only about his own happiness, and our teacher tried to explain that the act of loving is mostly selfish, saying something to the effect of "he loves her because making her happy is something that makes him happy."

I completely understood that; when thinking about love and selfishness, my mind is almost always drawn to think about the obligatory 'dying in order to save your lover's life' scene in most heroic romances. The hero of the scene, helplessly in love with the main love interest of the fiction, would rather die than be forced to live in a world without him/her.

Which is nice until you consider that, by dying, the hero is forcing their significant other to do the very thing they (the hero) could not possibly stand to do. That's OK if the significant other didn't feel exactly the same way about our hero, but that's rarely the case in Great Heroic Romances. So, what; you can't bare to live with the misery of your significant other's death, but you don't mind is s/he had to live with that misery?

Sure, it sounds a bit narcissistic to assume your lover will be as broken up about your death as you would be about theirs, but essentially you're coming off as selfish either way.

This is something I've been thinking about; I just finished re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo earlier this week, which has a somewhat similar Great Romance subplot, and the life-for-a-life thing isn't rare in heroic fiction with romantic subplots. That's why, reading this other book, I really grew to respect the MRL, not just for all the awesome things he did in the story, but for being, at that moment, extremely selfless, wishing to spare the FRL more suffering (which kind of ended up being a major theme within the story).

Bram Stoker's Dracula

According to my Tumblog, which I updated sometime right after starting the book, I spent a little over a month trying to read Bram Stoker's Dracula.

In the book's defense, I have also been working on NaNoWriMo, so I've had my mind on other things, but as I also had most of the month of October to try to read this extremely well known novel, I don't think this escuse really counts. As it turns out, Dracula really is just one of those stories it takes me an unnecessarily long time to wade through.

Treadmill Reviews: Gankutsuou, The Count of Monte Cristo

I've been trying my hardest to keep up with my daily treadmill exercise, but it's been getting difficult to find new things to watch while I walk. I had a haphazard list of shows and anime I wanted to go through, and after much deliberation, a couple weeks ago I finally decided on Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo.

I, Robot (Issac Asimov)

The 1st Edition cover.

Except for a few short stories in my Middle/High school English classes, I'd never read anything written by Issac Asimov, considered to be the master of science fiction. With that in mind, I finally picked up a copy of I, Robot earlier this summer, and I've finally now finished reading it (Unfortunately, the only version of the book at Barnes and Noble had Will Smith on the cover. I like Will Smith as an actor, but I dislike owning the 'movie cover' versions of books).

When the 2004 Will Smith 'I, Robot' movie came out, I saw reviews for it online that said it was "nothing like the book." At the time, I thought that meant it was dissimilar to the book in the same way that all the Harry Potter movies were dissimilar to the books, and years later I figured the I, Robot movie was probably just like the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movie (which gave a totally different set of characters in a different setting the same items and ultimate goal from the original game).

Having finally read the book, I can say knowingly that the movie is truly nothing like the book.

Vacation Time: Results Show

Monday, August the first, my parents and I set out for our official summer-vacation-get-away thing. The goal, I believe, was to visit my brother in Utah, see a few people in Idaho, and get to know said-brother's future in-laws in Oregon while we scouted out places to eat in Portland for the upcoming wedding. My own personal goals, meanwhile, were to work through some of my 'to-read' backlog, figure out our new car radio, and drive at least one leg of the trip without mom yelling at me (she's a very nervous passenger).

The drive to Utah took about ten hours, and I drove the first three. The road goes straight through the Mojave Desert, which is relatively pleasant to look at but pretty boring to drive through. Add that to the fact that I didn't know where I was going, and I was kinda stressed (I'm not used to using the overdrive button, so there were a few people riding my tail, and mom was finicky throughout), and by the end of my shift my back was sore and I was ready to stop.

Like this, but with no clouds. Ever.

Wilde and Unruly

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have the beginnings of what would be a list of dead people who I really admire. It's not really a fully-formed list - in fact, I can only accurately think of two names from it, the first being Albert Einstein, who I don't have to say anything about, and the other being Oscar Wilde.

I get the impression that many people today don't actually know who Oscar Wilde is, which is really unfortunate. In my opinion, he's one of the best and one of the funniest English writers of all time. In all fairness, however, he only ever wrote one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. When he was alive, he was most famous for his children's fairy tales, published in two collections titles The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates, but nowadays I'd wager most people recognize his name from the numerous plays he wrote, including Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Bookshelf

I talk a lot about video games, movies, and TV shows on this blog, and I worry sometimes that people might think I'm not as bookish as I really I. Because I really am.

These are the bookshelves in my room. As you can see, they're nicely decorated with knick-knacks that I've collected over the years - the majority of those kick-knacks being books. For some reason, I prefer to own the books that I read rather than borrow them, so if I get in the mood to read something, I almost always go out and buy it instead of checking to see if it's at the library, or if a friend owns it. I do occasionally get rid of books, but currently the number of fictional or otherwise narrative novels (or anthologies) on my wall is 232 (given a 1% margin of error).

World War Z

I think it's very appropriate that, while I was reading World War Z by Max Brooks, the Centers for Disease Control released their How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse report. If you have little to no interest in zombies, and are already tuning out because of the topic for today's blog, I highly suggest you keep reading, because World War Z is not your average zombie invasion story.

Incidental Confrontations

When I was young and impressionable, someone in my family watched at least a few episodes of The X-Files. I can't remember who it would have been; neither of my parents, as far as I understand, were huge fans, and I don't remember if my brothers watched TV much. But at least at some point during my youth, I was exposed to one of the decade's greatest and most popular efforts in modern, out-of-the-box, conspiracy science fiction.

I've always considered myself a fan of weird, strange, or abnormal stories. Maybe I have those few moments of The X-Files to thank for that. When I think of The X-Files, however, I can only think about how that show made me so totally, irrationally, terrified of aliens.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I finished this book last weekend, but I've been waiting to post this review until I had a bit more time to chew on it. Cormac McCarthy is an American Novelist and playwright who's become pretty well known after writing Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, and No Country for Old Men. The Road is his latest work, a post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son traveling through an ashen, burnt-out world, trying to survive. It's very powerful, strikingly written, and at the end, I really felt like I had missed something major.

My experiences reading this wonderful novel are a prime example of 'the right time, the right place'. Immediately before reading The Road, I had been emotionally drained by another story, which was also pretty grim (tho' it had a cathartic ending. I'll wait to review that until later). I already had quite a few books on my 'to-read' shelf, however, and had promised myself to read The Road next, so even though I didn't want to start another dark story so soon afterward, I made myself do it.

Face Stealer

I can't actually find much information about this anywhere, so I'm going to assume that I'm one of a very small group of closet Inadvertent Imitators, specifically when it comes to fictional characters. Of course there are thousands of people who dress up as their favorite characters for cosplay conventions and the like, and may even adopt their favorite character's tenant or sayings, but what I'm talking about is accidental. It only happens when I spend a good deal of time around a certain character (be it a TV show, a movie series, or whatever).

A good example is Doctor Who. I started watching the revived seasons just this past summer in hopes of catching up to the new season. That meant I was speeding through the show, watching anywhere from one to six episodes a day if I had nothing else to do, and hardly taking breaks in between to watch other shows or movies. For four days (The time it took me to speed through the first two seasons), I watched nothing but Doctor Who in my free time. By then, I was thinking in an almost pure British accent. It was almost startling to talk and find myself speaking proper American. I had to force myself to not pretend to be British in my head, and I decided to take a week break to watch Dollhouse to get my head back in order.

This doesn't only happen to me with accents, though. After a week of watching Dollhouse, I found myself walking around the house like one of the characters in their Tabula Rasa state (blankly). After speeding through Firefly, I sauntered like the main protagonist and forced myself not to use their Chinese (though I allow myself the say "shiny" whenever appropriate). I remember coming home from seeing Cyrano de Bergerac and having mom chide me for trying to talk just like he does, though I hadn't realized I'd been doing it.

I think this stems from the childhood act of playing as characters in stories. As if, as an adult, I haven't broken this habit, but instead evolved it to fit my new lifestyle. I'm not sure about this, though; I honestly don't remember pretending, as a child, to be my favorite characters. The only reason I would have adopted the habit growing older would be to help my writing. I know that, while reading a book, I'll copy character's expressions as described in order to help me 'see' the character better. It's easier to imagine a character's grimace if I practice it on myself.

I've found one other blogger who mentioned doing this, so I know I'm not the only one. But it's definitely a goo biological reminder not to get too focused on a single story. As great as a certain TV show might be, once I start inadvertently imitating the characters, I know I've been watching too much.

Fuzzy Beginnings

Under our very noses, for centuries unnoticed by human-kind, a war has been brewing between two horrific groups of people. Of course, I'm referring to the epic battle between Werewolves (Lycanthropes) and Vampires.

Something like this, right?

Most pieces of modern fiction that depict this war ask the audience to chose one side or another, either by present one as the 'heroes' and the other as the antagonist, or by giving a player the option to choose a side (as in games). After much research and deliberation, I decided of the two groups, I much more of a werewolf fan than a vampire fan, for reasons I'll explain below, but first I must address one important question; why is there even a war to begin with?

Reality is Broken (Jane McGonigal)

Mom and I picked up this book by Jane McGonigal a couple months back, somewhat on a whim and when we were really only intending to pick up A Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin). The title and front cover drew our attention, and a quick look inside the front flap convinced me to convince mom to buy it:

More than 174 million Americans are gamers, and the average young person in the United States will spend ten thousand hours gaming by the age of twenty-one. According to world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal, the reason for this mass exodus to virtual worlds is that video games are increasingly fulfilling genuine human needs. In this groundbreaking exploration of the power and future of gaming, McGonigal reveals how we can use the lessons of game design to fix what is wrong with the real world.

15 Characters Repost Meme

I generally tend to shy away from Repost Memes (those lists and other such things that get posted in Facebook notes and on Blogs telling people to personalize them and repost, tagging friends, et etc.), but I found this doing research for an Econ paper, and it sounded fun so I thought I'd give it a try. The idea was to think of fiction characters - of any kind, from any work of fiction - and write down the first 15 that come to mind. Then one would expound upon the characters, explaining why you like them or whatever. I took a bit more care choosing 15 of either my favorite characters or characters who influenced my writing/reading preferences. Take note - this list was formed and this blog started about halfway through December, so if I were to rewrite it now, it might be a bit different. See how many characters you recognize:

Robert Carter's The Collectors

When I was in 6th grade, I would spend a lot of time at a friend's house after school before my mom could get off work and pick me up. At some point, this friend showed me a book someone had given her as a gift, which she hadn't read yet and wasn't too sure about. The book was called The Collectors, by Robert Carter, and she asked if I would read it first and give her my opinion on it.

The book is about a group of bugs - roaches, essentially, though they never name themselves such. It's all from their point of view, scavenging for food from a nearby house and leaving on a journey across town to find some sort of device which is supposed to help them. While I didn't think it was the best thing I'd ever read, it was an interesting story and I liked the odd look on the world that it took. My friend wasn't much impressed with the bugs' point of view, and I'm not sure if she ever read it after I gave it back to her.

A few years later, I found myself thinking about some parts of the story that were most memorable. At one point, the band of heroes gets trapped in a greenhouse, and seeing how they reacted to it was different from what I had expected for a group of roaches. I did some research online, though at the time I could only remember the title and not the authors name, and eventually found the book selling for quite a bit at an out-of-print online bookstore. I wanted to read the book again, but I couldn't afford to pay more than ten dollars for the book.

Recently, however, I've been thinking about the book again. I like to collect all the books that I read, which explains why I have a wall full of books but means I'm speningd a lot of money on things I'll only read one time, and since this was was memorable enough for me to still be thinking of it, even now, despite how strange the story was, I'd like to get it. A quick Google search brought me to an Amazon page where the book is listed as new and selling for less than $5. Amazon itself isn't selling it, they're just working as the middleman, which tells me that I'm right about the book being out of print, and that some people don't find it worth selling for a large sum of money like other, more famous out-of-print books.

I'm not yet sure if I'll get it, because I'm not sure if it's worth it to buy an old book that wasn't good enough to stay in print, but it's a small price to pay for a piece of childhood nostalgia.