French Trysts: Secrets of a Courtesan 
by Kirsten Lobe. 
St Martin's Griffin. Hardcover, 340 pages 
- I loved this book. It's about an ordinary American girl who goes off to college in Paris and winds up first with a gorgeous Parisian musician boyfriend and the inevitable broken heart shortly after. But then fate goes all kinds of crazy and she ends up as a modern-day courtesan of sorts, a mistress to several VIPs. It was written in a great style, and there were awesome sex  and courtesan tips at the end of every chapter as a kind of bonus. The plot was fun and engaging too as she learns how to adjust to the new lifestyle, the rules and the perks and the downsides and grows into her own skin in a way she might never have had the chance to otherwise. I found the whole thing awesome... except the ending which... I'm sorry. That had to be the publisher's insistance or something. ... It's just bad.  Let me rant about it, actually: 


Gil's All Fright Diner 
by A Lee Martinez. 
Tor. Paperback, 268 pages. 
 - Like Hitchikers Guide meets Vampire novel. It was funny, compulsively readable and just plain fun. Duke and Earl are unforgettable as are Napoleon and Gladdys. I recommend it when you want a fun fluffy satire type book.

An Assembly Such as This: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman 
by Pamela Aidan.
 Hardcover, 246 pages. 
 - This is first of a series (maybe just a trilogy? I'm not sure) that is basically Mr Darcy's side of Pride & Prejudice. So you find out what he was up to in London and at Pemberly and all that. It's written a touch formally but that fits with Darcy's personality. I can't help but find him pretty stuffy, but he's nice and pretty cool in his own way. Yes, I get that the whole point of society at this point in history was to be as stuffy and boring as humanly possible and beyond, but oh my god. I would have been right with the scandalous 'fast set' and dampening my white dresses into transparency with them just to have something to do. Good grief. 

At least Charles Bingley gets more screen time, along with his sisters, and we get to meet Darcy's awesomely snarky manservant who quotes Shakespeare pointedly and hilariously. Charles gets a lot more personality and he's still sort of a sweet puppy but he's also got a temper, and that means he's getting to be a Real Boy now so yay.

But it's still a fun book to read and it makes for a pleasant distraction. So I picked up the second one...

Duty and Desire: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman
by Pamela Aiden. 
Hardcover, 280 pages. 
  - A perfectly wretched sequel to such a fun novel.
I never ever thought anything would make me decide that Jane clearly got the better end of the deal in Pride and Prejudice, but this series has. I'm not saying it's a horrible series but if you're anything other than Quite Happily Christian or able to deal with a lot of speechifying in that direction, I would advise leaving off after the first book or skipping the whole middle section of this one.  ... and possibly the last part too because it turns into a Victorian melodrama-mystery theater.

 I want to drop Digital Photography. As in, I have no desire whatsoever left to pass it. Sadly it is required to graduate. ... I could defer graduation to Fall, and give myself Fall semester to take Digital Photography and the additional three Spanish classes to give me a double major. ... Actually, I could take Digital Photo this summer and one of the Spanish classes and then this fall take 2 Spanish classes and retake Government and possibly that one dumb-as-heck class I got a D in and I've been too lazy to bother with... 

The problem with Digital Photography this semester is that all my time is being eaten with Spanish projects plus the Advanced Strategies class that is basically a replacement for an internship. You can guess how easy that one is, right? Yeah. Takes no time at all. *headdesk* 

This plays into the problem that as with HellClass, Digital Photo depends entirely upon having expensive equipment. Of course I do not have the expensive equipment for it. So we must rent it from the school- the rental thing being open at the strangest and briefest hours possible- specifically they are open mostly when I am in class or in meetings for Magazine. 

The last few assignments, I have gotten F-D on. They depended on using a scanner and photoshop. Neither of which would be a problem except that between the weather being horrendous, my being sick as a dog for 2 weeks and then the lab being open for approximately 3 hours a day. With it's 3 scanners. That most of the 20 of us have to use. Plus the 20 in the other section. Plus the random art majors who need them... 

See, I don't just party all the time. I do do homework and worry about school. If you notice I specifically party on Saturday. Occasional Thursdays. The very rare Friday. But we don't start the party until 10pm and so it gives me time to actually do stuff. I just don't talk about that stuff cause who cares, honestly?

I found my next Halloween costume! Slutty Rainbow Brite! Or, alternatively, Kitty, Jubilee and I are going as the Three Musketeers Queens guard! 

Oh, and readerjane and other Plum fans?! I finally read Lean Mean Thirteen. ... Ranger still has my love. Joe got mildly less annoying, but... no. Just no. It was a cute plot though- much better than the random pyscho-of-the-month thing that's been running for a while. I'm sort of upset by the ending. I admit. 



Ah. Delos just called. Kitty and Jubilee are laughing their butts off because I hung up, walked into the living room, rolled my eyes and announced "Supreme idiot." Or maybe it was "Dumbass." 

Kitty informed me that saying it thusly, in that precise tone of voice is a sure sign of affection. "Aww, you do like him! He's the only one who gets that title. Have you noticed?" ... Sometimes, my roomates are too astute for their own good. 

I also worry that she's right. ... Okay, so I roll my eyes at PartyBoy too. And D. But their post-hangup titles are respectively "Dipstick." and "Idiot." Which I say with all due affection. But still. I can't help it if they're exhasperating. 

Anyway, Delos puts up with my hysterical random texting of things like "I'm moving to a cave. In Greece. To be a New Age shahman. And write a book. About enlightenment through communing with nature." He called me and his first question was "What happened?"  ...He has also survived the text of "Did you accidentally invent a space laser?" (I hadn't heard from him for a couple days. His response on that one was "You are such a dork. Sorry I havent called. Ive been really busy." And he called that night anyway... go figure). Although, he's apparently heard a lot about me from D so maybe he's just prepared.

I really need to call D tomorrow. Maybe? I don't know. I miss him, and I miss talking to him, but every time I hear his voice, the urge to hit him with heavy objects becomes overwhelming. I notice he hasn't sent me the pics we had taken at the ball though. It strikes me as a convenient way to make sure I call him. ... Not that D would EVER do something like that of course. Right? ... Maybe you shouldn't answer that. 

And good grief, there's news on the PartyBoy front too. *headdesk*  I'm going to go do my Spanish because at least that makes sense.

Yep. I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Got it at midnight, started reading it yesterday morning and pretty much... read straight through. Well, except I took out time for food and hanging out with people and writing a paper, but still. This summer cold means I'm not up to doing much but read. 

So, what did I think about it? 

It's a decent ending. Not as spectacular as I hoped, but it didn't really suck. Very often. In the end I have decided however that Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger, Fred Weasley and Luna Lovegood are the real heroes in this book. Harry just ended up with top billing as a strange sort of accident. 

A Hilarious Snarky Recap - link thanks to dwg!

I've somehow accidentally, inadvertantly reignited my shameful secret addiction: Gossip Girl novels. 

I didn't mean to! But they made it a show and it's on this fall and I wanted to refresh my memory and then... I don't know what happened! I only meant to get the one. Just one! It wasn' t like it was a big purchase, right? Just one Gossip Girl book. I could put it down again. And then I got another, because hey, I had to see what happened on Spring Break didn't I? But then I was browsing the magazines and it was just sitting htere... the wrong spot and everything. I... couldn't leave it. I should put it back. 

I now have another Gossip Girl book. Worse, there's a spin-off following one of my more-favorite characters. Not that any of them are my favorite. I mean, except possibly Blair becuase she's just so... Blair. 

It's bad enough when I lapse into watching The Hills, did I really need to start this again? Apparently. Excuse me now, I have to go finish the series. It's over now. I'll be safe for real now, right? I can say no to It Girl. I totally can.

Things I learned in Spanish
 - Barcelona is filled with transvestites. 
 - Sweet Barcelonan Transvestites get laid a lot. By nuns.
 - Everyone in Spain has a heroin problem.
= Spain is its own Maury Povich episode. 

We decided all this when our professor explained that Latin films try for more realism than Hollywood. 

Still have to start the Final Project of d0om. ... Dammit. 

Started reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I am intrigued with it so far. However, it would be vastly improved with the addition of pirates. Or ninjas.  Twilight was only acquired when a thorough check of the romance section yeilded no promising pirate porn. 

You would think with Potc being so massively huge that someone in the romance industry would be tapping that lust like whoah. Dammit people, gimme pirate p0rnzbooks. Flippin' hell, it can't be that hard. If y'all can print that Sherrilyn Kenyon Neandervamp yawnness, you can give. me. pirate porn. But not neandervamp-pirate porn, please. I am so sick of Neandervamps and their darkitty darkness with colorriffic soulmate sparkles. How was that ever a good idea? She's his soulmate, not Rainbow Brite. 

I suppose the pirate's darling true love will have to live in a magical land with her fluffy companions, combing her forever-long locks which have been touched by the colors of dawn and twilight, and she will free him from his curse to be a were-poodle with her light and love, and he will be blessed at last with the understanding of eyeliner and shiny Pantene hair?

Also? I want this, this and this Because I just don't yet have enough party dresses I'll never wear. And a goddess dress.

Ya know what kinda sucks? When brilliant, awesome people get eaten alive by their own egos. Because someone has this awesome, amazing, astounding idea and then they think that all their ideas must be this wonderful, when really they aren't. This is part of why I am afraid to seriously attempt writing. 

I don't mind being a bitter failure. I can write bitter, snarky things about how awful everyone is. I can become a book critic. I can review movies. I can abandon the wrtten word altogether in faux protest until someone writes about how awesome my faux protest is, then write a book about my faux protest, have the faux-ness exposed and cry my apology on Oprah. Really, failure's not so bad. 

Success on the other hand... Have you seen Britney Spears lately? That is the face of success. Creepy, non? You fail, you fall on your butt, you pick yourself up and go find something else to do. Or attempt the same thing, but in a new way. I mean, you know what to do then. But when you succeed? You have to succeed again, but better. Then again. Again. Until you start screwing things up just so you can get a break in rehab. But by then you have been a success for so long you've forgotten how to deal with failure. So you freak back out, back to rehab, and repeat. 

Sorry. I got off track. What I really wanted to talk about was specifically succussful authors, and how once they get amazing success, so many of them go stark raving loony. Except JK Rowling, but I expect her looniness to come after the last Harry Potter book. I mean, that's going to be so crazy we might think she's just still sane. 

No, I'm thinking of the Danielle Steels and the Anne Rices and the George Lucases. Okay, Lucas isn't a writer, but he's the Fallen Flannel God. He had amazing things and killed them with dialogue and bad bad plotlines (have you read some of those Star WArs novels? Sure he didn't write them because the dialogue wasn't half bad but didn't he at least skim the premises??!). 

Danielle Steel might not be publicly crazy, but I've read several of her books and those? Are the work of someone deeply disturbed. Disturbed in a 'I might just be a corporate conglomerate' way. Have you ever seen one of the DS made-for-tv-movies? I demand you watch one. Right now. Tell me you don't walk away disturbed. 

I'm off track again. What I'm trying to gripe about but failing is that I am so, so over the anything-that-sells approach. I'll change my mind again tomorrow, maybe, but right now I'm tired of it. Oh, I get that authors need money too. Rock on. You can get money for adding a couple sex scenes to your book? I hear Jenna Jameson is inspirational. It's when whatever is selling becomes the book. When the writer writes something they are designing to be marketable because they're a starving artist and need to eat, you know, I can't begrudge them that. It's when someone has success and doesn't need feeding, but starts trying to write what will sell instead of what they were writing before that gets annoying. 

Now, to all successful writers out there, can I just ask you to stop that? Really it costs you your fanbase and it looks terrible on Amazon.com. You don't believe me, go read the reviews of that last Laurell Hamilton book (which by the way as a devoted fan of the Merry Gentry series, I can firmly attest to the horrendous awfulness of it for reasons entirely separate from those I am currently discussing). Look, if you are a successful author and you happen to see this, I think I'll give you some suggestions for propping up your income. Stuff that won't mean you have to start turning your books into gooky saccharine poofs. 

1. Film rights. Sell them. 
2. Serial tv rights. Sell them (okay, maybe that's the same thing as above but so what. I'm not a film/broadcasting major, am I?)
3. Comic book/Graphic novel. License one.
4. Video game. Hotter than movies according to some.
5. Official webzine/blog. Some fans will pay for this, and you need a website anyway. Don't maek them pay for the website unless you're going to give them porn though. 
6. Trading cards/ Card game
7. Board game. RPG. 
8. Merchandice. Become a merchandising h0r. But not too big a h0r. Get cool merchandising. No Cafepress, unless you want to look like a really cheap h0r.  

Honestly, the writer I know who has done this the best is George Martin. His A Song of Ice and Fire is brilliant, edgy, amazing and damned cool. But not a mass-appeal thing until the recent popularity of fantasy. Martin has a history in television, and he gets the power of the Web. So,  Ice and Fire is getting a pilot on HBO, it's got a board game, a card game, rpgs, character statuettes, money replicas, artwork, and there's a graphic novel or two that ties in with it. 

Joss Whedon's also good at this. Neil Gaiman too. Except he doesn't do merchandise, but there's a lot of other stuff he does do, plus he's just really cool. I think Charlaine Harris is doing this pretty well too. But she needs to get some Southern Vampire/True Blood merchandise going.

If the pilot airs and is popular, I bet there'll be a ton of replica stuff, apparel and all the rest. 

I admit that if I'm ever published and get successful I will be a merchandising fiend. Disney will have nothing on me. But I won't change the way I write to make it sell better unless I'm a starving unknown. Then the curse is that I'll get successful doing that and I'll feel like I sold my soul, get bitter and angsty and write dreary memoirs about how it all ruined my life.



So um, anyway. I don't know what sparked his, except maybe the fact that I was watching Sopranos earlier and not enough people were dying.

... George Martin, what have you done to me??! *weeps. flails. sobs.*

( A Song of Ice and Fire rantings )

I just spent most of the weekend reading George Martin's book A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1). WOW. It's been a while since a book hooked me in with silk-wrapped steel grip and dragged me into another world that amazed, scared, and enthralled me. And I wanted to stay.

It's exactly what I've been wanting to read recently: no clear-cut good guy or bad guy, no one is safe, there's no real main character, and the intrigue is maddeningly well-done and twisty.

I was feeling not-so-healthy and exhausted so reading was really about all I was good for and this book was good enough that I didn't want to put it down anyway. Just... wow.

He has a few stereotypes in it, but they are not what they seem at first. By the end of the book, I had come to like or at least feel sympathy several of the 'bad' guys, and feel more questionable toward several of the 'good' ones.

Catelyn- still not sure how I feel about her. And her sister is... yeah. That family has problems.

Joff- Okay, so he was obviously a stereotype and he has no sign of changing. Rotten royal brat. With a sadistic, mysogenist streak. But I can kinda see why he might be that way...

Tyrion: Much love for the dwarfman. He's snarky, he's morally ambiguous but damn it if I don't like him anyway. I wouldn't trust him but I do like him.

The Hound: ... Huh. THAT was surprising.

Arya: Grrrl power!

Sansa: *coughSusanPevensiecough*

Dany: Daamn. Who knew she had that in her?

Ned: Sigh. Born in the wrong universe, I think.

I love love love how Martin has written the kids in this. And he's done female pov's so insanely well. I actually believe his girls as girls. And that's refreshing for a male author. The kids though are the tragic ones. They are the victims in this game the adults have going and then they're going to grow up and just continue the cycle...

Seriously. This guy is Joss Whedon of Fantasy. You know, the way Joss makes you love the characters whole-heartedly, gives them horrible lives and situations and then rips your heart out in the end because there is NO happily ever after. For anyone. Ever. Yet you come out the other side loving him anyway?

Yes. This book was that good. This book was Buffy good. Serenity good. Crying over Bran's broken dreams, worry for Dany as she suffered at her brother's hands, staring in horror as you read and re-read a page to make sure that was really what you just read. Because surely that doesn't happen in fantasy. Good men don't die in fantasy... and yet...

I've already ordered the next one from Amazon. Because if I don't find out what happens next I'll go mad.

I just finished Sword of Darkness by Kinley MacGregor (aka Sherrilyn Kenyon). I will share my thoughts on it. It will not be pretty, and I am feeling particularly savage. If you liked this book, go away now. I'll talk to you when I feel more sufficiently decontaminated. 

Harry Potter=Spiderman
( Here's why... )

Someone says it all much better than I ever could

Yeesh, this book is just not getting better with a re read, like I thought it would.

sigh. I hope I like the next one better.

What Not To Say To a Naked Man


( Letters to Santa!! )