Building a house sucks. Like I imagine licking the anus of a leprous sow would suck.
Where’s my rich uncle when you need one to die?
Wiser. HAHAHAHAHA No.
Double threes hit me yesterday, sending me into my thirty-fourth year. I don’t feel older, I just feel old. Though my wife doesn’t agree–she keeps telling me to grow up. Maybe in a few years I will. Or decades. Or maybe when I hit that ethereal state of Nibbana, otherwise known as Nirvana. Because I’m wise and meditative, and spend my free time contemplating the human condition.
If you count playing Ninja Gaiden 2 as meditative.
In celebration of my cellular inception, my wife/caretaker/ass-kicker purchased for me a Kindle, an e-book reader. I have dozens of them on my computer just sitting there because I hate reading them on it–it’s just not comfortable. So, I was tickled puce (like that, Benny?) when I got it. The screen uses electronic ink, and it really does look like a printed page. Better, really. It totally roxxors my boxxors. At least I imagine they would. I don’t wear boxers. (No, I don’t wear tighty whities, either, so no smart-ass remarks.) It’s not a pretty device–being an Apple dude, I’m a little spoiled to my electronics being a work of art–but it’s easy to use. Function over form. Maybe I’ll paint it blue and put unicorn stickers on it. Ooo… My Little Ponies! I still remember the goddamned theme song to the cartoon. Sisters suck.
It uses what Amazon calls Whispernet, which is really just a mobile service that uses the Sprint network. There is no fee to use it, and you don’t need a computer to buy and download books from it. They also offer a free service to convert html, Word docs, and pdfs to the kindle format–just email them to your kindle account and they send you a link with the items. Or for $.10 they send it right to the kindle.
Cartman would say: Kick ass. Kenny would say: mmbb mbmbbmmmm fffbbnnn
Happy birthday to me.
This is a fat fantasy novel by Patrick Rothfuss. Did I say fat? What I meant was engorged, ready to burst, pelting the hapless reader and unfortunate bystanders with thousands of e’s, t’s, n’s, and s’s. It’s like what would happen if instead of simply turning those purchased vowels, Vanna ripped them off the board and flung them like ninja stars. (Yes, I know they’re electronic now, so shut your virtual pie hole and let me have my nostalgic metaphors.) Fortunately, for readers with a lifting limit of fifty pounds, there is now a paperback version.
Since a quick trip to amazon.com will give you hundreds of idiot commenters willing to bombard you with the story’s synopsis over and over, as if swapping a few words will cause a confused reader to smack his head and scream “AHA! I GET IT NOW!” I’ll refrain from wasting valuable bytes on my web server by doing it again.
Essentially what we have here is the first book of three (of course it is, it wouldn’t be a fantasy without at least three, four, or twenty novels to wait for) with a retired hero running a tavern (naturally), telling the first part of his tale, his coming-of-age, with magnificent recall to someone referred to only as the chronicler. Sound trite? Sure as hell did to me. Fortunately, I was in for a treat. And I like treats. Usually.
The Good: This tale wasn’t just written, it was crafted. Mr. Rothfuss decided to screw that whole paper shit and went and chiseled it right out of the tree. There were no pointless scenes, none of that excessive yawn-inducing exposition that some fantasy authors seem to believe readers will lap right up like chocolate sauce off their genitalia of choice, and refreshing few of the clichés that plague many stories in the genre.
And our hero is what Harry Potter would be if he wasn’t such a goddamned pussy.
The Bad: As is typical in the realms of fantasy novels, our hero is good at everything. Give him a pan flute, a box of tampons, and a dead monkey, and he’d make you a catapult. It doesn’t detract from the story much, except that he doesn’t fail so much as he just gets shafted from just about everyone. I would liked to have seen him try riding a unicycle, and end up falling into the prettiest girl on campus, bloodying her nose, and ripping her school dress right off, sending her naked and screaming while trying to decide which part of her body to cover with her suddenly inadequate number of limbs.
Or something like that.
The Neato: I live only fifteen miles from him. My stalking strategy is to buy an overstuffed chair, place it in his front walk, and sit there donned in a smoking jacket, curved pipe in hand, and saying “Cheerio!” every time he passes by.
Conclusion: You’re a dummy-stupid-idiot if you don’t read this.
Steal.
Blog design is not mine. Lacking the time to finish mine, I found this one, modified it a bit, and made it mine. I think it’s purty.
It’s nice when people let others benefit from their hard work.
I suppose I’m going to have to actually start writing here now.
Oops.