http://www.quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=81424N
| Which "a song of ice and fire" character are you? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You scored as a Eddard Stark | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tou identify with Eddard Stark. You are loyal and honorable, and take action in a crisis. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007
which ASOIAF character are you?
Monday, September 10, 2007
dead Jeep, lots of housework
Dan had wanted to jump start the Jeep yesterday and drive it to the dealer, with me following in the truck. He was then going to drop me off at work, picking me up at midnight.
We were unable to jump the Jeep, so he just dropped me off and picked me up work.
He got the Jeep towed to a dealer this morning, and supposedly it might be as simple as needing a battery. We will find out soon...
Lots of housework today. I sorted out several loads of clothes, and am about to go put them away. And I cleaned up all of the dog poop all over the floor, which is a daily task anymore...though it never becomes less disgusting.
I threw up yesterday before work. I think it was because of stress over the Jeep and other things. But I seem to be fine so far today...
Sunday, September 9, 2007
my ASOIAF House
Your Score: House Stark
36% Dominant, 27% Extroverted, 72% Trustworthy
Responsible. Respectable. Dour. That’s not shit coming out of your ass--it’s honor. You are clearly of House Stark.
You are a submissive personality, meaning that you are more than willing to relinquish control to someone more qualified; you will unflinchingly accept any responsibility that is thrust upon you, including servitude. Unfortunately for you, your unending patience and accommodating nature often make people look to you for a leader. In essence, you are the perfect leader: someone who has no desire to lead, yet is substantially well-qualified to do it.
You are also introverted, which means that people sometimes have difficulty understanding your thought process. Your dependable nature makes you predictable, but you’ve probably got all sorts of emotional dysfunctions when it comes to more intimate relationships. There are very few people whom you trust unwaveringly, and you’re not the type to confide in other people. So cold, so aloof--so Stark.
Finally, you are trustworthy--the very definition of the word. All secrets are safe with you. All of your vows are unbreakable. True to your name, you world is a stark place; there is black, and there is white. Your rigidity tends to undercut your overall value as a friend and ally. Honesty such as yours is hard to come by, which is easy to understand when you consider how easily manipulated you are by less decent individuals. Essentially, you’re the nice guy, and you’ll always finish last.
Representative characters include: Eddard Stark, Jon Snow, and Sansa Stark
Similar Houses: Frey, Lannister and Tully
Opposite House: Baratheon
When playing the game of thrones, you play it with one sword in your hand and another up your ass.
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/8620850236700535300/Song-of-Ice-and-Fire-House
more books
Scent of Darkness by Christina Dodd is the first book in her erotic fantasy series called Darkness Chosen. A warlord in the Ukraine, 1000 years ago, made a deal with the devil. He and all of his male descendents could change their shapes into those of predators at will, and in return the devil can have all of their souls. Flip to the current day in the USA. A man has escaped from that family - the first in all of those centuries to marry and to sire a daughter (along with three sons). The deal with the devil is breaking down because this man has rejected his birth family and established his own family and filled it with love. The extended family, still based in the Ukraine, decide to reseal the hell pact, by tracking down and killing this new branch of the family tree.
Ann Smith loves her boss, Jasha Wilder, and follows him (uninvited and unannounced) to his coastal retreat in the Pacific Northwest. She is shocked when he changes shape in front of her (he can be human or wolf), and is even more shocked when the two of them have to run for their lives from shape changing assassins. Running through the wilderness with periodic pauses for sex (which seemed pretty ridiculous to me under those circumstances), they eventually recover a holy artifact that once belonged to the family, kill the assassins, have a lot of sex, and eventually make it back to his family.
I really did not like this book very much. I do not mind sex scenes as such, but want them to be a realistic part of the story - and these were not. I also hate stories where a woman has a make over of some sort (loses weight, new clothes, new hair style - whatever) and suddenly has the man who has ignored her all along fall head over heels in love with her. Men like that would be so shallow in real life who would ever want them? And while the whole deal with the devil stuff was sort of interesting, the way the holy object suddenly turns up under their noses with no effort on their parts was just dumb and cheap.
Touch of Darkness by Christina Dodd is the second book in her Darkness Chosen erotic fantasy series. I hated the first book, and would not have read the second except for having gotten them at the same time. (Believe me - they are both going straight into the donation bin!) I was surprised that this one, while still dumb, managed to be a lot better than the first. Not better enough that I will ever bother with the third or fourth (or however many more will come), but it was an improvement of sorts. This one deals with the second son of the family (human and hawk), Rurik Wilder, and his lover, Tasya Hunnicutt. At least in this one, they have already been lovers before the story begins. And they have to work hard to find their holy object. But they still pause to have sex when being chased, and in other inappropriate and downright stupid times. Come on - I know it is erotica - but does it have to be stupid????? And the part with the unexpected princess - spare me such a Mary Sue moment, please!
Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson is supposedly based on a couple of safe deposit boxes of notes and outlines left behind by the late (and great) Frank Herbert. This book is supposed to be the culmination of the entire science fiction saga that started with Dune. While it was not as downright irritating as these two author's earlier Houses series of Dune books, it still had its irritating moments. You could tell when they were inserting material for their upcoming Paul of Dune, for example. And how can Alia possess the ghola of her grandfather, the Baron Harkonnen, when he is her ancestor, and not vice versa? And how can one bene tleilax master develop a new sort of sand worm that can live in the ocean and produce a super spice in a secret lab in what seems like a couple of weeks, when people have been trying to develop alternate sources of Spice for thousands of years? So there was a lot that just made no sense, though it was rather nice to see a happy ending for many of the characters. I hope that the younger Herbert will release his father's notes and outlines someday, so Dune fans can separate the wheat from the chafe!
The Sagan Diary by John Scalzi is a little novella that is made up of the thoughts of one of the important characters in his science fiction trilogy made up of Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, and The Last Colony. We get to hear Jane Sagan's thoughts on such broad subjects as love, death, and sex. They are often interesting - and charming. A nice little addition to a truly great science fiction trilogy.
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman, is a fun and fluffy little science fiction novel about an MIT graduate student named Matt Fuller who discovers an accidental one way time machine, that no one can ever really figure out. He keeps getting into trouble, and keeps running away into the future, at one point gaining a pretty virginal companion from a Christian theocracy named Martha. Fluffy and fun, but we rarely know what is going on because Matt very rarely can ever figure out what is going on. Pleasant little read, but lacking depth - which is what can happen at times when you have an unreliable main character as the focus of your book.
Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves is a great little YA fantasy novel set in a multiplex of Earths. One end of the multiplex is being conquered by hard core scientists, the other by hard core magic users. The worlds in the middle are being protected by an army made up of various versions of one kid - some are male, some female, some are human, some are not. This kid from our world is named Joey Harker. He is best known for always getting lost. Then one day he gets lost in his own house, and realizes that he is walking between worlds...a whole lot of fun, as you would expect from Neil Gaiman!
more books
Wizard by Trade by Jim Butcher is an omnibus containing the fourth and fifth books of his Dresden Files fantasy series, Summer Knight and Death Masks. In these two installments, Harry Dresden, Chicago's only openly practicing wizard, gets involved in a war between the summer fairies and the winter fairies - and if he cannot stop the war, the balance between summer and winter will be destroyed, causing destruction of the Earth's climate. He also must enter a deadly duel with a vampire war lord (in a hilariously described Wrigley Field, which is pretty obviously not the one in our world) - and hunt down a stolen Shroud of Turrin, which has been brought to Chicago by unknown persons for unknown reasons. Other people are also hunting the Shroud - to start the Apocalypse!
Wizard at Large by Jim Butcher is an omnibus containing the sixth and seventh books of his fantasy series called The Dresden Files. These books are called Blood Rites and Dead Beat. Harry Dresden is the only openly practicing wizard in Chicago, and all sorts of weird stuff gets thrown his way. But in the first of these two books he gains a great friend and ally in Mouse, a stolen Buddhist temple pup, of great and mysterious powers. He also discovers that he has an actual living relative - something he has not thought to have since his father died when he was still very young! Harry is hired on a weird case - to protect an adult film shoot from evil curses. And then dangerous necromancers converge on Chicago to find and gain power from a dangerous book of necromancy which has turned up. In order to fight them, and save his city, Harry must use necromancy himself - using the most famous corpse in Chicago!
Wizard Under Fire by Jim Butcher is an omnibus containing the eighth and ninth books in his The Dresden Files fantasy series. The books are called Proven Guilty and White Night. Harry Dresden is the only openly practicing wizard in the city of Chicago. As such, he gets involved in all sorts of very weird and bizarre cases, which often threaten to destroy the city and everyone in it. In these cases, Harry has to try to find the new practitioner of dark magic in the city - and when he discovers who it is, he must try to save them against the power of the White Council, who put all dark magic users to immediate death. He also has to figure out why movie monsters are coming to life and murdering people at a local horror convention. As if that is not enough, he is sent on a very dangerous mission to Fairy to find out why the winter court will not help the wizards in their war against the vampires. And - he has to track down the killer/s of the witches of Chicago and confront the White Court of the vampires - the ones who feed off of sexual and emotional energy...
This series of little fantasy books is not high or serious literature by any stretch of the imagination. But they are fast paced and fun - and Harry and his friends are charming and often they (and the hilariously erroneous descriptions of Chicago and environs) make me laugh!
more books
No Humans Involved by Kelley Armstrong, seventh book of her Women of the Otherworld dark fantasy series. In this book, the necromancer, Jaime Vegas, takes center stage. Jaime, a second (or perhaps) third tier celebrity, who has long given fake stage show seances, has been hired for a weird reality show with two other mediums. They are living together (in a sort of Big Brother scenario) in Brentwood in an old house, and are supposed to be doing a series of seances, to culminate in raising the ghost of Marilyn Monroe. The odd thing is that Jaime, despite her faked stage shows, actually is a necromancer, and actually does have powers over the dead. In the gardens of the Brentwood house, Jaime finds the tattered ghosts of children. With the help of some supernatural friends, Jaime desperately searches the seedy underworld of LA, to find the serial murderers of all of the poor kids - who have been killed in black magic rituals. Ditzy Jaime is always quite funny, and finally has to learn how to accept and use her darkest powers to stop the killers.
Wizard for Hire by Jim Butcher is an omnibus of the first three novels in his Dresden Files fantasy series - Storm Front, Fool Moon, and Grave Peril. These three novels introduce the alternate earth Chicago setting and some pretty important characters in this fun fantasy series, though IMHO, the author doesn't really start hitting full stride until the third book. Harry Dresden is the only wizard listed in the Chicago yellow pages. He works primarily as a private investigator, and helps out the Chicago police department as a consultant. He was once an apprentice to a very dark wizard, and if the White Council catch him breaking any magical laws, they will immediately execute him. His contact with the Chicago police department is the spunky and dedicated Karrin Murphy, his girlfriend is the beautiful tabloid reporter Susan Rodiguez, and one of his best friends is a literal Knight of the Lord, Michael Carpenter. He shares his little apartment with a horndog spirit who lives in a skull named Bob and his huge tomcat, Mister. In these first three books, Harry must face down an evil mage who is using storms to kill people, face down a variety of different kinds of werewolves (befriending a werewolf named Billy and his pack, called the Alphas along the way), and begins a war between the wizards and the Red Court of the vampires. And he has to face off against the local mob boss, Gentleman Johnny Marcone, while he is at it. All in a day's work for Chicago's only openly practicing wizard...I love these books. They are funny and Harry and many of his friends are very endearing.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
one crazy weekend
Yesterday afternoon Steven had a soccer game. I got there a little before halftime, just before a thunderstorm moved in, and the rest of the game got canceled.
Today Steven had an all day soccer tournament in Willamston, near Lansing. I had never been to Williamston before, and was glad to see that it is a very charming and pretty little town. Steven had a big break between games, so we took him out to lunch at Old Chicago in the Lansing suburbs. The food was good, but it was sort of strange for a family of die hard Michigan Wolverines fans to spend the lunch hour in a sports bar packed with Michigan State Spartans fans!
After Steven's last game, Dan and I headed home in my Jeep. (Steven was on the school bus with his team mates). We stopped quickly at the outlet mall in Howell. We went to the Adidas store to buy Steven some more soccer socks. We went back out to the car, and it was dead as a doornail. I called AAA, and the (very nice) tow truck driver got there within 15 minutes. He gave us two charges (it died again after the first one) and we came home. The drive was creepy, because you could tell something was wrong with the electrical system - the clock and the odometer were both flickering on and off. We got home, and the Jeep died again in the drive way. Dan went down to the high school to pick up Steven - the bus had beaten us back by 15 minutes.
Supposedly the Wolverines lost badly again today, and two important player are out with injuries. I am not sure - we were afraid to listen to the radio on the way home! They are working on perhaps having the worst football season of my lifetime!
But the Tigers won tonight, to stay in playoff contention for the wild card! YAY!
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