I just read On The Edge, and then reread the Kate Daniels books, and now I’m giving serious consideration to rereading that novella I didn’t really like again. These are just my ideal books for this moment in time, for some reason. They give me great joy.

The two individuals who comprise Andrews make clear in On The Edge that they read manga, but I’d already figured that out. Because Magic Burns is really obviously the result of the two of them sitting there watching Yu Yu Hakusho or something and going, “You know - we totally need to do a tournament arc.”

No, it is directly out of the Tournament Arc section of the shounen manga textbook.

And it’s a good tournament arc! Where it actually feels like people are in danger, and that it matters whether they win or lose! It’s glorious. There are all these scenes where they’re discussing their opponents and making strategy and describing what magical colors their opponents glow, and picking a name for their team, and talking about the tournament rules, and in general great stuff like that. There’s the apparently totally useless fighter who ends up laying waste to something terrifying, and is mildly puzzled when everyone else is shocked by this. There’s the self-absorbed coward who has to fight by him/herself.

Oh! And there’s one of those scenes where somebody gives away the identity of their martial arts master by using said master’s signature technique on one of his other students! (I love those.) This book is so awesome.

(On The Edge also references Girl Genius, incidentally! Girl Genius has not had a tournament arc; I kind of feel that this is something that needs remedied.)

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It’s back now. All my files seem to be okay.

I’m posting this as an experiment, to see if smoking starts curling out of the keyboard the moment I hit “publish.”

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I know because my computer is dead.

This means that EVERY PERSON IN THIS FAMILY’S COMPUTER HAS DIED WITHIN THE PAST THREE MONTHS. So maybe it’s the Three-Month Period of the Dead Computer. I guess I shouldn’t have brought the Chinese Zodiac into it; I apologize; the lunar calendar is clearly in no way responsible for the condition of these computers. More likely the problem relates to voodoo.

I have double-backups of everything because I’ve been obsessive about that recently - my last manual backup was the 27th, and I just checked and my Carbonite seems to have been working fine. I’m pretty sure that some kanji flashcards and MP3s are the only thing neither of them would have caught, and the MP3s are on my phone’s SD card. THANK GOD I AM ANAL-RETENTIVE.

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While we were out, someone had constructed a tiny labyrinth in the driveway, so we pulled in very carefully. The tops of the labyrinth were green with moss and tiny vines, and throughout it were interspersed little courtyards with delicate, exquisite gardens, buildings, or machines inside them - the buildings and machines had no obvious purpose. thegeekgene and I tried to step into a couple of the courtyards big enough to get our feet into without breaking anything, to see if doing so would shrink us down and allow us to investigate, but we just broke the walls. Disappointed, we went inside.

A few minutes later, going outside again, the labyrinth was gone - there was one strange room taking up the entire driveway, in a vaguely Sicilian style on the outside, with dark wood panels engraved with a maze on the inside. It didn’t look like the same maze.

The building had a basement. We went down into it and, looking up a second stairwell, saw that it led to someplace other than our yard. (I considered going to get my camera so I could post this on Flickr.) It was bright and sunny and contained butterflies and singing birds. Clearly it was one of the cheerier genre of magical labyrinths, like the kind you’d find in a book with a title like Jewel Princess Adventures #3: Princess Sapphire and the Secret Treasure. It would be perfectly safe provided I didn’t try to enter any of the places you’ve got to be pure of heart to enter.

Authoritatively, on the basis of my extensive knowledge of the taxonomy of YA novel labyrinths, I explained this tothegeekgene. She got a torch - the kind that burns, I mean; I don’t know where she got it - and we climbed the stairs. A dark metal gate slammed down behind us, and the birds all started singing.

elongated_tito pulled us out with a rope (I’m not sure how that worked, maybe it was an Escape Rope from Pokemon) and I said, Clearly it’s actually an ironic labyrinth, that mimics one of the happy ones, and later one we’ll find unkind parodies of archetypes like the helpful old man, who will probably have What 20-Something Jerks Think Alzheimers Looks Like, and the doofy monster that talks about itself in the third person, who will be in the middle of an unpleasant divorce. It’s fine, we’ll just need to bring some extra supplies.

thegeekgene got a frying pan and some pecan pie, and I got a big knife and a bag. Despite having nearly been trapped by it once, we were still too excited about our magic labyrinth to want to go any further than the kitchen for our supplies.

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To publishers of translated manga: You get what you pay for. I’ve heard industry people attribute declines in sales to any number of factors, but never to the quality of their own product. We’re both professionals, so let’s not mince words.

Your product sucks.

(link)

He is also accurate.

I re-read Del Rey’s translations of Mushishi and Sugar Sugar Rune recently. I remember being excited when Del Rey announced their manga line, because they’re an established Real Publisher, and I had the idea that the fact that they published prose books would make them a little more sensitive to, you know, prose style. Apparently not!

For the edification of the masses, I am going to assault a page from this scene in volume 3 of Sugar Sugar Rune: 1, 2, 3.

(It contains some spoilers, so don’t go any further if you’re keeping yourself pure.)

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This is the best stupid Second Life argument I’ve ever been in.

I’m just pleased with how my last sentence there turned out. And the intended recipient will never read it! She is too busy being wrong on the internet someplace else.

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Upon telling Dad to choose between two different SD cards for his camera:

Dad: Is one jig-a-big a big?

Me: Yes.

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New Windrose series novella! On the internet, for $5! Which you should buy!

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I should let you know that Amazon has released a PC reader for Kindle-formatted books. They have also made it impossible to turn off the one-click order button. I accidentally read two vampire books.

I am not responsible for my actions! They contain certain specific tropes!

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They just tried to charge me for a domain they don’t manage again.

Fortunately, this time through I’d erased my debit card number from Yahoo Wallet. (I had to use it to renew my Flickr a couple months ago, but I remembered to erase it again afterwards.) Not having anything to charge, they instead sent me a “Past-Due Payment Notice” demanding $35. For the domain I transferred last year!

(For those who don’t feel like clicking the link, the last time this happened they just charged me without warning, and I had to contest it on PayPal to get the money back - because, since I don’t actually have an account with Yahoo Small Business, Yahoo Small Business customer service won’t talk to me.)

To summarize Yahoo’s domain registration behavior thus far:

1) Yahoo offers a “private registration” option, which allows you to keep your real name and mailing address out of the WHOIS database. It is impossible to transfer one of these private domains to another registrar. Ever. (See my post from last year, or this guy’s post from 2007.)

To effect a transfer, you have to downgrade the domain to a non-private one, thus revealing your personal information. This means that if, for any reason, you’re in a position in which you can’t allow your real name and address to become public - say: you’re being stalked, you’ve expressed certain uncomplimentary ideas about your employer on your blog, you’re a Venezuelan political dissident, you’re an oil industry whistle blower, you’ve converted to Islam or Linux or come to some conclusions about your sexual orientation and your grandmother is an Old Regular Baptist Microsoft project manager who’s waiting in line for a heart transplant - you can’t leave Yahoo for another registrar.

2) According to this blogger, Yahoo will also expose your real name and address if you allow your domain registration to expire.

So, if for some reason you can’t allow your real name into WHOIS, you also can’t cancel a privately registered Yahoo domain.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

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I have been doing so many kanji flashcards they have taken over certain other vital neural processes, including quantifying time and the sensations of pain and heat. I think I had a dream about flashcards. I have the idea in my head of the master kanji, with a stroke order requiring nine simultaneous strokes, properly writable only by the thousand-armed Kannon. The last attempt to write it was a five-person effort conducted in Sapporo in 1916. Four died, and the fifth, responsible for only one stroke, went mad.

We went to Nashville over the weekend, and I bought some substandard Houjicha for much more than I should have spent. I was unaware that there was a 1:1 model of the Parthenon in Nashville! There were a lot of reproductions of statues of naked men there, of the variety that had apparently at some point been partially genitally modified by the Roman Catholic Church. By this I mean that the phalli had been removed, but mostly not the testicles. There were also newer statues created for the reproduction by some late-1800s American artists, which reproduced the effect of the Catholic Church’s efforts. So I guess there is a whole Vandalized Art tradition in which these people were working, in which it is necessary to treat the vandalization itself as a valid part of the art? I guess.

I’m positive that it is some sort of sin that I was standing around the tourist trap holding my camera and squinting at small plaster crotches and thinking these thoughts. It can’t be a new sin.

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1) If you’ve seen Mushishi, do you find Ginko’s VA incredibly smarmy, especially when he’s talking to young women?

2) Regardless of your answer, have you spent any time around Japanese guys?

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This is the manga where various countries are anthropomorphized.

Hungary and Liechtenstein are the only girls. Yeah, I don’t know. The author’s notes are like this:

This is a matter of no importance, but I like to make England speak using typical Tsundere words. “Don’t misunderstand! The pound is high for my sake!”

I appreciate the shoujo-manga absurdity of this conversation between the Holy Roman Empire and Italy. I showed it to Mom. “…who’s “grandpa”?” “The Roman Empire.” “No!” (whole storyline here)

It is basically deeply inappropriate in every way. In what I’ve read, the only Muslim country to show up is Turkey, who is coincidentally also the only non-cute country. Bah. Egypt was there for like one panel at one point, and neither the rest of Africa nor South America have appeared yet. You’d think she he (!) could at least work Brazil in there…

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Yes! I’m assuming it was the detergent. The hidden part of this post uses the word “suppositories,” and is precisely as unpleasant as that word’s presence would imply.

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[19:30] Jenan is offline.
[19:31] Snarp: Going to get food; be back on in a minute.
[19:31] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[19:35] Snarp: Back.
[19:35] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[19:36] Snarp: I’m just going to say random facts at your IM, okay?
[19:36] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[19:36] Snarp: Pumpkin pie should be cooked at a high temperature for the first few minutes to set it, then turned about 50 degrees lower.
[19:36] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[19:37] Snarp: Waterproofing shoes when you first get them is always a good idea.
[19:37] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[19:38] Snarp: Large breeds of dogs shouldn’t be fed puppy food as puppies; it’s too high in fat for them, and will make them put on weight too quickly, damaging their bone density.
[19:38] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[19:40] Snarp: Trust not in the promises of elvenkind.
[19:40] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[19:45] Snarp: And unattended space heaters are one of the leading causes of house fires.
[19:45] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[19:45] Snarp: Okay, I need to get off now because I’m all Benadryled up and falling asleep. SEND ME BEE PHOTOS.
[19:45] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.

(Context: Jenan is always late getting on Second Life, and I’m all Benadryled up.)

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I’m going to go hang out at the leper colony and help Brother Cadfael solve crimes.

I am placing a cut here because cutting health posts is the civilized thing to do.

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(But I’m only talking about the last two, because I’ve been going through them too fast and they’re running together.)

Black Orchids (Nero Wolfe 9) and Not Quite Dead Enough (Nero Wolfe 10), by Rex Stout

These books are both two novellas glued together, but they did not warn me that they were. So Not Quite Dead Enough started and Lily was the prime suspect for the murder, and then Archie framed himself for the murder, and I expected all these dramatic shenanigans between them over this, and then all of a sudden it was over and there was still half the book to go, and Lily wasn’t even in it. Curses upon this book.

And upon the other one, but less so, because it only really stood out to me as an entry in my directory of books containing an Eccentric Rich Woman Who Keeps A Pet Monkey.

Silent Blade, by Ilona Andrews

This is a novella which I guess I should describe as a paranormal romance, though it’s sci-fi, not fantasy. Meli is a mutant cyborg assassin with special martial arts powers! Celino is a mutant cyborg CEO with special hostile takeover powers! They were engaged in an arranged marriage as children, but Celino ruined Meli’s chances of marriage and independence by breaking the engagement in such a way that no one else would ever want to risk marrying her. She is ready to retire as an assassin, until her brother offers her one last job - killing Celino! Exclamation points.

This is okay for what it is - I mean, if Nalini Singh had written it I’d be overjoyed! It’s a romance where it’s the heroine who might kill the hero! But it suffers a lot by comparison to the Kate Daniels books. I appreciate the novelty of a romance in which both leads are, basically, crazy bastards, but would have been more convinced by the premise if we saw more of them being crazy bastards. The genre requirements, however, force Andrews to waste time on sex that could have been more productively spent on violence. I don’t think this is either Andrews’ natural length or her natural subject matter.

Here is the paragraph that shows us why Ilona Andrews should probably not write straight-out romances: “I know the details of every assassination you have ever done. [...] I think the risks you took with Garcia were idiotic.” He knelt beside her. “I also kidnapped your father and your brothers. I would’ve tortured them if I thought they knew where you were.”

I just think this sort of relationship would have been more interesting in a story with a focus wider than the period of time surrounding the removal of garments.

Od Magic, by Patricia A. McKillip

This is definitely one of McKillip’s weaker books, if not her weakest. As is McKillip’s habit, particularly in her city books (this is one), there are several separate plotlines which come together in the end. Brenden is a shy young man with an uncanny ability with plants and animals, who, traumatized by the recent loss of his family, is invited to become gardener at a school of magic by its founder, a huge immortal woman named Od. Yar is a teacher at Od’s school who has recently begun to feel that the paranoid and joyless King’s iron grip over the school is irreversibly damaging its students, and perhaps the entire kingdom. Arneth is a member of the city guard who finds himself falling in love with Mistral, the daughter of and manager for a traveling performer he may have to arrest for illegally using magic without the King’s permission. Sulys is the King’s daughter, who is herself harboring illegal magic, and is being forced to marry Valoren, the humorless and socially awkward young wizard who is her father’s most loyal servant.

So, that’s four plotlines and five POV characters. In general McKillip’s very good about bringing together a lot of different plot strands in a way that feels organic to the story. The ending doesn’t really feel awkward or crowded here - but then it’s not entirely an ending, because one story is left unresolved. I think there just wasn’t any space left for it. It’s not a big enough issue to ruin the book, but for a McKillip book, it’s surprising. Sometimes writers leave threads hanging early on in a book without knowing whether they’re going to pick them up again, and presumably she does it just like everyone else, but she always seems to tidy up them all up before she finishes. This book has some visible loose ends. Example: Brenden repeatedly mistakes Mistral for his lost lover Meryd. Why? Do they have something to do with one another? It’s never explained.

I’m still probably unwarrantedly fond of this book, mainly because of Valoren. I just like dorky villains! McKillip doesn’t do many of them! He and Yar have a conversation in which Valoren can’t decide whether to threaten Yar for his seditious behavior, or ask him for advice about Sulys. “Why did she slam the door like that? What did I do to make her so angry?” Yar tries to explain!

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yuki_onna, aka Catherynne M. Valente, author of The Orphan’s Tales, is suffering from a sudden and sharp Expedia-related financial crisis. She also has a donation button. (Scroll down to the bottom.)

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Dad: So you need to email your sister and ask her if she wants to come with us when we go down to Nashville - tell her she has to drive down and meet us, it’ll be Friday the 13th - is that right? We’ll be leaving on the 13th?

Me: Do you want your youngest daughter driving all by herself on Friday the 13th!? You’re a terrible father!

Dad: I don’t know, maybe not… I’m going to have to think about this now…

-

Interviewer on TV: [name], who is running for [office], says he’s not a politician, he’s just a concerned citizen who -

Me: *mutes the TV*

Dad: Sarah! Don’t mute this guy! He’s a concerned citizen! He’s running for office, he’s got the IQ of a small bird - he’s a great American!

-

Me: *repeatedly mutes commercials*

Dad: *repeatedly unmutes them* You’re as bad as your grandmother! She muted commercials and black people.

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Text of the sign I came up with for my door:

エホバの証人になりたくない。

(”I don’t want to become a Jehovah’s Witness.”)

チーズをたべることができない。　ピザショップのチラシが必要ない。

(”I can’t eat cheese. I don’t need an ad for a pizza place.”)

日本に住んでいるから、　形態をもう持っているよ。 買うわけがない。

(”I live in Japan, so I already have a cell phone. I’m not buying another one.”)

-

I just thought of this because Jehovah’s Witnesses actually showed up at the house a couple days ago, which never happens because we live in a place sufficiently nowhere-like as to have at one time had ostrich farmers. Mom possesses the ultimate weapon for repelling Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is, being somebody who used to be a Jehovah’s Witness. She can’t be converted a second time, so they’re not supposed to talk to her.

She held her hand, and just told them, “I’m not interested.” It’s sort of like how Battle Angel Alita doesn’t pull out the solenoid quench gun for every little thing. Being an ex-Jehovah’s Witness is too dreadful a power to be used lightly.

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