All is Well

My friend, Jimmy was right, I think. He once commented, several years ago, that he knew that everything was going well for me because I hadn't updated my blog in awhile. He observed that I only tended to write when I had something that I needed to vent about. Over the years I've used this blog as my soapbox, my sounding board, my creative outlet. Even when I wasn't necessarily ranting about something but writing about hobbies and interests, the blog as still very cathartic. It has now been exactly one month to the day since I last wrote anything. Some of that is because I was working retail again and didn't have my usual Sunday morning solitude in which to write and drink my coffee. But mostly it has been because I just didn't have anything much to write about. Yep, Jimmy was right – unless I'm stressed, I can't really seem to come up with blog topics, at least not good ones, which is why this one is a bit disjointed and has no real topic. In short, I don't have anything to bitch about anymore since landing a real job making a decent wage (by decent, I mean one I can actually live on). I've got a great group of friends. I have several places to hang out at and play games, shoot pool, throw darts, etc. I really have nothing to complain about. I just hope that doesn't mean that I'm tapped for blog ideas, because frankly, I really love to write.

~ JC

Legend of the Seeker No Sword of Truth

I've been a fan of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series of novels for a decade or more. I've read them all, even the ones that weren't that interesting or seemed overly preachy with his Randian Objectivist views. Still, they were a great series of novels and I still highly recommend them to everyone. So, imagine my excitement when, a few years ago, it was announced that a syndicated television series based on those books was being produced. “Legend of the Seeker” premiered in November 2008 and ran for two seasons until May of 2010. I caught parts of episodes when it was first released and immediately hated it! I do realize that TV shows and movies never follow a novel precisely, but with “Legend of the Seeker” character's personalities, even main characters, seemed to be changed wholesale, the stories of all of the novels were mashed together, characters that never existed in the novels appeared, etc. etc. I really felt like the TV producers had totally fucked up a great book series and stuck a giant middle finger up at Goodkind's fans. I refused to watch it despite Terry's posting on his website (I think that's where I read it anyway) that fans should let the books be the books and the show be the show and not try to compare them. So, I tried to watch another episode; and failed. I just couldn't watch them destroy what had been my favorite series books for the last several years.

So, I recently discovered that the entire first season of “Legend of the Seeker” is available for viewing for free via Hulu (season two is available to Hulu Plus subscribers). So, I'm giving it another chance. I'm trying to watch it as just a television show based in a fantasy setting. It's difficult, because I loved the books so much and the TV show really fails at following anything resembling the story-lines of the novels. As a stand alone show goes, it's ok, assuming you liked Hercules and Xena (Sam Raimi produced both of those plus “Legend of the Seeker, by the way). I've actually watched the first five episodes of “Legend of the Seeker.” I think if I hadn't read the novels, I'd enjoy it more, but I still find myself picking apart all the things in the show that are blatantly wrong compared to the novels. Richard (the Seeker himself) for example, lacks the reasoning ability in the show that he has in the novels and way to impulsive most the time. Kahlan, the Mother Confessor in the novels, is just another Confessor in the books and not even the last of her kind. She's also more harsh and bit bossy in the TV show. First Wizard Zedd is just as powerful in the show, but lacks the whimsical, playfulness of the Zedd in the books. In the books, he's pretty much the last living wizard, while in the show he's just one of many powerful wizards of The First Order. Also, when the hell did Kahlan become über-awesome at fighting hand-to-hand with a pair of daggers? I don't remember that shit in the books. She was taught, much later in the novels, by Richard to use a sword, but in the TV series she's wicked awesome with knives from the very beginning. At least the fight scenes are well filmed and choreographed.

The casting for those three main characters is also a little bit off. Bridget Regan, asKahlan, is probably the best cast character; Regan is gorgeous, and actually plays the part of Kahlan quite well. I like Bruce Spence as Zedd decently enough, but Craig Horner just isn't a big enough guy to be Richard in my opinion. Richard was always described as rather tall and muscular (he's a woods-guide before being named Seeker, after all). Horner's got a pretty athletic build, but he's not that tall. In fact Spence is taller than Horner, and I always pictured Richard as being taller than Zedd, not the other way around.

Ok, ok. I realize that I'm picking nits here, and enough reviews exist online as it is now that I really don't feel the need to go into tons of details, especially since I'm only five episodes into giving it another chance to grab my attention. I’m' just saying, as a stand alone TV show “Legend of the Seeker” does ok, but as an adaptation of an epic series of fantasy novels, it sucks.

I'll likely finish watching the first season, and if I ever can afford to subscribe to Hulu Plus, I'll even watch the second season. But, The Sword of Truth this show is definitely not! I'm just getting tired of Hollywood's penchant for the last decade or more of not creating anything new or original. Seems like popular book series and classic 80's TV shows being re-imagined or turned into crappy syndicated series or movies is all that Hollywood's so-called writers can come up with anymore. It's why I really don't care that I don't have cable right now, and why I don't feel like spending the money to go to the movies anymore. As long as I have access to websites like Hulu (which has a lot of older, good TV shows) and good bookstore, I'm good.

~ JC

How To Care for Your Books: 5 Tips Home Hacks | Apartment Therapy Boston

Since I didn't write a blog this week, I thought I'd share this link I found this morning. It's definitely in keeping with my last post :-)

Enjoy! ~ JC

How To Care for Your Books: 5 Tips Home Hacks | Apartment Therapy Boston

Of course, if we all switched to e-books, then this becomes a moot point. Then again, I'll always own real books, so this is a great list of tips.

Paper vs Screen (or Real Books vs E-books)

One needs only look at my collection of books to know that I am a bit of a bibliophile. I'm not just someone who enjoys reading, but I really love the books themselves. I tend to collect anything that I read, and only begrudgingly part with a book, and then only if it was really one I didn't enjoy, I just really need the shelf space to accommodate, you guessed it, more books. So, it shouldn't be any real surprise that one of the first things I downloaded when I got my Motorola Droid over a year ago was an app called Aldiko Book Reader. I've also downloaded quite a few E-books as well, but up until now, haven't read a single one. Recently, while between books (meaning I had just finished one and was deciding what novel to read next), I starting browsing through the list of items I had downloaded to my Droid. I ended up reading the poem “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. It was the first time I had actually used the e-book reader to read more than a page or two of anything.

Reading that classic poem got me to wondering about if I'd actually enjoy reading a full length book on such a small screen.^* So, to accommodate an experiment I decided to download an e-book for which I also own an actual copy of the book. So, when I'm at home, I read from the hard copy, but having the same book in electronic format on my Droid allows me to be able to pick up reading a few pages when I'm out and about even if I've forgotten to take my book with me. So far, I have to admit, reading a book on my phone isn't as bad I thought it would be. The tricky part, so far, with reading a book via two media formats is keeping the bookmarks synchronized. Whenever I read the book, I have make sure I move my bookmark in the e-book and vice versa or I end up reading the same pages/chapters twice.

Now that I've established that I'm perfectly content with reading a book on my smallish phone screen, I now have to decide if that will become the future of how I read books. As I mentioned before, I love books – the way they feel, the way they smell. I can easily spend quite a bit of time (not to mention money) at a bookstore. However, Aldiko has access to quite a large library of free, public domain books as well as more current books, usually for a bit cheaper than buying the hard copy. Then there's also the ability to get e-books via bit torrents.

There are also other concerns to take into account when collecting books. They take up a lot of space, and they can also be quite heavy when packed in boxes (something I have to consider since I'm still have most of my collection in storage in North Carolina and am currently establishing residency in Atlanta, GA). My old college buddy Sam had some interesting insights on this very subject some time ago. Rather than re-listing them all here, I'll suggest you read his blog entries “Digital Dilemma” and “Kobo Impressions”. The only other comment I'll make is that, while Sam bought a dedicated e-book reader, I rather like the fact that my smartphone has the ability to function as an e-book reader using the Aldiko app (or others) as well as access the internet. In other words, I only have to carry one mobile device, where someone with just an e-book reader would need to carry at least two (the reader plus their cellphone).

~ JC

PS. I should be noted that I have only cataloged physical books using LibraryThing. I've yet to catalog my e-books/PDFs save for a few.

* The Motorola Droid has a 3.7” screen