Teto

I found this (I assume) Russian site that has all the books available to read, in English. Norton Safe Web says it's OK, so no obvious danger of viruses. Cascade started on A Game of Thrones, and hasn't reported any foul play, in that it look like it's going to charge you money after you read to a certain point in a book.

The site it self is here: http://www.litmir.net/
It has plenty other books, if you search for them. I gave a go and found the Earthsea novels, and a couple Philip K. Dick books there as well.

So yeah, the Game of Thrones books. Here they are:
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows
A Dance with Dragons
If you fancy knowing how I found it, I just typed a random unimportant line from the page I had open in A Feast for Crows and it gave me the same page on the site. Magic.

Before this year, I've not been much for reading books. Several years ago I read the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, which consisted of The Northern Lights (aka The Golden Compass), The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. I must have read those in 2008, having got three copies of The Northern Lights for Christmas in 2007, following the movie adaptation, and since then I've forgotten what happened. I have brought one or two things home from them, but basically just the idea of a knife so sharp that it could cut through any material with great ease (the subtle knife itself). Besides that, I've forgotten the books for the most part.

At some point I read through all the Harry Potter novels as well, though evidently I must have read them pretty carelessly, since I didn't realise Snape was a good guy after all at the end. But I did read them all, maybe sometime between the Order of the Pheonix movie and the first Deathly Hallows movie. I must have enjoyed them to get through them all, though I don't distinctly remember any parts I enjoyed.

I also chose to read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë for an essay at school, though I only read the first half. I later read Animal Farm by George Orwell from Septemberish of 2011 to sometime in the early summer/late spring of 2012. I read Wuthering Heights for the fact my mother could help me analysing it, and Animal Farm just for the fact that it was a school book that I'd never read in class before, and wanted to say that I had read it.

That's a brief history of what I consider ancient history, before the point where I really enjoyed books. A history of half-experienced books that I either wasn't invested in, or didn't pay the proper attention to in order to get the most out of them.

The next book I read was one I'd considered reading for a while, and chose out of a long-standing interest rather than any other shallow reasons like 'bragging rights' (in the case of Animal Farm alone, really). That book was A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, inspired by the fact that Tales from Earthsea was such a mediocre movie compared to any other Studio Ghibli movie I'd watched. I'd heard that the author was unimpressed by the movie, and that fans considered the books to be much better (as book-readers unfailingly do). So I read that, from October 2012 until January of this year, and enjoyed it a lot.

If you've ever seen Tales from Earthsea, or indeed if you're a fan of fantasy novels at all, I recommend reading the Earthsea novels a lot. Maybe I'm inexperienced as a reader, but they're very well written and easy to love, as well as quite short. If you've ever seen the Tales from Earthsea movie, then you'll known the character Sparrowhawk. The Earthsea novles are all connected to him in some way. The first, A Wizard of Earthsea, follows Sparrowhawk from childhood to young-adulthood, as he finds his magical ability, goes to wizarding school, which serve as an introduction to the greater part of the book where he embarks on his brief work as a wizard, and then onto his journey to fight a curse he brought on himself during his time at the wizarding school. The second book, The Tombs of Atuan follow not Sparrowhawk, but a girl who meets him, and how he involves himself in her own story. The Farthest Shore serves as the basis of the movie Tales from Earthsea, but I haven't read this one yet.

So yes, I highly recommend these books. They're a quick read, and accessible too. And it has magic (Knuckle).

I read A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan one after the other, the latter being read much faster than the other, but still at quite a slow pace, taking me about a month or so. At some point, there was an episode of Psycho-Pass, in which Makishima Shogo remarked that the world of the show was similar to that of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Since I was thinking on what to read next at this point, I took note of the title, and ordered it shortly before I finished reading The Tombs of Atuan. So continuing with the habit of only finding books through anime, I got it and read it over the course of two weeks. Another good book, though it didn't resonate with me as the Earthsea novels had. I recommend it as well, though less enthusiastically.

I'd been contemplating for a long while, ever since I fell out of touch with the TV series, that I might try reading Game of Thrones. Having read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? so much more quickly than the last books, I figured I can trust my commitment to reading enough by this point to take on as large a book as Game of Thrones. I read it in a month, loving it all but not being blown away, since I was mostly covering old ground that I'd seen in what I'd already watched of the TV series (episodes 1-8 + spoilers people had given away online already).

Between that and Clash of Kings, I fitted in A Murder of Quality by John le Carré just to spread out the series. My dad is a great fan of John le Carré, and I figured it'd be nice to give these books a go to see if I can get into them. It was a good enough book, but not nearly enough whimsy for me. Still holding hope that I could get into this sort of stuff, I planned ahead to go back and read Call for the Dead (which I'm currently reading), and read all of the George Smiley novels, since I did enjoy his character, and he could serve as a bridge into this new ground.

Back to Clash of Kings, which took me another month of reading, while I moved from Dundee back home. New unspoiled territory. At some point while I read it, the Red Wedding happened, and the great boom of internet chatter got the bare bones of the events to me, and spoiled the important details of 'who' and 'what'. Understandably irritated, this fueled me to finish Clash of Kings, and then read both parts of Storm of Swords one after the other in just over two weeks. I passed the spoiler about 130 pages into the second part and plowed through to the end.

All through it, I thought how sweet it would be to be free from the threat of spoilers on the internet from the TV series, and instead have the advantage once I passed the point covered by the TV series. Instead, I've found that it's just instead frustrating not being on the same wavelength as other people. I'm behind most of the book-readers, and ahead of those watching the TV series. I'm not experiencing the book alongside other people, and I've realised that's something that puts me at a certain disadvantage. Everybody watching the series is on the same wavelength, while I'm somewhere between the two points of completion, with few people who I can relate to right now.

So while I would say that the books are absolutely completely undeniably superior to the TV series, I have to say that if you're particularly invested in the social experience that comes with experiencing the TV series with other people, then don't bother reading the books. It's not very fun for anybody if one person watching the show knows what's going to happen next, hanging over the others' shoulder waiting for a reaction to something you're looking forward to. So if you're willing to take it on as an individual experience for a while, or if you aren't as picky as I am about it, then stick with the series. Nothing wrong with sitting waiting for next episodes year after year, having a huge number of people experiencing it alongside you. That's a good way to be as well, maybe better.

So that's that, and now I'm here. I've been reading Call for the Dead by John le Carré since I finished Storm of Swords last week, and been enjoying it well enough, and slowly. Being a bit more moderate with how much I read again, but my casual reading is a lot better than it had been while I read Clash of Kings and those before it. I would read a bit every day or so with Game of Thrones, and The Tombs of Atuan was something I read at night before sleep, while A Wizard of Earthsea was only ever read under rare circumstances; train journeys mostly.

I have a pile in my room for books I've finished, and another books I've yet to read. Sitting in the former are all the books I've mentioned here, and the latter, A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, which will come after Call for the Dead. That, and the two books I got today, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, and A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin.

Which leads me to the reason I even started making this vanity post; this picture of those two books. Look at me, I read books now.

There are words here and there while reading that I'm not sure I understand properly, or don't know at all. Facial expressions and feelings, and words for places that I never knew before, or wasn't sure of. I would continuously keep having to take breaks to find definitions for things, and sometime into the book I felt like I'd begun repeating myself. I'd been looking up words, putting it into the scene in my head, and immediately forgotten what the word meant. I decided the best thing to do would be to write down words in a notebook as I read, along with their definitions. Since I started writing, however many pages ago, I've got 23 words. And here they all are, definitions included.

*Noun
**Adjective
***Verb
Wry **1. Using or expressing dry, esp. mocking, humor.
**2. (of a person's face or features) Twisted into an expression of disgust, disappointment, or annoyance.

Niggard *A stingy or ungenerous person.

Conjecture *An opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.
**Form an opinion or supposition about (something) on the basis of incomplete information.

Trepidation *1. A feeling of fear or agitation about something that may happen.
*2. Trembling motion.

Nonplussed **1. (of a person) Surprised and confused so much that they are unsure how to react.
**2. (of a person) Unperturbed.

Perturb ***1. Make (someone) anxious or unsettled.
***2. Subject (a system, moving object, or process) to an influence tending to alter its normal or regular state or path.

Slight *An insult caused by a failure to show someone proper respect or attention.
**Small in degree; inconsiderable.
***Insult (someone) by treating or speaking of them without proper respect or attention.

Contrite **Feeling or expressing remorse or penitence; affected by guilt.

Quip *A witty remark.
***Make a witty remark.

Sullen **1. Bad-tempered and sulky; gloomy.
**2. (esp. of water) Slow-moving: "rivers in sullen flood".

Admonition *An act or action of admonishing; authoritative counsel or warning.

Insolent **Showing a rude or arrogant lack of respect.

Rankle ***1. (of a wound or sore) Continue to be painful; fester.
***2. (of a comment, event, or fact) Cause annoyance or resentment that persists.

Lecherous **Having or showing excessive or offensive sexual desire.

Sardonic **Grimly mocking or cynical.

Earnest *A sign or promise of what is to come: "an earnest of the world's desire not to see the conflict repeated elsewhere".
**Resulting from or showing intense conviction: "an earnest student".

Droll **Curious or unusual in a way that provokes dry amusement: "his unique brand of droll self-mockery".

Reproach *The expression of disapproval or disappointment.
***Address (someone) in such a way as to express disapproval or disappointment.

Curt **Rudely brief: "his reply was curt".

Placid **(of a person or animal) Not easily upset or excited.
**(esp. of a place or stretch of water) Calm and peaceful, with little movement or activity.

Ford *A shallow place in a river or stream allowing one to walk or drive across.
**(of a person or vehicle) Cross (a river or stream) at a shallow place.

Petulant **(of a person or their manner) Childishly sulky or bad-tempered.

Retinue *A group of advisers, assistants, or others accompanying an important person.


And this concludes Teto's first vocabulary roundup.

[Ash's] Primeape VA's
J: Hiroshi Otake
E: Michael Haigney
______

King Boom Boo VA's
J: ???
E: ???
______

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle VA's:
*uncredited on info.sonicretro.org

-Japanese VAs-
Junichi Kanemaru - Sonic
Kouji Yusa - Shadow
Atsuki Murata - Tails
Nobutoshi Kanna - Knuckles
Taeko Kawata - Amy
Rumi Ochiai - Rouge
Etsuko Kozakura - Omochao
Yuri Shiratori - Maria
-Kinryu Arimoto - The President
-Mami Horikoshi - Secretary
-Tohru Okawa - Flying Dog Pilot -
-Kouji Ochiai - Big Foot Pilot
-Kaori Aso - Tikal
Tomoko Sasaki - Chao
Chikao Otsuka - Gerald Robotnik / Eggman
-English VA's-
Ryan Drummond - Sonic
Scott Dreier - Knuckles
David Humphrey - Shadow
Conner Bringas - Tails
Jenny Douillard - Amy
Deem Bristow - Eggman
Lani Minella - Rouge / Omachao
Moriah Angeline - Maria
Marc Biagi - Gerald Robotnik
-Steve Broadie - The President -
-Sue Wakefield - Secretary -
-Elara Distler* - Tikal -
-Shelly Fox - Menu voice



Continued search yields no further success. I can find no connection between the voice of Primeape from Pokemon and the voice of King Boom Boo, the ghost boss from Sonic Adventure 2. Neither Hiroshi Otake or Michael Haigney appear to have been involved in Sonic Adventure 2, and so it's unlikely that they loaned their voices at any point. Given that King Boom Boo has no lines, and only grunts and gurgles, it's unlikely that he has any noted dedicated voice actor worth speaking of, and so I cannot come to any conclusion there either.


Voice actor information for Ash's Primeape taken from here:
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Ash%27s_Primeape

The lists of voice actors were taken from a reading of the Sonic Adventure 2 credits, and given characters by using the following sites:
http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Adventure_2_credits
http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com
http://www.imdb.com/

Thus concludes my search. King Boom Boo shall forever remain an enigma.

Today I woke up at 7:00. Then 7:09. Then 7:18. Then 7:27. Then 7:36. Then 7:45. Then I was finally able to actually switch off my alarm with confidence that I would then be able to go out into the day. I showered. I sat around a bit and waited until 8:45 when I went to class, which I had to rush for, because I am no good at time management and should have left earlier to allow for travel time. On the way I listened mostly to "
" and " " by Eels, the second moreso than the first. I arrived at 9:05 which wasn't a big deal; it hadn't really started yet. We just had to get results, but like half the class puppyed up and nobody had any cell growth. We got someone else's results. Class ended at 10:15, and I was released back into the wild.
I went to Greggs and got a Scotch Pie, which you shouldn't eat with your hands because it's way oily. It was kind of weird. I was careful not to make a horrific mess, and was successful. Then I took a picture of the dragon statue.





I then went off to Waterstones, looked around halfheartedly at the comics and books. Read the back of The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. Read the little staff-written recommendations on the front of A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, and one of the Doctor Who books, based on the Ninth Doctor. I looked at the Judge Dredd comics and wondered why volumes 12 or 13 onwards of the complete case files were so much smaller than the first dozen. I also looked again at the manga, which never ever changes, and I wouldn't buy even if I saw something I wanted. I saw a popular science book that had "Electric Sheep" in the title, in larger letters than the rest of the title. I mistakenly thought it was something to do with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, which I recently finished.

I went off to the Costa upstairs, and ordered a pot of tea instead of my usual mocha latte, because I have given up trying to think coffee doesn't suck. I sat down in a corner of the cafe next to a couple people who I assumed were lecturers for a gaming course. They were discussing Heavy Rain, and generally the whole ludology vs. narratology debate. They got onto the American archetype character of the big hero who walks off into the sunset after winning the battle and killing the bad guys, and they noticed how often that comes up. Like in Fallout 3 and stuff, and apparently Bioshock Infinite? I struggled to read Game of Thrones with them there because A) They were like arms length from me; They were kind of loud; C) Their conversation was interesting.

They left, and I got on finishing the chapter I was on, which is just the first chapter after the prologue; Bran. It was really good and I liked it. I'm going to enjoy this book a lot. I had to get up to get a third sugar for my tea because two wasn't quite enough. I didn't have enough tea for a second cup, but I poured it anyway and put in way too much sugar. I finished that and left.

I decided to call up my flatmate and see if she wanted me to go by the print shop to pick up her postcards she got printed out, because she's going to have a booth at the upcoming anime convention we're having in Dundee on the weekend. I went over, since it was on the same street, and picked them up, with surprising ease; I just gave them my friend's name and they handed over the stuff. I learned later that the shop called my friend to make sure that I wasn't just some stranger stealing her stuff.

I was going to go buy a Magic the Gathering booster but I decided against it because it's not so much fun when you don't have obsessive pros around you to tell you which cards are utter rubbish. Instead I went off to a shop to buy some more cord for making dice bags.

So I went and got on the bus, came back to my flat. Not a lot happened between those two things.

I got back, unpacked all my stuff, met up with my flatmate, talked briefly. Moved my stuff through to the living room because she was going to do some clay making for jewellery she's planning to sell at the convention as well. I was going to make dice bags there but I decided against it because being in her company is really uncomfortable, even though she's nice; I just can't stand being around her for extended periods of time, I just end up feeling antisocial because I can't think of anything to talk about, and she's constantly forcing enthusiasm out of herself, and I can't help her there at all and I can't match the enthusiasm, and so I feel like I make her feel bad about herself, and so I get tired quickly.

We went to the Tesco because she needed stuff. I didn't really, but I got Pringles and chocolate because I am fat. We return to the flat. She finds a weird egg in amongst the eggs she got. Look at this weird egg.





Not even cracked, it just looks like that. How does a shell get like that.

The time is 2:19. It felt like 5pm at this point. I felt bad, but I went back to my room to be by myself. I listened to Eels a bit, watched the first episode of the second season of The World God Only Knows, that god-forsaken show, and then put on The Big Bang Theory because it's piss easy to watch. From then until sometime around 9:00, here was the playlist:





Over this time I sat and made another dice bag, which I posted about. I used some of the cord I bought earlier, and was more careful with measurements and keeping the stitches closer together. It resulted in a better made bag, with a worse cord. The cord was too rough, and so it's more difficult to open and close than the first one I made, which has since broken, since part of the cord came loose due to not being very securely fastened to the felt body. Here's the second dice bag.





Then I wrote this. I might read more Game of Thrones and then sleep. Here is my Twitter feed for the day, oh haha what I charmer I am.