|
| From 1:00 AM, 1:00 AM, 1:00 AM:
My phone is handling the time change by freezing time at 1:00 AM. So I'm not sure if all the crimes I do right now will be rewritten when we time travel or if I will be tried for 1:00:00 AM. | | |
| I should probably feel ashamed in saying that Robert Jordan's death has breathed new life into the Wheel of Time series. But I feel it's important to stress that I do not believe Jordan to be dead. I could relate in hushed, conspiratorial tones a theory that he is simply in hiding, writing the final tomes from the safety of a bunker buried deep in the darkest places of the world, but it is far less simple than that.
In his foreword, Brandon Sanderson, the arbiter of Jordan's final books, states that this is not his own work, rather, that of Jordan himself in all regards. I spent the last year familiarizing myself to Sanderson's catalogue and internalizing his writings, having resigned myself to the fact that the series would be finished by another. Though in no way inferior to Jordan, I knew for a fact that it would be... different. I'm happy to say that neither of us was wrong in our assumptions.
Truly, upon finishing The Gathering Storm, twelfth in the series, I can say that I sense nothing of Sanderson's usual style. While he has always been strikingly similar to Jordan thematically, he was always more straight to the point, lacking the adornment and richness that marks Jordan out. Sanderson's direct style is refreshing, but far from what I want and expect when reading a Jordan novel. In The Gathering Storm there is no evidence of this. Even taking into account that Jordan outlined all the major plot points and likely wrote much of this book to begin with, there's still no place I can point to and say, without doubt, "Sanderson wrote this part." If there was any such part that was more Sanderson than Jordan, then it was expertly woven together.
At the same time, it is different than before. Perhaps some part of me is still reeling from two years ago when a great man was taken from this world. Something perhaps denying that Jordan could ever die, and not due to some belief that one doesn't die if they touch others' lives. That's just something those who can't face death tell themselves for comfort.
No, Jordan is more alive than before because reading The Gathering Storm was as transformative as the day I started reading The Eye of the World which was just as striking as reading The Great Hunt and so on. Eventually, though, reading each new book just became something I did, not something I experienced. I must admit, I still have trouble recalling anything that happened in the tenth or eleventh volumes. I had become resigned, then, that book six, Lord of Chaos was the high point, and it was a long trudge to the end that I had to endure.
But the story of how we got here isn't what had me laughing or weeping or tensed, ready to strike, throughout this weekend. It was the story in the book. The words burned indelibly into my mind. There more here to rejoice over than I can remember from any book before. In time, the memories will fade leaving me much the same greedy, selfish person I was before, but for now, I still have what I felt while reading close to me.
So, Jordan is not dead, and Sanderson could not have written this book. There isn't any possible way he could. If he had, I of all people should have been able to tell.
And perhaps, that is the highest praise I can give both of them. | | |
| ... is actually a contraction for "God's wounds".
| | |
| I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my grandma knows that Riboflavin is Vitamin B2; she was a nurse for a long time, after all. I actually didn't know until I saw it on a nutritional information panel recently. It was just a funny word for a nutrient to me.
The reason it's necessary for time travel is an idea put forth in an episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete from a long time ago. The episode involved the Pete's preparing for a Daylight Savings Time shift. It involved Little Pete eating a large amount of Time Warp-o's (I don't know if I'm recalling the name of the cereal exactly correct). It had 100% of your daily Riboflavin and was purportedly the perfect food to make oneself ready for any shifts in time one might experience.
Later in the episode, Little Pete is chased across state lines, experiencing a second shift in time in a single day. Luckily, he must have had two servings of Time Warp-o's.
To this day, I still celebrate time warps by getting the appropriate amount of Riboflavin. Despite my love of the show, I now remember hardly anything about it. Though I did get the soundtrack; the title song, Hey Sandy by Polaris, is still one of my favorites. I'd try to find the show on DVD, but I'm rather sure my childhood memories of it are much better than the show actually was. I'd probably be disappointed by it if I ever was able to watch it again.
| | |
| Yeah, I was out there for a few months, but that's no big deal.
First off, I can't speak of it much, second, I don't think I was technically alive for the greater part of my time out in the desert. I just sort of went on autopilot until I could return to my life.
Upon my return, I sort of caught up on living. The main thrust being in the realms of movies and games. I can only say that seeing Iron Man on my return was a bad choice. The scenes set in Kandahar were too true to life (despite being filmed in the Mojave Desert). Although, luckily, no one stepped on a land mine, which, at best, is an 80% chance in Afghanistan. I also watched the new Indiana Jones, but the less said about that, the better. George Lucas and Harrison Ford pretty much destroyed my entire childhood love for the adventuring archaeologist.
I'm being told I should see the Dark Knight, Batman does hold a certain interest, but that will have to wait.
Diversion: I've been playing the games I felt I missed out on during the months away which amounts to a total of four games. Okami was nothing new, its Wii version is nothing different from the original PS2 version. But despite being a game that seemed destined for the Wii, it didn't serve up what I was looking for. They completely destroyed the drawing aspects of the game. It's hard to imagine that drawing on the PS2 would be preferable to doing so on the Wii, but them's the breaks.
Grand Theft Auto 4 doesn't really deserve any mention. They completely broke anything that made the game fun in the first place. How can you take a game based on the ability to use your ingenuity to commit crimes and cut out the ability to solve problems in any other fashion than the game designers' wishes?
Lego Indiana Jones is what I wanted it to be. The spartan design is what I needed to restore my faith in games after GTA4. I was antsy to see how they would handle a LEGO game without using the Force (as in the Star Wars games), but it was sufficient to please me.
The real jewel was Persona 3 FES. I didn't know Atlus was coming out with this until I was out in the desert and a friend of mine had a gaming magazine that announced the English release of said game. I was never so excited (in my limited memory) to play a game before. I just finished the Journey (original) portion of the game in an inebriated state. The inebriation was not necessary but merely a result of spending last night among some good friends and having a leftover case of alcohol from my return home party a few weeks ago. I cried at the end of Persona 3 the first time, with the additions made to FES, the bawling was sufficient to make me dehydrated. Worse, I still have the add-on portion of the game (The Answer) to go through. I don't know if I'll be able to survive.
Her intentions fall to the floor.
| | |
|
