Watching, Playing, Reading: Combined Update Edition

Finally feeling a bit better post endoscopy, plus just general post surgery stuff.  Still handling the new stomach and everything connected to that stomach having the occasional trouble.  They tell you to eat lots of protein but they never mention that means you'll be shooting bullets out your poor backend.

It's also quite a lot of work staying hydrated, taking all the pills and just balancing what's going down my throat.  I think it's probably four to five hours of regimented eating+drinking+medicating before I can even 'start' my day.  And some days the stomach just nopes out on me getting any work done just because.  You will watch youtube videos, play football manager, and feel horrible nauseous and you will like it, Raley!

Drinking a cup of coffee a day again, that's been nice.  And I'm working on managing 1/3 cup of food per meal now.  One great piece of news is that thanks to the endoscopy biopsy it's confirmed my esophagitis is in remission and all those white blood cells causing the trouble have gone away, so...yay!  Still no diary ever again probably but...well, guess I'm gonna have to try me some vegan cheese soon.

We struggle on!

==WATCHING==

GOOD PLACE REWATCH INTO SEASON 4:  Just starting this, but I love this show so much.  It's just brilliant and so enjoyable and it makes the heart feel light and the brain get all tingly.  Yet...terrifying, so terrifying.  Not in a horror movie way, but I swear I have an existential  crisis every time I watch a new season.  Plus I've had a crush on Kristin Bell since VERONICA MARS, and she's quite good in this.  Which if you dig the school side of my books you should very much watch VERONICA MARS...like...now.  Go do that.

CHARIOTS OF FIRE:  How I think it's going to go:  hey let's watch some old Oscar winners we've never seen!  That'll be fun!  How it actually goes:  How did this movie win an Oscar!?!?!?!  So blah!  So boring!  You picked it over RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, what is wrong with you people!!!

YELLOWSTONE SEASON 2:  Pretty much every thing I said about season 1 but double.  Still with the mega super whiplash on what direction they're going in with the plot and the characters.  End of season 1:  Kevin Costner has cancer!  Start of season 2:  ummm...horrible idea, sorry we said that, I mean...just a ulcer, right guys?  He's totally okay!  We'd never kill the reason you're watching, what you think we are?  Stupid!  Season 1:  Jaime is this bad ass lawyer that fixes problems and keeps his simpler brothers from causing too much trouble and he's tired of his dad's shit so he's going to run for attorney general and burn it all down.  Season 2:  total pussy, total cuck, just...so unmanly and not cowboy, cuz cowboys are the coolest and lawyers are wimps!  Goes whining back to his daddy to fix his problems and is a total fuck up!

But the Beth character is fun...so there's that...

AMONG US YOUTUBE VIDEOS:  They're like mini contained episodes of SURVIVOR and I can't turn away...

PREMIER LEAGUE:  It's early yet and I've only been watching seriously for about four years now and I'm a horrible AMERICAN MEGA NEUTRAL but everyone is kind of shit except for Liverpool again, aren't they?

==PLAYING==

CRUSADER KINGS 3:  This is mostly what I've been doing the last week.  I loved CRUSADER KINGS 2.  Had so many great moments.  My first run with that game where I had no idea what I was doing and the six way war for the crown that broke out after my version of Willian the Conquer died will always be one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.  Having the Byzantium throne stolen from me as a child heir literally a year into the game after one of the worst RNG battle deaths I've ever seen and then refusing to restart, bidding my time as duke and then king of Bulgaria, having even worse luck as one of the most OP female characters I've ever seen died without a child just before I was about to retake the throne only for her less able twin sister to rise to the occasion and be crowned empress and be titled the Usurper, founding a dynasty that would go on the reform the roman empire and codify the unorthodox faith as the only one and true christian faith!  So good!  Plus the ASOIAF mod.  Plus the After the End mod.

So...3 is still rough.  Some crashing.  Bugs.  They've stripped societies and artifacts out of the game, which were some of the best parts of the previous.  I'm sure we'll see them added as DLC over the next year.  Also sure that we'll see some areas of the game get some loving and generally just more events and choices, since given how many people I've killed with poison spiders so far, I'm shocked the people of France haven't burnt down the forests yet.  So, it's very base.

But its a very pretty base.  And fun.  And it's got a lot going for it and I'm sure I'll spend probably a thousand hours playing it over the next five or so years.  Got to give another go at reforming Rome after all!

==READING==

BATTLEGROUNDS BY JIMMY BOY BUTCHER:  Literally just downloaded it on the kindle so not a whole lot to say yet.  Please don't suck?  Please be worth the 30 dollars you've made me pay for this story...somehow.

Nothing Happening

 You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now.  Every time I've posted positive news this year for you lot, something has come up and kicked me right in the balls.  So here we go again.  Not some huge problem, but post endoscopy has been really rough and no new writing has gone down.  Pretty much knocked me back to a liquid diet for the last week, just started pureed food again today and it's dicey.  Lot of nausea after eating.  Really have to take it slow with drinking too.  Was in pain again, but that seems to have gone away at least.

So...we just wait on everything to heal and settle down again.  I mean, we're still waaaay ahead of where I thought I'd be at this point, but...just annoying.  I always think of that scene in Cat Killing Coyotes where King Henry talks about the second wall always being the worst one.  I got over surgery, I totally edited the Vicky novel and was moving into new territory FINALLY and...we're waiting...

If I don't update this blog for awhile take that as the good news!

Watching, Playing, Reading: September Edition

==WATCHING==

THE BOYS SEASON 2:  Whoever at Amazon decided on this cruel, evil release structure that just plain sucks ass instead of the glorious binge model established by Netflix needs to have their genitals rubbed raw by old-fashioned Coca-Cola bottle caps glued to a lint roller.  Why are you following Disney's torture scheme?  Disney Plus kinda sucks.  You don't even really sell Prime Video by monthly subscription so it can't be about the money.  What, you want to trend every week on twitter?  What are you, a fifteen year old girl?  In fact, I don't even know if that joke works any more since fifteen teen year old girls probably use some other social media site my getting-older-by-the-day-ass doesn't know about.

You're the big dog, Amazon.  In the words of our prophet Billy Butcher:  you're fucking Posh Spice.  Or Mel B.  Pick one of the still relevant ones.  Disney Plus ain't even on the tour bus.  They have one great show and Hamilton, which...okay, why are those songs still stuck in my head months later?  You're evil Lin, super fucking evil.  But that's all Disney Plus has at the moment.  Baby Yoda, Hamilton, and nostalgia that only lasts so long before you need to snazzy new designer drug on the block.  You got about a dozen great shows by now.  You even made a show where Cara Delevigne plays a fucking fairy and she's a decent actress it in, you know how hard that shit is?  You're awesome!  So please stop this one-episode-a-week shit and never do it again.  If you pull it with Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time I will be EVEN MORE disappointed in you.

Also, please take this is friendly constructive criticism and let me keep publishing my books on Direct, cuz...I like to eat, okay?

Oh yeah, what are my thoughts on the second season?  Pretty slow so far.  Palpable feeling a dread that's pretty unique and extra ominous.  Homelander is just such an interesting and amazingly realized character and the powerlessness he projects on the rest of the cast is almost overwhelming.

YELLOWSTONE SEASON 1:  How has Kelly Reilly not at least gotten an Emmy nomination for her work in this?  Just another killer totally fucked up character I love seeing in media.  Overall, it's a strange show.  Sometimes I'm very impressed by it, but other times I feel like it's got some serious multi-personality syndrome going on.  Like the writers aren't talking to each other episode to episode and the producers got distracted so oops, let's recon some shit.  Bit of a whiplash from it and it's happened multiple times.  On the other hand, show has some great quotes.  Maybe not Justified level, but also maybe the best since Justified was out.  Not that I'm a quote guy, my brain is horrible at it and I've even had myself quoted to myself and been surprised I was the one that wrote it.

COBRA KAI SEASON 1:  I'm actually disappointed in this one.  Not saying it's bad, I just expected more from it based on the ratings of people that actually bothered to watch it on YouTube Red  gave to it.  Only finished the first season so far, but it's just so very high school.  I do like the nostalgia but Karate Kid was never in my TOP 10 as an 80s kid and...like I said, so very high school.  Plus it comes across as really cheap.  Did watch the first episode of Season 2 just now and I am glad that someone realized "oh hey, this could make money for us, we should probably get the actors in shape and teach them how to do some martial arts!"  Going to keep with it!

==PLAYING==

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA:  Love!  Someone finally did a Japanese Assassin's Creed and OMG it was awesome, what a surprise Ubisoft!  Granted, it's just plain better than Assassin's Creed.  The combat is better, the gadgets are cooler, the stealth is actually existent unlike AC Odyssey.  And duels, man are those duels are fun.  Probably my favorite game since Red Dead Redemption 2.  They might even be neck and neck.  RDR2 is a great experience but at least with Ghost I never wanted to scream at my controller because I pressed a button and instead of talking to a person I just started strangling them and now the bounty hunters are after me.  Or ya know, accidentally hit a trigger and oh look I just shot my fucking horse!  But as far as Ghost, loved it.  Actually got a platinum trophy and it wasn't a huge hassle, how nice that was.  Thanks to everyone that recommended it to me in my emails, had already bought it, but you lot moved it to the top of the pile.

GREEDFALL:  So this is considered a Double A game I'm pretty sure, in that the studio isn't Indie, but they're not exactly dumping millions or paying thousands of employees to get it made.  So it's...good.  Especially if you're like me and you like Western Style RPGs.  If you haven't played the Witcher 3, you should play that.  If you haven't played Dragon Age Inquisition, you should play that.  Same for Divinity 2 and maybe even Mass Effect Andromeda.  But if there's nothing else in the Western RPG field and you love them...then Greedfall is a game to play.

Again, you can tell it's on the cheap.  Not a lot of enemy types.  Loot is randomized.  Voice acting is...there.  But there's a pretty cool story going on about colonization of a 'new' land and you're very much an explorer and diplomat of a character, which I enjoy.  Do you befriend the natives?  Do you side with the religious or the scientist faction?  Can you stop the plague that is ravaging your homeland?  Still got a lot of it to go, but we'll see if it keeps my interest or not. 

==READING==

PEACE TALKS BY JIMMY BOY BUTCHER:  So I made the mistake of assuming this was split up because it was SO FUCKING LONG it had to be split up or it wouldn't physically hold together as a hardcover.  Which...wow, I actually gave a better motivation to the publishing companies than them just being greedy assholes.  So...30 dollars for one book, nice one guys.  You jackasses.

It's a bummer too, because I think this might be my favorite Dresden novel.  I know I'm in the minority on that one.  I'm also in the minority that CHANGES is my least favorite Dresden novel.  I'm not an explosion, hit-em-with-your-staff oriented reader.  That's all that Changes was...so...didn't dig it.  But the fact that Butcher FINALLY dropped the mandated pointless fight scene every fifty pages with PEACE TALKS was just...nirvana.  Ya'll remember the jet ski scene in COLD DAYS?  How fucking horrible was that?  But not in PEACE TALKS.  And the fights that were there were character driven.  AND most of the conflict happened with words and emotions.  FUCK YES!  RR approves!

It could all go to shit in the last half, but...I have hope that even though it is obviously going to be action heavy, that it will be meaningful action.

With no fucking jet skis.

And the publishers have another fifteen bucks.  The twats...

THE BLADE ITSELF REREAD BY JOE ABERCROMBIE:  Maybe the worst part of me being sick and being so mentally fucked about Grandpa battling cancer is that I lost my connection to pretty much every one of my favorite authors in the last few years.  So my mission this year and the next is to get back at it and do rereads and catch back up.  It's a grave sin that Joe Abercrombie has two new books I haven't read.  So that's who I picked to start with.  I've also never reread his stuff, so it's fun to get a new perspective knowing what will happen and already having an understanding of the characters.  THE BLADE ITSELF reads a ton better already, just from knowing who Ninefingers is and Bayaz and all the rest.

If you like my books and you like fantasy novels, read Abercrombie.  Nowadays its kind of just something that's done, but when this first trilogy came out it was incredibly subversive.  Reading the last book I was just laughing like a madman and kept repeating, 'yes, just do it, blow it all fucking up you mad bastard' and it's one of my favorite novels for what it pulled off.  He also does some brilliant stuff with structure and character tics.    There's this whole chapter in The Heroes (I think!) with a letter that's just perfect.  He makes me very jealous, not of his fame, but of his ability, so...that's probably the best praise I can give.

Good News About Lack of Posts

 So...I'm writing!  Not crazy Mad Scientist Mode, but I've been making some serious progress for the first time in forever.  Been feeling a ton better, energy levels are up, not in pain like the last six months...so, things have been SO much better.  I still have days where the new stomach just isn't a fan of something new I tried and I'm gone for at least twenty-four hours, but that's still a huge improvement on where I was when the EOE first flared.

Also lost a ton of weight.  September 2019 to September 2020 I've lost one hundred pounds, sixty of that on my own pre-surgery so...pretty much nothing fits now.  Pants are gone, belts are gone.  I'm in shirts that were WAY at the back of the closet and I haven't worn since like...maybe college.  Haven't even really started exercising seriously because California is HELL ON EARTH at the moment and my asthmatic lungs are not fans of the apocalypse it turns out!  Plus, ya know, pandemic and all that.

The one thing I do have on my plate for tomorrow is that I'm getting another endoscopy done for the EOE, hopefully my last for a long while, since they need to check that fixing my stomach and hernia, plus the steroids are working and that I'm--cross fingers--in remission now as far as all the white blood cells wrecking havoc upon my GI tract.  So...I always get a little cranky for about a week after those.

But enough of all that...writing!  Yes, writing.  Rewriting and editing VICKY VON WELF AND THE MANCY MASQUERADE.  Quite a lot of work needed just on what I had actually.  You might remember that this story took place originally in the GLASSBREAKER GOES HOME.  As a counterpoint to King Henry's homecoming you also got to see Vicky and Tyson visit Welf Manor.  But there ended up being so much story to both that I ended up splitting it up and then...2019 and 2020 happened and here we are with me trying to get back on the roller-coaster!

Now, VWMM takes place months later.  So instead of being two weeks after FM6 its a week or two prior to FM7.  First of all, all of the summer descriptions need to change to winter ones, so...there's some work.  Also, instead of everything beginning, everything is coming to a conclusion.  Like for example, Vicky was thinking about doing a spectro collection about Eureka but now she's already done it and a lot of the story revolves around her unveiling the collection at this Welf Winter Gala that her family holds every year for Old Mancy Elemental New England.  In addition, since it was only two weeks later, nothing had really happened in the originally version, but now everyone has progress to where they will be in FM7 more or less, so I've got to give you lot some info on that too.  So quite a lot of rewrites there.

And in addition YET AGAIN to all that, this is now not half a story, but a full story, so more is going on.  There will be a plethora of familiar faces at the Welf Gala and a lot of politics, and ya know, T-Bone trying to not get killed by roaming Constructs and the like.  And new faces will appear as well.   Spent a whole day coming up with five different characters that are quite powerful and so far I hadn't brought up, but I think it's time.  Also a few of Class 2015 make an appearance, granted as 18yo's instead of 14yo's, but a small preview on WAR TO END ALL WARS.

This is a story very much in the same idea as GOES HOME in that if you wanted to skip it, you could. But...when the Angel of Death shows up in another novel and you're like "who the fuck is that?" that's on you dog.  Also, shame upon you!  Very much not recommended to skip even if King Henry isn't around, even T-Bone's super over-exaggerated head King Henry.  I think it has the potential to be a killer little novel that really sets the stage for FM7 and I'm going to be really trying to stay off the net and as long as my health keeps improving we actually have a shot to finish it, which I haven't felt about a book in a long, long while!

PS:  HOLY FUCKBALLS THAT DUNE TRAILER!!!!!!