Today's rambling: Enough with the dramatics!
Written on December 20, 2001 at 9:13 p.m.
while feeling a bit

My Magic Fairy Name:

Behaviour
A bringer of light breezes and a changer of weather.

Seen When
Only at midday under a quiet, cloudless sky.

Habitat
In spiderwebbed wonderlands and insect grottos.

I think that's SO pretty! Of course, the "insect grottos" part was a little less than stellar, but the name's pretty! Now, if only I could be seen at twilight or sometime at night, then everything would be perfect. ;)

Anyway, lessee...OH! Tiff came over last night and gave me my Christmas present! It was "The World of Shannara" (kind of like the guide book to Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time", but obviously for the "Shannara" series by Terry Brooks). I was so THRILLED!!!! That's my favorite book series ever, and I'd been eyeing that guide ever since I first saw it at Barnes and Noble. I haven't gotten to read much of it yet, because we went out to WalMart (c'mon, like you couldn't predict that?) and stuff. I can't return "Aidyn Chronicles", by the way, because they won't take back opened video games. The cheeseballs.

The ONE thing that's disappointed me thus far in the guide is that Terry admits in the Foreword that he didn't create most of the stuff within said guide. He answered some of the questions that the illustrator and Teresa Patterson (same person who helped with the WoT guide) asked him, but he said mostly that he had no idea about half of it and they seemed to have better pictures and ideas in their head so he let THEM decide on most of the stuff. He also mentioned something about how the readers knew more about the Shannara world than he did.

This just upsets me, I guess, because I'd always thought that he knew everything about the world he stuck his characters in. I thought an author HAD to know about the world that they created for their characters. Maybe not as in-depth as we know OUR world (with all the past history and whatnot), but I thought the author would know more than just basic geography! And yeah, the first trilogy was written back in the late 70's and early 80's, so it's obvious that he would have forgotten a bit between then and now...I don't know, maybe I'm not expressing myself well enough. I suppose in a way, it's almost like finding out that this world wasn't real after all, that there's nothing more substantial to it than the page at the beginning which shows a map of that world. And of course I KNOW that the world of Shannara doesn't exist, but I feel almost let down in a way!

Still, I can't wait to continue reading. Even if most of the stuff wasn't thought up by Terry himself, it'll still be cool to have more knowledge of the world and its inhabitants!

Terry's Foreword led me to wonder if perhaps Robert Jordan was the same way. As pretentious as I always thought he made himself sound (what with the Author Bio in the back that says he "tackled" Jules Vern at age 5 or whatever...am I supposed to be impressed? Was he a boy genius?), I figured he would have mapped out EVERY single last detail of the WoT world. And I only skimmed through the Foreword-like part at the beginning, but I think maybe he didn't know as much about that world as I once believed? At least Terry humbly admitted to it, though...RJ had to remain "in character" and pretend that the Foreword-ish part was something that maybe an Aes Sedai or some other WoT scholar had written. Admit your wrongs, RJ! Bwa ha!

Can you tell I've really gotten fed up with the WoT books? I just have no interest in them anymore! I mean, I'd gotten to the point around Book 3 where I figured I'd stop there, but then I kept reading and I DID get more interested. But he has dragged this on for WAY too long, and his writing style can get very dry and boring. Half the stuff he has in those books could easily be cut out without ruining anything, and maybe he could go from 8 books down to...oh, I don't know. Something not so ridiculous? It's like he wants to be known for writing this epic fantasy, but wants to make sure that no one can ever POSSIBLY beat him for the most number of books in one series.

Still, I think I'd rather read his stuff than Tolkien's. Tolkien seems very dry to me, too. And whether that series is the "bible" of fantasy or not, I don't care. Just 'cause he was the first doesn't make him the best. I get so sick of people who whine about that.

So anyhoo, yeah, I can't return Aidyn Chronicles. Tiff suggested first that I try to return it to the Electroniques Boutique after Christmas (saying that I got it as a gift and didn't like it), then she pointed out that I could just get the controller expansion pak. The former idea would be nice because I'm desperate to get rid of that game, but I hate lying! I always feel like such a creep! But she brought up a good point with the latter idea--maybe the game wouldn't seem so pathetically horrible if I could just play it in little bits and then save when I got fed up with it. It's stupid that you have to have one of those expansion paks in order to save the game, but nonetheless, it beats having to play from the beginning every time.

I very nearly succumbed to the urge to buy a 10-gallon aquarium starter thing last night. The sign proclaimed it to be a mere $30 (for the tank, hood, light bulb, air pump..something else, I think), but I had to force myself to resist. I'd LOVE to have a small aquarium in my room, but at the moment I have no room for one! Besides, last night both our arms were full of stuff, so carrying a huge box (I wasn't about to go find a cart) was out of the question!

I bought this HUGE bag of pine bedding (I've gone to the Dark Side...here I've been, saying how pine bedding is not good for small animals, and now I'm buying huge bags of the stuff)! I feel a little guilty for my hypocrital behavior, but with the amount of small animals I have and the drastically SMALLER amount of money (not to mention how often booneh cages have to be cleaned), buying CareFresh all the time is out of the question. For a...shoot, how much was in that bag...Anyway, for a huge bag of CareFresh I have to pay anywhere from $13-$20..and it's done after just a few cage cleanings! I just bought 5 cubic feet (hehe) of pine bedding last night for $5, and it'll last a little longer..but still, the money I've saved! I mean, that CareFresh...*looks amusedly at Tiff* It's highway robbery!

Yet I can't help feeling MORE guilt over the fact that CareFresh is environmentally friendly...

In case you should feel bereft without ANY mentioning of Geoff, here you go. ;) I figure I should stop talking about him slowly, so as not to make anyone suffer through the effects of withdrawal all at once. Therefore, here we go!

I didn't talk to him at all this morning, really, because for some reason it felt like he was trying to avoid me or something (though I think now that it was just my imagination and my own awkwardness). By the end of his shift, I had stopped to talk to him twice, and while we talked he'd pretty much stopped working (whereas awhile ago, he would've just kept on going), so everything was normal!

However, I still stand by what I said; I've given up on him! I'll keep on talking and laughing with him and stuff, but that's it. He's on "Friend" status from now on, unless HE decides to change things!

At any rate, I'm getting sleepy now so I think I'll go. That Magic Fairy Name thing is so spifty! Mom's name is Moth Windtree...somehow, Jam got "Berry"! *giggles*