Twitterpated

• 00:12 I have to work from 10:30-7 tomorrow. At least that means I don't have to get up as early as usual. #
• 20:33 My temp job ended today. Not such a big deal, but I hope I can get another one. #
• 20:53 @JaredofMo But doesn't the bus also have to go to the pump? #
• 22:16 @eehouls No, Beth thinks I'm married to a cat. #
• 23:00 "I'm surprised you're not in a street gang." -@NowIsStrange, to me #
• 23:01 If there's anyone LESS likely to be in a street gang than me, I don't know about them. #

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Heading for Paradise, or Basingstoke, or Reading

So, I finished Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series yesterday. Yeah, that was pretty quick, wasn't it? But they were definitely good books, full of adventure, humor, and all that good stuff. And Riordan definitely did his research on Greek mythology, working a lot of characters and references into a modern setting. I think part of its success is that, while it did modernize things, I don't think it tried to be overly hip about it. It just showed a fairly logical progression as to how the Greek gods and monsters might have adjusted to the present-day United States. Ares is a biker and Apollo's chariot can change into a sports car, but there's no suggestion that they were ALWAYS like that. The plot was also interesting, coming across as somewhat reminiscent of Harry Potter (for instance, there's a hidden training place for kids with special powers, and a major villain who's been neutralized but gains in power throughout the series), but it's not like most of the themes in the Potter series were original with Rowling.

Another cool collection I've gotten recently and would like to say a bit about is I Wanna Go Backwards, the box set containing Robyn Hitchcock's first three solo albums, plus a lot of bonus material. Robyn was always someone I thought I should check out, based largely on his collaborations with Scott McCaughey. The first album of his that I picked up was Respect, which wasn't that great, although it had some tracks I quite liked. (I guess that's why I could buy it for only $5.) But I'm definitely enjoying these earlier albums. Some of my early favorites include "The Man Who Invented Himself," "Do Policemen Sing?", "Uncorrected Personality Traits" (which I was actually already familiar with, through a live version that I got from eMusic), "Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus," and "Cynthia Mask."

Finally, here's a quiz that I learned about from doktor_x, and ended up getting the same result he did.

( Read more... )

Finally, happy birthday to countblastula, happy one-week-belated birthday to colbyucb, and happy one-day-early birthday to kristenjarrod!