Book Review: Women & Ghosts by Alison Lurie

Women & Ghosts by Alison Lurie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A little gem of a collection, Women & Ghosts held me enthralled with its tales. Ten women come face to face with something not quite of this world and find themselves wondering if they have in fact gone mad. We cannot be sure, and that's part of the charm.

I have lately come to appreciate the supernatural genre, so when I found the little paperback in a box of our late professor's books that had been donated to my student guild, I decided to pick it up and see whether it was a good read. Now I'm glad I did, and will probably try to get my hands on Lurie's other work.

While I did indeed like this book, it's an unfortunate fact that I have way too many in my possession already. Thus it shall be freed.

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Book Review: Catch of the Season by Barbara Benedict

Catch of the Season by Barbara Benedict
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So here's the thing. About a decade ago, romance novels were a sort of guilty pleasure of mine. Barbara Cartland was my favourite, although I did read some Danielle Steel as well. That phase of my bookwormdom was rather short-lived (only a year or two at most), but it remained with me. It was a fact. I had read romances and liked them.

A couple of days ago, I decided to stop pretending that it wasn't a thing I still wanted to do every now and then. I picked up a free-to-grab book at uni and proceeded to find out whether the genre was still something I could stomach.

The answer is, perhaps a little to my chagrin, yes.

Catch of the Season is a bite-sized novel that goes by quite fast. It made no great impact, but it was entertaining enough and well-written enough to keep my interest. I have no intention of keeping it; despite being a sweet, cheesy little morsel that I did enjoy, the novel has no place on my bookshelf. There will be others like it. Instead, the story shall be released once more unto the world to find someone else who sometimes likes to indulge in a bit of syrup.

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Deathigner

Possibly even more adorable than Death of Rats, and that's saying something.

Book Review: Brain by Robin Cook

Brain by Robin Cook
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Let me begin by stating that I did enjoy this book significantly. I for some reason had a preconceived notion that the story would be much trashier than it turned out to be, which might have influenced my opinion in a positive way; I was pleasantly surprised, ergo inclined toward a kinder review. My grievances are, in the end, minor ones, even though they did affect my reading experience negatively.

'Tis My Second Vlog (Finally)

Sunset Variations

Most of these photos look nothing like they did in their raw form. Truth be told, I couldn't get them to resemble the originals while fiddling in UFRaw, so I started experimenting with colour settings instead. I kind of like the results; especially the blue one is rather... magical.

 

Celestia Image Captures, Part I

Feast your eyes on these lovely sights. More will come in small doses every now and then.

The Name of My Blog

No one has asked, because the readership of this blog is extremely tiny and they're all on some level of friendship with me. However, I am going to tell you where the name comes from: this poem here.


The Timid Fancy

Here is the ideal:

I will surrender my heart
and love you as ever only imagined
in dreams of starlit ballads;

in your hands confide
all my aching wounds,
old love-battle scars; and

lay at your feet the keys
to hidden corners of my self.

All of this, through the prism of emotion,
is beautiful to you—not beyond compare
for I was never so foolish—but
more than enough to make you stay.

The reality
is never made of silk or velvet. It is not soft
like dawn or a misted rain, but sharp,
edged as winter's wind.

Here, then, is the hope:

My jagged edges will
line up with yours—click into place
like pieces of a puzzle—
and if not, the hope is still this:

We will not become the shards of our selves
and injure each other
while pulling the pieces apart.  



Like many of my poems, this is a love poem. I wrote it in the autumn of 2010, back when J and I were beginning our relationship and I had no bloody clue how it would all go but was really quite hopeful that it would, at the very least, not end in tears and misery. 

Our story is still very much open-ended. I have arrived at a point where I think it might all just work out, although my blind faith in the existence of happily ever afters has pretty much diminished to nothing. That's neither here nor there and so not the point of this post.

As you may notice, the fourth line of the poem features the words familiar from my blog title. Truth is, I fell in love with that line and wanted to use it. That happens sometimes, and it feels perhaps a little bit egotistical, but the thing is... Occasionally I come up with some pretty darn good lines. This happened to be one of them.

Background and Its Source

My blog has a new background, huzzah! J used Celestia and some Photoshop magic to fashion it for me. Then, after some problems with viewing, he added a line of CSS and made it work on smaller screens as well—which is a relief, because it really is such a pretty image.

I have a feeling I'll take some Celestia captures and post them in the future. There are a few already, in fact... but indeed, that is for another entry.

I Have a New Skill! (& Two New Addictions...)

 A couple of days ago, I watched this video tutorial on how to make animated GIFs. There were some photos from late June I had wanted to make into a GIF from pretty much the moment I went through them, and now I finally learned how!

The two I have made are fairly small, but I guess I'll put together some bigger ones soon. Here they are: one of Jussi making funny faces at the camera (which is the one I procrastinated on), and one of me standing on some rocks, looking at the sunset.

  

I also have two new addictions, the first one being Robot Unicorn Attack, a brilliant game which is occupying an unhealthy amount of my leisure time. The second one is watching videos by Hank and John Green on their vlogbrothers channel. It has, in fact, led me to neglecting Pewds. The horror! I can't help it; they're just too funny.

No but seriously. I need to do uni stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to be at least a little bit productive in the midst of all this shiny distraction.


Speaking of shiny...

Oh My Skies, It's a Vlog

I have very little clue of what I am doing; in fact, it's lucky that the video turned out even as well as it did. Here we go, then, and do expect more of these in the future. :)

 

Σ8Þ

So I took a test... 

 

You got: Lil Bub!!!

Who has time for haters when you’ve got squonking, drooling, playing outside, hanging out with your favorite dude, napping, and being a total rockstar to do? You’re not afraid to let your weird show, so some people will keep calling you a “freak,” but as long as you know your friends got your back, you’re brushing that dirt off your shoulders.

Ropecon 2013

Oh, there's so much I could tell you about this. For those not in the know, Ropecon is (on our humble North European scale) a great big convention not about rope, but roleplaying. There are lectures, LARPs, tabletop gaming, card gaming, board gaming, tournaments, a cosplay competition, a sales hall... It's a weekend full of awesomeness, and this was my 10th year taking part — my 4th as part of the volunteer force of 600+ people making it all become reality. This time, as the two previous years, I was on the team running the GM info desk, looking after tabletop GMs and their players alike.

I won't go into detailed description of each day, but I will mention a few highlights. Pictures are included. There's already an album on my Facebook page, but I figured, why not throw a few shots here as well.

First things first. Being the DW fangirl and tea lover that I am, I decided to paint a metal tea tin to emulate the TARDIS and use it for my frequent need of tea leaves on my trips to the back room. The paint job was not entirely successful, but I'm happy enough with it that it doesn't matter too much. To my knowledge, no one took up the offer written on the label there, but I'll probably use the same tin in future years as well. Perhaps they will one day observe it. And if not, well... more for me! What I also discovered was that badges make for pretty good tea tin openers. No joke.

The cover reads "Propertea of Lami". I am so punny. :)

Continuing in the same Doctor Who vein, let me show you a dear friend the acquaintance of whom I made in last year's con. This is Sampsa. He dressed up as Eleven then as well, which is actually how we met — I asked him for a picture, he requested that I e-mail him the shots. The rest is, uh, slightly angsty history. Slightly. However... whatever troubles knowing him might have caused me, I'm still glad that he's in my life. He's pretty great. And, as you can see, pretty adorable.

Note the TARDIS emergency self-destruct button.

He actually held a lecture on "fantastic topography", meaning, obviously, fantasy maps, their clichés, and their relation to the real world. There's a video of it somewhere, but unfortunately the presentation was in Finnish, so there's no point to post a link even if I did manage to find it right at the moment. I would like to locate it at some point, though, because I was late to hear it and did not get a very good seat. The room was rather packed. Maybe I'll remember sometime this week.

While hanging out, we both tried a bit of archery. There are strict rules about weapons, even simulated ones, on con grounds, so naturally the arrows were as blunt as they could be made. Still pretty awesome, though, and I would like to perhaps begin it as a sort of hobby. I've already looked up some instructions on how to make a rudimentary bow and arrows. Maybe one day I'll have the financial means to enroll on a course or something, but for now, I think independent dabbling will do.

So, the archery was on Friday. Saturday was probably still the most fun for me, as it often is. Aside from Sampsa's map lecture, there was an assassination tournament (didn't even have the chance to kill my target because I hadn't seen hide nor hair of him before I was killed, but I did get to carry around a tiny water pistol in my cleavage, which was kind of fun and no, there are no pictures of this), a game, and the Discolarp.

The game, Monsterhearts, was run by a friend of mine. Initially I had not intended to participate in any tabletop games since I often want to keep as much of the time I'm not spending on shift reserved for lectures and wandering as possible... but then my captain (this year it was not Jukka; as the Bastard took on other duties, the responsibility went to Patrik, one of my fellow minions from previous years) recommended it to me and I caved. Pretty damn glad I did. :D

Monsterhearts is about a bunch of supernatural teenagers at a summer camp for rich kids. They're all undercover, pretending to be normal, like all the others stuck there with them. Weird shit happens, but that does not directly correlate with the fact that there are freaks present. We had a witch (myself), a fae, a werewolf, a ghoul, a ghost, and a mortal as player characters. My character's crowning moment was when she had a tryst with a fae NPC. A female one. Other than that, and a little bit of breaking and entering in search of marshmallows to toast, she did not have all that much excitement. General excitement, yes, but personally partaking of, no. It was hilarious to hear what everyone else got up to, though. We started half an hour late, which was completely my fault since I was slow at closing the desk. But work's work, and what must be done must be done. Thus the session stretched all the way to 2 AM instead of the intended 1 AM. I don't think any of us really minded, though — we all had a lot of fun. Should she run something similar next year, I think I'll sign up.

Afterwards I did a quick change of clothes and went in for some dancing. Attending the Discolarp is a personal tradition that I started a couple of years ago to challenge myself and now truly enjoy. There's something very liberating about this kind of dancing. No set moves, just going with the music. It's one of the rare situations where there's lots of people and lots of noise and it's okay. I cannot stress the wonder of it enough, the sense of freedom it gives me. Just take my word for it, yes?

Then, sometime around 3, it was time to quit for the night and trudge home. As I was on foot, I didn't get there until a little before 4. Did fall pretty much straight into bed for a glorious wink.

This was the scenery that greeted me when I walked across the bridge from Espoo to Helsinki.

 Sunday morning, I had the opening shift at 10. This basically meant that I was to spend the whole day running on half a brain, if even that. Good thing not much thought is generally required on Sundays. Through some miracle, however, I survived the day and came back home to be a zombified kitten.

Can this be considered witty? It was something past 10 in the morning and I was feeling very foggy.

 Next, a few random observations...

This was the only Potter-related cosplay I spotted. Good thing it was Draco. Not a bad one, either. (I've a deal with Trin that should I see any Potter cosplays, especially Malfoys, there should be photos.)

Is this the cutest gryphon you've ever seen? This sweetheart was part of the art exhibit they always have on the landing of the big staircase leading up to the biggest hall.

I left these for GMs and players (or any other passersby, really) to play with on Sat/Sun night.

This cosplay troupe won some kind of recognition at the ending ceremony. I forget whether it was an actual placement or an honourable mention. Still really effing cool, though.

All things considered, I think this is one of the best Ropecon experiences I have had. Hoping the next one is even better. Before that, I really ought to get my hands on all the videoed lectures that I missed seeing live.

Next year I shall attempt to submit some art in the exhibit, supposing I manage to create something by then. This one is already a good candidate — I am rather proud of it — but I also want a newer piece or two.

I've also made it a goal to get in shape and scrounge together a decent cosplay of the Major, who has for a long time been one of my biggest fictional femmecrushes. It may even be that the former is easier to accomplish than the latter — but I can be resourceful when I want to. And I really, really do. I've dreamed of this cosplay for quite a few years, but never really felt up to it. Now I say bollocks to that. I shall go forth and grasp my highly inconsequential dream!

I'll keep you (the very, very small readership of this blog, that is) informed of my progress.

Lomography

Lomography is a term that some people have begun to use to distinguish analogue photography from digital, the latter being pretty much the norm these days when one speaks of photography.

I haven't done lomography much since the parentals bought our first digital camera; the one significant instance was when I took my dad's old Asahi Pentax with me to Oulu in 2009 and shot a couple of rolls. Still, I do like using film. It has its own challenges, but definitely also its rewards. That is why I take a chance when I am given one. Marc was gracious enough to allow me the use of one of his analogue cameras back in May, when I was brought to Helsinki to keep Laura company while he was away on a business trip. Some of the pictures ended up being kind of a "meh" quality, but other shots were quite successful. Yesterday, I finally managed to scan a few.

That face is frickin' priceless.

She's a biter, this girl.

Time for honesty? This photo is making it easier for me to accept Marc. I'm also warming up to him via interaction, but this does have a little bit of an effect.

These fellows were brilliant!

We saw a street magician. He was pretty good, and funny to boot.

...and then he made an orange appear under his hat out of thin air.