Blessed Solstice to You and Yours

I love Georges de La Tour's use of light; he's one of my favorite painters. And yet, I'd never seen this picture, which seems appropriate for today.



The Young Singer by Georges de La Tour



PS Hopefully I will post soon and explain how writing roughly 30,000 words of fiction in the last two weeks has kept me from posting reviews for the five books in my "already read" stack.

The Freebies List

Both Marra and Figgy did this, so let's make it a Cannonball Meme, shall we? To quote Figgy, "a 'Freebies List' consists of the 5 celebrities you'd most like to do whoopie with. No consequences or regrets. Just pure enjoyment."

Because I love the laaaadies!



5. Allison Janney -- Fabulous, talented, hot and also? Tall.



4. Kate Hewlett -- Actress and playwright and generally gorgeous. (and yes, that's her brother down in the "honorable mention" section of the guys. It's a talented family.)



3. Rachel Luttrell -- Unless you're a Stargate: Atlantis fan, you undoubtedly don't know who she is. Poor you.



2. Gina Torres -- I've lusted after her since the Xena days.



1. Carrie-Anne Moss -- I'm sorry, were we talking about something?

Honorable mentions: Monica Bellucci, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Lawless, Tilda Swinton...okay the list could go on and on.


Guys I'd switch back for, a list that proves that I'm a big, geeky fan-girl.



5. Joe Flanigan -- Someone else from SGA. To be honest, he's hardly the best actor out there and he's a Republican (which is why he's fifth on the list), but I really do think he's hot in a dorky kind of way.



4. Jason Momoa -- Another obscure SGA alumni. Just look at him for a minute, okay? Now, any questions as to why he's on this list? Even I like a little beef in my cake now and then.



3. Liam Neeson -- Yeah, he's a little craggier these days, but still...



2. Sean Bean -- Because everyone needs a bit of rough from Yorkshire.



1. Viggo Mortenson -- Smart, funny, sensitive, talented and really really hot. The question is: why wouldn't you? (yes it's a huge picture but I've always loved that shot.)

Honorable mentions: Jason Isaacs (Brotherhood and Harry Potter) and David Hewlett (SGA again)--two guys I'd love to just hang out with.

Dunno if this is happening to anyone else....

Knowing that I lived in Iran for a couple of years in the '70s, a friend of mine just recently gave me the very nice, all-in-one-volume version of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which I've been wanting to read for a while. And then today....

Well, today we got a new car. My mother-in-law, for reasons surpassing understanding, bought a brand new Jetta last year, in spite of the fact that she was hardly driving at all and had a perfectly good, late model Volvo. Now that she's living with a cousin and has sold her condo, she doesn't need the car and so she had it shipped from Chicago to us here in California. It's completely paid for, has only 900 miles on it and it even still smells like a new car.

Now ever since she decided to sell her condo, she's been asking Nancy if there was anything she wanted, since Nancy had left some stuff in the basement way back when she went to college. And Nancy kept saying, "no Mom, I really don't need any of that stuff, except that it might be cool to have all my old Nancy Drew books." So, there in the surprisingly roomy trunk of the car were two boxes of Nancy Drew books. I flipped through some of them, thinking I might read a few, only...they're all under 200 pages.

The point--other than OMG Yay New Car!!!--of this long-winded digression is that I seem to have changed my reading habits to the point where I won't let myself read anything that doesn't qualify for Cannonball. It's kind of stupid really; I'm doing pretty well--last I checked, I'm in third place--and Godtopus knows that I've got more free time than a lot of other people doing the Read. I could probably take some time to read something--other than fan fiction--that doesn't qualify, but I just feel like it would be wrong or something.

My brain, she is weird sometimes.

Come next September or 100 books, which ever comes first, I'm probably going to have a huge stack of graphic novels--I mean really, I've never read Watchman or Y, the Last Man and recently I've been wanting to reread the collected Sandman--and short books waiting for me.

Oh sure, Amazon is cheaper....

There's something about a bookstore, even one as soulless and corporate as Borders. I really do like shopping though Amazon because it's easy and cheaper than most bookstores, but I still love going into a bookstore and fondling the books. Of course, like an idiot, I almost always forget to take a pair of reading glasses with me, which leads to me holding the book at arm's length and squinting while I read the back.

I looked at a ton of stuff in the SF/Fantasy section and almost picked up Maguire's Son of a Witch, but I put it down, figuring I'd pick it up used somewhere. I did get Neal Stephenson's newest, Anathem which kind of sounds like it's his take on the classic A Canticle for Lebowitz. It's pretty massive and Stephenson is hardly someone you can read quickly, so it'll be a while before I have a review up.

I also picked up Tanya Huff's first two Valor novels, conveniently bound together in one book. I'm a big fan of her Vicky Nelson vampire books and the spin off Shadow series. Seriously, if you the whole "vampire and female PI together they fight crime" genre, read the Blood Ties books. Trust me, they're a lot better than the short-lived Lifetime series, although the TV show had some serious pretty--male and female--going on. Anyway, Huff's Valor books are military SF featuring a female space marine, so I'm good.

Hard military SF is actually one of my guilty pleasures, particularly if the protagonist or one of the main characters is female. I call it a guilty pleasure because, well to put it one way, most of these writers are probably voting for McCain or writing in Ron Paul. But still, give me a new David Weber Honor Harrington book (aka Female Horatio Hornblower In Space) and I'm a happy camper. I have no idea why I like this kind of thing so much, although I suppose my early love of Heinlein's* juveniles has something to do with it.

Darkrose picked up a couple of books that I'll end up reading--a fantasy novel set in a pseudo-Japan about an assassin and a fascinating sounding book about a people on a post-apocalyptic fantasy world going on crusade. It's nice to have someone around who reads the same kind of stuff I do; several of the books I've read for the Read have been her books.

Finally, although I said I wouldn't do too many re-reads, I found myself downstairs without a book in hand the other night when I went to get a late night snack. I ended up picking up Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay and ended up reading it cover to cover over the course of the last couple of days. While it's not my favorite Kay book (that would be Sailing to Sarentium), it's utterly fabulous. I'll have a review of tt up soon.

*I'll save the Heinlein rant for another day; suffice it to say, I think he jumped the shark right around Farnham's Freehold.

Oh hai!

Damn, the Canonnball List is getting long! I'm actually reading everyone's reviews, but if we pick up too many more people, I'm thinking I should count reading the blogs as at least half a book.

Anyway, just wanted to say "Hi" to any of you who are reading my blog. Feel free to introduce yourselves, or not; I'm easy.

Nerdvana?

So, I've mentioned that I game, which yeah, I know...but really it's not the geekiest thing I do, so whatever.

Anyway, in addition to various computer games, I also play in City of Heroes/Villains an MMORPG in which you play either a superhero or supervillain. I tend to play villains more; not only is it fun to be evil, but that part of the game has a better storyline. It's acutally a lot of fun and considering how much time I have on my hands--my fellow Cannonball Readers? If I didn't game and write, you'd be eating my dust--it's not a huge waste of time.

Tomorrow, the lovely Darkrose, who, by the way, is totally to blame for my gaming, and I are off to Hero Con, a one day event put on by the company that runs the game. Now, bear in mind that we are a couple of chubby geeks, but we're also a pair of Mean Girls. This is gonna be so much fun.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Then I'm gonna come home and finish my next book. Really.

pimpin' for a friend and other stuff...

Vote for this shirt, not only because it's cute, but so I can buy one.

Not much else going on; I'm coming up on the end of two--yes two!--books and hope to have reviews up tomorrow or Wednesday. Go me!

100 Books in...well, as long as it takes

Brian Prisco, who is one of the reviewers over at Pajiba is doing something he calls The Cannonball Read, which pits him against Alabamapink in a race to see who will read 100 books first. They've opened up the race and so I figured, why not? I haven't been reading as many books lately as I used to, so hopefully this challenge and my own competetive nature will get me back on track.

So yeah, that's why I created this blog. I can be found elsewhere as:

Telesilla on Live Journal--be warned, the El Jay is pretty much my fannish/personal/political journal and if you don't know what slash is, tread over carefully over there.

The Sweetly Scented Lemmings -- where my friend Helens and I review perfume and soap from indie craftspeople.

Telesilla on Last fm -- if for some reason you care about what I'm listening to.