The Garden of Discordia

You know, I am pleased as punch that I'm not the one who added the BLYG entry at the Fanlore Wiki. Nor was it anyone else from the top level of organizers, as far as we can determine ^_^

Am also very pleased and, um, tiny bitsy drunk because I was out on Ladies Drink 'n' Draw and hade nice drinks with cool comic artists from all over the world. Really feeling pepped for SPX now ^___^ And some of their "doodles" aw my good, amazing art skills!

Wah, our hotel has Wifi, but not for free. So, hasty post!

J-popcon has been like the best karaoke experience ever so far! They've treated us really well, everything was in place when we got here (that's incredibly rare. Last Uppcon and now is like the only time. In 5 years...) and we got gophers helping out and all. The hall is also super sweet, big, airy and with lots of chairs ^_^

I haven't been around that much in the rest of the convetion area, because first we had to set stuff up, then we ate (pizza buffe, om nom nom) and then I've basically been singing with lots of happy Danish anime fans until it was time for bed. But it looks great, is amazingly close to the central station and I much look forward to looking around more tomorrow!

So far, everything spiffy. We'll see what there is actually to do tomorrow, since the night-work schedule = we are free to go look around the con! Holy crap

Most of my reading time has gone to school books lately. This of course means less time to read the stuff that I usually do. However, I did manage to hurry through the latest Terry Pratchett, I shall wear midnight* but... that wasn't really the right way to read this book. There's less action and more reflection than in the first two Tiffany Aching books - fitting, as it wraps up the series - which means I feel like I missed whole chunks. Will have to re-read it at a later date and more sedated pace. One of my favorite glimpses of it were the connection to one of the early, early Discworld books, because it's nice to see the circle close in a way (Tiffany is likely to remain "the newest witch" in Discworld canon and so when we with her meet one of the earliest witches again it's completeting a tapestry that has grown enourmously in depth and vibrancy since Pratchett began the series). I also liked the acknowledgement that witchiness isn't the same for all, and the small interaction with the forces of law. Other than that, my judgement as a whole must wait until later for this book.

I also read the Doctor Who novelisation The Stealers of Dreams by Steve Lyons. I think this must be my favorite so far! It's a Ninth Doctor adventure, with Captain Jack alongside the Doctor and Rose, and it's entertaining, suitably creepy and wraps up well. It's about a planet where the populace doesn't dare dream and are hunted if they use their imagination at all. Of course, the Doctor and his companions come to set things right, but soon they realize that in this place, dreams can become frighteningly real. The "anti-dream proecdures" at the asylum are creepy in their understated well-meaningness, the supporting characters (a fiction geek who dreams of big-busted women saved by superheroes from medieval zombies, a tough cop chick and a rebel urging people to imagine from the static of the TV channels) were well-rounded. This book also felt a bit meatier than the Eleventh Doctor novels I've read, yet sufficiently quick to go through that I didn't feel I missed half of it when reading so quickly. Recommended.

It also contains the epithet The Armoured Shark Liar for Captain Jack and that's just wonderfully fitting, don't you think?

*unfortunately, only after I got to do a mini-presentation of it for work. Plz ignore the Dali-esque Frodo in the background

All right, now we're getting somewhere.

Today I finished a book about a dragon and yesterday I read another book about several dragons. There are many differences: The first dragon is mechanical and most of the plot is about finding it, while the dragons in the other book are very much alive and present. Though they do spend quite some time hunting dragon eggs, for what it's worth.

The books do however have one very startling similarity: They're both part of a series (part 3 and part 6, respectively) and they're both an immense improvement compared to the books just preceding them. Maybe last year was a bad year for dragon writers?

I'm talking about the books:
( Dragon Soul by Jones and Bennett )
( Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik )

ETA: I feel I should perhaps point out, outside of the cut, that the latest Temeraire book is damned good. Case in point: I began reading it yesterday too, and just kept on until I was finished. And then I wanted to go through the series again just to remember the details fresh

So today we bought our tickets for the trains and subways, then walked around town. I bought two pairs of shoes, one for more walking and one pair for party. But they didn't have the awesome hot pair I liked in my size :(

Otherwise, the day was mostly :) except when it was totally =D ! Found a new little guide book (the old one's subway map is no longer valid, alas) and it contained info about a karaoke bar! Hot damn!

The day started with a visit to the "AquaDom Sealife" which is a really cool aquarium. Lots of local fish in nice enviroments, several sea horses (I filmed those) and the world larges free-standing salt water aquarium. It's inside a hotel and there's an elevator right through it! Coolish

We went to Potzdamer to check out what the IMAX cinema had to offer and to just look at the cool buildings; on Sunday we'll see one of the 3d-movies.

Then we went searching for the Grober Unfug comic store and totally failed to find it. Though I noticed that the area around Nollendorfplatz had turned into gay quarters, I can't for the life of me recall if it was like that when I lived in Berlin years ago... Anyway, we walked around, couldn't find it but saw some cool architecture. There's amazing architecture all over this city, one of the things I love about it.

When I got back to the hostel, I quickly realized that the store must have moved, because it's at a completely different subway station now -_- But! They have another store, really close to where we're staying. Durrr....

If you have Facebook, some pics are up in my gallery.

I think I want to send everyone from SL up to Umeå and ask them to take a bus.... This is how you do commuting traffic. You can pay with your credit card, there are electronic signs that show what's going on with the traffic and they have a similar load'em'up system for the bus cards as Stockholm/Göteborg. A perfect mixture and so far there's also always been a bus every time I wanted to take one, or three minutes later.

Splendid.

But that was not quite the point of this post. No. ( Textual Echoes symposium talk, cut for length )