(no subject)
Mild summer breezes? Check. Maple blossoms and blooming forsythia? Check. Fourth set of the Tao Two-Person Kata? Check. Jinnai and the Bugrom? Check. Talked with the teacher about that one unexpected incomplete essay? Check. Photobucket account letting me log in? Yes, finally. Brand-new and somewhat unaccountable obsession with The Dresden Files, which I saw for the first time two days ago? Um... that's a definite check. Phone fixed? No, egad. But all in all, it's been a nice couple of days.
As tagged by xmisaamanex, here's that icons-and-interests meme that's been going around: Comment and I will give you 3 interests on your list, and 3 icons, for you to explain in your journal.
Interests: P.G. Wodehouse, Rex Stout, and Alistair MacLean.
Wodehouse, of course, created Bertie Wooster and the incomparable Jeeves, as well as a motley crew of oddball characters constantly playing against one anothers' interests. The humor in his stories is unrelenting; Wodehouse he was apparently a very cheerful, ingenuous chap with not much on his mind except the gifts of language and laughter. My favorite book of his is Jeeves and the Tie That Binds, which was published on the author's ninetieth birthday; the plot is a muddle, but the friendship between Jeeves and Bertie shines through every page.
Incidentally, a character in that book is seen reading something by Rex Stout, who created the eccentric New York detective Nero Wolfe and his sidekick Archie Goodwin. Stout and Wodehouse were apparently great friends, which tickles me pink. I'm a great admirer of Stout's technique -- Archie and Wolfe are live wires anyway, but there's something about the crisp, uncompromising prose, with equal measures of irony and heart, that makes it a pleasure to read a Wolfe novel.
As for MacLean, a Glaswegian Navy-man whose mother tongue was Scots Gaelic, he wrote what I have frequently cited as my favorite stand-alone novel of all time: The Gun of Navarone, an adventure in infiltration and survival during World War II. His other novels don't come up to it, but are often fun to read -- in particular, I have a soft spot for Circus and Where Eagles Dare.
The original image is from 'Endgame', the fourth Highlander movie, which I have not seen. Methos, the character pictured, is an enigmatic, unpredictable immortal from the Highlander TV series: the oldest on record, passing himself off as his own Watcher in order to keep hunters and opportunists off his trail. Back in the distant past, he was one of four evil immortals who went down in legend as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- a fact that he lives with, though not proudly. Generally mild, affecting an air of cynical carelessness, he is nonetheless a staunch ally and, though written as a one-episode plot device, quickly became one of the most popular characters in the show. The icon actually showcases something my brother's been after me about: a tendency to use small, hard-to-read text.
I created this icon during my stint as a law secretary. The character, Hatake Kakashi (who was my favorite Naruto character before the appearance of Gai and Lee), is known as the "Copy-Ninja" because of his sharingan eye, with which he can instantly analyze and copy an opponent's techniques. In the original picture, he was looking down at some papers on a desk; I found a picture of a copy machine from a similar perspective, played around with Photoshop until it looked sufficiently cartoonish, and placed the papers from the original picture on the "in" tray. I am, in fact, madly proud of how well the icon turned out.
Ah, Maito Gai -- whom everyone reading my journal probably knows about by now. *there's that grin again* Gai is Kakashi's self-proclaimed eternal rival, and his bowl-cut, green jumpsuit, and over-the-top theatrics make him one of the most easily recognized characters in the series. This is one of my few animated icons, and was probably the easiest to make, as the screenshot fills the whole square; all it needed was a few zoom lines, the text, and three different positions for the eyes. This is Gai at his most reckless and enthusiastic, and when you see that grin it's often wise to back away slowly before you get dragged into one of his schemes for self-improvement.
Will review The Lazarus Experiment soon, but right now there's a Second Doctor ficathon entry which I MUST. FINISH. before next week. *creeps off to write*
As tagged by xmisaamanex, here's that icons-and-interests meme that's been going around: Comment and I will give you 3 interests on your list, and 3 icons, for you to explain in your journal.
Interests: P.G. Wodehouse, Rex Stout, and Alistair MacLean.
Wodehouse, of course, created Bertie Wooster and the incomparable Jeeves, as well as a motley crew of oddball characters constantly playing against one anothers' interests. The humor in his stories is unrelenting; Wodehouse he was apparently a very cheerful, ingenuous chap with not much on his mind except the gifts of language and laughter. My favorite book of his is Jeeves and the Tie That Binds, which was published on the author's ninetieth birthday; the plot is a muddle, but the friendship between Jeeves and Bertie shines through every page.
Incidentally, a character in that book is seen reading something by Rex Stout, who created the eccentric New York detective Nero Wolfe and his sidekick Archie Goodwin. Stout and Wodehouse were apparently great friends, which tickles me pink. I'm a great admirer of Stout's technique -- Archie and Wolfe are live wires anyway, but there's something about the crisp, uncompromising prose, with equal measures of irony and heart, that makes it a pleasure to read a Wolfe novel.
As for MacLean, a Glaswegian Navy-man whose mother tongue was Scots Gaelic, he wrote what I have frequently cited as my favorite stand-alone novel of all time: The Gun of Navarone, an adventure in infiltration and survival during World War II. His other novels don't come up to it, but are often fun to read -- in particular, I have a soft spot for Circus and Where Eagles Dare.
The original image is from 'Endgame', the fourth Highlander movie, which I have not seen. Methos, the character pictured, is an enigmatic, unpredictable immortal from the Highlander TV series: the oldest on record, passing himself off as his own Watcher in order to keep hunters and opportunists off his trail. Back in the distant past, he was one of four evil immortals who went down in legend as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- a fact that he lives with, though not proudly. Generally mild, affecting an air of cynical carelessness, he is nonetheless a staunch ally and, though written as a one-episode plot device, quickly became one of the most popular characters in the show. The icon actually showcases something my brother's been after me about: a tendency to use small, hard-to-read text.
I created this icon during my stint as a law secretary. The character, Hatake Kakashi (who was my favorite Naruto character before the appearance of Gai and Lee), is known as the "Copy-Ninja" because of his sharingan eye, with which he can instantly analyze and copy an opponent's techniques. In the original picture, he was looking down at some papers on a desk; I found a picture of a copy machine from a similar perspective, played around with Photoshop until it looked sufficiently cartoonish, and placed the papers from the original picture on the "in" tray. I am, in fact, madly proud of how well the icon turned out.
Ah, Maito Gai -- whom everyone reading my journal probably knows about by now. *there's that grin again* Gai is Kakashi's self-proclaimed eternal rival, and his bowl-cut, green jumpsuit, and over-the-top theatrics make him one of the most easily recognized characters in the series. This is one of my few animated icons, and was probably the easiest to make, as the screenshot fills the whole square; all it needed was a few zoom lines, the text, and three different positions for the eyes. This is Gai at his most reckless and enthusiastic, and when you see that grin it's often wise to back away slowly before you get dragged into one of his schemes for self-improvement.
Will review The Lazarus Experiment soon, but right now there's a Second Doctor ficathon entry which I MUST. FINISH. before next week. *creeps off to write*