"Come down from your fences, open the gate, it may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you."

[nausicaa83]

It's always weird to adjust to normal life after the holidays. Since I live alone, the hardest part is always adjusting to the silence, after days being surrounded by the sound of other voices. Sakura is taking the brunt of it, as I'm more or less constantly talking to her and describing her what I'm doing. Poor kitty. :D

Even if I haven't talked about it here for a while, I haven't neglected my ukulele. Today I finally accomplished something that was a just a dream back when I was 14 and my father bought me a guitar: I finally learned how to play Desperado by The Eagles! That was my favourite song, and favourite album, during a very dark period of my life, and it was one of the few things that actually helped. It holds a very special place in my heart. And now I can play it myself! \o/

I'm also working on (Nice Dream) by Radiohead. It's not hard per se, but it has a couple of very annoying chords that I still can't do without stopping to slowly rearrange my fingers. Well, can't win them all. :D

In fandom news, I have a couple of recs for you lovely peeps. The first is Agent Carter, the new tv series about Peggy Carter, set in the 40s. It's absolutely amazing. Agents of Shield left me completely cold, so I didn't have high hopes for this story, and I was so pleasantly surprised! The story is intriguing, with very few nods to the movies, not relying on the popularity of the characters from the comics, but building their own characters and stories. They are not afraid to show and tackle all the sexism Peggy has to fight through every single day of her life. We also get to see her mourning, kicking ass and taking names, and being an absolutely awesome and rounded character. And the late 40s look wonderful and realistic! At times it even reminded me of The Hour, incredible. So yep, check it out even if you're not a Marvel fan, I think there's something to love in it for everyone. ^^

There's also another little show that just started on ABC, in the slot left by Once Upon A Time. It's Gallavant, a musical comedy about a medieval knight who wants to get his beloved back from the clutches of an evil king. The story has a few interesting twists, and the fact that it's a musical is certainly its selling point, but I think they should have tried harder. The jokes are telegraphed, the characters two-dimensional. Still, the episodes are short and the songs are catching (it is, after all, Alan Menken), and maybe the plot'll get more interesting as the series proceeds. If not, it's still nice.

In other news, I just found out that Random House CA won't do a new Reading Bingo card this year. I still have to decide if I'll just re-use the old one, or make a new one from scratch myself. Obviously help and suggestions are very welcome. I know many of my friends enjoyed the last one a lot, maybe if we put our heads together we could come up with something even better! \o/

Comments

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

I'm really sad that there won't be a card for this year. Is that definite? I've been waiting for it so patiently :(

Ah well, like you say it looks like we'll have to use an old card or make a new one ourselves.

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it looks like it's true, there won't be a new one. Would you like to help me make a new one? I think I'll use a few squares from the old one, and then try and get creative.

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

I don't mind helping at all - though sadly I have no artistic talent at all.

We have three cards to pick examples/ideas from with the 2013/2014 ones (or using variations, like green covers instead of blue) and maybe the young adult one has some good ideas we could use, I can't remember?

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

For the actual card I'll do something simple with photoshop, similar to the old one. I'll post here my ideas for the squares, so we can brainstorm them. *_______*

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

That sounds great.

I was just saying to someone else, what I heard people saying they liked most was that the 2014 card let them browse out of their comfort zone. But they never felt forced to choose books they knew they wouldn't enjoy. It let you be as brave as you liked. I loved that too.

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

First draft, do you like them? I tried to pick my favourites from both cards, and I tweaked a few:

1- A Book With A Female Heroine
2- The First Book In A Series
3- A Book That Became A Movie
4- A Book With Magic
5- A Book With Music
6- A Book With More Than 500 Pages
7- A Book Published This Year
8- A Book By A Female Author
9- A Book Of Non Fiction
10- A Book You Heard About Online
11- A Book With A Red Cover
12- A Best-Selling Book
13- Free Square
14- A Book That Is More Than 10 Years Old
15- A Book With A Three-Word Title
16- A Book Of Short Stories
17- A Book Set In The Future
18- A "Classic" Book
19- A Book Set In The Past
20- A Book With A Colour In The Title
21- A Book With A Love Story
22- A Book Set In Another World
23- A Book Set In The Winter
24- A Book Based On A True Story
25- A Book That Made You Laugh

Suggestions are VERY welcome.

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

I like the set in the future/past squares. Great idea. We probably don't want to take too many from the 2014 one - unless we change them (like a book with a red cover, or that's fifty years old.) I suppose there's also a book with say a man/woman/animal/plant on the cover. A book that surprised you? A book in a genre you don't normally read? (Probably phrased better than that) A borrowed book (friend, family or library?) A book with less than 300 pages (novella, I guess?) A book with pictures? A book you love the cover of? A book you've read before?

Though I just had it pointed out to me that Random House have put up a card for 2015 and it's very...Canadian, I've never heard of half the squares. And it's not really genre friendly.

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

I just checked it and it's... well, most of the squares sound like gibberish to me. O_O Yep, I think I'll keep working on our card. Let's see, with your wonderful suggestions this is the second draft:

1- A Book With A Female Heroine
2- The First Book In A Series
3- A Borrowed Book
4- A Book With Magic
5- A Book With Music
6- A Book With More Than 400 Pages
7- A Book Published This Year
8- A Book By A Female Author
9- A Book With Pictures
10- A Book With An Animal On The Cover
11- A Book With A Red Cover
12- A Best-Selling Book
13- Free Square
14- A Book That Is More Than 50 Years Old
15- A Book With A Three-Word Title
16- A Short Book
17- A Book Set In The Future
18- A "Classic" Book
19- A Book Set In The Past
20- A Book With A Colour In The Title
21- A Book You've Read Before
22- A Book Set In Another World
23- A Book Set In The Winter
24- A Book Outside Your Comfort Zone
25- A Book That Made You Laugh

This is shaping up to be even better than the 2014 one. *_____*

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

I think we have some great squares here. Our card is made of squares I want to read!

One that is throwing me though, I've just noticed, what do you mean by 'a book with music?'

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

I took it from the YA card, I think it could apply to a book about musicians, or that has an orchestra at some point? Now that you point it out it is one of those "forgotten classic" ones, the weird ones.

Maybe we could change it to A Book Of Non Fiction, since I took that one out? I usually only read fiction, so I would go for that genre when filling square #24, but it occurs to me now that that's a very personal choice.

This is so great to do. *______*

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I couldn't quite work out what you meant by the music one - though as an aside I know a couple of people were filling in their card with audio books, which I thought was cool even though I'm not a fan myself.

The forgotten classic was really tough I think most people sort of went 'er, this one I guess?' I had trouble with the 'bestselling' book in 2014 because it's so hard to find out if stuff was a bestseller unless it's on some sort of list right now. The non-fiction, I think was much easier than 'based on a true story' which stumped me for ages. And it's easy enough to find a short, non-fiction book about something you're interested in (say birds, or bee-keeping or whatever. lol.) I liked that one because last time I read about space :D

Books are fun, I loved this challenge because it made me read more.

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to go for a compromise between things I like, and things that would push me outside of my comfort zone. That's what I loved about doing the Reading Bingo, it made me read so much more! *______*

I just contacted a friend of mine, who has wonderful photoshop skills, great taste, and endless patience, and she agreed to do the card! I sent her that latest list, but of course if there's something you'd like to change it's definitely not set in stone. ^^

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if other people are going to do the challenge too then it's always good to compromise on what you like vs what would be good choices in general. But, yes, more reading could never be bad.

I'm happy with your picks if you are. There are some great ones, and some we can have a bit of a research for, it's all good.

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

Great! Now we just have to wait for my friend, but in the meanwhile we can still cheat and get started early, as we already have the list! *evil laugh*

(I just realized I do have a tendency to turn things into competitions. Oops)

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

There are so many books I've been waiting to read. Now I have to pick where to start!

I'm absolutely going to finish before December 29th this year.

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

I already have the Book With A Female Heroine, I just finished reading it. *_______*

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

Lol. I am already behind!

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

I started a challenge on Goodreads the other day, as I did last year, although this time I went for 30 books instead of 35. It would be hard enough as it is!