About Walking the Blogosphere

I thought would be amusing to do some more "next blog" surfing. This time, instead of telling you of the blogs, I will LINK you to them, with description of what you can see behind the link. Hopefully exambles I give you will be amusing, useful or interesting. Alas, I think most will be in the category 'disgrace'. Maybe you thought I was joking last time, eh? HAHA! You wish!

Links will open on new page, so you can click freely. Comment if you would prefer, in future, to see them open in the same window. Anyway, I hope to get to ten, and report you every blog I click. If I go nuts, please tell my family I really loved them, and ask them to formate my hd's without going them thru. Very well. Lets start.

Blog 01. - Office. This blog is inane post after inane post about - apparently - office machines. The words seem to be random words that you can usually see in adds on papers. Each topic is infact a link to copy-central.com - and as far as I can see, the suburl they link to dosen't exist.

Blog 02. - Infinitely Curious: Musings & Ponderings. This blog belongs to webring of "WomenBloggers". Seems to work as diary, with now-and-then amusing tracks into other territory too. Found this picture on the page. Dunno where it is taken from, but it is most amusing, and easily worth your time.

Blog 03. - Awassa. This blog only has one post, written in english, broken by internet slang and bad sense of grammar. Dated in second day of March. The message ends "cheers till next time".

Blog 04. - WE ARE THE INCREDIBLES !!!. Apparently some sort of community blog, with users belonging to University of Signapore. In english, though you can hardly tell from the spelling in that page. And some - you know who you are - insist that MY writing is horrible.

Blog 05. - 5 sia chabohz. Apparently five teenager girls. Lets see if I can mimic their writing skills..............no commas or other stuff is uses..haha....particualyr ncie how they tlk of yaoi and manga and smut...lol.... actually respect fr them... my head hrts even this much writing......lol... and they cn do it page after pages..... and its actualy readable... LOL.....NEXT NEXT NEXT!!!!!!!!!!

Blog 06. - Auto Parts For All Makes And Models. Each post has the same link, and the same text; "Go Home Auto Parts Newsletter Archives Auto Parts Links Advertise on this site Add URL & A Auto PartsA & A Auto PartsA&a Auto PartsAbc Auto PartsAccord Auto PartsAce Auto PartsAcura Auto PartsAdvance Auto PartsAdvance Auto Parts ComAdvance Discount Auto PartsAdvanced Auto PartsAdvanced Discount Auto PartsAfter Market Auto PartsAftermarket Auto Body PartsAll Oem Auto PartsAltima Auto PartsAmerican Auto PartsAnd Auto PartsAntique Auto PartsAu..". Also Google-adds. Freaky.

Blog 07. - Gardening Info Source. Im actually pretty interested of this. Taking the blog name into account, its amusing that each of the posts this month - and there must be hundreds -have only url in them. Im not kidding. I also fastly scrolled the messages thru. They all have one of two url's in them. First "Hot-Gardening.info" and then - for most messages - "Laptop4U.info". Great.

Blog 08. - Some Thoughts About Corn. Honestly, I was starting to lose my hope to get to "Blog 10". This is just so depressing. But this one - if not a golden, is at least good. Not about anything, its still full of life. I would do blog like this, if I just could. But I cant. Cos I suck. OK, next blog. Maybe its good too (but I doubt it).

Blog 09. - Asset Managment Info. I knew it. I KNEW it. This sucks. Pretty much like Auto-Parts above. Oh well, one to go...

Blog 10. - merdümgirlz. This blog is actualy empty, with lacking even one message.



Oki, that was it, and Im still pretty sane. Conclusion: I did ten blogs. Wow im good...

About Robin Hobb and her new book

Robin Hobb has previously, on that name, published nine books, three trilogies (she wrote several books under her own name, Megan Lindholm, but they didnt sell that well). First one was The Assasin trilogy, or Farseer trilogy (Im not entirely sure) about FitzChivalry Farseer, a bastard prince, who gets trained to be the royal assasin, and how he gets tangled in the politics in time of crisis, and how small stone can change the direction of great stone, though it wont feel pleasant to the stone. Her second trilogy is the Live Ship trilogy. Far south of the Six Duchies where Farseers rule, there lies Bingtown, where Traders of old families rule. Their wealth is based on Live Ships, and their ability to navigate a river whose acid water destroy's normal ship hull. Up the river there is a village where you can get magical items not available anywhere else in the world...
The third trilogy is return to the life of Fitz, now hermit far from humanity and politics, and how he has to return to teach the new prince, while keeping his identity hidden - for his reputation is ruined, and everyone thinks he is dead..

In the new book, Hobb creates a new world, where a kingom is expanding it's territory to east. The protagonist is the second son of a "new noble" - a man who earned his title and lands trough exeptional courage and wisdom in army, and so destined to be a soldier (like all second sons - the first son is the heir). The first book tells his life from about eight years old to his early twenties, from his own personal point of view, as he would personally have written it down. The book is pretty serene, like other Hobb's books, it is about small things, that reflect the big changes in the kingdom and in the world. The protagonist is not a important man - just one of hundreds of nobility kid's in the same position. Most of the book is situated in the Academy, where he is learning to be an cavalry officer for the army. His life is made hard by the general view in the Academy of the new nobles being less worthy than the old blood - and therefore the life in the Academy is hard for him, and getting kickt out by the unsymphatic teaching body a very probaple change. But to be kickt out is to be doomed to the short and hard life of a foot soldier...

Another subplot comes from the dreams of the protagonist, Navaje, as he dreams of a fat woman who has control over him - and she is not a nice person. But all in all, the book is about the daily life of one normal man - who lives in times most particular. Maybe it would be easy to say the book is like diary of a countryman studying in New York, who dosent get along with the headmaster, nor with general attitute of the city. Changed to fantasy world, where culture is very victorian by nature.

Good, if somewhat slow book. I will definetly read the sequel, the second part of the trilogy.

Walking the Blogosphere

Today, I was bored. Really bored. I had just finished a book I bought (will talk about it later on - as you were really interested), and I was spending time by clicking that "Next Blog" you can probaply see even now hanging from the uppermost right corner of your webpage-window. I don't know how that button works - clearly it dosent throw me to the 'next' blog (as "each blog is numbered, and your's is 4 and the next is 5"). I could go back to the previous page and push "next blog", and go to page that wasnt the one from where I backed off. Also; by pushing the button, I sometimes got the same blog again. This happened so frequently, that it should not be probaple, with all the thousands (millions?) of blogs in the world, and in the blogger alone.
So, how does the "next blog" thing work? Anyone want to explain?

Also, when scrolling trough the blogs, I found several curious things. First, most of them were really inane. Several blogs had just "asfhagash" posts every few days. WTF? Im pretty sure that they dont mean anything, on any language. Then there were lots of blogs with really, REALLY narrow interest. Like "Blog about bolts", and then there really were posts after posts of bolts, where you can use them, where you can buy them and so on. OK; they were not bolts, but several as worthless objects, with no usage in everyday life.

Then, there were several "buy my stuff" blogs. And "this blog is just for google adds" pages. As someone would visit them without anything to read of, only the adds.. There were two blogs that only had quotes from the bible. Maybe that might have interest to someone... I guess.. new quote for new day, and all that. Might be popular in some circles.
There were blogs with so many pictures (there was even some young teacher in USA who had put several videos to his profile - the pages loaded for eternity). Some blogs just spoke of bad design, having been broken into several smaller windows that made you scroll everything..

Then there were several blogs with actually interesting text, on language I can read (there were several with neither). They were suprisingly few and far apart. I commented on few. In case youre one and traced me down, hello.

The one that really stuck to my mind was blog of some missionary with big link to "needgod.com". After some sort flash animation, there were eight questions, that by answering you would find if you would get to Heaven. "Great", I thought, "I so love quizes! And this might be amusing.". Well, proved that it wasnt. The eight questions were on the lines of "Have you ever lied? For any reason, however small?" "Have you stolen? Anything, however nonimportant?" Anyway, questions that made you give the "bad" answer. Who of us hasnt lied? Who of us, over twelve year old, has not watched 'lustfully' either man or woman (depending on your preferences)?

Anyway, of these eight questions, two brought some thoughts to my mind. "Have you cursed in God's name?" And then there was examble: "Oh G-d!" My question is, is that a curse? And I thought God's name was Jahve, or Jehova, or something along those lines, depending on your language. Or is that just one of his names? If God would be in phonebook, would there be something like this:

Gobard, Donald / Bird Street 12 A, Espoo / 853 3566
God, Jahve / Heaven / 124 7687
Gregory, Edward / Sea Lane 4 A 3, London / 114 689


Just a thought. I always though that 'God' was written on big letter same as President. Because, in each country, there's only one of them.. and there's only one God in Christianity. There are other gods, and the big letter dosent really go thru while cursing...

Doctor Who

I started watching this when the new season came out (was it last January?). I also watched the 2003 USA-movie, the intended pilot for new series (that didnt become anything). Because this series is so cool, Im gonna do fast summary about it:

The Doctor ("Who" is only in the title, the character itself is just "Doctor") is near-immortal alien, part of race that call themselves the timelords - thanks to their technology that allows them to travel in space and time, instantly. The series is old - the first episodes came out in the early 60s, and the show was on telly till late 80s, when it was shelved, waiting for better days. They tried to revive the show earlier, as I told, with USA-headed telly-series, but the revisions the americans did to the show, werent really that popular (they made Doctor half-human, for examble).

The idea of the series is pretty simple, there are companions, humans from different timeperiods, that the Doctor has taken fancy off, and invites to adventure on his ship, called the TARDIS (whose camo-shield has been permanently stuckt on "police box", as they looked on 60s at Britain). Trhu the eyes of the companions (which switch regulary), is the show seen, with Doctor explaining strange occurences.
Doctor has several "arch-enemies", like fellow timelord who calls himself "The Master", and has devoted his time to become Emperor. Other enemies include the near-invincible robots, the Daleks, that look really sinister with their "EXTERMINATE!" shouts with robotic voices and appearance that mostly brings to mind big pepper-springlers.

While Doctor is more or less immortal, with lifespan counted in thousands of years, he can die; but as timelord he has another trick up his sleeve; he can return from death, up to 11 times before 12th death is final. But there's a catch - while his body regenerates, his appearance and personality changes, sometimes even dramatically. The Doctor has now died nine times and his tenth life is starting up. At this time, he has been old and wise, aristocratic, somewhat sinister and calculating, and "few cards short of the whole deck". On producting point, this ability was developed to allow new actors take the role of Doctor without having to explain the change of appearance. At the same time, the very possible change of real death keeps the viewer on the edge of the seat. It is not unknown for both the Doctor and his human companions to die during some particulary wild adventure...

But about all else, "Doctor Who" is a show of exitement, jokes, sense of mystery and good time. Not that many months ago, "Doctor Who" was voted as the #1 cult-series of all time - over Star Trek, X-Files and many others.

Pulp Fiction

This was the first Tarantino movie I had seen. Sure, I had seen movies and telly-shows with Tarantino as guest-director, but this was his movie. He wrote it, he directed it, he even acted in it.

It was somehow wierd, for Hollywood flick. Sure, there were lots of graphic, heavy violence. But where you normally in Hollywood flicks got these action packed chapters that last for minutes, Tarantino makes the violence fast - lots of talking, anger builds, shot in the head (or in the gut, as you will), and its over. And then the camera scrolls over the wounds.

Somehow, the music was so well chosen. When Surf Rider (the last song) starts playing, and Travolta and Jackson walk to the diner door, put the guns inside their pants and walk out, and the text starts to scroll... its so cool. Even though both had ridiculous hairstyles. Were those guys SERIOUS with them?

Things I thought out...

There probaply arent two people, with whatever chemistry, that work better together than those who hate each other's personalities, both knows the other hates other, but they still try to hold the peace because - for now - they are stuck with each other. So both bite their anger and do their job as well as they can, as fast as they can, to get sooner away from each other.

They dont chat with each other, nor do they slack; they just want to get on with it.

About Terry Goodkind

The links in this article lead to Wikipedia (English).

Terry Goodkind is American fantasy author. His story's main character is Richard Cypher, who lives in continent divided to three parts; in the western part (his home) there is no magic; this part is also mostly forrest and smallest of the three; people hunt and have small villages and some sort of council, but thats it. The middle part is much bigger, with kingdoms, magic and magical creatures and such. And to the east there is one more area, which is one huge kingdom ruled by Lord Rahl.
The parts are divided by barriers, which now come crashing down. Lord Rahl attacks the Midlands, and the Spokesperson of the Council of Midlands (that has representative of the kingdoms), the Mother Confessor, goes to West to found the First Wizard, who left Midlands years ago. Only he would appoint a new Seeker of Truth. With Seeker and the First Wizard, maybe Midlands could fight back...

Richard Cypher gets to be the Seeker. With Mother Confessor and the First Wizard, he travels thru the continent. Lord Darkhen Rahl is trying to find the Boxes of Orken, which would, with proper rites, make him the ultimate ruler - indeed, the God - of the world. One of the boxes must be secured until one year has passed - thats the timelimit to Rahl to do the rites, if he fails he will die.

The first books are really interesting, and I kept my nose deep in the books till I had them read. While the writing wasnt exactly superb, they had this spirit of joy in them. You usually knew what happened next, but that didnt stop the books from being fun.

Each of the books is more or less stand-alone. Darkhen Rahl meets his fate in the first book, and the next book starts immediately after, by revealing the new threat to be solved. This works pretty well.

Then happens so that Mr. Goodkind finds Ayn Rand's books Atlas Shrugged and the philosophy of Objectivism*. He is so deeply taken by the idea that he has to corporate them into his own books. And so he has to start doing retcons, usually pretty bad ones. In the end this leads to the point where Richard, in the beginning of the series pretty blue-eyed "let's help people", "killing and slaving people is wrong" and "there is more than one truth", becomes very like how Lord Rahl is potrayed. [ Though the writer himself dosent apparently realize this ]

I stopped reading in the book eight, Naked Empire, where Richard finds a large valley where people live in undeveloped community. They have houses, they farm, have cattle, but they tactics are primitive, making, for examble, houses with two or more floors impossible. The people used to be really happy. While most people have their own house for privacy, they prefer to sleep together in big barracks, to streghten the community. Everything important is shared, owned by community. Everyone is happy, no one is violent. This changes as the "villain of the week" has found the valley and promptly went on to make the people there their subjects. The subjects dont rebel; they believe that if they do what they are asked to do, maybe the bad men go away. Even the deaths and rapes of their wives and children are not enough to make them forsake their peaceful philosophy.

Richard finds the valley, promptly agitates several people to rise arms. In one scene, he and his men attack the building where the enemy is hiding. However, the villain has sinister tactic; instead of attacking (he knew Richard was coming), he has alerted the locals of the coming attack. They promptly make signs and make human chain that circles the building. They shout stuff like "KILLING IS WRONG!" "DONT DO WAR!" and so on. The enemy soldiers keep their swords in their sheats, as Richard attacks. Seeing how the locals dont step aside, he orders his men (family and neighbors of the protestors) to kill the demonstrators, which they do (cos Richard has magnetic personality).

All in all, the last books are more and more manifests for the case of Objectivism; Richard might stop to make speeches that are nearly ten pages long; someone counted that nearly half of the book eight is such speeches.

However, the first books are really interesting reads, and while not that well written, they have energy that might make them worth your while. Book six is clearly affected by the philosophy, but Richard still goes and finds more or less peaceful way to solve the problems; later he just kills everyone who dosent see the the world like he does. Because only he is right; and if others dont see it, they are wrong and have done their choice and deserve death.

*In case you are not interested in the Wikipedia link, all that needs to be said is that the philosophy is "each for themselves, and screw the others". You cant depend on other people, and neither should you depend on others; that makes the dependant weak, and will never grow strong. While Rand has a point, her view is hard and offers no compromise. The philosophy dosent recongize "helping the other back on its feet".

Still About Eddings

Last time I was so deeply tied to explain what Belgariad, its sequels and other books of Eddings are, that I forgot why I actually wrote that message.

As I said, I had read Belgariad and Mallorean just before, to remind me of how good I had once taken them as (when 13 years old, now 21).

First: While the Light and Dark are said to be equal prophecies, both with as good chance in succeeding, this is never shown. [Mad god] Torak is killed in the end of the first series (no spoiler there, huh?), which is told in the prophecies of Light. BUT THIS IS ALSO EVIDENT IN THE PROPHECIES OF DARK. Seeing as how Belgarath claimed to have read the Dark Prophecies, he completly missed all the references to "after Torak's death..". Yeah, in the sequel the claim that the editions available were edited to claim that he would win, but still.. "edited" means that the prophecy "orginally" said that he would LOSE. So, why the confrontation between Light and Dark, when both parties knew which would lose? That fights against the whole point of the books.

Second, trough the books there are smaller confrontations, where either prophecy can get "points" (what these points are, are never told; apparently they didnt affect to the final confrontation, where third party get to choose the better prophecy). The prophecy of Light never loses; they always win. Also; Dark always loses, save the one time to find the location of Kell.

While Eddings claims that both parties are as powerful, in practice everytime they face each other, Light wins, usually even without any bigger problems.

Just wanted to point this out.

About David Eddings

In case someone didn't know (and are still interested), David Eddings is fantasy author, who got to the Golden list with his five-part story Belgariad. The book has been translated to several languages, and spawned the sequel (also five-parter) Mallorean. After Mallorean, he did two trilogies about spellcasting knight, and then some other books (I havent really kept track). Oh, also two (really lenghty) prequels to Belgariad, named Polgara and Belgarath, of two immortal spellcasters.

The idea of Belgariad is as follows. There are two prophecies, two destinies, which are both as probaple. They can exist side by side for some time, but the final result is different; the "good" one is called the Prophecy of Light, while the other one is of Dark. In Belgariad, the Dark Prophecy is embodied in Torak, mad and crippled god (one of the seven creators of the world), who thousands of years ago broke the world with the help of magical stone belonging his brother-god Aldur (hermit by nature). The Prophecy of Life is embodied in Garion, who lived his early life in farm, until his caretaker, Aunt Pol hears of massive tidings in the outside world.

The Stone of Aldur has been taken from the empty Throne Room of Riva. Garion is just 15 years old, and dosent really understand what is going on. Helped by friends and associates collected by his Aunt (really sorceress Polgara, age around 3000 years) and her dad, wizard Belgarath, age around 7000 years, they are going to track the stone and return it to where it was taken. If not reclaimed, the Stone can be used to wake Torak from his sleep, where he has laid over 500 years, after showdown with Guardian of Riva (the caretaker of Rivan throne until a king of the chosen line emerges).

The companions of Garion are, apart from his Aunt and Granpa, the Knight Mandorallen (who is totally without fear, but isin't that smart either), Prince Kheldar (who prefers to be called Silk, and is by profession spy, cheater and thief), Barak (huge viking-like warrior), Hettar (two schimitars wielding man with personal hate against the enemypeople, after seeing his parents being tortured by death and suffering great wounds himself as a child. Can also talk to horses), Ce'Nedra (half-human princess from Tolnedra (which is like Rome) and Durnik (smith from the farm where Garion was raised).

The books rise and fall with witty banter. The story goes forward with snapshots from their treks up-and-down the world, which consists of different nations, each with its own people (usually stereotype of some people in our world) and customs. These are not really important, however. They are just a way to give the characters something to interact with, and to talk of with each other, usually in humorous way. The backgrounds are paper-thin, and sometimes are broken to allow good dialogue go its course.
In the first five books Garion finds his destiny as wizard of great strenght and heir to Rivan Throne (empty for 1000 years), and gets to kill a mad god. The books are mainly situated in the western continent, and stay pretty simple. Not much explanation of the world or its workings are given.

In the sequel, good fifteen or twenty years have passed, and Belgarion (as our protagonist is now called), is secured king of small island, and the Overlord of the whole Western world. Then his kid is kidnapped, and he has to follow the kidnapper trough the whole world to final showdown in hidden place, where the face of the world is finally decided.
The books offer the same as did the first series, but this time the nature of the world is explained more trough-out. Several comments by the narrator are not one-to-one with each other, or with the background of the world. For examble, at one point it is referred to the monkey-like ancestors of Men, though in the setting humankind is created by gods as they are now. Also, the status of enemy-wizards (grolims) as either sub-race of Angaraks (the human race as Torak its god) or as priests from among the Angaraks is not made clear.
In the sequel, as well as in all Eddings "epic" stories I have read, the maincharacters are pretty much the same. One is the dull, but courageous one, one is master thief, the other is old spellcaster eg. They talk the same dialogues, and go the same conversations. It is easy to replace any character with character from other series.

You have to give Dave some credit though.

He's honest. He writes for money, and he dosen't lie about it. This is all well and good, but you should respect your audience.

I first read the books when I was 13 years old. Back then my experiences with fantasy were all either Burroughs or Tolkien, so Eddings was, with his witty and humorous voice welcome change to my reading habits. I read the books on one go, one at a day (400-700 pages each), which now sounds really amazing to me. I also bought the books featuring Garion to myself. Carried and delivered lots of commercials and add-paid newspapers to mailboxes to afford them, too!

Final say in the subject. Belgariad or Althalus (another book, only one part) should be good read from the author. With one story, you don't get too tied up with the mistakes or repeating storylines (in Mallorean, the characters themselves wonder, didn't we do this previously too? It's pretty bad when even the characters notice recurring scenes...). Eddings did bring something new to the genre, but he didnt bother to bring something new to his own writing afterwards. It stays more or less as simple as it did in his first published work, with new names and more powerful way of telling it.