Thank you ALL!

The thief has been terminated. Rock on. Apparently there were enough complaints about his activities that webmaster.com pulled the plug and replaced it with an "under construction" sign (their default). This doesn't mean the little weasel won't pop up elsewhere, but at least he knows he's being watched.

I'm hoping it's only coincidence that Drizzle was hacked into last night and the webserver brought down. Looking through my code, I don't see anything to indicate that they got in through my account; it seems to have been a site-wide thing, probably done by script kiddies.

The last few days...

The weekend was... uneventful. We didn't do anything except some housework, and somehow everything got done. I spent some time trying to get Battlestar Galactica onto DVD, but so far all of the experiments have been failures. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't take three hours per episode just to do the processing. Watched Mai HiME episode 16, which was hilarious as heck until the dire ending. Kouryou-chan and I did some drawing together.

Monday, Omaha called me to tell me that the toilet downstairs is stuck and running, and she's at her wit's end because she can't find the wrench she needs. She eventually did find it and managed to fix half the problem, so at least our water bill won't be insane. But she had blown so much time that I offered to pick up Kouryou-chan from school instead. She accepted, and I then had to hustle out to the bus and wait downtown, where it was as cold as a summer vacation on Pluto. I did get to Kouryou-chan's school in time to pick her up. She was all happy showing me her Valentine's cards, and she was even happier when we went over to Starbucks for an oatmeal-fudge brownie and a round of checkers.

We stopped at a card shop and picked up Valentine's cards, then wandered down to the bus stop. She snuggled inside my coat to stay warm, managing in the process to bonk me on the chin so hard I damn near bit my tongue off. Ow.

We got home, where I wilfully handed Kouryou-chan the remote control so that Omaha and I could cook dinner together. That was nice; we had one pan whiskey pork-chops, whipped potatoes and steamed string beans. Yum. Sadly, we had neither the energy nor the will to make the most of our evening, and the conversation kept drifting back to what we had left to accomplish. And with Spring hot upon us, the outdoors beckon.

I put Kouryou-chan to bed. She tried to avoid bedtime, but we managed all the same to get her to stay in bed eventually. I went to bed early, woke up on time, and still feel like I could use another eight hours. Bleah.

[Review] The Black Magician Trilogy

It's hard not to like this book. Trudi Canavan admits that after playing with another series for many years she set out to write what I would consider XFP: eXtruded Fantasy Product. And she's done a Damn Fine Job of it too.

The story is strong in its predictable arc: plucky heroine is pulled up into a class and world she knows nothing about, confronts many challenges, learns about a great evil, discovers that it is working on her kingdom's behalf in the face of a greater evil, big confrontation... Nothing new there.

What Canavan brings to her story is a sense of character and humor that's somewhat rare in the fantasy-writing world. Those characters we would identify with most strongly make jokes on one another's behalf that befit them well, and the "make the reader smile" moments are well-paced. I ended up wanting to finish this otherwise predictable series precisely because Canavan's pacing and characterization are so strong and sure that I knew there were gratifying moments futher along in the book. I was never bored while reading The Black Magician Trilogy.

There are moments of clumsiness, though: the heroine's love interest never quite seems believable, but I suppose that can be forgiven. And, as seems popular these days, she has an overly romantic shounen-ai relationship, which makes me wonder why I can't get away with a shoujo-ai one in my own. (It's not that I don't want to write "gay" or "lesbian" there; it's just that there's something genre-specific about the anime versions that Canavan seems to have captured.) I will say this: she foreshadowed that character's self-realization in a very impressive manner, and I enjoyed watching her do so even as I was thinking, "Oh, just come out of that closet already!"

All in all, a solid read, and I have no complaints about the time I spent in Kyralia.

[Writing] A gift for you!

Well, I've been having a little headache with my fantasy idea, so I decided to try and write something else briefly, but that was a wash. A bit depressed, I wandered into familiar territory and did a review and, y'know, a couple of things in there look good enough to, um, publish. I was re-reading Wishing Well and... let me just say this. When reading my own stuff, which I've read and copyedited and checked so many times my eyes glaze over, I both laugh and get aroused at the same time, I do believe I've nailed the love scene.

Come to think of it, Connected Electricities would be good enough to publish if it weren't that there are two sequels to write before it's ready. So you'll have to wait on that.

So, the release schedule gets pushed out further. The last Aimee' story is March 28th. Barring any panics, the next Journal Entry will be Wishing Well: Outbound, on Friday, April 8th, and then Sisters, The Queen, and Going Home every two weeks thereafter. Good, that'll put me into... June 3rd is the next target, and June 17th the drop-dead date. I wonder if I can have Connected Responsibilities and Connected Together finished by then.