random bits

[meganbmoore]

1.  This is already making the rounds pretty well, but Vol 3 of Bride of the Water God will be out next May, and Vol 4 next September.  Which is an appalling long wait (at least there isn't a whole lot of plot to forget...) but at least there's more coming out.

2.  Has anyone read Jo Walton?  I've had her recced to me before and looked at one of her books (The King's Peace?) at the bookstore while they were hunting for my special order (what with the 20 or so unpacked boxes of Breaking Dawn that I saw, I can see how it got lost in the shuffle) but stopped halfway through the back cover blurb at the "family was murdered and she was gang raped by half a dozen attackers and that's why she grew up to be a strong warrior" part.  As that's on the cover blurb, I don't consider it a spoiler.)  While I know that trope can be handled well, and often is, it's something of an automatic turnoff.  Any opinions or recs on the author?

3.  Also at the bookstore, they were playing behind the scenes footage for the Twilight movie.  Everyone but the leads was acting like it was the best thing ever.  Both of them were clearly struggling to think of anything positive to say about the story or their characters.

4.  And also at the bookstore, a random guy popped up and asked me if I was single.  As in, I did not know he was there until I heard "Excuse me, are you single?"  Am I weird in that my first thought isn't "oh, very direct flirting" but "OMG WHAT?"  (Mind you, I am notorious for never noticing if I'm being flirted with in the first place...)

5.  Someone want to point me to a torrent for the subbed ep 2 of Blade of the Immortal?  I don't think I remembered to bookmark where I got ep 1 from.

Comments

[danyellalot.livejournal.com]

3. That's because there IS nothing positve to say about their characters. Bella's a whiny Mary Sue, and Edward's a ZOMGPERFECT!1! sparkley vampire.

4. Wow, that guy sure is smooth. Really coy and subtle. I say you take him up on his offer!
Oddly enough, I can tell immediately when my friends are being flirted with, but someone (usually a boy who doesn't care about romance, go figure) has to point out to me when I'm the one being flirted with.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

But really, shouldn't there at least be something before "are you single?"

"Hello," maybe?

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Yes. Hello, an introduction, asking what your name is, you know, all that bothersome "conversation" stuff. Cutting straight to "are you single?" may as well come with flashing subtitles reading "hi, I don't think you're worth talking to unless there's some chance of my getting some".

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I mean, he didn't apologize when he saw it didn't have the desired effect and said that it's just a hard subject to broach, at which point I was silently "uhm...surely you can think of something to say to the girl browsing the sff section"-as that was probably what caught his attention-"before that." (He did mention "you looked cute, so I thought I'd ask," which was flattering, but...)

It doesn't help that I'm jittery around people in RL when I meet them at first just because. I was even a bit nervous when I met rachelmanija and telophase when I went to a-kon, and I've known them for over a year. Surface "have you read/seen this" stuff with a complete stranger I can do. But random personal interaction? A bit of buildup is needed.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oh boy. Yes, with that extra context, that smells very very much like one of the many subvarieties of the poorly-socialized-geekboy mating dance that gets triggered by the sight of an OMG REAL GIRL WHO LIKES COMPUTERS/SF&F/RPGs/ETC. This one's at least got enough of a hint of clue to realize that gee, a girl who has an SO already may not be particularly interested in getting hit on...but not enough clue to realize that looking like you're only interested in talking to girls who are potential date material is not the best approach.

(That fractional clue, sad to say, is actually better than some of the worst examples I've seen. Compared to the guy who was introducing himself to folks at a professional conference by interrupting conversations to hand around his portfolio of pornographic furry art, or the dude who kept trying to glom onto me despite a visible wedding ring, my repeated mentions of having plans for that evening involving other people that did not include him, and oh yeah MY THEN-HUSBAND STANDING IN THE SAME ROOM four feet away...)

[swanjun.livejournal.com]

I had a weird/similar experience in a bookstore once. I was in a Books-A-Million, looking at manga. I was not looking my best. Some random guy (mid-40s? I'm low-30s, but look late-20s, they tell me) came and said I looked familiar and did I work at X. I said no, I work at Y. And ended up telling him my name. (This was probably very stupid of me, in retrospect, but he looked harmless enough.)

And that was it. Or so I thought!

A week or so later, dude calls me up at work!!1 He's going to be in the area and would I like to join him for lunch? I said, "Sorry, I'm meeting my husband for lunch." That got rid of him quickly.

My coworker tried to say I should be flattered (and hubby felt that way too—I think he had some sympathy for the guy), but I can't help but think he was preying on dorky-looking chicks that he assumed would be single and hence would jump at his lame proposition.