Campaign Endings: Faith Vs. Belief

The sudden surge of adrenaline immediately made him sit bolt upright, and it was only after several deep, long breaths that he was able to calm himself. He kept focused on the fact he was no longer in danger, although this was made harder with the constant feelings of peril that had been incessantly gnawing on his consciousness for the past several weeks.

The distant sounds of battle didn't make it easier, either.

He struggled to his feet to change out his sweat-soaked clothes, and tried to rub some feeling back into his clammy skin. Although it was slowly beginning to regain function, his disabled arm made the task more difficult than he was accustomed to. He looked around searchingly for a nurse, but none were within sight: presumably they were all dealing with much more serious cases from the battlefront.

He signed quietly to himself, and collapsed back onto the bed only half-dressed, feeling drained. One of the unexpected downsides of being granted a private room, he supposed. Given the contributions he and his comrades had made, the Queen had ordered the absolute best medical care to deal with his wounds. Wounds that had been serious enough that when he had finally consciously looked at them, he had almost passed out from shock. 

He was grateful, of course, for the attention. He was just still uncertain of whether he deserved them.

The Search Continues On: Blake (Kind of) Makes Another List

So as many of you know, summer for me has consisted of sitting around and not doing a whole lot except watching shows, playing games, and reading. Earlier today I was reminded of this post that I made a bit over a year ago now (as a fun note, my prediction of Pluto being the second manga series I'd own came true). Probably because I had to initially make a list to write that post, since then I have actually been keeping an up-to-date list of everything Japanese I have read or watched. After finishing Soul Eater today, I kind of realized how large this list has grown in the past 13 or so months. What was originally 24 items has now

more than doubled its length to around 54 items, assuming I haven't forgotten anything. So ya, considering I did have things like classes and the occasional social life, way more hours of media consumed than I had consciously realized (considering this doesn't include books and non-Japanese shows...). 

My initial plan was to try and re-do a top ten list, but even just re-glancing at my original list, I realized how ridiculously hard it would be to balance the "classic" top-ten list with new contenders. So rather than attempt this challenge, I have decided to go for the easy-out and just go with a top 10 out of the new items on the list (which starts with Abenobashi on the picture, if you're curious). Here goes nothing.

Book Recommendation! The Long Earth

So essentially I suspect I will be recommending this book to several of you over the course of the next couple days, so rather than type essentially the same thing out multiple times, I figured I'd save time and write it all here.

A couple days ago I started a book I got as a gift (but had I known about it, I probably would have bought it anyway). The book is:

A Clash of Media: Perspectives on Intrinsic Value

Dear readers, the blog will once again continue on the philosophical track; I got some good answers to my last post, so I'm hoping to hear some more on this note.

As my forewarning: as many of you probably know, I'm a pretty big reader. I always have been since I was young. I was that kid staying up late reading with a flashlight under covers, the one who took a book with him where ever he went, the one who belongs to the probably minority of our generation whose parents actually had to tell him to stop reading so much. I'm one of those people who rarely think a movie/tv adaptation is better than the source book, one of those who doesn't have "lol i h8 books" written on my "About me" section of Facebook. Thus I feel I have a pretty balanced perspective on the following discussion.

As all of you are sure I'm aware, The Hunger Games has been making a big splash as being the current hit book for children/young adults. This follows on the trail of the Twilight and Harry Potter series, the latter of which is often referred to as the series that "got a whole generation of children reading again."

I find this an interesting claim, because it highlights an underlying theme in modern American society. That is, specifically, that children aren't reading anymore, and this is a Bad Thing. Authors like Collins and Rowling are doing important work in getting children engaged in reading again.

This is a line of thought I sort of bought absentmindedly. Of course people should be reading, I thought, it's something I enjoy. It's always painted as a slightly more intellectual and satisfying past-time than, say, watching TV.

Subtle Distinctions: The Blog gets a bit philosophical

"Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change. "


-Frank Lloyd Wright

Haha, Google makes it easy to find quotes for any occasion :-P

I recently (for science?) took a personality test and it spat out the result that, among other things, measure quite a bit on the arrogant side. This proceeded to set off a serious of thoughts on my head, that for whatever reason I feel compelled to write about. Normally this isn't the kind of thing I'd discuss publicly, but since this blog isn't searchable and as far as statistics indicate only a select few of you even read this, I'm going ahead and writing it.