...way out on the corner of fucked up and evil...

I finally finished the latest Harry Dresden book (by which I mean, the one that came out like a year ago) and... what a dick! Poor sad Molly.

Also, someone tell me where the back-up question mark is on the keyboard. My laptop is fucked - the r, the z, the question mark and the directional arrows don't work anymore. That's why I haven't been updating much - copy-and-pasting random letters to ensure I actually make sense is far too annoying.

When Dexter first came out, I watched a couple of episodes, got thoroughly annoyed with the constant monologuing, and went back to watching Profit on DVD. After all, naked, eyeliner-wearing Adrian Pasdar versus Micheal C Hall in chinos isn't much of a contest.

Lately I've been watching a bit more, and it's almost... not terrible. I kind of like Rita, which considering I would happily have punched Julie Benz in the face every time she popped up on Angel, says a lot. I like that one police dude who wears a hat. The children are tolerable. I sort of ship Deb/Doakes, but I've read one of the books where Doakes has a super-horrible fate, so I'm not getting attached.

Also, beautiful James Remarr is in it being beautiful and playing Dexter's dead dad. He shows up and gives Dexter sound advice, like STOP TRYING TO BE FRIENDS WITH OTHER SERIAL KILLERS. Which Dexter doesn't ever seem to listen to. Right now he's friends with... dude, I don't remember his name, but he was the president on the West Wing after Bartlett. Anyway, they're little serial killing best mates and James Remarr is all like, NO DEXTER STOP TRYING TO HAVE A SERIAL KILLER BFF and Dexter is like WHATEVER JAMES REMARR YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME and now the president dude is going crazy or something, I don't know, but I guess the moral of this story is if you are a serial killer, probably you shouldn't hang out with other serial killers because it never seems to go well.


Hmm, other things... I finally started reading Ghost Story. I was totally willing to let the whole monkey-ghost thing with the lemur(e)s slide, but what really got me was the bit about being lonely in a "Byron-esque needs-a-swimming-buddy way". Since, you know, that was Shelley and all.

Also, none of these were my fault:







Sadly, there is no option for putting a little key around your pony, or dressing him in a bartender outfit. I would totally have gone there otherwise.

So, I just read Chimera by Rob Thurman, and it was pretty awesome. A lot of reviews said it was just a rehashing of her Cal and Niko characters, and okay, it was about two brothers and the little one goes missing and then the older one is all SUPER DRIVEN to find and protect him from all harm* blah-blah, which is like the Cal and Niko books, but the actual story and characterization of the two male leads is wildly different and really quite awesome. Watch out for the sucker-punch ending though.

Secondly, the local bookshop finally got Dark and Stormy Knights in - OH CRIME DUDE. My love for him knows NO BOUNDS, you guys. "Be a dear and burn down the building." I wish I had some buildings to burn down and a Valkyrie on my personal staff just so I could say that to someone.

I quite liked the Carrie Vaughn story too - has anyone read the Kitty books? I always like to have new things to read.

Thirdly, WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE VAMPIRE DIARIES? I am so confused you guys, and that is embarrassing because, let's face it, this is not a complex show. Why is a giant-lipped uber-vampire being Alaric but also being a giant-lipped uber-vampire? Who is this other squishy-faced questionably English super-vamp hiding out pretending to be dead in Damon's basement? WHAT MADNESS IS THIS!

Fourthly, apparently there is a new Bill and Ted movie being made. As somebody whose PC start-up noise was "all we are is dust in the wind, dude" for most of my adolescence, I am at once excited and full of trepidation.

Finally, I am now caught up on Glee - oh God I love Santana! I cannot believe she wrote a song about her boyfriend's froggy lips and then yelled at him when he didn't let her finish it in front of the whole club. I wish I could be such a blatant meenosaurus.

*Incidentally, if you're thinking that sounds like a rip-off of Supernatural, Chimera isn't, but the Cal Leandros books totally are. Right down to the trickster god and the gay angel. Sadly there is no equivalent to Daddy Winchester, probably because describing Daddy Winchester's beauty in the written word would cause the paper to spontaneously combust from excessive hotness.

So, where I live looks right out over the bay, and every year around Easter time the village commisioners put this raft out - it's wooden and it has raised benches and a little well for your feet and it floats because there are giant blue barrels underneath it, and it's anchored about twenty feet into the sand so it can't float away.

It went out on Monday, and I have been DYING for a nice enough day to go for a ride on it - before school gets out and it's overrun with little kids.

Today was that day. It was GREAT, you guys - I timed it just right, when the tide was coming in, so I only had to wade a few feet to get to it and then I just sat there and jumped off and jumped on and jumped off and sunbathed and read my book and watched the world go by while the tide came in around me and then came out again. I left my shoes on the beach and nobody even stole them while I was messing around either.

Afterwards I walked to the next village to get fish and chips from this awesome shack - I don't mean the shack is awesome, because it's a shack, but damn, they are good fish and chips! I got straight out of the water and started walking, and it was warm and breezy enough that my clothes just dried on me before I was even half-way there.

Next time I think I'll listen to Buzz when he says to wear a wetsuit though - I didn't see any jellyfish, but some seaweed brushed against my leg while I was in the water and I wigged. Jellyfish suck, dudes. What is the point of them?

Also, I've been reading those books I was talking about before with the Hellblazer/Dresden lovebaby. They're great, and that description is pretty much dead-on. I'm going to take the fifth one to bed with me now. Night all!

Ow, dudes. Just ow.

Got back from my walk about 9pm. When I walked in the door I was absolutely fine - legs were sort of shakey and stretched-feeling, but in a good, excercisey way. However, after I got up to make a cup of tea after a watching the first few minutes of this week's Boardwalk Empire, I was suddenly the Mayor of Stifftown. Stiff as in muscles, not as in zombies or erections, I hasten to add.

Anyway, it was loads of fun - I did the coastal walk to Port Erin, and even though I wasn't wearing a pinstripe suit or carrying a Tommy gun, all the fucking cows RECOGNISED and kept their distance anyway. Then I walked up through this glen that we always used to walk as kids, and it was actually pretty easy - I remember it being an all-day thing and that we were all knackered when we got home, but it took maybe an hour to get up to the Tower.

I guess now that I'm not ten any more, my legs are a lot longer and can cope with the hills better. Also, back in the day I was usually in charge of Prawn and he never walks, he runs, jumps, climbs and bounces, so I had to keep up with him, and from an early age he clearly decided that paths were for sissies and that real men make their own trails, even if that involves gorse bushes and the occaisonal sheer rock face.

While I was in Port Erin, picked up a few things for Mothers Day - charm bracelet, card, couple of books, little trinket box with a necklace. Signed everything from all of us, because although Johnny sometimes remembers this stuff, the twins never do.

Anyway, after that I tried taking Rad Y Toor back home, but I must have gotten off the footpath too late or something because I wound up at Tom the Dippers, and from there it was easier to just head downhill to Castletown and slingshot back around the coastline to home.

Just got out of a hot bath and feeling better now - can climb the stairs at about two-thirds of my usual speed as opposed to "slower than old replacement-hips lady", which is what I was clocking when I first got back - so I'm going to take my Dresden/Constantine hybrid book and go to bed so Johnny can have the lounge to himself, either to make up with his girlfriend or seduce the latest female beast-creature he's cheating on her with. I'm just sayin', being cheated on hurts, but being cheated on with some of these mutants he brings home must hurt even worse.

So, yesterday I was introduced to a new book series with the following description:

"The main guy in it is like if Harry Dresden and Constantine met and had a baby. A snarky, ghost-busting, English baby."

If there is a more perfect strategy out there aimed at getting my undivided attention, I have yet to witness it.

However, today is the first lovely day we've had since I got Prawned on Monday, so I'm going out to tackle that coastal route in broad daylight and face down the Cow Mafia. Black-and-white four-legged bitches think they can tell me where I can and can't walk.

SANYA! Oh Sanya, I love you! I don't even care that you don't lend yourself instantly to a descriptive nickname (Micheal already took Sword Guy and the little Japanese dude is Mister Miyagi, but I don't know any Russian people except for the metal X-Men dude, Krycek and the gay Russian spy from the Stormbreaker books, and he isn't like any of them), I love you just as you are.

In other news, note to self: when deciding to walk along cliff-face footpaths that you last walked as a toddler, and which you quite possibly have imagined, please check what time the sun sets before leaving. This avoids embarrassing situations where you get caught in the fucking wilderness in the dark and have the crap scared out of you by the Cow Mafia.

Also, when the wind is strong enough to knock you several feet back as soon as you open the front door, this is maybe a sign that you should stick to the roads rather than wander off looking for dirt tracks six inches wide, with no fences and straight drops into the sea. You tard.

Misty and grey today. Will take advantage of the not-very-nice weather and go sort out my season pass for the steam train (yes, we have buses on the Rock, but they are slow, stinky and full of filthy flipperhanded monstrosities, much like buses in England, so if I want to go anywhere and it doesn't matter what time I arrive, I take the steam train instead) then perhaps home to light the fire in the playroom and finish up Summer Knight. Or maybe rewatch Constantine, who knows?

Good thing about the gloomy weather is that I have an excuse to wear my Frog Brothers t-shirt, which a) proclaims my greatness to the world at large for having such taste and b) hides my embarrassingly stripey sunburn from said world.

CRIME DUDE! You have abandoned me! Instead there is a crazy woman who is trying to turn Harry into a dog, and Harry is all like, no thanks I don't want to be a dog, and the crazy turning-dudes-into-dogs lady is all like, don't be a resist-o-saurus Harry, and I'm like WHATEVER WHERE IS CRIME DUDE I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OF THESE OTHER SPOONTARDS!

In other news, I went to this cafe today and I had pancakes and bacon and eggs and maple syrup and it was DELICOUS. I did some other stuff too but it was just boring day-to-day things and if I was to write about it, it would be EVEN LESS FUN TO READ THAN THE DRESDEN FILES WITHOUT MARCONE, so I will spare you.

So, I am reading Fool Moon now, and the crime dude has come back, yay! OH CRIME DUDE. Why were you not in the TV series? Perhaps there were no actors awesome enough to play him available.

Anyways, Fool Moon is all about werewolves, but they're mostly lame so whatever, but CRIME DUDE! I desperately want Marcone/Harry porn now but there's like eleventy-billion more books in the series and I'm afraid that I'll ruin big chunks of the "plot" if I read too much fic. So, can someone just assure me that there *is* such porn out there, and then I can be contented while I read the reat of the series and rest safe in the knowledge that there is a stack of porn waiting for me when I am done.