After more than a dozen years of maintaining a personal Web site, I have finally decided to monetize this thing (well, okay, that doesn’t count the Google ads in the sidebar, but those barely earn any money anyways). I have gone through my gallery and enabled a PayPal shopping cart system to take orders for my art. Currently, there are about twelve prints for sale. So, start shopping now!
I had thought that this was the conclusion of the entire Song of Fire and Ice series, but aparently this is book three of seven. In any event, the story picks up right where A Clash of Kings ended and then proceeds to barrel forward with a renewed energy that seemed to be missing in the second book. The main story is nowhere near done, but many of the characters finally seem to reach a major goal/pay-off in the end. Onward into A Feast for Crows!
Not quite as gripping as the first book in the series, but Martin maintains much of the same level of quality throughout this second novel. I guess I am am just disappointed that many of the story lines do not reach a satisfying resolution. A Storm of Swords eventually makes up for that shortcoming.
The Conduit is one of the few games for the Wii that makes an honest attempt to appeal to hardcore gamers. It boasts graphics that are about as good as you can get on the Wii’s dated hardware, online multiplayer, and lots of first-person shooting and killing. Unfortunately, the game comes across more as a tech demo rather than a truly compelling action game. Don’t get me wrong, the game can be fun and the Wii control scheme is about as close as you are going to get to the twitch responsiveness of a PC based FPS, but it suffers from uninspired level design and a by-the-book game plot: An alien invasion? Ya don’t say. Government conspiracies? Who’da thunkit? This game had a lot of potential, and I hope the developers will concentrate a little more on variety and story for the sequel.
This one’s a self portrait charcoal drawing. It isn’t about much in particular. I did it just to prove to myself that, at the time, I was somewhat qualified to teach life drawing.
The majority of these works for sale are limited edition prints. Each of these works, although they exist in multiple, is considered an original work of art in and of itself. Each print signed, numbered and hand-printed by the artist himself. The editions are usually limited to no more than 25 prints. In other words, these aren’t mass-produced posters, they are each the result of days, sometimes months, of hard work.
After finishing The Name of the Wind, I wanted to continue my fantasy novel kick. A Game of Thrones is a similar book in that it is not filled with as much magic and fantasy as one might expect. Rather, it reads like a historical novel as it chronicles the palace intrigue and dueling lordships within a fictional kingdom. There are lots of great characters to root for and plenty of baddies too. Martin does a really good job of twisting things around by shifting the perspective of the story from one character to the next, so, eventually, you find yourself seeing the motivations of all parties involved.
After a back-to-back Drupal projects at work, I think I now have a better idea how this system works. In the process, I have updated the design of my Nonagon site and reworked the theme of this site. You may not notice any major differences, but now things are much more organized under the hood. However, I am guessing that I broke a few things, so if you notice any pages not rendering decently, please let me know in the comments.
If you are feeling up for a little aggressive, loud music this weekend, please consider checking out Nonagon, Maple Stave and Mayor for Life at Quenchers Saloon this Saturday, Sept. 25th.
This is an absolutely perfect compilation of Ennio Morricone songs all of which feature the theremin-esque vocals of Edda Dell’Orso. This a double CD set with over two hours of stirring melodies and lush arrangements, most of which come from the 70s or late 60s—Morricone’s finest period. If you collect Morricone, chances are you already have most of these songs, but this is a great starting point for the uninitiated.
