Writing another one of these again- don't know if this will be a regular monthly thing or not. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess.
Literature
~Calvin & Hobbes~
I freaking love this comic book series... a lot. I recently got back into reading the books that I've had since elementary school. So good! Bill Watterson is a genius. While Hobbes is my favorite character (naturally), I do like Calvin a lot as well as his alter-egos (Spaceman Spiff, etc.). Maybe one of these days I'll get The Complete Calvin & Hobbes edition.
~Call of the Wild & White Fang~
Along with reading "Soul of the Fire" by Terry Goodkind, I have also been reading Jack London's "Call of the Wild & White Fang" combo, and I have really been enjoying it. I think that my initiative to read more of the classics was a very good idea for me- especially since I have quite a few of them on my bookshelf as it is. I like London's writing style and his use of descriptive language, and in a way reminds me a bit of Rudyard Kipling's writing style (he wrote The Jungle Books, by the way). Not sure which one I'll read next, though I am seriously considering either one of Dumas' books (like "The Count of Monte Cristo" or "The Man in the Iron Mask") or "The Lost World" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
~Chrono Trigger~
With some of the money I received for Christmas this year, I bought Chrono Trigger for my DSi, and so far I am loving it. It's such a good RPG, and there are elements in it that I wish developers would remember and implement. So far, my favorite things about it are the fact that you can re-name all of the party characters, and the fact that there's no random encounters! Monsters do respawn every time you come back to an area, but if you don't want to fight for some reason, you can choose to avoid most of the potential conflicts. The combat is a refreshing idea for me in the fact that it (unlike most of the J-RPG games I've played) is not turn-based. It is set up a lot like Square Enix made the combat in Final Fantasy XIII.
~D&D~
I am still writing, working on, and fleshing out my D&D campaign. Lately I've been getting a lot more ideas for the main plot as well as dungeon and side quest ideas (otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it in this post. I would certainly still be working on it, but it wouldn't warrant mentioning.) partially from stories/novels that I've been slowly working on (the world and a lot of the characters are directly out of a fantasy novel I've been working on in one form or another since 2001) as well as YouTube videos of D&D content. Hopefully one day I'll be able to DM a group through this campaign.
~Halo 4~
I got Halo 4 as a Christmas present, and from what I've played so far (basically the first 4 missions), I like it. The multiplayer aspect on the other hand... not so much. I like the fact that 343 Studios has given the multiplayer aspect a story/reason for being instead of the "Hey, let's play a game together and blow each other up" as it has been in past games. That's cool. I do NOT appreciate, in fact I HATE the fact that they are requiring you to purchase an Xbox Live Gold membership just to use multiplayer! It makes them out to be money-mongering you-know-whats! I hate that, and they aren't even the only ones who have done that (I'm looking at you Mass Effect 3 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood). If you have the option for multiplayer in your game, then you should bloody well make said option available for all players with the purchase of the game. If you want to require another purchase to use/run another feature, then sell it as a separate entity. If I buy a game, I expect to be able to fully enjoy all of it with the already outrageous purchase price of $60 (or around there). That, and they require you to level up unlock your emblem! That doesn't really make sense, especially since there's even less options than there was in Halo: Reach. They're making you get all the way up to SR-21 just to get the ability to unlock your emblem background for goodness sake! Anyway... *getting off soapbox now* At least the single player campaign is good so far. I'm really interested in seeing how it ends.
~Les Misérables~
Les Mis is by far my favorite musical of all time. Though, sadly, I have not seen a professional stage production of it (maybe I'll get to one day), I was involved in my high school's student production of it my freshman year (I was in the pit orchestra). This was actually the first time I had ever heard of it, and I quickly fell in love with the story, but more importantly the music. I bought the original London cast recording off of iTunes and I have many times blasted it in the car (when I was alone of course) belting along with the recording... and eventually getting hoarse because most of the male characters are tenors and it gets too high for me a lot. My favorite songs are "Master of the House" and "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables". I bought the new movie soundtrack version, and as with what I did with The Hobbit soundtrack, I don't want to listen to the soundtrack til after I see the movie so I don't spoil anything. I have not been able to see the new movie version (with Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman) because I wanted to take my fiancee with me, but I will as soon as possible! I might even post a review! I'm so excited to see it!
~The Hobbit~
I have been waiting and excited for this movie since I first heard of its existence back in 2010. As you can probably guess from my other posts as of late, I liked it a lot, though I don't think it was perfect (it had some big shoes to fill and expectations to make from The Lord of the Rings films). I bought the soundtrack on iTunes the day after I saw it on the midnight release. Howard Shore did a fabulous job, and I'm excited (and to be honest a little nervous) to see what Peter Jackson and Howard Shore do with the other two films. I'm sure they will be good, even if they're as good as the first one. I will at least give them a chance and see them in theaters when they are released.
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