I’ve been getting a bit ashamed of my reading queue.

It’s not the books that I have in the queue, mind you. It’s the fact that I haven’t been reading much at all recently. It used to be where I would voraciously read books, but as of late I haven’t been doing much, if any, reading. It’s not so much a matter of time as it is just getting around to it. I tend to read books very quickly, where I can power through a good book in a matter of a few hours. I just need to sit down and actually do so.

That’s my plan for this week, anyway. Saturday night I finally sat down and read The Hunger Games, as Jennifer and I bought tickets to see the movie this coming weekend with her parents. I rather enjoyed the book, and am now looking forward to seeing it as a result. The next book in my reading queue is The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson; I’ve seen both the Swedish and American films, but haven’t yet read the original novel. I feel bad that I haven’t yet, and am borrowing my mother-in-law’s copy to read this week. I plan to step away from the gaming this week to do so.

As for when I’m done with those, I still have a collection of H.P. Lovecraft’s works to read, From Russia, With Love by Ian Fleming, a collection of WarCraft novels, The Shining by Stephen King, The Warlords of Nin by Stephen Lawhead, and A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.

The latter two are the main entries in my pile of shame. The Warlords of Nin is the second book of Lawhead’s Dragon King cycle; I read the first book way back in 1990 or 1991 in order to entertain myself through downtimes during standardized testing in my junior year of high school. Lawhead’s Dragon King cycle is pretty hard to find, and I only just found the second book a year or so back at the Pearland Half-Price Books. One would think that I would have read it immediately, but instead it went onto my bookshelf and I hadn’t touched it since. I’ve promised myself that in the next month or so, it’ll be read to completion as part of my current reading queue.

As for A Game of Thrones… one would think I would devour it immediately given my predilection for fantasy and science fiction and the fact that a TV adaptation has been airing on HBO. However, I’ve found it fairly difficult to get through. Whereas I’d power through most books pretty quickly, I’ve found A Game of Thrones fairly rich and slow going. I’ve only made it through MAYBE a quarter to a third of the book, and I finally got to a point where I decided to let it rest. My copy is now with my mother-in-law, as I’m letting her borrow it while she’s on a business trip to San Francisco. I figure I’ll finish it when she’s done and I can put it in my queue, but for now, it’s on the backburner.

It’ll be nice to finally clear out some of my reading queue… especially considering I know there are other books Jennifer has in her book collection I want to read. As I said earlier, I plan on keeping the Xbox 360 and PC shut down while I’m at home so I can concentrate on catching up on the books in my collection. Hopefully by the end of the week, if I don’t have my queue as stated above finished, I’ll have a significant dent taken out of it. :-)

… so, the two have had their first vet appointment today. They’re in very good health and have gotten some of their needed shots. The vet also confirmed what we suspected: the mostly-white one (referred to as a “blue point” in coloring) is a boy, and the brown and white one (referred to as a “seal point” in coloring) is a girl.

So, along with another picture of them, I’m pleased to let you know their names. :-)

Meet Bennett and Sasha. :-)

Right now we’re in the slow process of getting them and the older cats used to one another. We’ve opened the spare bedroom door, but put a gate in the entrance to prevent cats from entering or leaving. Sophie and Darcy have already seen Bennett and Sasha; as we expected, Darcy welcomed them with open arms but Sophie is hissing and growling (like the prima donna she is). We’ll keep them separated for a while until they learn to tolerate one another’s presence, and then we’ll let the younger two roam the house freely. As it stands, for the near future all they’ll have access to is the spare bedroom and a short hallway.

They’re definitely getting better about being around us, though, and it’s great to see them playing and discovering their world. This should be a lot of fun. :-)

So, Jennifer and I decided this year to give each other a special Christmas present. We got ourselves two new kittens. :-)

We had been talking about getting a kitten for a while. Jennifer had been missing Lucy, her first cat, and we wanted to get a playmate for Sophie and Darcy (our current two). We decided on getting a ragdoll like the others, simply because of how great they have been for us. So, we contacted the person we got the others from, and finally got a response from her after a while. It turned out that she had stopped breeding ragdolls, but was taking care of some kittens for a colleague of hers who had cancer. Through her, we worked out the details. It turned out she would be in town anyway Christmas weekend, so we arranged to go and pick them up Christmas Eve.

It was also at about that time that we realized that it would be best if we got two kittens instead of just one. That way, they would have each other as playmates to relate to instead of being alone with two other older cats. We asked for two girls, but as it turns out, we ended up with a girl and a boy. We didn’t mind at all; that way it’s even amongst the sexes here. :-) We played with them a bit there, got the paperwork for them, and then made the trip home. Jennifer stayed in the back seat with them, while they cowered in the kitty carrier. (They had been through so many trips that week that they were very spooked.) Once home, we put them in the spare bedroom with their own food, water, litter box, and toys. That way they could get acclimatized without having to deal with the older cats.

When we got them, we were told the girl was the dominant one and that the boy was quiet and let the girl take charge. That seemed to be the case at first, but over the past 24 hours, the boy kitten became more assertive and playful, while the girl kitten stayed back and was more skittish. We don’t think they were socialized around humans, as they’re still very nervous around us. Still, we’ve been spending time with them, playing with them, and getting them used to us. They’ve gotten to the point where they will play with toys and such with us, but the instant they realize they might be getting too close, they back off a bit. We figure that they’ll be far more comfortable around us in time, but for now, we’re taking it slowly.

Before anyone asks, though, we don’t have names for either yet. We’ve been considering all manner of different names for them, but until we have them checked out by a vet (especially to confirm the genders!), we’re not setting anything in stone yet. We do have some finalist names for both, though; we should be ready to announce them in a few days.

I have to say, though, that they are far more adorable and playful than I was expecting. They’re WONDERFUL kittens, and are a delight to play with. I’m looking forward to spending a long time with them in our family. :-)

Movie remakes are all the rage these days, it seems. A few recent examples have included Fright Night, Footloose, and the upcoming Robocop. Needless to say, a lot of people are getting enraged at the lack of originality in Hollywood these days. I don’t really blame them, myself, though I’m not entirely sold on whether a lot of the films being bandied about as remakes should be considered so.

To me, for a film to be considered a “remake”, it needs to be a new version of an original movie and not based on other media. For example, The Thing (the 1982 movie, not the 2011 prequel) is often touted as a remake of the 1951 film The Thing From Another World. The truth of the matter is that the 1982 movie, like the 1951 one, was based on a novella called Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell; unlike the 1951 film, the 1982 film was FAR more faithful to the original material. Another example is the upcoming The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, as like the Swedish-language movie (which I highly recommend), it’s based on the novel by Stieg Larsson. New movies based on Spider-Man and Superman are in the works; as they’re based on comic books, I see them as fresh looks at the source material as opposed to remakes of previous films.

Even then, I’m not against remakes as a whole. If a remake can provide a new, fresh interpretation of the original story while still being a quality product, then I’m all for it. People were against remakes of the aforementioned Fright Night and Footloose, yet critical reception of both films was positive. In fact, according to Rotten Tomatoes, Footloose got much better ratings than the original version did.

Still, it strikes me as funny that remakes are causing so much rage. Classic movies have been remade and new interpretations of old materials released for as long as I can remember. For example, the 1983 classic Scarface was a remake of a 1932 film. The most well-known versions of The Wizard of Oz and The Maltese Falcon were not the first adaptations of those novels to film. It’s hardly a new thing to come about.

Now, while I’m normally not against remakes or adaptations, there is one exception. I don’t like it when an adaptation comes out in a particular medium for the first time, and does not try to be faithful to the original source material. It could be an animated film based on a comic, but changes personalities of characters and the basic plotline. The adaptation that comes to mind most prominently is the live-action adaptation of the comic and animated film Akira. Akira is a profoundly Japanese film, that served as a generation’s introduction to Japanese animation. However, the live-action adaptation is casting whites instead of Japanese (for example, Kristen Stewart has been offered the lead female role), and the setting has been changed from Neo-Tokyo to “New Manhattan”. If what I’ve read online is true, then the storyline has been altered as well, no longer focusing on juvenile delinquents as the main protagonists/antagonists.

The Spirit is another example. Leaving out Frank Miller’s supposedly horrid writing and direction, the movie is not faithful to the comics in several respects. One that comes to mind is that in the film Denny Colt has superhuman abilities after the incident that made him become the Spirit, while Will Eisner deliberately made him an everyman in the comics. Another is that the Octopus was prominently shown in the movie, whereas in the comics his face was never seen. Had it been a faithful adaptation, I would have been more inclined to watch it. As it stands… no.

Why is it so difficult for the studios making these films to make a faithful adaptation?

In the end, though, it comes down to quality. The remakes and new adaptations that succeed are faithful to the source material while bringing a fresh look and new perspectives. The ones that fail are the money grabs that don’t pay attention to what made the original source material great in the first place. I know I’m preaching to the choir there, as I’m hardly the only one to feel that way.

I just wish the studio executives understood that too.

As part of our way of saying “thank you” to everyone who came out to our wedding, Jennifer put together a bunch of gift bags for all of the guests and had the hotel front desk hand them out when they arrived. Among the items we included were a beach bag, suntan lotion, a small bottle of rum, and other items. One of the most personal items we put in was a music CD, filled with songs that we felt represented us and our lives together. I wanted to go ahead and list out and give an explanation for each of tracks… not just for the guests but for everyone who might be interested. :-) Read more “The Bishop Wedding Soundtrack”

If you haven’t heard by now, it’s official. Jennifer and I got married at Paradise Island in the Bahamas on October 22nd. :-)

I’ll have a post up about the wedding and honeymoon sometime this weekend.

Well, it appears that I’ve gotten lax with my exercising.

I had set an exercise routine for myself in lieu of going to the gym. What I used to do was wake up early in the morning, and spend a half-hour on the elliptical in my home office. While it was regular exercise, there were a couple of disadvantages. The first was that I wasn’t watching what I was eating, and so I’d be caught snacking, having desserts, and eating generally fattening foods. It didn’t help that I wasn’t drinking as much water as I should. The second was that the amount of time I was spending on the elliptical wasn’t coming anywhere near to what I did when I went to the gym, and I was missing out on weight training to boot.

The final straw came when I realized I needed to buy new pants, and that I needed to go a size higher on club shirts. Something needed to be done.

This week, I’ve started on a new regiment. I’ve cut out most snacks and desserts. Desserts will be relegated to a single splurge night a week. I’ve also started drinking far more water than I did before. I’ve also been eating less red meat. As far as exercise goes, I’m going to the gym four times a week. My routine consists of sixty minutes on a stationary bike (set to random hill), weight training on specific body areas (three sets of twelve reps on each machine), and abdominal crunches (three sets of twenty). I’m hoping the combination of more exercise plus a slightly better diet will help me shed some weight before the wedding date. I don’t want to look too fat for the pictures. :-)

I’m also hoping that another thing I’m doing will help in getting the weight down. One thing I’ve never been very open about (unless I absolutely had to) was the fact that I couldn’t swim. Rather, I could fake it a little, but attempts to formally teach me as a child never went anywhere. I couldn’t tread water, and I definitely didn’t feel comfortable trying to swim. Let’s not even talk about how I’d react when in the deep end of a pool…

The problem with that is that Jennifer LOVES the water, and would live in it full-time if she could. As a result, I don’t feel like I can properly join in when she does things like go to the pool, because I’m not that comfortable with it. It’ll get worse as time goes on, as she loves to do things like snorkeling, and I’d simply not be able to take part.

It’s not fair, so I’ve decided to do something about it. I’m taking swimming lessons twice a week.

We found the place I go to, The Aquatic Academy, through our friend Julie. We had gone there for water aerobics, and the teacher gave me a few pointers on swimming while I was there. I was impressed enough where I’ve been going back for proper lessons. So far I can now tread water (though I’m out of shape enough where I can’t keep it up for long), actually do breast strokes and front crawls, and can swim underwater. I’ve even been able to open my eyes underwater. That’s huge, because the last time I tried was when I last had lessons in my childhood, the water burned and stung my eyes so badly I’ve associated having my eyes open underwater with pain ever since. I’ve been happy with my progress, as has Jennifer.

I think I’ll be learning how to dive at the next lesson. That’s one skill that I’ve always been envious of others for, because as fun as it looks, in the past I would have panicked being in the deep end of the pool. As for now, well… I’m definitely looking forward to it, though it remains to be seen how I’ll react in the deep end. We’ll see, I suppose. :-)

In the end, though, even if I wasn’t doing well at learning, it’s not a lost cause. It’s extra exercise for me, and it’s definitely getting me more used to being in the water. I’m definitely hoping I’ll get to the point where I can do all the same water things Jennifer likes to do… and maybe by that point, I’ll be slimmed down and in better shape where I can enjoy it to its fullest. :-)

It’s hard to believe it’s been two years. On one hand, it seems like a long time. On the other hand, it seems like we’ve always known each other.

A lot has happened in those two years. We’ve been on numerous vacations together, especially to places I never thought I would go visit like New Orleans, Colorado, and Disney World. We’ve been to places and events that I normally would not, like Pac-Man Fever Fridays at Joystix, concerts like Depeche Mode, and plays/musicals in the theatre district. I even moved in with her over a year ago.

To top it off, we’re getting married in a couple of months. Wow.

I wouldn’t trade it for anything, either. It’s amazing how in sync we are, to the point where on more than one occasion we’ve been known to speak simultaneously or come up with the same ideas independently. It’s also great how much she puts up with my geekiness; my home office now is a testament to it, with gaming and sci-fi posters and memorabilia scattered all over the place. :-)

To celebrate our anniversary, we went back to where we had our first date: BJ’s in Pearland. Afterwards, we stopped by a redbox to pick up Source Code; after trading anniversary cards at home, we watched the movie. :-)

Happy anniversary, honey. Here’s hoping the next fifty or so years are as fun as the first two. :-)