Done!
Done!
Page 467 of 782 (60%). Elapsed time: six days.
Page 427 of 782 (55%). Elapsed time: five days.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (no relation—to my knowledge, anyway).
Current page: 353 of 782.
Elapsed time: Three days.
Assessment so far: Very good, very entertaining, very British. I think a lot of American writers tend to come up with a plot and stick close to it (especially in fantasy writing), whereas British authors seem to write with a vague conception of where they’re going but with all sorts of digressions here and there. They wander down the path of the plot and stop to take small side-paths—”What’s this?” “What’s that over there?”—and it isn’t until you finish the book that you (and possibly the writer as well) can see which apparent digressions were important to the plot and which were just pleasant little diversions. That said, Clarke is a very good writer, and these are very good diversions.
I’ve noticed that certain portions of the site—particularly the comments section at the bottom of individual entries, the font size and type, and the navigation bar on the main page—look wrong on certain browsers. In the case of the navigation bar, the dotted line goes past the navigation margin into the post; in the comments section, the text box goes outside of the gray container.
Has anyone noticed these problems (or anything else)? If so, could you please let me know (you can post it here or email me), along with the browser you’re using and what version? You can find that out by choosing the “Help” tab on the File menu, and then choosing “About Internet Explorer” or “About Firefox” or whatever browser you’re using.
I’ve had a few hiccups with the site over the last couple of days, including a few lost comments and some other problems. Everything should be more or less okay now, with the exception of the comment by Sean that I lost (sorry Sean!).
In a rare burst of cinematic activity, I’m seeing both Superman Returns and Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Men’s Chest this week. Reviews will be forthcoming.
To tide you over, you can read my review of the first Pirates, or check out my recent review of a new Superman action figure.
Sony has released the Spider-Man 3 trailer. All I can say is, apparently sam Raimi and Sony were working hard to pull the wool over our eyes on this one. But it looks like it has potential.
However, it does seem to be a big change in tone from the previous two films—it’s a lot bigger, and the villains aren’t quite as anchored in the real world as those of the SM1 and 2.
Last night I received this Mac ad in an email, and I just couldn’t resist tweaking it (or more accurately, asking Sean to tweak it, which he quickly did with glee—big thanks to Sean).
I generally try to stay away from politics on this blog these days, but the one issue I’ll always support is environmental awareness. Al Gore has a cartoon PSA for An Inconvenient Truth, featuring Bender from Futurama.
