It Started with a Journal

jade_okelani reminded me that Outlander had started airing, so I checked it out. I knew 20 minutes into the first episode that I was going to love the series. I ended up mainlining 4 eps last night, I watched 3 more this afternoon, and then I have a final ep to watch tonight of the initial 8 eps that have aired. Seriously, I love it. It's a fantastic adaptation.

In general, I like the casting. Claire is a little taller than I'd imagined. Initially I wasn't too convinced of the Jamie they chose -- the actor is a little too pretty and not "enough" of a redhead -- but I actually love him, so hurrah. I even like Frank Randall, because I liked the actor from Rome, even though he's older than I'd pictured for both Frank and Black Jack Randall. As for the MacKenzies and others, I barely remember the characters, so none of them have bothered me.

( More general stuff about the show. )

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I read Gone Girl lightning fast, because I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie, and I didn't realize the movie was so close to coming out until the day it released and I still hadn't read a word. But! I read the book this last week, and saw the movie today. ( Spoilers for the book and movie. )

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I don't know what it is with my mom, but she reallllllllly loves the Seahawks now. Even though for 66+ years she's never given one single shit about football. It's bizarre! It really, really is. For a little while it seemed like she might start liking football in general -- I will watch any game that's on -- but her enthusiasm cooled and now she only cares about football when the Seahawks are playing. She was SO disappointed last Monday when they played Washington and it aired on ESPN, which I don't have, so we couldn't watch it. When she found out about tomorrow's game against Dallas, she got so excited and began planning the weekend around the game. (Only one TV in the house gets reception for Fox, my computer room, so we're going to cram uncomfortably in here. I don't know how that's going to work.) Just now, we had this conversation:

Mom: We get to watch the Seahawks tomorrow!
Me: Yeah. But you know, they might lose.
Mom: Tsk. Why do you have to say those things?
Me: Well, the other team is good!
Mom: It's the Cowboys, right?
Me: Yeah, and they're actually really good this season. They've won 4 games and lost only 1.
Mom: Well, I guess after tomorrow, they'll have lost 2.

Ha!!!!! That doesn't actually make me feel confident about the outcome, but I have to admit I am tickled by her sudden fervor.

Allow me to geek out for a moment on something not ASOIAF related (I know -- what?!). Somehow, the latest installment of the Temeraire series came and went a few days ago, all without my knowledge. I've talked about it here before, but I don't mind repeating myself if it gets even one more person to start reading it! It's a really wonderful fantasy series by Naomi Novik. I'm not a fantasy girl, really, so if you're not either don't let that stop you. (It's a genre I'm trying to get into more, though I don't think I can get into super high fantasy. But who knows.)

Anyway, back to Temeraire. The latest book, number eight in the series, is apparently the second-to-last one. Part of me says, "Noooooooooo!" while another part of me appreciates that it's probably time to let go, and be glad that she's going to stop before it gets too ridiculous in terms of number of installments. It's been a good long while since I last read the series, so while each book stands alone and I could probably read this latest one without any problem, I think I might go back to the beginning and read them all over. :D That's the joy of a good series, right? Getting to read them again and again. In fact, while I'm starting to cut down on the number of books I own, I still enjoy collecting books by authors or series I love... so to that end, I've ordered the first four books in hardcover from the Amazon UK site. The first four books were released in the US only as mass-market paperbacks, and I prefer hardcover. It sometimes takes awhile for items to ship from the UK though, so I'll have to keep my fingers crossed that they get here quickly.

So what is the series about? ( Here's the summary from Wikipedia. ) The books are just so wonderfully written; I could never have imagined that I would love them as much as I do!

I'll be posting another discussion topic on ASOIAF soon. In the meanwhile, I have purchased this super-awesome poster that I'm going to have to get framed. I have no idea where I'm going to put it, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. :D :D :D

( Peanuts!Game of Thrones. )