Update 6 – 4 – 11

Well, life has dictated for a bit that I have not had a chance to post a new update for quite sometime in a matter of speaking. Gotten a few post up for sure, just not had time to post about whats been going on… but first, project and blog updates.

 

As I had posted before, the Force Pike Project is currently in the shopping stage. I have found links for all the pieces I need and am planning on ordering them here momentarily. Shipping is a bit high on a few pieces, so going to do a quick search to see if I can find as many as possibly through the same site so I can save on shipping cost. Granted it would be cheaper to just go to the stores to find these things, which I still might do, it would also require me to find more time to do this in. Right now I have just been putting this project together in the middle of the night when I am unable to sleep and have nothing better to do, usually around 3 to 4 in the morning to be more precise. Either way, once I get some more parts ordered, I shall be updating here with the project step by step as I go through this.

Click here for the most current update on the project and all the links for the shopping list as well.
https://tsukisramblings.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/personal-project-update-and-shopping-list/

 

 

The reviews I have gotten up since my last update.

Star Wars: Jedi Search by Kevin J. Anderson

Star Wars: Allegiance by Timothy Zahn

 

Reviews up and coming.

I am currently reading the Paths to Darkness books out of the forgotten realms by R.A. Salvatore. In addition I have mostly gotten the second book in the Champions of the force trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson nearly done, just really have to post it up and call it a day. So its as follows:

Star Wars: Dark Apprentice by Kevin J Anderson

Silent Blade by R. A. Salvatore

 

I am also greatly looking forward to the release of several more books in series that I have grown quite fond of. The first one I have made no denial of my interest in rereading. The book that has gotten this dork of a person hooked on reading Star Wars books for probably close to around 15 years now, Heir to the Empire’s 20th anniversary written by the ever so talented Timothy Zahn. This book releases on September 6th 2011… as long as it does not change this time at least.

In addition the last book in the Strain Trilogy, The Night Eternal, releases this October 25 2011. This is a joint effort between Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. For all of those who are into Twilight, this one is not for you. The vampires don’t sparkle, they are not the type of person you take back to mom and dad for dinner. In fact, you wouldn’t get a chance to take them for dinner before you would be consumed yourself by the much more animalistic version of a vampire to date. I got interested in this series and bought it on a whim just because I am a fan of Del Toro’s work in directing movies. (Pans Labyrinth, Hellboy, The Orphanage among others). Check out the first book if you are into a good horror in a modern day setting. The Strain Book 1

 

Now on to further buisness. Just got back from vacation with my wife and have taken many pictures in addition to this. So I shall be posting a few of the favorites up just for my own benefit, but I had many pictures that had red eye as well. So after a bit of web searching and playing around in photoshop, I have worked up a way that will nicely remove red eye for anything outside of a complete eye close up. (the effect fails up close, but most pictures dont focus on the eye directly like that). I should be posting all of this up over the coming couple of days. So stay Tuned 🙂

Otherwise though, just had to many things going on that needed to be attended to in order for me to completely focus on keep this up to date. Now with those things taken care of, should be able to more readily keep this up to date with new content and many other things. So stay tuned 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update 5-9-11

I had originally planned on trying to get myself to update this every Sunday. Alas, I have failed 3 weeks in. Seems I fell asleep very early yesterday and just woke up a few hours ago. Anyway, a simple update here as I didnt get what I had wanted to do last week done, work kept me too busy, plus we are ramping up our vacation plans as well and I had to look into some things. Either way, planning is going on, as is this here blog things I am doing.

Reviews completed now:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies  by Seth Grahame Smith

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed by Sean Williams

In other news, I have come across two books actually just a little bit ago that I am thinking about picking up and reading here soon. One of them being “Children of Men” by P. D. James. I have seen the movie to this and I must say it is one of the most influential movies I have ever seen. Taking place in a world in which children have not been born for close to 20 years, in which humanity has in that time lost all hope. The governments have all become increasingly hostile and have began weeding out those who are different from the majority thinking that they are the cause of the plague or virus that has condemned everyone to extinction because of the human sperm count mysteriously hitting 0.

The other book is the “Hungar Games” by Suzanne Collins. I came across this one while reading a bit about the “Children of Men book”, which I then became intrigued by. The description of the book sort of reminds me of the movie “Gamer” starring Gerrard Butler, I pretty decent movie in its own right.

If you have not seen Children of Men yet, I strongly recommend it as being one of my personal favorite movies as all time. Its right up there with American History X for the type of movies that make you think and leaves a resounding impression upon you. (also another movie I highly recommend people to watch.

Trailer for Children of Men

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NikEQy1XxDE

In all honesty, the trailer does not do the movie justice, I just watched it for the first time myself lol. Check it out and be amazed by the full movie 🙂

On top of this, a book I am highly looking forward to is also one of the books that got me hooked on reading so much, at least where it pertains to science fiction, Star Wars: Heir to the Empire 20th Anniversary Edition. Written by Timothy Zahn, this is the book that really got all the Star Wars novels rolling many years ago. Its also the book that has hooked me as well as the series that introduced me to several of my current favorite Star Wars characters of all times. Mara Jade and Grand Admiral Thrawn. A well written book, its able to captivate my attention even after the 6th time I think I have read it now. The 20th anniversary edition is also coming with a new short story written by Zahn at the end of the book as well starring Grand Admiral Thrawn. Read more about the book and pre-order it hereStar Wars: Heir to the Empire: The 20th Anniversary Edition” target=”_blank”> Star Wars: Heir to the Empire 20th Anniversary Edition .

It seems though as of now,  Amazon has not updated the release date, as the release is now set for 9-13-11. Sad face 😦

Update: 5/1/11

So far been a fairly productive week for me. Got two reviews posted, got another one written, just waiting to see if I want to change anything too it, found a few more things I plan on posting about which is sort of off in left field, but interesting things I think. Im still going through and reading the books I got at the Borders that closed locally, think I picked up about 15 books in the weeks towards its closure so I got plenty of new material to go through. 🙂

The reviews I have completed so far can be checked here:

The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology — A book about zombies, how can that be so bad?

Star Wars: Red Harvest — Star Wars and Zombies and Sith, Oh my!

Things I still have coming up:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed by Sean Williams (written just in preview status right now) — review up!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame Smith (will this be a bad review? Yes, yes it is.) —- review up!

Chasing the Dead by Joe Schreiber (Quickly becoming one of my favorite horror authors)

Patient Zero by Jonathan Mayberry (currently is my favorite horror author, who is this Stephen King fella anyway?)

Among these there are still plenty more I have read over the last few months as well as just over the last few weeks. I think of the 15 books I got while Borders was closing, I have read about 7 of those. On top of the books though, I am also planning on starting back up a 3d modeling tutorial that I never got around to finishing. Not touched anything 3d in over about 3 or so months now and I badly wish to get back into it. On top of this, I do the occasional Photoshop project as well, usually along the lines of retouching photographs, but some times its different things. I am thinking about posting some of the things I have learned in small little tutorials as well (similar in style to the Batch Processing Camera Raw that I posted)

Otherwise though, I have a busy week ahead I think. Got alot more I need to get written and posted. So far my experience at wordpress has been better then the other site. I have noticed there is a huge increase in traffic coming across the page, the other site all my pageviews were mostly myself checking back from time to time.

Anyway, till next time 🙂

I have found a new home?

So this is actually not my first blog. I have another one and actually came across this site while trying to find better alternatives after I had some issues setting up the blog with more then one picture in it. As of right now, I am unsure which way I am going to go. I originally started this one in the pretense of wanting to use it for just a book review type setup, which I still intend to do. Although, the more I use it the more I am starting to really like it.

Either way though, right now the main idea of this blog is to use it for reviews which I fully intend to do here soon. Here are the first few that I plan to add here.

• Star Wars: Red Harvest – by Joe Schreiber —- Review up
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – by Sean Williams
• The New Dead – by assembled authors —- Review up
• Chasing the Dead – by Joe Schreiber

There are many more I intend on doing, but this is just the beginning list. I might change the order, as I do intend to re-read the books that I have not read in sometime as to refresh my memory on it. I do plan on rating them as well. I will be using the common 10 point system, 1 being bad, 10 being great.

The genre’s I will be hitting are going to mostly be science fiction and fantasy, but I shall also but horror and pretty much anything else that I find an interest in as well.

Now, as I mentioned before, in addition to these, I am thinking about also making this my main blog as well and killing the other one. If I do this, then the variety of the posting shall be wide and varied. Photography, 3d modeling, random rambling, out right non sense, could be anything. All in good fun though, trust me on this. 🙂