Sunday Salon - September 7, 2008

Well, it's my first Sunday Salon and I figured I should write this one up early since today is going to be busy. It's been a rough week and I've been trying all sorts of new things to shape my blog into what I had in mind.

I've written several reviews to be published in the future, but my hiatus from writing has really had an impact. I guess two years of game forum moderation really can wreak havoc on your skills. (You write what you read!...never before had I thought of that until now.) Either way, I've been brushing up and while a lot of my writing currently is still clumsy, I do know I'm improving. Hopefully I can get those reviews out soon and in better quality than my previous attempts.

One nice thing is that I've been able to read books at my old pace again! I just finished a long series of books focused on Charlie Chaplin and since I was not able to get an early reviewer book from LibraryThing this month, I am now working on my backlog of books. These are books I bought or was given over my two years of non-reading.

Currently, I'm reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I'm through the first 200 pages so far and while the beginning was a bit slow, I'm enjoying it. I definitely love the usage of footnotes! Strange thing though, I was reading some various stories written by Prosper Mérimée this week and his syntax and writing style seemed really similar. So similar, in fact that at one point I was merging his short story, The Double Mistake, with Jonathan Strange, spawning a moment of disorientation.

As for my big day, Spore comes out today! It's a organism/evolution simulation game that starts from the simplest of creatures and can evolve/mutate into societies with religion, science, war, love, and space travel! It's been well-hyped and long-awaited. Of course this means I need to get the house ready for several days of marathon playing...this means clean laundry, dishes, meal lists, etc.