Review of Revan

So I finished Revan just now. The best way to describe it is to say that it is just like Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter with a slightly happier ending. I believe I have given my thoughts about Shadow Hunter a time or two. It is the single most depressing book I have ever read next to Ecclesiastes. After Revan I got the same urge to throw the book against a wall as I got after Shadow Hunter only with less tears. Would I recommend you read it? Yes. It is still a very good book. Where I would not recommend Shadow Hunter to anyone I would definitely recommend Revan... with a warning. It wasn't necessarily a bad ending, some might even like it and see it as fitting, it just wasn't the one I had expected. And from a certain point of view, as I said, it's right up there with Shadow Hunter for me. I doubt it's one I'll re-read. I could never stomach Shadow Hunter again.

And now I really badly want to re-read the Bane books. They're set 3,000 years after the events of KOTOR and I believe there is some history in them. But I just checked and as far as I can tell Dromond Kaas not only gets dragged into The Clone Wars *collective sighs of dismay and groans of agony* and even appears in the later books and comics (later as in post-NJO and Legacy eras). But is not seen in any of the Bane books. Apparently it does appear in some of the other Old Republic books. hmm. I only have one other Old Republic book and that's Fatal Alliance, I believe. I wasn't sure on the timeline and I know there's a handful of other Old Republic books out there. So maybe once I have those I can figure out how we go from KOTOR to Bane.

Maybe in a few days I'll start a new game of KOTOR1. We'll see.

Revan

I started reading the new Revan book yesterday. So far it is very good. It takes place 2 years after KOTOR1 (I believe KOTOR2 is 3 years after the first game). And I have this to say to start: It is so weird to read Revan as being a male. I always played the game as female (and I do the Carth romance). I believe originally Revan was supposed to be female but somewhere along the line official canon shifted and Revan was officially male. Well, whichever, it's still weird. However, I fell in love with Revan on page 2 so next time I play KOTOR1 I'm playing it as the Revan in this book. The book also has spent the last two chapters following a new character, which so far is disconnected from Revan (though if memory serves I believe this new stuff is actually referenced in the Bane novels), but it's fun and I'm excited to find out how it connects to Revan.

Now for a more spoilerific review:

Revan has long black hair. And is angsty. Like one of the angstiest characters in SW and I don't even have to read more into it than there might actually be! Only person as angsty or angstier might be Jacen. Boba's pretty angsty too but a lot of that is in my head.

Revan married Bastilla. Huh. Like I said I always did the Carth romance and Bastilla never really struck me as being very interesting, so it's just kinda weird. Not bad. Not with that description of Revan waking from a nightmare and going to stare at himself in the mirror for a time thinking angsty-emo thoughts before dropping his head and sighing with long black hair cascading over his shoulders. After that I could stomach him being married to anyone.

It is exciting to follow actual Sith, like the species of Sith. It's fun to see their disdain for mere humans. Nyriss is the woman Bane was thinking about right? When he went to some dark, ruined planet to a Sith Lady's house cause she had manuscripts and such and Bane thought she'd have something useful? Well at least I don't have any spoilers for this book cause I really don't remember the history of Nyriss as described in the Bane novels. Bane was 3,000 years after KOTOR so naturally she was long dead by Bane's time but there was a brief history that I don't remember.

:D

This. Amongst other things. Heartburn, sometimes for no reason. Missing periods (last real one was just before Halloween, then a mini 2 1/2 day one in early December). Growth and sensitivity in the chest area. Overall icky sick feeling, which included me throwing up Friday morning (which was my birthday, btw, I'm 25 now, and I rarely throw up, last time was June 2010) and nausea so bad last Monday (Tuesday?) that I had to lay down for 2 1/2 hours and ended with me crying for no reason. I also appear to be a little bloaty but I could just be fat too, I've been just sitting around a lot this winter. A bit of back and hip pain (just the left hip, it's always been my left hip what bothers me). Apparently dry eyes is another symptom (I just read that today), which I never even thought of, I just thought I had dry eyes due to not sleeping well mixed with it being winter. A bit of discomfort in the tummy area now and again, and sometimes my pants feel a little tight (bloaty? fat?) when I'm leaning forwards, but just sometimes. And I've been feeling hot a lot, the worst was a few nights ago when I woke up sweating and feeling like I was suffocating but Victor was under the blankets and said it was actually kinda chilly and I cooled off after a time.

Boney the Snow Cat

Bonecrusher out in the snow on the 16th.

This is a plate full of tortillas I made. Victor helped me by cooking them. Recipe here. My only complaint was the amount of tortillas it made and their size. I managed to get 8 out of this recipe but I think I'll go for 6 next time so that they're a tiny bit bigger. They were delicious though! My changes were: I added more water and shortening enough to get it all to stick together properly. I kneaded the dough to make it smoother. I did not cover them with a damp cloth, I used a dry one. In this cold a damp one probably wouldn't have been too good. Also I let it rest for 30 minutes. And one thin Victor did while cooking them was to flip them over, which the instructions did not say to do.

In other news I finished reading A Dance with Dragons last night and today went to read the excerpt from Winds of Winter that GRRM posted on his site. The book was good. I can't wait for book 6! Here-on out will be filled with spoilers so don't finish reading this post if you want to be unspoiled!

Short Update

Boney just crawled right in there. I guess if he was comfortable.

He crawled into this box too, but this was as far as he went.

This is the bread I made yesterday. My X didn't come out very well, and I cooked it a tiny bit longer after this picture. But it tastes good!

It's snowing really hard today! I'm excited to be able to go out and make a snowman. Which I'll do sometime later after it's stopped coming down so hard. For now, though, I'm taking advantage of the snow to melt some in my pan for dish water.

More Baking

On the second I made french bread. This is it before I baked it. Never did rise much.

This is it after baking. Rose some while baking but it was still a small loaf. Filled us up, though!

On the fourth I made bagels. A lot of recipes called for malt but I was able to find one that didn't. Shaping them was difficult. I couldn't seem to get smooth balls. There was always one big crack or seam, or several little ones.

Lexia the Sriped Xweetok

I think I mentioned before that Lexia, my Xweetok on Neopets, was hit by a random event that turned her into a baby. She used to be painted red. Well, luckily the Dream Pet Competition was just starting so I entered her asking for a pink paintbrush. I didn't win, of course. So after checking around and discovering that pink paint brushes were 2-3 million NP and me only having 1 mil, I decided to look at my options again. I was mostly decided against a red paint brush cause they were 99,000 anyway so if I'm spending that much I might as well see how much some of the fancier paint brushes cost. Something about how the Striped Paint Brush makes Xweetoks look struck me as delightful. And they cost 99,000, same as the Red Paint Brush. So, why not? I got the Striped Paint Brush and painted my Xweetok. Then I set her up with her old background and wand and everything and I am ecstatically happy! I'm deciding whether or not I want clothes for her. She seems fine as she is wearing just a necklace. Anyway, here she is: