The Fireside

    Well, what a year for hockey, and for the Ottawa Senators. They had a few great games here and there, but what a shitty season. So shitty I barely bothered to blog about the games. I wasn't surprised that they didn't make the playoffs, though I always wanted them to.   Since they didn't make it through, I went for the St Louis Blues as my playoff hopeful. Now they're gone.   Speaking of playoffs and hockey, The Rivalry will happen again this year: Montreal vs Boston. And I say, go Boston.   Pittsburgh will most likely play New York (go Pitts), Chicago will play either Colorado or Minnesota (the playoff underdog), and Anaheim will play either LA or San Jose.   From here on out till the Cup, we should have some interesting hockey games.

I believe it was when season 2 of Game of Thrones was beginning to air that Chapters, a national bookstore (a Canadian version of Barnes and Noble) featured tables and displays with some Thrones merchandise, as well tables and displays marked as 'If You Like Game of Thrones, Try These...' and I can recall seeing some titles on display such as The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham, Enemy of God by Bernard Cornwell, and some by Ken Follett (I forget if it was Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, or Fall of Giants.  Anyway, now that the newest season has begun, Chapters has a similar section on their website. Here are the books they list:

Apparantly my 'next-favourite-author' has been quite busy.

Peter Jackson officially made the announcement today: Our journey to make The Hobbit Trilogy has been in some ways like Bilbo's own, with hidden paths revealing their secrets to us as we've gone along. “There and Back Again” felt like the right name for the second of a two film telling of the quest to reclaim Erebor, when Bilbo’s arrival there, and departure, were both contained within the second film. But with three movies, i t suddenly felt misplaced—after all, Bilbo has already arrived “there” in the "Desolation of Smaug". When we did the premiere trip late last year, I had a quiet conversation with the studio about the idea of revisiting the title. We decided to keep an open mind until a cut of the film was ready to look at. We reached that point last week, and after viewing the movie, we all agreed there is now one title that feels completely appropriate. And so: "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" it is. As Professor T...

So I bet you're wondering how The Saga of Kalvel is coming.  It's going well, but slow. I'm not putting into as much time writing the series as I'd like. It's still being thought of in my head, and I'm only able to get to it part time, but I'm still planning and writing at the same time. This weekend I'm hoping to binge through some.  I'm working on the third chapter for one character, and would like to start the first chapter for another character. I begun as early as Dec. 2011, and my deadline is August of 2016, but so far I have approx about 40 completed manuscript pages that I'm thinking of going back to until the first draft is completely done.  Now. That's manuscript pages.  If I were total everything I'd ever written about Kalvel, it would be closer to around 100 (give or takr about 15 either direction, some things are in various states.) I've said before and again that the most difficult vo...

There seem to be new editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings headed our way in the fall [but not for The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales or Children of Hurin ?]   They are different from each other.       For The Hobbit , it was a reproduction of the very first edition ever published - before Tolkien revised it to better tie-in with Lord of the Rings [I'm not referring to his planned re-write after Lord of the Rings came out which he abandoned]. Most of us know of the current revised 'second' edition, as it had been in circulation longer than the original first book.    But now we are given a chance to read the complete original 1937 text. The description officially reads as: The Hobbit was published on 21 September 1937 with a print run of 1,500 copies. With a beautiful cover design by the author and a coloured frontispiece painting, the book proved to be popular and was reprinted within three ...

As some members of my friends and family can attest to, I drink a lot of beer that's not quite run of the mill to the average person. To the beer afficindo, they could be considered greats...hell I love them.  If you've been reading this blog for a while, it should come as no surprise that I quite enjoy Mill St, Beau's, and other craft breweries (keep an eye on Whitewater). A good number of them are Ontario microbreweries, so I apologize for mentioning something you can't have depending on where in the world you live.  My favorite beer, however, has to be the 'Kissmeyer Nordic Pale Ale'. It is brewed by Beau's, however, it is not their recipe from what I understand. It is thus far the only beer in the 'B-Side' brewling label. Uusually Beau's bottles are engraved with the famous tractor logo; Kissmeyer bottles are engraved with a record patterning. So Beau's basically brew's another recipe and that's the distinction....