The Hollow Hills is the second book of The Merlin Trilogy detailing the life and purpose of Merlin the Enchanter.

The Hollow Hills follows Merlin’s plans for the conception of Arthur, the King who will come to save Britain from the Saxons and from itself.  A very different story is presented here than the standard Sword in the Stone story that most people are familiar with.  Merlin’s power, intelligence, and devotion are easily seen in this wonderful continuation.

-Because I said so

Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy takes the reader through the life of Merlin, the great wizard of Arthurian legend.  The first book in this trilogy is The Crystal Cave.

The Crystal Cave begins a more detailed and somewhat new story of Merlin’s childhood and youth.  The first book sees Merlin progress from a bastard child into the acknowledged son and heir of Aurelius Ambrosius, High King of all Britain.  It also tells the story of his ascent into true power.  The Crystal Cave gives readers a very insightful look into the life and mind of one of history’s greatest legends, Myrddin Emrys, known as Merlinus Ambrosius, known as Merlin the Enchanter.

-Because I said so

Lindsey and I both love comic books and nerd culture.  We were both born nerds, grew up as nerds, and will pass our nerdish traditions down to any little nerdlings we may have in the future as best we can.  As nerds, we also love little collectibles like statues, bobbleheads, figures, busts, etc.

This is a shelf on our center DVD bookshelf.  It contains most (but not all) of our comic and movie related items.  There are more at my mom’s house, and some in storage, but this is a good sampling of what we have:
From the left, in the front row we see a Spartan helmet from the movie 300, a Mighty Muggs version of Starscream, an Iron Man bust, a Superman bust from Superman Returns, a little R2D2, a barely visible Mario, and a Darth Vader.  In the back row, from the right, we can see a Galactus, Sentinel, Apocalypse, and finally one of a set of six statues from the Dark Phoenix Saga series, Storm.

But wait, there’s more!

Mario and Yoshi on the very top of the DVD bookshelf…

Bowser on top of the TV…

And the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything on top of the DVD bookshelf!

We have much more (such as a 16″ tall resin statue of Bruce Campbell as Ash from the Evil Dead movies), but not anywhere it can be seen.

Huh.  I just noticed that the “42″ picture has a picture of my grandmother holding me as a baby in the background.

-Because I said so

I have absolutely no idea what to put in this post.  I thought about it and thought about it, and finally decided to post about how I didn’t know what to post about.  That counts as a post, right?

It gets difficult when you don’t have any new experiences between posts to really talk about.  It makes finding new topics quite a challenge.  And yet, in a roundabout way, I’ve managed to come up with a topic to discuss without having a topic to discuss!

Need INPUT!  Johnny 5 is ALIVE!

-Because I said so

And ANOTHER fantastic Giveaway.

This will have the same rules as our Harry Potter Giveaway, but obviously the prizes will be different.

How do you enter to win? POST A COMMENT!

For the next 24 hours (8 PM PST 7/25/09 – 8:00 PM 7/26/09) when you comment on this blog, it counts as an entry. Please do not spam the hell out of this post, but do feel free to discuss the DS, it’s other games, and even all of the Zelda games.

Want more entires? DONATE!

We are trying to help raise money for our charity, Reading is Fundamental, so when you donate to our charity that counts as an entry.

Again, the same twist is included like with HP – if you donate $1.00 to our cause, it will count as 10. $2.00 will get you 20 entries, $3.00 will get you 30.. etc.

Ok… now to the prize. This time, there is only one prize to be won so give it your all. You are free to enter in this giveaway along with the HP one so don’t worry, however you can only win one of them… not both.

The winner gets a Nintendo DS Duo Case Pack w/ special Stylus.

They work with both regular DS and DS Lite, so don’t worry

The contest is only available to people who live in the CONTINENTAL United States. Sorry Hawaii and Alaska, it costs too much to ship there. Sorry to all of the other countries too.

The winner will be announced Monday afternoon at 1:00 PM PST so please check back then to see if you won. The winner will need to contact us within 48 hours via email (that is provided on our site) with appropriate mailing information.

Good luck, spread the word, have fun posting, and thank you in advance for helping out our charity!

- She Who Has The Last Word

We have a snacks cabinet.  A cabinet-o-snacks, if you will.  We love our snacks cabinet, and we do our best to make sure it is happy by keeping it full of the snacks that provide it with purpose and use.

The snacks cabinet is very unassuming at first glance, a regular cabinet just like any other:

Once you start taking a closer look, the impression begins to change:

And once the door has been opened, the full glory of the snacks cabinet becomes evident:

Look on my snacks, ye mighty, and despair!

…

I want some fuckin’ Oreos.

-Because I said so

Today we are feeling charitable. Very charitable. Right now is the start of our first giveaway during the Blogathon.  You guys and gals are competing for some very cool goodies.

How might one win these great freebies?

Post a comment!

For the next 24 hours (6 PM PST 7/25/09 – 6:00 PM 7/26/09) when you comment on this blog, it counts as an entry. You don’t need to spam the post with crazy comments so please keep them on topic. Replying to other commentors is encouraged, so don’t think you can’t start up a nice little Harry Potter conversation. Also, feel free to get creative with your posts.

Here’s the twist. Want more entires? DONATE! Obviously we are blogging like crazy to help raise money for our charity, Reading is Fundamental, so when you donate to our charity that counts as an entry.

And like any crazy infomercial, they always follow up the good stuff with “but WAIT! There’s MORE!” If, for example, you donate $1.00 to our cause… that donation won’t count as 1 entry, it will count as 10. See how we did that? We knocked off the last 0, and counted the rest as entries.$2.00 will get you 20 entries, and $3.00 will get you 30.. so on and so on and so on. Hell, if you want to donate $100.00, that gets you one THOUSAND entries lol

Oh, I should probably add that we are giving prizes to TWO people, not just ONE, so competition is going to be fierce.

And now… I present to you the PRIZES:

First Place wins two items: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince promo poster and a slap wrist bracelet for the official video game that Electronic Arts put out. Cute thing is that the bracelet are in Gryffindor colors.

Runner Up wins one item: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince promo poster.

The contest is only available to people who live in the CONTINENTAL United States. Sorry Hawaii and Alaska, it costs too much to ship there. Sorry to all of the other countries too.

Winners will be announced Monday morning at 11:00 AM PST so please check back then to see if you were one of the lucky ones. Winners will need to contact us within 48 hours via email (that is provided on our site) with appropriate mailing information.

So, spread the word, post away, and help out our charity!

GOOD LUCK!

- She Who Has The Last Word

I enjoyed the first Fable a great deal when I played it.  I love fantasy RPGs, especially ones that look like they take place in the standard human “Once upon a time…” environment.  Fable fit that very well.  Then we got the Xbox 360, and with it came Fable II.

Fable II, so far, has not been living up to its predecessor.  I feel that the interaction, combat, and leveling systems are inferior to those of the original Fable, reducing the enjoyment factor of Fable II.  Granted, I have not progressed very far in the game, but I don’t feel the same excitement in Fable II as I did in Fable.

I’ll have to go back into it one of these days and hope that the excitement appears.

-Because I said so

There is a band called Electric Six.  They are a strange band, but very musically talented.  Their songs are very catchy and have a great sound.  They are a bit on the odd side, however…  There are two songs in particular that I am fond of: Gay Bar and High Voltage.  A warning, however: if S&M bondage Abraham Lincolns and giant glowing orbs over genitalia bother you, these may not be enjoyable for you.

Just saying.

Electric Six – Gay Bar:

Electric Six – High Voltage:

-Because I said so

While Chris was taking over on the blog, I decided to take some much needed “me” time and give myself a pedicure. It’s been ages since I’ve had a proper one, mainly due to how much they cost, and with the party tonight I figured I should try and look nice.

I thought about giving myself a matching manicure as well, but it’s already 5:30 and we have to be there by 8:00. I have way too much to do between now and then.

Originally I was going to use this pretty dark purple sparkly color by O.P.I. but I couldn’t find it. I did find this dark purple by Sally Hansen and thought about using that and then putting a light sparkly one over it. It didn’t turn out like I thought it would so instead I went with the really pretty sparkly one. Lighter colors mean if you screw it up, it’s less visible!

So here you go internetz… I give you my tootsies!

Also, the scratch on the top of my right foot (your left in the image) is surprisingly NOT from Moogle. One night when we were coming home Chris stepped on this twig on the ground, snapping it, and causing it to scratch the top of my foot. It hurt, but at first I thought it was no big deal until a few days later when it really turned red etc.

Have I mentioned I get injured a lot?

- She Who Has The Last Word