Job Search and Volunteering

The general job search fun continues (sort of like one of those 'educational' comic books as far as its entertainment value: i.e. not very, but with a sort of dark humor here and there. occasionally something nice happens and it rises to the level of that somewhat obscure Neil Gaiman authored, death of the endless starring AIDS prevention comic from back in the mid 90s that featured Death rolling a condom down a banana held by a Veerrrrrryy reluctant John Constantine (y'know, Hellblazer).) (Just as a record of my true level of geekdom, I actually owned a copy of this because I was, y'know, sitting at the comic shop playing AD&D 2nd Ed. when it arrived in store. Dunno what happened to it, but it was probably donated to someone in one of my occasional "purging all my stuff in charity towards others" binges, and went to some fan of Mr. Gaiman who didn't have an anti-AIDS comic and wanted one.)

I started volunteering at the St. Paul Public Library today, which was fun. Yesterday I went to the temp. agency and did my 3.5 hour intake thing, which was interesting. Tomorrow I'm going back to the Temp Agency to do some Access training.

Vampire Books

So, this week was a big week in the Vampire Book Calendar (tm), as on Tuesday new books by both Laurell K. Hamilton and Kim Harrison came out. I have now finished both books. I have to say, spoilers aside, that I was not surprised where the personal relationships in the Kim Harrison book went this book, but on the other hand a) I was deeply satisfied, and b) J. bet wrong on how it would turn out and I bet right, so in a few weeks when he's finished reading the new book I'll be able to gloat and tell him "I told you so!".

As for the Laurell Hamilton book... hmmm. I enjoyed it a lot, as usual I was pretty much hypnotized start to finish. This book was even racier than the last, and even less occupied with overt violence. But in a way I feel as if the books have just shifted focus. At the start they were all about dealing with everything in your life through fatal violence, and the problems that caused. Now, they're about dealing with most of your life on a sexual/relationship level, and the (equally complex and dangerous) problems that causes. I don't think I have a strong opinion on that either way, but I do think the books are more popular now probably at least in part because the new focus is closer to the lives of most of her readers (who are not, we shall assume, all near-sociopathic killers, but who might well be able to empathize with emotionally complex love lives).