Many years ago, knowing what a huge nerd I was, my mother purchased The Eye of The World for me as a birthday gift, said novel being the first installment in the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. As it was, however, I would not actually read the book until some years later. Doesn't matter. I'd long been a sucker for fantasy, enamored from an early age with the animated version of The Hobbit. In particular it had really sweet songs, like "Down, down to goblin town…" It's the kind of thing where I'm pretty sure no one has any idea what the fuck I'm talking about. But the point was simply that I liked fantasy and yes, I even played Magic: The Gathering for a time.
So I won't deny enjoying Eye of the World and going on to read the next couple of novels and enjoying those as well. Somewhere down the road, however, things took an ugly turn. Slogging through 700-1000 pages just wasn't fun anymore when characters would die and be reincarnated, maybe even as the opposite sex, and so much of the same shit was being reiterated. I understand that was probably done for people who hadn't read from the very beginning like myself, but damnit, who starts in the middle anyway? I guess maybe a lot of people. It's cool to answer your own rhetoricals. Anyway, I am now realizing I certainly brought a lot of this up in my old blog, but I'm assuming people either forgot, didn't read it in the first place and/or still don't care.
Still I managed to make it through the first ten books. I even read the shitty prequel. But book eleven, it just couldn't be done. I started it three separate times, and it is my fourth, and current, attempt that prompted this post. Having just finished reading Lolita, I felt the time was ripe for decidedly lighter fare. As there was set to be one more book I decided to check online and see when its expected release was, hoping details of book eleven would be fresh in my mind on its release. While I used to joke that Jordan better not die before finishing the damn series, luck would have it that just this past September he did indeed tragically pass. Luck was certainly terrible word choice. And for as much as it makes me an asshole, I'm certainly disappointed that I'll never get full closure to the series, even with a posthumous twelfth publishing.
On the brighter side there are the romances inspired by the series, prompting marriages with character-themed weddings and all sorts of hilarious shit. And by hilarious, I mean frightening.
And since blogging should never feel like a chore, I'm gonna cut myself off, but not before a quick comment on Tim Horton's, which runs shit in Canada. They're also sparsely located in the United States. Apparently the franchise began in Delaware and, though I think that means the state, I think I ate at a Tim's in Delaware, Ohio once. Having spent several vacations in Canada and as well as visiting family in western New York state (as opposed to West New York, NJ), I am well versed in Tim. To me, it is inferior to double D's, but I'm sure it is affected some by what I grew up on. Their donut selection was very limited, with a weak sauce jelly donut, but they did have a bomb peanut crunch glazed cake donut you don't get down these parts and, if it suits you, the maple donut. I can't recall how much I liked their munchkins either, but since they're called timbits, at least the name is excellent. And since I'm talking donuts, I'll take the opportunity to mark Krispy Kreme as horrendously overrated and select the 7-11 blueberry cake donut as the sleeper pastry of the week to whet appetites for the wondrous dessert-fest that is Thanksgiving.
Solley,
ReplyDeleteA) Delete the spam comment above mine.
B) There used to be a donut chain in SE Conn and Rhode Island called Bess Eaton. They had one in Mystic, open 24 hours, and Faisal and I went there once or twice on study breaks. The other Mystic kids went far more often than I did, presumably since I was running and trying not to eat donuts. They were good. Not as flaky as DD, which I think is better. A little sweeter, almost like a high quality version of Little Debbie.
There were also bible verses on every bag, which was kind of funny. Their coffee wasn't good, but it was drinkable. And one time I was driving back to Middletown senior year from Boston via I-95 and I stopped at the Westerly, RI Bess's. They didn't have the kind of donut I wanted, but it was still good.
Anyway, the Mystic Bess Eaton's burned down in the summer of 2004, and I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back. When it was rebuilt a few months later it was a Tim Horton's, and I think Tim bought out all half dozen or so of the Bess Eatons. I went there one night in 2005 when I had driven down from Brattleboro to see Fais and Dan Lazarek, and we went there after a night at Margarita's.
I have never had worse coffee in my life. It tasted like green tea mixed with piss. It was disgusting. Their donuts also blew big time. We sat around laughing about how awful everything was, then I drove the two hours back to Vermont with a heavy mind reminiscing over the demise of Bess Eaton. And now I'm heavy hearted thinking about those happy days in Brattleboro, part I.
Ahhh, fuckety fuck. Happy thanksgiving.
BTB