Kendra Leigh Castle

Archive for January, 2010

I had to share this most excellent video that MsM gave me a heads up about the other day.  I haven’t had Sir Guy over in a while, and he certainly is a big bad handsome man to end the week with.  Brooding!  Black Leather!  *swoon*  You all have an excellent weekend!

Morning, ladies!  Shockingly, I have a topic today: bad boy heroes.  See, I’m about half done with Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Night Pleasures, and am enjoying Kyrian, the leather-wearing bad boy hero who still, despite his styling himself as kind of a badass, comes off to me as the exiled prince he is.  Beautiful and decadent.  Anyway, I’m loving him, and then all of a sudden another bad boy roars up on his motorcycle and he’s even MORE badass than Kyrian!  So of course, as with all shiny objects, I am immediately distracted by his wonderfulness.  This would be Talon, who I’ll get to read about next, apparently.

This is definitely a trend in paranormal romance: the leather-clad bad boy hero.  Now, I write them myself (I mean, what else am I going to do with a demon?  Dress him in flannel?) but I do wonder sometimes if they’ll stay as popular as they are right now.  They are, IMO, the modern day equivalent of the Regency rogue, and God knows people still read those.  But I’m curious about what you all think.  Do you get tired of the big bad boys in leather?  Or are you happy to keep eating them up?  For me, I think as long as there are interesting  variations on the theme, I’m there, though I do have occasional hankerings for the straight-up knight in shining armor.  I always thought of the MacInnes brothers as more brave and noble knights than anything…being able to give them fur and claws just added that element of darkness that I love.  Only slightly off-topic, I’ve been dying for a good medieval lately, speaking of.  Suggestions are welcome!

Anyway, what do you think, ladies?  What sort of hero gets your motor running these days?  Wicked, good, or just wicked good?

Couple of things for Wednesday.  Firstly, hat tip to Donna for letting us know about the Glambert performance on Ellen yesterday!  I have video to share, because I love this song, Strut.  Not a big fan of Whataya Want From Me, the last single, but I like almost everything else on the album, so YAY!  He’s so pretty…and inspiring too, actually.  He was apparently quite heavy in high school and got picked on all the time.  The guy certainly turned into a swan after the fact!  But I would guess that his previous struggles are one of the reasons he seems so sweet.  I’m sad that he’s gay only because it’s such a loss for women everywhere!  I suppose, with my love of guyliner-wearing men who fall somwehere in the Goth/Glam Rock part of the spectrum, I am doomed to drool over a lot of gay men.  Oh well
Lemmee see, I found another thing that was entertaining as well.  I’m totally dating myself, but I still love Pee Wee Herman.  I miss his show (and if you’ve never seen the HBO special that started it all, you are missing out…it was NOT a kids’ show, just adult humor disguised as one, and OMG it was hysterical).  And color me thrilled that the guy seems to be making a comeback!  So I laughed my butt off when he appeared on Conan’s final show to explain the NBC mess.  The guy still has it!
Hope you all enjoy your day!  My mom’s coming to visit for a few, which is awesome, and yesterday I FINALLY got the dragon proposal to leave my desk for good.  It kept returning to me with just a few small tweaks needed…sort of got to be The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave.  BUT, it left, and is now on my editor’s desk, sooo…I will recommence finger crossing!!  Now I can get back to my Dark Hunter book   Happy Wednesday!

The “being awake,” it is not making me happy this morning.  I’m reeeeeally tired because not only did my youngest stay up half the night with a cough (and being four years old, he was decidedly less than sweet about it), but we had the interesting experience of being kept awake by none other than an owl that had decided to perch on the roof directly above our bedroom.  It was pretty cool at first…the strange noise was first incorporated into the dream I was just starting to have…but you know, after a half hour of the owl rather loudly calling (and being answered in kind) I was ready to have it quiet again.  Since Jack got up AGAIN shortly thereafter, it was not to be. Never heard an owl like that before.  We tried to see if it was perched outside a window so we could get a look at it, but it was definitely on the roof.  So this morning, I did some research online, and it turns out our nocturnal visitor was a Great Horned Owl.  That call is unmistakable as anything else.  Aren’t they pretty?  It was likely calling with its mate.  I love owls, so it’s pretty cool that we seem to have a pair in the immediate area.

So going with the sleep theme, have you guys heard of Sleep Talkin’ Man?  I believe he and his wife have been on some morning shows just lately, because their funny little blog has taken off.  He apparently talks in his sleep almost every night, and his wife thought the stuff he said was so out there she started recording it for posterity.  To both of their surprise, they are suddenly a little bit famous.  Here’s a sample, a night where Adam (that’s his name) was apparently dreaming about pirates:

“If I wanted to see a long nose and a big ass, I’d look at a horse.”

“Butt cheeks ahoy! There she blows!”

“You can’t be a pirate if you haven’t got a beard. I said so. MY boat, MY rules.”

“We haven’t got a plank. Just fucking jump.”

“Don’t jump on me!”

It’s pretty funny, I highly recommend it. And if they ever put “Badgertastic!” on a t-shirt, I do believe I would buy one   Check it out here.  And have a great Tuesday!

I shouldn’t have gotten invested in a Vikings victory.  My love is a curse.  WHYYYYY?!  Favre is still awesome, though.  Next year, baby. *sigh*  Anyway, here’s a picture that Diva Donna sent me to chase the blues away.  He’s a nameless Mr. Mantastic, so let’s have some fun and give him an appropriate moniker.  Something dark and sexy, because he’s totally a vampire taking a shower after a long night of brooding, wearing lots of black, and skulking in shadows.

Ideas, ladies?  I’ll begin with my contribution: he looks kind of like a Talon to me   Different, dark, and dangerous.  Your turn!  Happy Monday, all.  And Donna, THANK YOU for keeping me supplied with such amazing eye candy!

Little late getting going here this morning…but I did find a cool picture of a dark nymph.  Wish I knew who the artist was, so I could give credit where it’s due!  I always wanted to be able to draw, but stick people are about as fancy as I get.  Anyway…

It’s a wet, fairly yucky day outside, so I’m wandering around in my hoodie because I’m always cold anyway.  This morning I’ll be putting the finishing touches on my re-revised synopsis for the dragon story and getting a small pitch ready for it as well.  So here I sit, drinking my second cup of coffee, and the house is blissfully quiet for a couple of hours.  Ahhhh

Hope you all have some fun stuff planned for the weekend.  I think we might have dinner with friends one night, but other than that, I’m just hanging out.  Probably curl up with one of the other House of Night books I’ve been saving for a rainy day!  Enjoy the weekend, and I’ll see you all Monday!

Morning, ladies!  I have to head out to drop the kids at school, then pick up the cat’s heart pills at Target (wow, when did my life become such a whirlwind of excitement?), and I really don’t have a single interesting thing I can think of to talk about.  SO, in lieu of that, here’s a song I’ve had stuck in my head for like three days.  In a good way, because it’s a pretty cool song…got sort of a funky, almost neo-disco vibe going on.  It’s from ’07, but somehow I missed it back then.  Probably because I was living in the desert, cut off from civilization, LOL.  Seriously, though, Fallon Nevada had zero good radio stations, so it’s no wonder.  Anyhoo, the video is sort of weird, but the dancing guy is interestingly hot.  Enjoy the moment of groove, feel free to boogie in your chairs.  Have a great Thursday!

I treated myself last night and stayed up playing PS3, running around wearing leather armor and stabbing things.  I didn’t get to play all weekend, and I’ve discovered it’s a handy carrot to dangle for myself as a reward to get things done.  It’s just a little thing, but it does the trick!  Anyway, I’m enjoying the rogue I built.  I can pick all sorts of locks, and I’m learning how to maneuver her so she gets behind the stuff we’re fighting and stabs them in the back.  And of course, she looks fabulous even covered in blood.  Which everyone usually is in this game.  I still laugh when I have to have serious in-game conversations while totally splattered.  You have to fight some seriously freaky stuff, though.  I’m at the Circle Tower, which is where the Magi are when they’re not being taken over by all of these fascinatingly horrifying creatures I need to destroy.  Tonight’s body count included a lust demon, rage demons, blood mages, and a bunch of reanimated corpses who were really pissed off about something or other.  Plus, abominations, which are just…gross.  Anyway, since I babble about having slayed darkspawn occasionally, I went and found a trailer for the game so you all can see what I’m zoning out with when my brain needs a break (erm, warning, it’s also bloody, ’cause the game is kind of like that).  In case you’re curious:-)  I already had to fight the ogre at the end of the trailer, and the first time I saw it I was like “Aw, maaaaaaan, seriously??”  All of which is to say, I’m kind of a big dork.  Which you’ve likely already guessed.  Have a good one, ladies!  And Donna, I hope you are learning to love the Nook!

As we discussed, Sam Worthington is definitely taking the Mantastic crown this week.  I’m apparently a little twisted, because the whole armor thing is just…rowr.  I couldn’t find anything of him with his shirt off, which sucks, because I am willing to bet that it’s a lovely sight, but even wearing clothing Sam is awfully pretty.  The above is him as Perseus in Clash of the Titans (must stop looking at armor or risk short circuiting keyboard with drool), and then there are these pics of him in Terminator: Salvation which actually make me want to see the film, despite the fact that I had no prior interest in seeing it. 

Um, yeah…nothing wrong there.  Does he die (or whatever the machines do that’s a reasonable facsimile) at the end of this flick?  Probably.  He’s in it with Christian Bale, and I’m going to bet that HE doesn’t die at the end, so obviously they’ll make the heroic machine do it.  Again.  Didn’t they already do that in T2?  Argh.  Anyway, here’s one last yummy shot of Sam:

*happy sigh*  You know, I’m all for the occcasional naked cowboy, but I really like Sam even with all his cool, post-apocalyptic duds on.

Thanks again for the encouragement yesterday, ladies…you all keep me going (and laughing) sometimes when I would like to crawl into a corner and pull a blanket over my head.  I do not like synopses.  But another one bit the dust anyway.  WOOHOO!  Have a most excellent Tuesday!

The kids and the husband have the day off today, and I’m still trying to finish up my synopsis (it’s more than half done, but man, I am not loving trying to wrap it up…my brain doesn’t seem to want to do this, so I’ve been struggling a little with the last bit). So, I’m moving the mantasticness to tomorrow, and taking today to get this thing DONE! Haven’t been able to do the sword-shaking dance around the fire yet. Need to get on this. I will see you all tomorrow, and have a great Monday!