Song of the Day: I See Fire by Ed Sheeran

I don't care if I've used this as song of the day before.
It's bloody great so we're going to have another jolly listen to it.

Ok guys?

Hobbitmas

Is it bad that I may be more excited for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug than I am about, you know, Christmas?

All of the Lord of the Rings films came out in the winter and now The Hobbit films are following in a similar tradition and earlier I was listening to "The Misty Mountains" from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and I could imagine the joys of stepping out of the cinema into the cold and snow outside and then thought "Oh yes, I forgot Christmas is around that time of year too."
Maybe I should just call it Hobbitmas and be done with it.
I can't even express how much I love Middle Earth and all that Peter Jackson has done to portray it.

Recommended Reads!

Hey gang.

It's Wednesday so I'm sure you all know it's time for recommended reads.
What's recommended reads?
I'm glad that you asked, blog-ghost.
It's a segment where I recommend things for you to read on the internet so you can do something other than checking your emails and playing Candy Crush.
Let's go...
Also I've tried to throw in a few NaNoWriMo related reads for you. Don't say I don't care...

Here are my picks for this week:

• 33 of the Deepest Thoughts that Legolas has ever had.
• Feminist Taylor Swift - an excellent Twitter that puts a feminist spin on Taylor Swift lyrics.
• Probably the scariest Miley Cyrus video you'll ever see. It's a tweaked version of the Wrecking Ball music video but it would fit perfectly into The Exorcist. It's like Miley Cyrus... posessed by demons.
• Drunk teenager parties in Yorkshire, UK... then wakes up in Paris. Read more here.
• Neil Gaiman and his NaNoWriMo pep talk. Keep writing, you majestic creature.
• If you're writing a sex scene for your NaNoWriMo novel, try not to do it like this! This is a list of 13 examples of TERRIBLE sex scenes in literature. [NSFW.]
• Reasons why proofreading is SUPER IMPORTANT.
• From Huffpost: 10 Life Lessons You Should UNLEARN
• Here are some interesting weight loss secrets from around the world. 
• If you're doing NaNoWriMo and haven't signed up already then check out their website because it actually gives a useful tool in managing your writing by taking data you put in about how much and how often you write that it can roughly calculate when you'll finish your novel. This is my first time using their website and I'm certain that I'll use it for all future novels too.
• Here author John Green discusses his own attempt at NaNoWriMo and his thoughts on it. It's an old video but it's classic.

Recommended Reads

Good morning, blog-ghosts.
Here for a delicious morning slice of Recommended Reads?
Of course you are.
As you'll notice there are a few Halloween costume related items in here if you're trying to scramble together some last minute ideas!
Here are my reads for the week:

• 23 Kids totally nailing the concept of awesome Halloween costumes.
• And speaking of Halloween costumes check out who Paris Hilton is dressing up as and then scroll down to the bottom of the article to see a collection of photos of celebrities in costumes. My favourite is Shannon Woodward and Katy Petty dressed as Daria and Jane Lane from MTV show Daria. That's one costume I have to try one day.
• Some poetry for you: Clementine Von Radics, a talented poet from Portland, uploaded regular poems and you can donate to fund Clementine's work if you like it.
• Pitbulls get a bad reputation in the news, but this adorable video of a pitbull trying to save his owner (though the owner is in no danger) is absolutely charming.
• Listen to this beautiful poem about love and living with OCD.
• FRODO AND SAM SUPERCUT: The names will lose all meaning.
• Photos of cats who REALLY RESENT their Halloween costumes...

Recommended Reads!

Here it is! Another Wednesday where, as per usual, I give you wonderful blog-ghosts some recommendations of blogs/articles/websites I've found on the internet lately.

Having posted the Game of Thrones confessions last week I thought I'd share some more confession tumblrs I've found...

If YOU have any blogs or articles you'd like me to mention in an upcoming blog then please let me know and I shall share it in an upcoming recommended reads blog.

For those of you unfamiliar with blogger, if you'd like to recommend any blogs, articles or websites please do so in the comments section below. To comment click on the blog title then scroll down and click on the pencil icon.

• 20 Things Lesbians Are Tired Of Hearing from Buzzfeed. Is it sad that I think I've heard all of these questions specifically asked to me? Seriously. This is perfect... in that it highlights all the bullshit we take.
• The Salacious Slayer Confessions - a collection of dirty fan confessions about Buffy The Vampire Slayer
• Mat Hofmann, alt model. A hilarious parody of typical female alt model pages.
• Ugliest Tattoos - exactly what the title suggests. Why do so many people get bad tattoos of dicks and pizza?
• Shit My Students Write - a wonderful collection of stupid things students have written in essays
• Lord of the Rings Confessions (less dirty than the other confession blogs)
• Poorly Dressed - a collection of questionable fashion moments
• Glee Logic - detailing plot holes, mistakes and criticism with the show Glee. 

Song of the Day: Misty Mountains from The Hobbit

It's no secret, guys.

I love all things Middle Earth.

Richard Armitage demonstrates the dreamy depths of his voice in this song.

I love Howard Shore as a composer.
I'll be spending most of today inside so... Shire music and Hobbit things are totally appropriate.

His music is the perfect work soundtrack.

Enjoy,

LOTRO: Re-downloading.

I made the fairly sensible choice to give up gaming for my final year of university so that I could focus on my studies. Here I am now re-downloading the MMO I once played since my dissertation is in and everything seems fairly straightforward from this point on.

As I have previously mentioned I play the MMO called Lord of the Rings Online. I hadn't picked up any other MMO type games like Runescape or World of Warcraft but LOTRO seemed totally appealing to me. As a lifelong Tolkien fan I appreciated the idea of gaming and taking part in the story. I'd also recently started watching The Guild, a webseries freely available on Youtube about the lives of a guild of gamers. Though the show tends to be watched by pre-existing gamers, I found it as a non gamer and instantly wanted to find something. As soon as two of my friends from university mentioned LOTRO I was on board. Pictured above you'll see my character. I'm currently a level 63 Elf Hunter on my main account. I also have a Loremaster and a Warrior as my alts, but personally I prefer hunter. I like long ranged attacks way better.

Why do I love LOTRO so much?

I think the reason I found LOTRO so appealing is that it wasn't just a game. It gave me a simulation of places I'd read in a book. This allowed me to feel closer to them. Very soon I was running through The Shire, hunting trolls in the Trollshaws, speaking with Fellowship members, drinking a pint in the Prancing Pony. Anyone who appreciates the films should at least try out the game. There are often really social people to play along with and it's a lot of fun. The download takes forever but it will be totally worth it. I'm looking forward to winding down from my dissertation by killing some orcs. Therapeutic, much?

What I find interesting about gaming is that there is such an interesting response to female gamers. Female gamers either seem overly fetishised or tokenistic. The typically desirable image of the female gamer seems to be the fantasy of male gamers wanting a girl with similar interests. I can assure you, fellas, that when I'm sat gaming in an old band shirt, pyjama bottoms and a mass of tangled hair tied up I'm hardly an image of desire and I'm sure that goes for a lot of female gamers out there. In fact there were times that people didn't believe that I was female because of the high percentage of male gamers.

I'm really looking forward to experiencing the Rohan expansion. If you don't hear from me over the next week, I am probably beast slaying. Toodles.