Draginon

I got the PS4, the Lego Ninjago Movie Destiny's Bounty set, the Lego Adventure Time set, a bunch of Star Wars books, a couple of the Star Wars Epic Collection comics, about 8 games for the PS4, a Pop of the Blue Ranger from the Power Rangers movie and a bunch of movies and shows on DVD/Blu ray. Also have a few post Christmas 'get what you really wanted' sale items coming from Shout Factory which are The Transformers The Movie, Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers (I don't technically need it since it's included on the Season 3 set, I just want the shelf to look complete) and Power Rangers Seasons 4-7 mega set (Zeo-Lost Galaxy) leaving just the last five seasons Shout has the rights for. Do have to do a couple returns/exchanges. The first is Lords of the Sith where I had bought it and didn't realize it was on my list. The other is that my mom got the Lego Dimensions Starter Pack for the PS4 when all I needed to upgrade was a used copy of the game itself that is sold for $5

@Sunbird Yeah, I would've maybe given the place a second chance if it was just a bad server but the manager was pretty bad. I don't know if I can bring myself to go back with how they ruined the appearance of the restaurant since they forgot the important question 'we can do this but should we?' since it doesn't even feel like the same place anymore. To put it simply it'd be like going to a McDonald's but it was suddenly changed to a Burger King but still called themselves McDonald's. I didn't care that much for the food itself in the past but I returned because of the servers they had, the atmosphere and because it was someplace my grandma loved when she was alive. Now that all three are gone I just can't bring myself to return.

Yesterday me and my mom went to the Chicken Restaurant at Knott's Berry Farm. Hadn't been there in three years and during that time they completely renovated the place. They ruined the entire restaurant! Before it was homey and cozy since it was the original feeling that Cordelia Knott made for the restaurant, now it feels the opposite of that and the design feels like someone who had never been to a farm before and decided that using mason jars as light bulbs means farm and completely plain walls and wooden ship lap/beams with a horse head statue in one dining room equals a working stable (if I didn't see that horse head I wouldn't have guessed it was meant to be a stable) and it just felt cheap and thrown together. I don't know if it's supposed to be 'Farm chic' but it just didn't feel like an inviting place to eat. Onto the actual meal. From the time we walked in to when we left it was over 2 hours! The place wasn't crowded (they can hold 800 people and it was nowhere near that number) and in the past I've been there when the line was out the door and it never took more than an hour. When we sat down it took 40 minutes before the waitress even came to our table to get our drink and food order. The drinks took about 10 minutes to arrive. Another 10 or so pass before we get the biscuits they give everyone before the meal. The biscuits always come with butter and the signature boysenberry jam and they weren't there and it took the waitress 5 minutes to bring it. We didn't even ask for them but when she brought the biscuits she acted like it was going to be a chore to bring the stuff. When she brought it the jam was plopped messily, and very unappealing, on a saucer. It would've looked more presentable in a bowl. As for the biscuits she brought us 16! Between us we only ate 4! (These biscuits are half the size of a regular biscuit) There were only two other tables she was serving, one was a large party, but she never stopped to ask if we needed anything, we both needed refills of our drinks since it was already about 75 minutes into the meal and had yet to get our actual meal, but she asked the other two that quite a bit so it was getting obvious she was ignoring us for some reason. My mom had to find a different server to get our refills along with honey and lemon for her tea. When the lemon arrived I literally laughed because it was on a saucer like everything else, was the biggest lemon I'd ever seen and was cut into four giant slices like an orange and she was only needing one. During this time my mom got her soup, she did one of the chicken dinner meals while I did the chicken sliders, she had to ask the waitress if she could have a spoon, unusual not to get one with soup of all things, and that took a good 10 minutes and the soup was lukewarm at best so she didn't finish it. By this point I had dubbed our waitress Molasses because of how slow she was with everything (I saw other servers going to their respective dining rooms far more than I saw ours since where I was sitting gave me a good view of the one hallway leading to three other dining rooms and the kitchen). Once we finally got our meals we weren't exactly happy with it. My mom didn't like her chicken and sides that much and my sliders came with just pickles. Chicken sandwiches tend to come with some kind of sauce so I was surprised these didn't. I was half tempted to put the jame on them because I was afraid it would take the waitress 10 minutes to bring me some ranch to put on it but we asked a different waiter and he brought it within a couple minutes. After this my mom's dinner has a dessert come in. In the pre-refurb days they always took your dessert order at the same time as the meal order but when my mom went to give it at the beginning the waitress was pretty rude when she said she'd take the order later. Because of how it was already two hours at this point she decided to take her dessert to go. I went to use the restroom at this point and when I returned she had her pie. Apparently the waitress didn't think she needed a bag or utensils to eat it with since we were going back to the hotel. When bringing the bill she was suddenly being all sweet so that she'd get a big tip. Because of her attitude the entire meal and terrible service we didn't even give her a tip since she didn't do anything to deserve one. When we were leaving we went to a manager to give our genuine complaints she was very dismissive, and was not dressed professionally for a manager, and acted like there was nothing wrong with the restaurant at all. Because of these things I'm not sure I even want to return and I loved coming for the atmosphere and the friendly staff before they did the refurbishment from either last year or two years ago. Modern and faster? More like tacky and slow thanks to the changes they made. Also the clothes the wait staff wear didn't really fit with the theme. They were dressed more for a country steak restaurant like Logan's or Cotton Patch than a farm house. Before the women wore dresses like women wore back in the olden days and the men wore white/baby blue button down shirts and tan slacks like farm hands would wear. The new outfits seemed more suited for the theme park at the front gate, a couple of the establishments in Ghost Town and maybe all of the Boardwalk area.

Started the Star Wars short story collection From a Certain Point of View today. Didn't have time to read for the past few days.

I would never dream of calling his stuff BS unless he made a truly awful book. It was weird how they didn't have much from the last couple years, understandable since it's a discount surplus bookstore, and yet had Dan Brown's new book already. I was so hoping they would've had more Sanderson after seeing The Rithmatist on the shelves.

Fargo, the movie not the show.

And some of us are trying to catch up to that point Anyway I finished Fairest of All. I had to pace myself because of how fast a read it was that I had to stretch a one day read over three. Will probably do the first batch of interludes for WOK before I leave for vacation next week along with reading the next book of the Disney Villain books called The Beast Within.

Was down in San Marcos for work and did a little Christmas shopping while down there. Got stuff for my sister and found a book for half off. Was hoping they had The Dark Talent but the only BS they had were Towers of Midnight and The Rithmatist.

Reached a stopping point in WOK so I'm reading a short read called Fairest of All until I leave for vacation.

I'm going to be going on Christmas vacation soon and I don't want to haul Way of Kings with me so I'm going to put it on hiatus after reading the first batch of Interludes. In the meantime I'll be doing a couple Star Wars reads, more specifically From a Certain Point of View and Leia Princess of Alderaan. So far I'm liking WOK and really like Kaladin, Shallan and Jasnah. I just find it so weird to have a guy like Kaladin being younger than me since from the bits I had read about him before reading the book I assumed he was well into his 20's or in his 30's. I pegged the woman near enough on age, if a couple years off from my estimation.

Here's the books I bought yesterday on Black Friday

My mom got some display cases for some of my Lego sets. She wanted me to put them somewhere and the only place I could was on my bookshelves. Putting these giant cases there messed up my system of sorting my books. I had gotten a few books because of Black Friday sales and I couldn't use my system at all because of those cases. The kicker was my mom saying my system is messy. Duh! You messed up my system mom! Thanks to her I have to figure out a new system now!

Finished Knights of Crystallia last night. Would've finished sooner but I went to the signing in Houston and I was driving most of the time. I love the silliness of the series and didn't see the twist villain at the end. It's hard for me to find a character in this series that I don't like since they are all so lovable! Now I'm onto the big guy, Way of Kings.

Birthday was yesterday and I spent it very quiet. Because I did the signing as an early birthday thing I just wanted to relax. All I did was finish reading Knights of Crystallia, play a little Overlord (a gift from my sister and the script was written by Terry Pratchett's daughter) and received the other package from my sister (a twin Pop featuring Rita Repulsa and Zordon in their ranger outfits from the Power Rangers movie). I did want to start reading WOK but I started getting a migraine and took a nap. Woke up around 10 to find a missed call from my sister but I still wasn't feeling well so I went straight to bed.

You trying to make a 17th Shard Frankenstein?

@Cadmium thanks for posting the video! It was great to see what I missed. I also saw myself, well my hat, in one of your pictures. It was the one of the storefront I'm in.

Wasn't able to get much. I enjoyed myself but the crowd was insane. Got stuck outside so I couldn't really hear Brandon during the Q&A and reading. I got the card as my freebie at the table and I got SOS and BOM the next day at the Woodlands Mall since I wasn't able to actually shop while there.

Leaving in a few minutes. Will post any pictures when I return.

Finished reading Warbreaker earlier today. I loved how much this story was a reversal story. I knew there was something up with the priests but I didn't guess the actual reason for it. I loved seeing all the characters changing by the end of the story (Siri, Vivenna, Susebron, Vasher, Lightsong) and even loved the various Returned. The ending so screams a sequel and with the annotations I hope the sequel comes sooner than later. Now onto The Knights of Crystallia

@Iridium Savant just a few spots behind you. Can't wait for Saturday to arrive! This is going to be so exciting, been to a couple different signings before (Lemony Snicket was one but that was because he happened to choose my town for the book tour for The End and was just 5 minutes away) but never to one where I actually wanted to meet an author I liked.

What is up with this release??? Are they even done with it? How is this so hard to release? Well that'll be one less thing I'll buy. Anyway got my book ordered and it's currently on hold to be picked up Saturday. I'm #157 in line. Already know what three older titles to bring. Still figuring out what questions/customizations to ask.

I didn't know about ES being a different publisher since I have the AU edition. I wasn't counting Dynamite in the Cosmere publishing since Tor, as far as I know, doesn't have a graphic novel division.

@Toaster Retribution I'm wondering the same thing since I assumed all of the Cosmere would be done through Tor.

I used to have one of the Jedi Quest books when I was little, this was around the time Episode 1 came out, but I never really got into the EU since the movies were all that interested me for years. Now with them using the books and comics to explain stuff happening in the movies (the Aftermath trilogy explaining what happened right after 6 and the Before the Awakening showing what Rey and Finn were doing before 7) I'm getting interested now. Even the Legends line is interesting to me now with it not continuing now. I do hope that every single pre-Disney story gets the Legends banner on it since some, like The Last Jedi (ain't that confusing?), aren't yet folded in yet. At least Marvel's getting the comics taken care of with the Epic Collections.

Got myself a room in the Woodlands since it'll be too late to drive home after the signing, depending on how late it all goes but I'm assuming at least 3-4 hours. Almost to where I want to be in my reading when I go down (want to be on TWOK so I just need to finish Warbreaker and read Alcatraz 3 this week. Should be easy since I'm on vacation so I can get that done easily!) Just need to figure out how much money to bring to splurge at Murder since my mom says she'll get the book ordered over the phone so that it's on hold at the store to pickup. I know I'm going to pick up the last Sanderson books I don't yet own (Dark Talent, SOS, BOM and White Sand 2) and I'm thinking to pick up Jane Yolen's new book while I'm at it.