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Too many boxes to unpack, too few shelves...
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Activity Summary
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Reviews Written: 687
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Member Visits: 34,578
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Total Visits: 720,172
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About owling
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I often receive review items from companies. I receive no other compensation from these companies, and I always put these items through real use and give them an impartial review based on my own experiences. However, this is why I haven't posted many reviews lately. Unfortunately books and such often do not appear in the Epinions database until months after they're released, and I usually obtain review copies closer to publication--so when I write my review, the item often isn't available for review yet here. I do try to come back now and then and check for updates. If you're looking for items I might have reviewed that aren't yet in the database, I am currently putting together a full collection of my reviews.
Cookbooks: If you're reviewing a cookbook, please say whether you made any of the recipes and, if so, how they came out! If it's a book of techniques, then did they work? (And if you didn't make any of the recipes, why are you reviewing the cookbook? Just because recipes look good doesn't mean they actually come out well.)
Roleplaying games: If you have an interest in reading, reviewing, or rating reviews of roleplaying books, you might consider reading my article on reviewing RPGs at Epinions. Note that this is about tabletop pen-and-paper RPGs, not computer games.
My Reviews: I review a little bit of everything, but I love to review books - fiction (SF/F/H primarily), cookbooks, writing books, roleplaying games, or books on whatever subject I'm currently interested in. And kitchen stuff--did I mention I love to cook? I try not to review movies and music because I generally suck at it.
My Life: My wonderful husband and I have two gorgeous cats, both Cornish Rexes. A male seal-point (Cahlash), and his sister, a black-and-cream tortoiseshell (Selene--that's her picture up above). We just moved from New Hampshire to Maryland. That still seems so weird! But at least we're in a better growing zone...
My major interests are roleplaying, writing, biopsychology, gardening and cooking. The roleplaying and writing can be found reflected in Errant Dreams, which is filled with a few years' worth of articles.
For a number of years I co-authored RPG material for the Babylon Project, Mage, Wraith, Vampire, Dark Ages, Minds Eye Theatre, and Exalted. After dealing with a patch of freelancer burnout (and a resurgence of tendonitis problems) I'm no longer freelancing.
A note on mental illness: As someone who has bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit disorder, I have a very strong interest in mental health--enough so that I was well on my way toward a bachelor's in the subject when I moved out of Massachusetts and stopped attending college classes. As a writer and reader with these disorders, I have an interest in the ways in which the mentally ill are depicted in literature and entertainment forms of all kinds. I wrote a series of articles on the depiction of mental illness in roleplaying games for my own website that has been well-received, and I've gotten numerous emails thanking me for being willing to stand up and admit to actually having these problems--which just underscores how rare it is for someone to be in a position where they feel comfortable doing so.
Sadly there is a great deal of misinformation out there regarding mental illness, and the mentally ill face a lot of problems because of it. My favorite bit of advice regarding mental illness has been repeated in various forms and various places but can be phrased thusly: mental illness is not your fault. Once you know you have it, however, it's your responsibility to seek proper treatment and deal with your problems (assuming you're in the condition to make those decisions). Treatment for mental illness is an inexact science at best, and both the mentally ill and the people around them have to realize that treatment is a necessary, ongoing process that can't erase problems--only hopefully make things easier. If people on both sides of the issue could understand these delineations better, I think a small part of the world would be a better place.
Web of Trust: I do not play trust games. None of this "you trust me I'll trust you" cr@p, or this "you trust me, I'll read your reviews" nonsense. If I put you on my WoT it's because I want to, not because I think I'll get something out of it. I don't use the WoT as a club to get people to pay attention to me. I'm not going to try to push others into trusting as I think they should and I expect them to give me the same courtesy.
This is why I recently chose to "hide" my WoT. It seems like more and more people watch their webs like hawks, going after people who drop them as though a crime has been committed. I want the freedom to do as I please with my WoT (without having to get obnoxious emails). I'm also sick of the people who add you, wait a few days to see if you'll reciprocate, then drop you if you don't. If you do this I can save you the trouble right now--don't even bother. I don't play that game. (Which is why it really doesn't matter to me if people know whether or not they're on my list.)
I think someone's WoT contents do say something about the kind of person they are, but on the other hand it's hard to always know what other people are doing on the site. Someone may be doing really obnoxious things out of your sight and you'd never know it. This is why I try not to trust too many people, and take the contents of someone's WoT with a grain of salt unless there's a really obvious pattern. I've had too many instances of putting someone on my WoT only to find out they were a plagiarist, or they harrass people who don't give them VH ratings, or something similar. This is particularly the case since I'm not on the site nearly as much lately, so there are a lot of comments and reviews I miss.
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