Total Jealousy

Holy shite! Check out the library in Jay Walker's house.

Happy Banned Books Week!

Happy Banned Books Week! Check out some of these links for more information:

ALA Banned Books Week
ALA Challenged and Banned Books
100 Most Frequently Challenged Books from 1990-2000
Most Challenged Books of 2006
Librarians Against Palin
Office for Intellectual Freedom
Amnesty International Banned Books Week

And, just to show how unbiased I am, you can read this tripe by some homophobic right-wing nutcase: Banned Books Week: Smokescreen of Hypocrisy

Dealbreaker

Here's an article from the New York Times about "dealbreaker" lit. I'm not too much of a book snob because I read some pretty low-brow stuff, but for me, the dealbreaker would be someone who thinks The DaVinci Code is well-written. Or someone who read and followed The Secret. Although that would be more of a life-outlook problem than a literary problem. I'd just be happy to find a man who reads regularly...I don't know any. Do any of you have dealbreakers?

LibraryThing

I know I've raved about LibraryThing before, but I had to bring it up for 25 DoN because it rocks and because I just got my 3rd Early Reviewers book from them today! That's about $75 worth of books I've received and I paid a nominal fee to become a member for life. If you're a reader and you haven't already, I highly recommend checking it out. It's an excellent way to keep track of your library or books you have read. It also has message boards with (mostly) friendly posters (be careful in the "Worst Book You Ever Read" threads!), reviews, rankings, and all kind of information about a book that only a true book geek would care about.

Liberry Stuf

The nice thing about taking an online class is that I can sit here and blog while I'm in class. Multi-tasking, baby. The on-site class, on the other hand, blows massive donkey balls. 6-9:45 on Friday night and 8-6 on Saturday. Thank Jebus it's only 3 weekends and 2 of them are finished. Grad school isn't hard, but it's an assload of work. My web class is a 3-page paper every week and then a paper of at least 30 pages by the end of the semester. I have about 13 pages of the big paper finished, but every time I sit down to work on it, I write a paragraph and then think, "I can't take this anymore!" I suppose if I write one paragraph per day I'll have it done by the end of the semester though. Next semester I have to take Cataloging and Classification, and it's on-site, so it'll be another 3 weekend dealie. 14 hours in a 24-hour span on learning to catalog? Kill me now. I'm only taking one class at a time from now on though.

One of my professors makes fun of undergrads a lot. I know I was an idiot when I was an undergrad (I still am), but I don't think I was that immature.

Happy banned book week! Read a banned book this week: Animal Farm, the Bible, Call of the Wild, Lolita, The Lorax, Mein Kampf, Nineteen eighty-four, Tom Sawyer, Uncle Tom's Cabin...just to name a few. I'm reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Here is a list of the 100 most frequently challenged books from 1990-2000. I've only read about 13 of them, so I better get reading. Not that I feel the need to read The New Joy of Gay Sex (not that there's anything wrong with that) or What's Happening to My Body?

Book Geek and Other Things

Yay for free and/or cheap books! I just got the Chronicles of Narnia box set ($27.65 retail price) from Ebay for about $13 and I got another free book ($24.95) from the LibraryThing early reviewers program. It's The Guardians by Ana Castillo. LibraryThing kicks ass! I paid about $25 for a lifetime membership and have received $50 worth of books so far! And the greatest part is that the membership fee would be worth it even without the free books.

I have been sick for a little over a week. I woke up with a cold last Sunday and I felt pretty decent by Tuesday, but I can't shake this hacky, phlegmy cough. I suppose it would go away faster if I didn't smoke so much. Monday was the worst day, but luckily I had taken the day off because I was having some maintenance done on my car, so all I had planned to do was sit on my ass and watch bad daytime TV. I used Zicam swabs on Sunday and Monday morning. I don't know if it helped or not, but it was a pretty short cold.

My online grad school starts two weeks from today and the in-person one starts in about a month. I'm a little nervous, mostly because I prefer not doing stuff over doing stuff. Everyone is telling me to kiss my free time good-bye, but I can't imagine it will be that time-consuming. I've never really had a hard time in school. I hardly did any work in high school. In college I did more, but I was rarely stressed about the amount I had to do. I think sometimes people like to exaggerate their war stories, but my parents are the only people I've talked to who didn't give me horror stories. They like to nag and criticize though, so I know they would constantly be telling me how difficult it was going to be if that were the case. I guess I'll find out for myself.

Chris downloaded Counter-Strike: Condition Zero for me. First-person shooters are a great way to get your aggression out. Unfortunately I get a little addicted.

I repayed Chris's kindness for doing that by running his cell phone through the washer. It's so strange because I never check his pockets, but this time I actually did and apparently I missed his phone. We have equipment insurance, but it's a $50 deductible. I'm trying not to think of all the other things I could spend $50 on instead.

The other day on the way to work I saw a guy with a bumper sticker that said, "My other toy has tits." Eww. That bothered me and I'm most definitely not a feminist. Of course this guy was driving a massive SUV that barely fit in one lane of the highway. I wanted to walk up to him, knock on his window and say, "I'm sorry you have a small penis, sir."

Stuff

I can't wait for The Simpsons movie!! I don't know if I'll get to see it this weekend or not, but hopefully it'll be soon. I even put a Simpsons band-aid on the blister I got on my ankle when I went hiking wearing my shoes that are too small. It was about 15 years old and probably coated in bacteria which is probably the reason why I'm in excruciating pain every time I bend my ankle, but I had to keep with the theme.

Check out how much the Kwik-E-Mart 7-11s sold:

960,000 cans of Buzz Cola
1.1 million Squishees
880,400 Sprinklicious doughnuts
More than 3.4 million units of Simpsons swag

It's not surprising though. How can you resist a 3 for the price of 3 deal?

Speaking of my hiking, I think I might start running again. I ran a little bit on Sunday when I was out and it was fun. I couldn't run too far though, because I wasn't wearing a sports bra and I'm a little busty. It was like a scary, unsexy episode of Baywatch. I'll need to buy an MP3 player though; I can't run without music and I don't think bringing my Walkman along will do anything to increase my already hopelessly low coolness factor.

Check out this video of an entertainment reporter interviewing Holly Hunter. Awkward! Rusty, you probably shouldn't watch.

Shit! Why does YouTube randomly not let me embed videos sometimes?! Here's the link.

I started reading the first Harry Potter book. I'll let you know if it lives up to the hype.

This and That

I'm getting increasingly excited for The Simpsons movie to come out on July 27. Their website has launched. Here's the trailer:

The Simpsons Movie - final trailer (fdb.blox.pl)
Uploaded by pietruch

As if I didn't want to go to London badly enough, Ricky Gervais and Mackenzie Crook are going to be preforming Free Love Freeway at a concert for Princess Diana on July 1. Here's the clip from the show:



I had a pretty good weekend. I took Friday off and Rusty and I were supposed to go hiking, but I got hives from my meds again (including on the bottom of my feet), so that pretty much ruled out hiking and I had to make a doctor's appointment at 8 AM anyway. I'm all roided up and doing well; this round of hives wasn't one millionth as bad as the last time. I went to the Amish farmer's market with Rusty and her parents in the afternoon and then L., Rusty, and I saw Knocked Up and went out to dinner.

On Saturday we went to a baseball game. York decided it was a good idea to kick people out of their homes and waste taxpayer money to build a stadium; thus the York Revolution was born. We left around 11 PM at the end of the 10th inning and my dad turned on the radio in the car while they were in the bottom of the 12th. Apparently we scored one run to win it at the bottom of the 13th inning. It was a long game.

Sunday was a leisurely day spent reading and relaxing. I finished Keeping the House, the book I was sent for the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. It comes out July 10, and while I wouldn't necessarily pay the $25 list price for it, I would check it out at the library or a used book store. Here's my review:

Keeping the House, Ellen Baker's first novel, intricately weaves the stories of two families, the Mickelsons and the Magnusons, before allowing them to collide. The story takes place over a period of time from the late 19th century until 1950, spanning several generations. Baker has a knack for story-telling and her background in American Studies and as the curator of a World War II museum helps to add authenticity to the story.

When Byron and Dolly Magnuson move to a small town in the mid-west, Dolly has trouble adapting. She admires a grand but dilapidated house on a hill and hears stories from the town gossips about the Michelson family who once inhabited it. She secretly enters the house to fix it up, hoping that her husband will buy it for her, thus solving all of their problems, only to be discovered by one of the family members who gives her a more accurate, if not entirely truthful version of his family's story. It is said that the house puts a curse on one's love life, and Dolly finds her marriage unraveling in a self-fulfilling prophecy as other relationships did before hers.

Some of the characters in this novel are a little wooden, but this could be due in part to the expected submission of women of the time. The story becomes a little soap opera-esque at the end with everything wrapping up in a somewhat unrealistic manner; that said, this novel is a solid first effort by Ms. Baker.

That's pretty much it. I hope everyone had a good weekend. A photo journal of Rusty's and my trip to Centralia will hopefully be up soon!

Stuff

I'm back on Wellbutrin. The meds that gave me hives were samples, so they were brand name and this is generic, so maybe that will keep me from having a reaction. I'm a little nervous though, because generally if you have an allergic reaction to something and you come in contact with it again, it's worse the second time around, and I really don't feel like going into anaphylactic shock. When I went to pick up my pills the pharmacy person told me there were two scripts for me. I said, "Ummm...nooo..." She said, "Lexapro and Wellbutrin are both here." WTF?! Apparently my insurance does cover Lexapro and when I talked to my doctor last Thursday he said he never head from the pharmacy about it not being covered when the woman specifically told me they called. Another thing that bothers me about this pharmacy is that they blatantly ignore you when you go up to the counter. I don't expect them to stop what they're doing, but they could at least say, "I'll be right with you." Ce-rist! I still have 6 refills left on my birth control, but after that I'm switching to Walgreen's. Grocery stores are local, so I won't be making them lose much business by posting this, but it's Weis Markets. They're affiliated with King's and Mr. Z's if any of those are in your area.

I got my LibraryThing book in the mail today and it's actually Keeping the House by Ellen Baker, not the book they said it was going to be. That's ok with me though, because this book sounds more interesting to me than the one I was supposed to get. The review for this one calls it long and uneven, but then it calls the characters engaging. The awesome thing about this is that I just got a $25 book for free, and that's more than I paid for my LT lifetime membership. My only worry is that the book is around 500 pages, and I'm a pretty slow reader since I generally only read before bed and at work.

I downloaded the new version of Firefox and it randomly closes all of my windows. Not liking this, Mozilla!

Update 8:08 P.M. I'm watching Hell's Kitchen. Gordon Ramsay is so hot!

I Feel Special

Thanks for the well wishes on the last post, everyone.

I was selected by LibraryThing to be an early reviewer for Forgive Me by Amanda Eyre Ward. One of the reviews on Amazon called it contrived, so I'm not expecting a lot, but we'll see. After I read it I'm supposed to review it on LibraryThing. I'm not that good at reviews unless I really don't like something, but your chances of being selected as an early reviewer for additional books increases if you review the books you've received. Have any of you who use LibraryThing signed up to be early reviewers? If so, were you accepted?

One Year Closer to Death

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way"

Well, today is the big 2-6. I'm officially in my late 20s. How depressing is that?! I'm going over to my parents' house for dinner and an Oreo cake from Maggie Moo's tonight. I took Monday off to go to IKEA. Birthdays just aren't the same once you're over 21. Remember that, kiddos.

"Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun"

*Office spoiler* The Office season finale was pretty good Thursday night. I loved the ending. It would have been cheesy if they had done another kiss, but Jim's silent realization and drive home to ask Pam out were nice. I wonder what Karen is going to think when she realizes Jim left her in New York? I thought she'd get the job since Rashida Jones is going to be in a sitcom next season. I guess we'll find out in four months. In other Office news, Jenna Fischer broke her back while she was walking down a marble staircase in high heels. The article I read said she's expected to make a full recovery and it won't affect next season's Office. Here's hoping that she has a speedy recovery!

"And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death"

Congratulations to my Bears for winning the East Division Final. Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final against the Manchester Monarchs is tonight. Good luck, guys!

"Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say"

I heard on the radio station that the receptionist at work listens to that R. Kelly compared himself to Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that MLKJ never pissed on a 14-year-old. What a tool.

I just finished reading Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres. It was an amazing book! Actually, and I probably shouldn't be saying this, I read about 200+ pages at work on Wednesday because it was an extremely slow day. It's a memoir about Julia's life growing in a white family living in the Midwest with two adopted black children and her close friendship with one of her adopted brothers. Her parents, devout Christians, send them to a reform school in the Dominican Republic, which isn't any better than their life of emotional and verbal abuse at home. I highly recommend the book.