sleepyland

Pumpkin Farms and B-Meals

2011-10-18T15:41:00.000-04:00

So I was trying to do a post maybe once a week and have it be like a recap thing, but I've already failed at that. But at least I have a new post relatively soon after my last one. Shock and awe, I know.

So what all have I been up to?

I went to the pumpkin farm place two Saturdays ago. Berry Patch something something. Lauren had this conversation in her head where I agreed to go with her. I was informed of this the Friday before. When I told Mom, she said she wanted to go. So Mom and I had lunch at Olive Garden (Holy hell the Chicken Marsala was awesome! I want it again. Maybe for dinner.) then went to Lowes to look at doors and locks. Finally finally it was time for pumpkin farm adventure. Sadly, Mom was not feeling well by this point, so she went home and I was left going to the pumpkin farm with Lauren, Jake, and Kid. Ally was supposed to come, but yard sales and naps were preventing her from leaving when Lauren wanted to leave. Anyway, we all piled into the Kid Mobile and adventured to the pumpkin farm. Food and cider were consumed, hayrides ridden, pumpkins drummed (Kid was having much fun with the drumming of the pumpkins), and pictures taken. Ally, Paul, and Lucas showed up and we chatted. Then finally finally we left and I went home and took a nap.

Sunday after that, Ally and I had chinese at Mizu. Lucas knows who I am! This makes me happy.

Week was all work all the time. And I played Uncharted Waters. That game is kinda fun. Now that Jake made me buy a battle boat and some better guns and told me about candles and cones and such, Battle is a lot more fun. I still think Trader is my favorite. It makes me monies to buy stuffs for Battle and Adventurer. I just wish I had more stupid Guild Cards so I could switch jobs more often.

Saturday was lunch with Mom and Jimmy. We went to Red Lobster where it looked all closed down and stuff cause they were doing renovations. They were still open, so we ate. And I got made fun of again cause of how I eat. But it's okay cause we made fun of Jimmy lots, which is always a bonus.

Sunday was Amy's Birthday/Housewarming party. We had a B-Meal (unintentionally). Brunswick stew, baked beans, brisket, bbq sauce, (green)bean casserole, bread, and banana pudding. Everything that I ate was awesome. I'm not a fan of banana pudding, but those who consumed it made all kinds of happy, yummy noises. The Brunswick stew was awesome and a number of people have demanded the recipe, so once Uncle Scott sends it, I will make sure to pass it along to those who requested.

Monday was a (unknown to the IT crew) demo day (on production server with sort of real data) at a dealership, so of course everything that could go wrong did. It was awesome.

Tuesday was more drama, but luckily the majority of it took place before I was even awake this morning, so I didn't have to deal with much of it.

And there is your recap. Yay fun stuff huh?

Now to wait impatiently for my new doors and locks.

What is this? An update? No way!

2011-09-29T13:39:00.000-04:00

Shock and surprise! I'm updating the blog. I blame Ally.

Anyway, so I decided to update the blog thing. It has new colors. I'm liking the pretty leaves, so they are staying, just in a different color. I updated the Author Blogs a wee bit, nothing major. Except you should go read them if you are bored or something. Especially Ilona Andrews blog. They are amusing and have snippets of awesome books. And because I got tired of keeping it updated in like 4 places, I added the spiffy Google Calendar widget thingy to the New Releases tab so you people can see the upcoming book releases that I keep track of. There's a few. I like that google calendar dealy so I can keep track of the releases. It's the easiest I've found so far. So yay. What else have I done? Oh, Lending Library. If you've borrowed books from me, you should be on that list with what you have swiped from me currently and what you have swiped in the past. This way, hopefully, I can keep track of who I've made read what and whether it was a yay or nay. I'm kinda starting to run out of things for you people to read. You lot are just too picky! "Yay for romance!" "Boo! Romance bad!" "Some romance okay, but not a lot. Just a little. Not too much. You know, that much and no more." "Action good!" (..well, you all seem to agree on that, so that's good at least.) "Vamps and weres and mages, oh my! Don't like that nonsense. Gimme normal people please!" "Normal crap is crappy and boring. I want Vampires! And Were-whatevers! And Mages! Oh my!" But yeah, if I missed something you borrowed (or failed to note that you were "enh' or "omg keep that horrid thing away from me!" about a book), please let me know.

Anyway. How about some real stuff now. What has I been doing lately? Excellent question. Here is an answer.

Last weekend was Birthday Weekend. Friday night, I played designated driver for Randall and Jake for the celebration of Randall's birthday. I had headache, but I'm bad at saying no to people when they ask me to do stuff for them. So, we went to the place with the beer. Bedoe's. Food was enh. As I was DD (and don't drink anyway), I didn't have alcohol. The boys appeared to enjoy themselves, so we will call that a success.

Saturday was supposed to be Mom's day with lunch and whatnot for the slightly early celebration of her birthday. But she felt bad and Amy wanted to do gathering Sunday, so that was postponed.

Saturday night was dinner and book exchange with Ahmed. Seriously running out of books for him. Except for the In Death series. There's like 33 of those things and he's only on like 10 or whatever.

Sunday was Mom's Gathering and Ryan's Party. Sadly, they were at pretty much the same time. So I helped Lauren a bit with Publix going for the cake and such. Then I ran away to Mom's for Gathering of Family and Awesome Low Country Boil Food. I had fun. I brought Amy books too. She was very "Yay!" She didn't bring me books. I was very "meh". Mom got food and gathering of family and much love on her birthday. Awww. Then I left and ran away to Lauren's for Ryan's Party. I missed the food (and Matt and Jenny and Kids), but was there in time for cake. I ate cake, laughed at Lucas and Kid, said hi to people I've never met and people I sorta knew and people I haven't seen in a while and people I saw like an hour ago, laughed at Lucas and Kid some more, then ran away home where the crazy people didn't follow me. I read my awesome new book of awesomeness. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So that was the weekend. Much more fun and exciting than my normal weekend.

And I've run out of things to talk about. So that's all you get.

Review: Grave Witch

2010-10-26T15:26:00.000-04:00

Grave Witch by Kalayna Price
Book 1 in Alex Craft series

Summary Deal :: Alex Craft is a completely broke (unexpected expenses involving her dog PC and his broken leg) grave witch who reluctantly accepts a job from her estranged sister (the family did not approve of Alex's grave witchery, so Alex got the boot) to help clear her father's name in the murder of the Governor. Coincidentally enough, her father was Lt. Governor and is now Governor since the old Governor was conveniently killed. Anyway, job gets taken and as a pseudo-bribe to a detective friend to get her in to see the Governor's body, she agrees to raise the shade of a victim of a serial killer to shed some light on the stalled case detective friend has. That's when everything goes wrong. Governor's body is all kinds of resistant to grave magic and doesn't even look dead to her grave sight like everything else does, not to mention all the crazy glyphs on the body nobody but Alex can see. Oh, and the serial killer victim's shade? Well, the soul had been practically shredded to nothing. When Alex finally gets the shade up, the shade is all kinds of not sane and ends up infecting Alex with a soul sucking spell of Not Goodness. And it goes downhill from there. Kidnappings (Falin to the rescue), assassination attempts (Death, instead of collecting her soul, pushes her out of the way to save her, which is totally Not Done), more kidnappings (again with Falin to the rescue, though she does do a good job of rescuing him back), messed up riddles, and, maybe the worst of them all, being followed by the press are seriously stressing poor Alex out. Not to mention preventing her from getting paid.

Major player break down :: Alex Craft, grave witch (think necromancer) and magic-eye (private investigator that generally "investigates" by raising a shade and asking it what her client wants to know). Death, a soul collector who pops in and out of Alex's life, much to her annoyance. Falin, cop in charge of investigation that Alex is reluctantly pulled into. Tamera (medical examiner), Holly (assistant DA), and Caleb (fae landlord) are Alex's best friends. PC, Alex's Chinese Crested dog who's responsible for Alex's sudden cash flow problem. And though he's not a major player, he is probably my favorite non-main character in the book: Fred, the stone gargoyle who claims Caleb, Alex, and Holly's front yard as his territory.

Classification :: Urban Fantasy. It sways from dark(ish) to medium, so we'll call it medium dark leaning towards the darker end.

Action/Romance :: Definitely an Action type of book. Lots of "let's try to kill/enslave/trick/kidnap people" moments. There is Romance as well. There's a whole triangle thing going on with Death, Alex, and Falin. It doesn't get resolved in this book, but I'm partial to Team Death. Falin is a pretty cool character and I could go either way on who Alex should end up with. But I've always been partial to Death/Reaper/Soul Collector type characters for some bizarre reason, so yeah. Team Death for me. (Which sounds so weird, but meh.)

Overall Opinions :: I really enjoyed this book. I wasn't sure what to expect going in. I saw the book in the store and the cover drew me. But I was already at my limit for books that trip, so I couldn't get it. I forgot about it until I saw it pop up in a passing mention on some blog I was reading (like "oh, new book for person, yay for release!" kinda thing) and it reminded me I wanted to look it up. Then I forgot about it again until I decided I needed something to read and I didn't want to read what I already had so I decided that I wanted this book and I wanted it asap. Which is not weird for me, sad to say. So yeah, I had no expectations going in, but I was very happy with the book.

Rereadability :: Definitely. I very much enjoyed the book and even though I know what happens, I already want to read it again. It was a very good book.

Getting Next Book :: Definitely will be getting the next book. Grave Dance is supposed to be released sometime in Summer 2011. No concrete date yet, but I'll definitely be watching for it.

I won!

2010-10-25T16:46:00.000-04:00

Holy crap! I won something! I never win anything! And I won!

So, Meljean Brook did a Steampunk Romance week thing on her blog where she posted reviews for different books in the genre. (Her book, The Iron Duke, came out recently, which is what prompted this whole deal.) And she did a giveaway on each of the posts for whatever book was being reviewed. And I totally won a book!!!

*dies*

I never win! Never ever! But I won!

*dies again*

Ahem, okay, I'm better now. Really.

I won Cold Magic by Kate Elliott. Aren't you excited? I'm excited. I can't wait to read it. It was my top 3 favorites of all the books she reviewed. And I won it!

*dies again*

Review: Manhunting

2010-10-25T10:48:00.001-04:00

Manhunting by Jennifer Crusie

Summary Deal :: Kate is lonely and not happy with her life and wants to get married since she's tired of being alone. Her best friend convinces her to come up with a plan and sends her off to The Cabins to find a husband that matches the qualifications of the plan. There, Kate has horrible luck on the dating front. Dates end up in the pool (she was sober when she pushed him), has a heart attack on the golf course (totally not her fault, she was only intending on catching him cheating at the game), stabbed with a fork (guy was coming between her and some excellent mashed potatoes and gravy), kicked by a horse (that was completely the horse's fault), and fell down a steep incline while hiking (guy was not paying attention). But she makes a number of new friends. Including Jake, who so does not fit in Kate's plan. But that's probably a good thing.

Major player break down :: Kate, who's looking for a husband that fits her plan. Jessie, Kate's best friend who helped her make the plan and sent her to the Cabins to implement it. Penny, the girl in the adjacent cabin, who's there for a last round of dating before getting married in a month. Jake, the resort handyman who enjoys his "fishing" time on the lake every morning. Will, the resort owner, brother to Jake. Nancy, owner of Nancy's Place, local bar in town. Ben, Nancy's husband and Jake's pool playing buddy.

Classification :: Humorous Romance. This is a romance type book, but it was hilarious. I spent the vast majority of this book laughing out loud.

Action/Romance :: It's a romance, so the whole point of the story is to get Kate together with Jake. There's no Action (of the car chase/explosion/fight scene variety) but there are a few love scenes (nothing too graphic though).

Overall Opinions :: This book was freaking hilarious. I love it. The phone conversations between Kate and Jessie are great. Kate's interactions with her dates, Penny, and especially Jake are hilarious.

Rereadability :: I reread this book all the time. I got the eBook and recommended it to Mom when she was looking for something and read. So she bought the dead tree version. Since she doesn't reread books, I now have the eBook and dead tree versions and both get reread all the time.

eBooks

2010-10-21T14:04:00.002-04:00

So since I get bored at work sometimes waiting on the boys to fix the stuff I broke for them, I started looking at eBooks to read since that is way less obvious that I'm not working than pulling out a dead tree book to read.

After looking around, I ended up getting the Kindle for PC app (since, at the time, B&N and Borders did not have PC apps for their eBook readers). Amazon has a number of free books (some rotate in and out, some stay free as far as I can tell) that you can download and read. Most of these books tend toward the Epic Fantasy (which I rarely read anymore), General Fiction (think the fiction you read in Lit class in high school and college), and Romance (everything from suspense to humor to omg, so NSFW*).

I am not a big fan of General Fiction and rarely read the Epic Fantasy, so I started downloading some of the Romance books just for (mostly) amusement purposes. And shockingly enough, I found some that I really enjoy.

I'm planning on doing review posts for many of these books, but here's a short(ish) list of my favorites.

Jennifer Cruise - Manhunting, Getting Rid of Bradley, Bet Me, Agnes and the Hitman. All Humorous Romance, all hilarious. Agnes has a lot of suspense/mystery as well.

Julie James - Something About You. Romantic Suspense. A Lot Like Love is out in March and looks good as well. The others by her didn't sound all that appealing to me.

Susan Mallery - Falling For Gracie, The Buchanans series (Delicious, Irresistible, Sizzling, Tempting), The Bakery Sisters series (Sweet Talk, Sweet Spot, Sweet Trouble). I enjoyed the Buchanans more than the Bakery Sisters, but both were good. Falling For Gracie was humorous and cute. Tried Under Her Skin of the Lone Star sisters series. Was okay, highly doubt I'll get the others in the series.

Kathy Love - The Stepp Sisters series: Getting What You Want, Wanting What You Get, Wanting Something More. They are humorous and cute.

Victoria Dahl - Talk Me Down, Start Me Up, and Lead Me On were good (all are a series but are mostly stand alone). Crazy For Love was okay. Her others didn't really look appealing to me.

Erin McCarthy - Mouth to Mouth. Haven't read any others by her, but this one was good.

Carly Phillips - Brazen, Simply series: Simply Sinful, Simply Scandalous, Simply Sensual, Body Heat, Simply Sexy. All were good.

N.J. Walters - Jamesville series: Discovering Dani, The Way Home, The Return of Patrick O'Rourke, The Seduction of Shamus O'Rourke, A Legal Affair, By the Book, Past Promises. All were good, most have suspense/mystery elements as well. I actually came into the series with By the Book. These are pretty standalone stories (I had no trouble starting at book 6) but you definitely get more out of them if you've read the previous ones. (Actually, if you read the first ones after reading the later ones, you can get even more just by recognizing people who come in the later books.)

* NSFW = Not Safe For Work

Changing Urban Fantasy Heroines

2010-08-18T11:22:00.002-04:00

So on one of the blogs I read, Chloe Neill, had an interesting post about the changing Urban Fantasy Heroines on book covers (see below image and link). I saw this and giggled. And it's really quite true. UF covers have gone from slinky impractical looking femme fatales to commando type kickass and enjoy it females. Personally, I like the newer ones. The slinky types always annoyed the crap outta me. I'm sorry, but fighting in a short tight dress with stiletto heals in all but a couple cases is damn near impossible and really throws my whole suspension of disbelief thing you have to have while reading UF and PNR*. Cat in Jeaniene Frost's books I can work with since she actually trains to be able to fight like that. It's part of the story. But the rest? Boohiss, I say. Not happening. (Yes, my suspension of disbelief gets caught on the strangest things, I know.)

(Full image here. Chloe got it from IO9. IO9 got it from Orbit books.)

So while researching that whole origin of the chart above thing, I came across the posts for the study that Orbit did. And they amused me, so I shall link for your amusement.

The Chart of Fantasy Art, Part One
The Chart of Fantasy Art, Part Two: Urban Fantasy
The Chart of Fantasy Art, Part Three: Dragons
The Chart of Fantasy Art, Part Four: Title Trends

~~There will be more, so I shall continue to update post with those links.~~ That's it for the study. Very interesting and amusing.

* For those not in the know, UF is Urban Fantasy and PNR is Paranormal Romance. Basically, if it's got weres, vamps, faes, or pretty much anything supernatural, more than likely it's going to fall into UF and/or PNR.

Pickles and Peanut Butter

2010-08-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

Okay, so pickles and peanut butter are not a good combination. And I arrived at this observation by eating chili.

How, you ask? Well, allow me to explain.

I, being stupidly late this morning, did not bring a lunch with me. Upon arriving at work, I discovered that my Cabinet O' Food is out of soup. So I had to get lunch from the cafe downstairs. The cafe had chili. It's not bad chili. It's not great chili. But it's pretty decent chili. So I got the chili. And some saltine crackers. Only, I did not get enough saltine crackers to last the entire bowl of chili. So I went back to my Cabinet O' Food and got the Ritz crackers I normally eat with my soups. Ritz crackers and chili is a very weird taste. Definitely different than saltines and chili. After a couple crackers and spoonfuls of chili, I decided it's not a bad weird taste. It's not a good weird taste. It's just...different. I stated this observation to my coworkers in general. One of them said to add a kosher dill pickle. Pickles and chili are not that odd of a combination. The sour bite of the pickle kinda offsets the spicy bite of the chili. Would I eat them in the same bite? No. But one bite after the other? Sure. Pickles are awesome with just about anything. Except ice cream. And peanut butter.

Therefore, pickles and peanut butter are never to go together.

Totally Forgot I Have A Blog Thing

2010-08-02T11:06:00.000-04:00

So I totally forgot (more or less) that I have this nifty blog thing that I'm supposed to be making blog posts to. Hrm. Let's fix this not posting thing with a post!

So what fun happy stuff have I done lately? Hmm, I don't remember. Oh wait! Google Calendar to the rescue!

First, benefits kicked in (this was like beginning of June)! Yay! Of course, HR lady totally forgot to send me the paperwork (well, tell me where to get the paperwork) so after I hunted her down and asked about it, I got all the stuff filled out and they backdated my benefits to June 1st so yay! Now I has retirements and company insurance. All kinds of insurance too like life and medical and dental and stuffs and it all costs me like $6 a pay period. Waaay amounts of better than the $150 something a month I was paying.

I'm sure something (maybe) interesting happened between that and the next entry in my little calendar thing, but I don't remember it. Father's Day was in there, but Jimmy was all sick on Father's Day, so we postponed it to the weekend after. All I remember about that was we had food, I gave him present, everyone made fun of everyone else (typical of our family gatherings), then I went home.

Anyway, next big thing (that I remember) was dinner at Great Wall with boys from IBM. Mack, Kevin, Kevin's wife Leandi (I think that's how she spells it), Ahmed, and me all met up at Wall for food and hanging out time. It was first time since IBM booted us that I had seen Mack and Kevin (and Leandi). It was so much fun catching up with them. I seriously think we need to schedule group outings like once a month or something. I miss them. The job sucked horribly, but the guys were awesome people. Oh, and I finally got Wall food. No one will go to Wall with me but them, which is fail since Wall has awesome food. Oh well.

Next was a crapton of books got released so I more or less disappeared from that silly thing called reality (though work intruded, sadly) and read all those new releases. I'm sad? annoyed? something that my reading speed has significantly increased. I can read a standard mass market paperback (350 page range) in a little over 4.5 hours. Provided people don't call and interrupt my reading time. I think I'll go with annoyed on that. Books are supposed to fill up my free time. If I read faster, fills less time, need more books, spend more monies. Not Good. Oh well.

Next was Lauren's baby shower. That was kinda fun. I was relegated (I think that's the word...dictionary.com to the rescue!) to taking pictures during the present opening portion of the event, but that's okay. It was kinda fun. Ally throws a good party/shower/event thing. And Lauren got a ton of clothes for the kid. And some nifty toys and books too. My little sleeping bear thing will hopefully be useful and stuff. Though I read somewhere (more or less recently, I think) where the hero(ine?) was all "What is wrong with people putting stuffed predatory animals in with their kids? Bears EAT PEOPLE. They are not cute and cuddly." I laughed. It amused me greatly. And now it's going to bother me until I remember where I read that. Hrm.

Moving on! Next we had yet more crapton of new releases in books. Last week was all kinds of nothing to do at work, so I mostly just read. I got most of the new books read last week. I have one left but since I didn't finish it Friday, I was purposefully saving it for today. In case the lack of work at work thing continued.

Speaking of work (and lack thereof), one of the boys here (Jason, to be specific) stated that my job was very much in the category of "Feast or Famine". And he's right. I either have "OMG Brain esplode and leak out ears too much to do" or "OMG so bored...must find something, anything to do...oh look, a book". Which isn't so bad. I still like this job WAAAAY much more than IBM.

So! This completes the new post thing to fix the lack of new posts thing on the blog. Hopefully I will return tomorrow with...something. Maybe a review? I have read a ton of books lately...

Work Broke Brain

2010-06-01T18:19:00.000-04:00

Holy crap at the amount of stuff I have to do today. I've gotten most of it done, but my brain needs to pause or it might start leaking out of my ears. So instead of doing the million and one things (okay, so really it's only 8 + 2 + 1 (that counts as at least 10) + 3 + 4 + 2 + 5 things...I think that's all) I have to do today, I'm going to take a break since I've done most of them as much as I could. (8 + 2 is done except for 3 I'm waiting on more info for; 1 (that's really 10) is Not Done; 3 is still waiting but I did my "is it done yet?" email, so we'll count it as half done; 4 is 1 done, 3 waiting; 2 is Not Done; and 5 is done whee!)

Haha, did I break your brain too? Awesome.

Anyway! I've decided that instead of doing more work, I'm going to take a break and make a blog post, and maybe fiddle with the blog a bit just to give brain a rest from all those scary numbered task things up there.

So anyway, I did more stuff! Let's see if I can remembers it.

Wednesday and Thursday, I worked and then went home and played more Tales of Symphonia for GameCube. Boring for you, fun for me.

Friday, I got tired of having no internets at home, so I broke down and called the stupid Tech Support people for Windstream to get it fixed. I tried to tell them modem was fried, but they didn't want to listen. Eventually, they said "we'll send a tech out." So I said okay and figured I'd get the tech to give me a new modem. The whole call thing took like an hour and half. So after that, I said "screw it" and went to bed.

Saturday, Tech Guy woke me up at an unholy hour of 8:30am to ask if internets was working. I said, "Nope, still doing the reset stuff" and he said "oh, your modem's fried, I give you new one." I said, "that's what I tried to tell tech support and they didn't listen." He came, gave modem, and now I have internets! Wonderful glorious internets....that I don't use so much anymore other than for like email and browsing and the occasional facebook game app thing. Anyway, China (yes, China, the "I'm scared of my own shadow and possibly my tail but totally love headbutting corners" China) was apparently in love with Tech Guy cause she was all "pet me pet me rub rub" to him. It was weird. Toka (Mr. "I demand attention, I don't care who you are, pet me dammit!") took one look at Tech Guy as he walked in the door and promptly vanished. Complete with second or three of in place running until he got traction on the hard wood floors to actually move forward amusement. He refused to be in the same room as Tech Guy. It was so strange. Anyway, Tech Guy came, gave mode, I had internets, I played on internets for a bit, then played more ToS on GameCube, then decided that since I got woken up stupid early, I deserved a nap. So me and kitties took a nap and when I woke, I made dinner and played more ToS.

Sunday was all ToS all day. Oh, and sleep. Sleep is awesome.

Monday was No Work woohoo! Lauren and Jake had grilling out of burgers and hot dogs. They were kind enough to inform me I was attending the (very) small gathering of people for the consumption of said burgers and hot dogs. So I read some, played ToS until time for food, then went and had food, chatted, then went home for more ToS until it was sleep time.

...So in summary, I play my console games a lot. Ah well.

And now for fiddling with blog.

Define Interesting, and Other Stuff

2010-05-25T13:15:00.004-04:00

So on one of the author blogs I read, Devon Monk was talking about main hero chick getting into a situation that was "interesting" and then linked this:

(clicky for shirt)

I love Wash. He's hilarious. And that is probably one of my all-time favorite Wash quotes. Had to share.

So anyway.

Friday, due to a conspiracy by Borders and on the advice of the Little Devil on My Shoulder (aka Ally), I found and bought Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews (and some other books) and proceeded to stay up way late reading it. It was awesome goodness. I might've been somewhat "hrmm, oh, dear" on a part at the end, but since I read Ilona's blog, I've read some Kate 5 snippets, so I know it will be okay. It's not a Major OMG thing, more of a Tiny Side I Would Be Sad thing.

Saturday I actually did stuff! While my car was getting Stuff Done (oil, tires, air filter, blah), Mom and I had a Girls' Day Out kind of thing. We went to Red Lobster (where she made fun of me and my...protectiveness of my cheddar biscuits. Don't take my cheddar biscuits. Bad Idea.) and had a fun lunch. We talked of Boston and the shock and awe we are in that it didn't get blown up, implode, or simply vanish off the face of the earth since Amy and Bonnie are there unchaperoned. Amy + Bonnie + Unchaperoned = Things Happen. But other than Amy and Bonnie realizing that Boston is a Place of Evil, they had fun. Which is good.

Anyway, after food, we went to Old Time Pottery to wander around. I found a present for William's birthday (Happy Birthday, William!). Mom and I found lots of things to giggle and make fun of. We had a blast.

Then car got finished, so she dropped me off and me and my car traveled to the place of home and promptly napped (well, I did, not sure about the car) til like 9pm. When I got up and played a bunch of Tales of Symphonia for GameCube. Then I stayed up ridiculously late reading Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep.

Sunday was more Tales of Symphonia. I can fly now, whee!

Monday was full of work type stuff and then I went home and read more. I was rereading stories from anthologies. Mostly due to the whole updating the spreadsheet thing.

Oh! I also finally got the spreadsheet file all filled out and stuff with the books I own. That I still read. More or less. Koontz and massive amounts of Lackey and Mary Higgins Clark are not on there, but I don't read them anymore, so I kinda left them off. Maybe I'll go back and add them just so I can say "Lookie! I added them!" and move on to something else.

So yeah, that's about it. Off to do more work type stuffs now.

Review: Don't Kill the Messenger

2010-05-19T16:24:00.005-04:00

Don't Kill the Messenger by Eileen Rendahl
Book 1 in Messenger series

Summary Deal :: Melina is a Messenger, a (supposedly) neutral delivery girl for the supernatural races to use to deliver various things from divine objects to love letters to cursed talismans to divorce papers. If it can be delivered, she does. She tried the whole "I don't want to be a Messenger, so I just won't deliver this", but Karma, Fates, the Gods, what-have-you get pissy and she gets a case of the world's Worst Luck Ever until it gets delivered. Melina has no choice in being a Messenger and she doesn't like it one bit. She has two mundane jobs she works to try to make ends meet since Messenger'ing comes with no pay, no benefits, and no choice in the jobs she has to do. (She's learned a few tricks to avoid jobs, but mostly, she has no choice.)
So Melina is going about her business when a seemingly innocuous delivery request has her getting her ass handed to her by a bunch of ninjas using Tai-Chi and making off with the package she was to deliver. After recovering from the shock of Ninjas Dropping From Trees and then the shock of getting stomped by Tai-Chi Using Ninjas Dropping From Trees (there's a whole todo about Tai-Chi being old people yoga and is not used for attacking, blah, blah, but those conversations are amusing in the phrases Melina used to describe it), she has to track down the stolen package or suffer the consequences of a failed delivery (which ranges from getting zits to being dead).
While Melina is playing detective, she uncovers a big plot thing involving drugs, gang territory take overs, and hopping zombie human-eaters. Um...stuff happens, people die, a baby lives, Melina gets a boyfriend, and 2 'Canes (short for Arcanes, the supernaturals) and a 'Dane (short for Mundanes, the normal types) who really have no business working together due to prejudices, Melina-covetting, and such end up actually working together (amid some amusing name-calling and joking) and it's more or less a Happyish Ending.

Major player break down :: Melina, the Messenger. She whines about being stuck in the middle of 'Danes and 'Canes and not quite one or the other so she's all alone. Then there's Alex, an ER doctor, who is also a Vampire, and the one who gave her the delivery that got the whole mess started. Who also happens to care for Melina, who isn't having it (mostly) cause Vamps are kinda creepy with the pheromones and the mind manipulation stuffs. Oh, and there's Paul, the werewolf bartender who is mostly there to piss off Alex and be drool-worthy, far as I can tell. Though he, Alex, and Ted are quite funny when they get together. Oh, Ted is Ted Goodnight, the Officer guy who starts bugging Melina when she calls the cops on one of the zombie attacks on gang members (it was an effort to get the carnage to stop cause zombies eating humans like humans eat fried chicken just Is Not Good). Ted's the love interest and fun happy stuff happens there.

Classification :: Urban Fantasy. It's got it's dark(ish) moments, but mostly it's a medium to medium-light type reading. Some of Melina's quotes are hilarious and when Ted, Alex, and Paul get together, something amusing is bound to happen.

Action/Romance :: Yes to action. Lots of fighting. Melina is a martial arts instructor, and I did mention the Ninjas, right? And vampires and werewolves aren't shabby at the whole "hunting" thing, you know. Poor 'Dane Ted. Out of all of them, the big strapping Police Officer got to do very little.
Yes to romance. Ted and Melina do the whole romance thing. It's there, side plot like. Ted amuses me.

Overall Opinions :: I enjoyed the book. It made me giggle, mostly. There was some annoying stuff (Melina tended to act kinda childish sometimes and, of course, there were Massive Stupid Things she did that annoyed the crap outta me) but mostly, it was an amusing, decently good read.

Rereadability :: As a whole, maybe. I do have a couple favorite parts that I definitely reread. The whole "I was stomped by Tai-Chi using ninjas" complaint/explanation scene was hilarious.

Getting Next Book :: Not sure if there is one as this one was just released, but more than likely, yeah. I wanna see if the 'Danes (Ted, the love interest; Girl Whose Name I Forgot, the yoga-loving Hippie-type roommate; and Boy Whose Name I Forgot, the teen-aged neighbor of Melina and love interest for the teen-aged newly made Messenger, Sophie) actually survive the weirdness of the 'Cane world. Oh, and I'm curious about Sophie and why she showed up suddenly.

Edit: Wow, so I fail at spelling. And forgot some stuff. It's better(ish) now.

Bleh, Ignore the Whining, and Food!

2010-05-17T11:15:00.000-04:00

Freaking allergies or sinuses or whatever the hell it is that I am suffering from freaking sucks and should die a horrible death. I can barely hear out of my right ear cause it's all kinds of stopped up with random pressure and I can't pop it. I keep coughing, but at least it's not the "super omg hacking up a lung pain pain" cough that usually accompanies this, so that's at least a plus. And since I broke down and took a Claritin (or however it's spelled), I can actually breathe, my throat is no longer on fire (hurts, sorta, but no fire anymore) and I even got sleep last night, whoo! So yeah, Death to Allergies/Sinuses/Whatever!

Anyway, as for previous post, as I stated, antipathy + self-esteem issues = Jenn posts whiney things that should not be taken all that seriously. It was more a vent release type thing that I really needed at that point so I could, among other things, go back and look and say, "See? Nutso. Now quit being crazy." And I have. Mostly. Until the next time, anyway.

Food! So I finally broke down and did all my finances stuffs again and realized I was bad about the take-out stuff again. So I'm trying to go back to the cook more, eat out less thing. And I've been good so far! Helps that I found some packet cooking recipes that are minimal fuss, prep, and cleanup and take like 15 + oven preheat minutes to make. Lauren might like these. And since it does involve mostly the oven which is kinda like baking, Ally should be able to do these as well! I shall now present you with recipes! Well, a recipe. Haven't tried the others yet. I'll post them once I've tried them. (I'm totally doing the salmon and asparagus and mushroom one tonight since I has to go to grocery store anyway.)

FYI, these measurements are in no way exact. I rarely measure stuff unless it comes pre-measured (like butter in stick form with the little measurement things on the wrapper). Also, I adapted this from a salmon packet recipe, so you could do that instead of chicken, just drop it to 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

Chicken w/ Mushrooms and Onions Packet
- Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
- Get one piece of foil per chicken, shiny side up, big enough to completely wrap up a chicken breast with some veggies, then a bit extra just in case. Too much foil is better than not enough.
- Butter the foil. The Pam butter spray works, too. (Again, shiny side up, dull side down. This makes a difference.)
- Place one chicken breast per piece of foil. Try to get it more or less in the middle of the foil.
- Roughly chop mushrooms and onions. I typically do 3 whole mushrooms and a single slice of a medium red onion per chicken breast.
- In a pan, melt some butter and sauté the mushrooms and onions until the mushrooms are golden brownish. This will take about 4-5 minutes, possibly more if you have a lot of stuff.
- Add about 1/2 tbsp of minced garlic per chicken breast.
- Add about 1 tbsp of dry white wine per chicken breast. I use cooking wine cause I have some left over from other recipes, but once I'm done with it, I'm going to get real white wine. It'll probably make it even better.
- Add about 1 tbsp of lemon juice per chicken breast.
- Let this reduce down for 2-3 minutes (possibly more if you have a lot of liquid).
- Once most of the liquid is gone, distribute the mushroom, etc mix among the chickens. Just mound the mix on top of the chicken.
- Now wrap each chicken breast. Make triple sure the shiny side is up and the dull side is down. Bring the two long sides together, then fold them over and over until you reach the chicken/veggie mound. Now take the other two sides and fold them under. The chicken should be encased in the foil very securely and moisture/steam should have major difficulty getting out. Once more, dull side should be facing you. If the shiny side is facing you, unwrap the chickens and rewrap them, dull side out. Trust me, this will make a difference.
- By now, your oven should be ready to go. Place the chickens in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. You could probably squeak by with less, but it's chicken, so I like to make sure it's done. If you want to really make sure, you could do up to 18 or so, but after that, it tends to get overdone and tough. I like 15 minutes. Gets the chicken cooked through, but still tender and juicy from the veggies.
- Unwrap the chickens, put on a plate, and eat!

Don't Mind Me, I'm Crazy

2010-05-11T12:29:00.000-04:00

So I read a book, Don't Kill the Messenger by Eileen Rendahl, but I don't feel like doing a book review on it. I'll do one for it soon.

I'm annoyed. I want to have a blog post thing, but I do nothing interesting. I am an uninteresting, antisocial, strange person. All I do is read or play video games. I rarely talk to people other than at work for work related things cause I'm shy and think "I'm an uninteresting person, why would someone want to talk to me?" so I don't talk to people. Which is annoying. And if I get annoyed enough, I try to talk to people, then later I'm all "well, you are a stupid idiot and person is going to think you are a stupid idiot so you should just not talk to people and do your work and leave the other people alone." Then I try to use logic to tell myself that I have self-esteem issues and I know I have self-esteem issues and that whole bit is all coming from said self-esteem issues and I'm not really that horrible of a person. And then there's a whole argument with myself and I get so fed up with it, I do the usual of I ignore it and go back to just not talking to anyone so I don't have to deal with that whole business. Gah!

On top of all that nonsense, I have super antipathy toward pretty much everything which isn't the greatest combination when I get hit with super self-esteem issues. Bleh.

I wish I wasn't crazy. *sigh*

Library Relocation

2010-04-26T12:35:00.000-04:00

So, thanks to Jake and William, I have relocated my library from downstairs (where I rarely used it) to upstairs. The shelves are spread across the computer room and my bedroom, with one shelf of my children's books (Nancy Drew, Baby Sitters' Club, and Trixie Belden to name a few) taking up space in the guest bedroom.

All the books I currently read went on the two shelves in my bedroom. Maybe not the most brilliant of ideas cause I think I got maybe 3 hours of sleep due to "oooh, I haven't read this in forever! *readreadread* Oooh! I haven't read this in a while! *readreadread*".

Also, I have discovered that at some point during the time I started hoarding books upstairs instead of putting them on the shelves in their proper locations...I filled up my bookshelves. *sigh* Now I need to borrow a boy and a truck and go get more. Luckily, Staples still has my shelves (they are good sellers, thankfully, so I don't think I need to worry about them disappearing any time soon), so I can get 2 more 5-shelf bookshelves to put up. Maybe those will last me a year or so. *crosses fingers*

Jenn Quotes

2010-04-19T16:02:00.000-04:00

Because Ally wanted them, here you go. Reason #451842 that I'm crazy, odd, or whatever adjective you feel the need to use for me.

The following are courtesy of Smitha since she typed them up to add to some quoted page that she made years ago.

me: he needs a timeout
me: with the dunce hat even

smitha: So the "where are you going" wasn't directed towards me, right? ;o)
me: no, part of the song
me: your auto-response distracted me and i didn't get the rest of the lyrics

me: i hate not being able to eat
me: it makes me hungry

me: i just finished the other half of my sandwhich
me: sandwich
me: sandwitch
me: how many other ways can we spell it?
me: sandwench

me: oh, your talking caffine keep you up, right?
me: i forgot it affects people like that

(quote was based on some blog that was done as if God (or a Godlike being) was the poster or something, I forget. these were years ago)
me: "I've been wasting My time on My Playstation2, killing zombies and searching for Power Ups. I have to tell you, it's all really cool on my 10 Thousand Inch Widescreen Sony Flatscreen TV. God's gots the coolest home entertainment center EVAR."
me: can i play at God's house?

(same quote deal)
me: "Sometimes when you are shopping at the mall, I move your car."
me: i knew it!!

me: maybe it's just a weird glitch that's all my fault. you should ban me from ever coming to your bored again because i might one day go insane and DESTROY THE WORLD!
me: k, i'm better now

And these are more recent.

me: if i was a book, i know some of the stuff i find myself saying would make my list of favorite book quotes.

me: and now i'm all gifting myself left and right and killing orcs and dragons and crap. it's awesome!

me: I'm glad I was never a teenage girl!

Break From Reading

2010-04-19T14:38:00.000-04:00

Shockingly enough, I have taken a spontaneous sorta mini-break from reading. Last review was Tuesday (book was finished Monday night) and I've read exactly one book since then (finished it Friday, actually). Instead, I have decided sleep is cooler, seconded by playing Wii. I'm on the final dungeon for Tales of Symphonia so I'm going to attempt to finish it before I take up reading mass quantities of books again.

Of course, the fact that it's getting close to release time for 3 of the books I'm not-so-patiently waiting on has nothing to do with that. Nosirree. I've only been waiting damn near a year for Magic Bleeds. And while Magic on the Storm and Web of Lies has only been a couple months (if that), they are high on the "Want To Read Them Now Expletive Expletive...Expletive" list. Which is an entirely different list from "Want To Read Them Now Expletive Expletive" and "Want To Read".

Review: Tempest Rising

2010-04-13T18:57:00.003-04:00

Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler
Book 1 in Jane True series

Summary Deal :: We have Jane True. She likes to swim. In winter. In Maine. Near a whirlpool. Naked. At night. But it's a secret. Anyway, Jane's town pariah because of mom, dead boyfriend, and brief stay in the mental institution (thanks to small town gossip and the dead boyfriend). So Jane's going along with her town pariah life, taking care of her failing health dad. Then Jane discovers the body in her whirlpool. Then suddenly she finds out her mom was a selkie, she's a halfling, and dead guy was investigating her. Territory investigator Ryu shows up to find out what happened to dead guy. After finding two dead goblins, dead guy's notes about the halflings, and the newspaper clippings of all the halflings' unfortunate demises, Ryu and Jane decide to take a trip to the Compound where the Court resides. There Jane finds out supernatural life is definitely not all moonbeams and giggles, but at least they are honest in their violence and not-human morals. One big happy not-quite-epic battle later, murderer is revealed, mastermind behind murders vows revenge and almost kills Jane (but shh, that's a secret too), many people are dead, major schism in views on humans/halflings and the supernaturals' superiority thereof is revealed, and all is not well in supernatural land.

Major player break down :: Jane True, town pariah, recently discovered selkie halfling, is thrown head first into the deep end of the supernatural community by her unfortunate luck of discovering a dead man. Who happens to be a halfling researching other halflings. All who wind up very dead. Enter Nell the Gnome, Trill the Kelpie, and Anyan the Barghest (think werewolf, only no pack). They are all "Surprise! You're a halfing selkie. Sorry we left you to go crazy cause we didn't tell you sooner and you wound up town pariah and in a mental institution for a while. Oh, by the way, what do you know about dead guy? You need to tell investigator man when he comes. Kbye." Enter Ryu, vampire investigator for the territory, who takes an immediate lusting to Jane. Enter the Court run by the Alfar King and Queen (elves, but don't call them that). The Court people are all either "ooh, a halfling, humans are amusing toys, entertain me" or "halflings are weird and icky". Then there's Nyx (Ryu's cousin) who is all "I'm crazy and like to eat people, usually human but not always. Halflings taste like humans, nom nom." Oh, and Jarl, who's second-in-command to the King and Queen and is all "halflings are impure and should be exterminated". And Jarl's pet naga, Jimmu, who is very "HALFLING HUMANS DIE!" only without the shouting and with more sword.

Classification :: I'd go with Urban Fantasy. Though most of the story takes place in tiny tourist-dependent town in Middle of Nowhere Maine and Glamored to Hell and Back Compound (think giant palace) for supernaturals, so not a lot of urban-ness going on, but we'll go with it. The books swung light to dark at times, so we'll call it medium as an average.

Action/Romance :: Giant battle at end, but mostly it was intrigue and "let's intro Jane to world of supernaturals". Romance between Jane and Ryu was there, but it wasn't vital to the story itself and was more for the evolution of Jane than anything. Not that it was a bad thing, just side/sub plot of the story.

Overall Opinions :: This book tricked me into reading it. I was just going to read the first couple of pages to decide which of the couple of books on my To Be Read Pile I was going to read next and the next thing I know, it's 2am and I'm 3/4ths of the way through the book. I honestly have no idea what sucked me in. There's nothing I can pinpoint and say "That is why I stayed up til 3am reading" but I stayed up all the same. Jane is a great character and has some of my new favorite book quotes. I hope to find out more about the deal between Anyan and Ryu in the next book cause I'm all kinds of curious about that. And Anyan himself. This book is a little harder to review cause there's no one thing (other than the pool scene) that I can say "oh, this whatever made the book awesome" or "oh, this whatever made me so mad I couldn't finish the stupid thing". But overall, I liked the book.

Rereadability :: Not sure I would reread the book as a whole (though it is possible), but there are quite a few scenes that I would definitely reread. The pool scene alone had me cracking up for a long time after I read it and makes me giggle just thinking of it.

Getting Next Book :: Do believe I will be getting the next book. Tracking the Tempest comes out 6/29 and it has been added to the List of Buying.

Stupid Tuesdays

2010-04-13T12:07:00.000-04:00

Apparently, I cannot be on time for a Tuesday morning meeting. Mondays? Fine. Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays? No problem. Tuesdays? Can't do it. I don't know why, but no matter how early I leave for a Tuesday morning meeting, I cannot make it on time. The Traffic Gods look down upon me and say "NO!" and proceed to throw cars, trucks, straw, plastic bags, branches, and little red cloth things at me (all of this was just this morning, we won't go into other Tuesday morning meeting drives).

Like take today. I had a meeting at 10am. I left 25 minutes earlier than usual just to make sure I would make it on time. I arrived at 10 on the dot and still had to walk from car to building to desk. I checked traffic before I left. No wrecks, roads were the normal mix of green and orange. And still, I was late. This doesn't happen on any other day but Tuesday. Stupid Tuesdays. Bright side, the main lady who was basically presenting the meeting didn't show up til like 10:30, we didn't attempt the meeting till 10:45, and big boss said "I have meeting at 11, we do this later" so meeting was postponed. But still. Stupid Tuesdays.

Anyways, moving on. One of the new books I bought last night tricked me into reading it, so I'll have (yet another) review for you peoples in a bit. I'm liking these review things. They are fun.

Review: Mind Games

2010-04-12T13:52:00.001-04:00

Mind Games by Carolyn Crane
Book 1 in Justine Jones: Disillusionist series

Summary Deal :: Okay, so there's a city, Midcity to be exact. It has normal people doing normal stuff. Then there's the mysterious highcaps that most normal people think are make-believe. Highcaps are mutant types with mental abilities (telekinesis, telepathy, empathy, etc). Now the main heroine chick is Justine Jones. She's a hypochondriac of the highest order whose main fear is something called vein star syndrome. Anyway, chance meeting with a restaurant owner, Sterling Packard, and suddenly she's recruited into a group calling themselves the Disillusionists. Packard's a highcap who can see the psychological and emotional makeup of people. He runs the Disillusionists. All the people under him are not highcaps, but aren't exactly regular people either. They can take their screwed up mental neurosis and zing (that's the term they use) it into their targets. There's a gambling addict, a no self-esteem guy, a conspiracy theorist guy, a chick who takes pessimism to a whole new level, anger management guy, and some others.
Basically, what the Disillusionists do is they get paid by clients to target criminals who the courts can't (or won't) prosecute. The targets get disillusioned by the team, then get rebooted going from Bad Person to Good Person. The team thinks of it as crashing and rebooting a person (like a computer).
Now, while Justine is doing all of this, she finds out about Packard's nemesis (yes, that's what they call him: the nemesis). Turns out Packard is trapped in the restaurant she first met him at. He can't leave, can't change the decorations (anything smashed, broken, painted, etc gets reverted to it's original state), or the menu. This makes him a bit cranky on the topic of the restaurant. Anyway, Justine makes it her mission to find the nemesis and convince him or disillusion him to get Packard free. Only, problems happen when she finds out who the nemesis really is.

Major player break down :: Main heroine chick, Justine Jones, is a major hypochondriac who gets recruited into the Disillusionist gang. Sterling Packard runs the Disillusionist gang and develops severe lust/love for Justine. Justine has the same problem for Packard but she has a boyfriend (Cubby, who annoys the crap outta me) then has anger issues at Packard over something, so there is no boyfriend/girlfriend deal happening there, much to Packard's regret. Chief Otto Sanchez is the police chief of Midcity and Justine admires him and has a crush on him. Packard has severe hatred for Sanchez (no one knows why and he doesn't share why til the end of the book). Sanchez plays a major role, but alas, I can't share what it is cause it spoils it. The rest of the Disillusionist gang are minor player types, but Shelby (the pessimist chick) is one of my favorites in that gang. She amuses me.

Classification :: Urban Fantasy. It has a few dark moments, but I would categorize it as medium-light on the light/dark scale. I can't remember a Urban Fantasy type book I laughed at more (tho might have less to do with story and more how it was written).

Action/Romance :: Some action, more intrigue and mystery though. Romance was a big subplot (Justine and Packard, and later Justine and Sanchez). And since Lauren insists on there being Teams for crap like that, I'm totally Team Packard.

Overall Opinions :: This book, despite being a novel, reads like a comic book. I can't pinpoint exactly what makes me say that, but it does. Some of the things they say/think/do just reminds me of a comic book hero/villain. The whole "the nemesis" deal is funny. Packard talks like a (possibly evil, yet maybe good) mastermind type. In fact, Justine makes fun of him for this tendency. The Disillusionsts are a group of people going around righting wrongs like crime fighters. Only, they do it by crashing and rebooting the bad people.
I am hesitant to recommend to people due to the comic book feel of the novel. The story itself is well told and humorous and left me wanting to find out more about the characters (not like cliff-hanger wanting more, more like I like these people want to read more about them) but the comic book feel might put some people off. I liked it, thought it was hilarious most of the time, but some people may not.

Rereadability :: Definite favorite scenes rereading (I've already reread them a few times). I would probably reread this as a whole again in the future.

Getting Next Book :: Oh, definitely. Double Cross comes out 9/28 and it's definitely on my list to get.

Sleep vs New Book ... Sleep Won

2010-04-09T10:48:00.000-04:00

So I was going to get new books last night...but I decided I wanted sleep more. So no new books. I went to bed at like 9:30 last night. Slept til 8:30 this morning (I should be up and getting ready at 8...oh, well). But now I am all rested so I can have more books tonight! Whee!

Also, I finished my Pocket Book, so maybe I'll do a review on it. It was a fun book.

What is a Pocket Book, you ask? (Well, I ask me, you probably don't care, but you're getting an explanation anyway, so ha!) Well, a Pocket Book is the book I keep in my purse to read when I'm waiting for something/someone or to read after everyone's gone at work and I have nothing left to do (I'm fast most of the time so I finish whatever my assignments are and have to wait on the coders/other people to do whatever when they get in the next day). I can pick it up and put it down at any time and have no problems reading other books while I'm reading this one.

But now, I think I shall do some rearranging/organizing/alterations to my little book oriented sidebar things. Yes yes.

Review: Wicked Lovely

2010-04-08T13:44:00.003-04:00

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Book 1 in Wicked Lovely series

Summary Deal :: So there's girl, Aislinn (Ash for short). She sees faeries. Her Grams has told her all her life to pretend they aren't there, don't talk to them, don't draw their attention. If the faeries find out Grams and Ash can see them, the faeries will get pissy and Grams and Ash will get blind or even dead. The faery people...they aren't all that nice.
See, Winter Queen chick got crazy and pissy and killed the old Summer King. Then she found out she was carrying old Summer King's kid. So when kid got born, he got to be the new Summer King. Only Winter Queen made deal with Dark Court King to bind Summer King's powers so Winter Queen can run unchecked. Dark Court King did binding dealy and now Summer King has to find a mortal girl who is really the Summer Queen and she has to pass a test to be the Summer Queen, then Summer King can get his powers and kick his mom's (aka Winter Queen) butt for being crazy and pissy and causing all kinds of bad crap for mortals and fey.
Which brings us to the main story deal of the book. Summer King, Keenan, thinks Ash is really the Summer Queen and goes about trying to get her to take the test. There's all kinds of stuff that's definitely working against him. Mostly tho, it's Winter Queen chick who is all about making sure Ash doesn't take the test.

Major player break down :: Winter Queen Beira is Summer King Keenan's mother. Keenan is in love with Winter Girl Donia. Donia's job is try to convince mortal potential-Summer Queen Ash not to take the test even tho if Ash does take the test (doesn't matter if she passes or fails), Donia gets to be free (it's part of the binding dealy game thing). Ash is in sorta-love with mortal Seth. Keenan is way not happy about his Queen being in love with a mortal even tho he is in love with Donia who is in love with him but they can't be together cause Winter and Summer do the whole clashing bit. Beira (Winter Queen) just hates everybody. And is crazy.

Classification :: It's supposedly classified as a Young Adult Fiction type, but it didn't really read that way to me. Yeah, Ash is like 17 or something, but the story didn't get bogged down with age-specific stuffs. It was mostly all about getting Ash to agree to take test for being Summer Queen and all the game nonsense that surrounded that. Oh, and her romance thing with Seth. Also, it's a bit dark. If you think of Twilight as a medium to medium-light in the light/dark spectrum, this would be at the far end of medium-dark. It's not all sunshine and roses and Happily-Ever-After.

Action/Romance :: Very little in the way of action. More chess-game like maneuverings than actual fighting. And there were romances all over the place, but they were well-crafted romances (not "they are together for sake of plot movement" deals) and some of my favorite scenes are Seth and Ash and their budding romance thing. But they are sub/side plots and are not the main focus of the story.

Overall Opinions :: I really enjoyed this book and I'm kicking myself for not getting it earlier (I've passed on this book quite a few times cause of some reason I can't remember now that was completely invalid once I actually read the book).

Rereadability :: Doubt I would reread the book as a whole, but I definitely have a few favorite scenes that I would reread.

Getting Next Book :: Oh yes. I do believe I shall be buying it this evening, actually.

Ta-da! My first little review thing. So, got any commentary/questions/demands for more/less/other types of info? Let me know what you think.

Edit: Hrm...so apparently things go downhill from this book for this series. I think I'll just be getting Ink Exchange (book 2) and seeing how that one goes. Sometimes people are right, sometimes they are wrong, most of the time they don't even know what they are talking about, but when the vast majority of them agree about the same thing...well, we'll see.

Bad Jenn

2010-04-08T10:54:00.000-04:00

So I fail at keeping up blog posts. I'm just really not that interesting. But! I have had a thought. Which I attribute (not blame) in part to Ally (not Devil Ally on my shoulder, just Ally) and in part to my OCD tendencies (I'm not OCD, I just have tendencies). And my (not really all that) brilliant thought is that when I read a new book, I will give short summary type thing and my opinion on said book. This way, Ally can read and say, "Oh, that book sounds cool. Jenn just has fail opinions on books. I think I'll try that one." Or Lauren can say, "Oh, that books sounds stupid. Jenn just has fail opinions on books. I won't be trying that one." And since Ally and Lauren are the only two who read this thing, that's pretty much the only use it will have other than entertaining me.

I think this sounds like a plan. Yes yes. I will start the first review thingy of the book I read last night. Yes yes. I shall post it later.

Whee!

New Addictions, Old Addictions

2010-02-22T11:35:00.000-05:00

New Addiction: Okay, so I was bored at work last week and the boys were talking about some facebook app called Farmville, so I decided I'd try it out. Well, it and the other apps I kept hearing people talk about. So I try them out. Vampire Wars, Mafia Wars, Pirates, Farmville, School of Wizardy, Petville, and YoVille. YoVille I didn't like so much. Especially with all the random notifications it sent out when I'm almost positive I said "No" to that. So it's gone. Petville is stupid, yet fun. It's cutsy and I get to decorate a house (similar to YoVille, but they have humans which are way less cool). Farmville is weird, yet fun. I get to plant things and decorate a farm. Bastards require you having neighbors, which is hard cause no one either plays anymore or never played, so I'm stuck at like 5 friends and most stuff gets unlocked at 8. Boo. But it's still fun. Vampire Wars, Mafia Wars, Pirates, and School of Wizardy are all massively addictive. Especially with my OCD tendencies of Must Complete/Master/Own Everything. But I've curbed that pretty good so far. Helps now that I have actual work to do again.

Old Addiction: Books! Three whole brand new books come out tomorrow. And since I was good last week and only bought one book, I can get three this week! (It's part of my budgeting plan so I won't spend stupid amounts of moneys on books, eating out, what-have-you. And it's working so far, yay!) Blood of the Demon by Diana Rowland, Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb, and ... Devil's Playground by Jenna Black got moved. Grr! Oh well, then I get my normal amount of two books this week. Fantasy in Death and Blood of the Demon were the two I was really looking forward to anyway.

So, tomorrow night and Wednesday night are going to be nights of not a whole lot of sleep. Good thing they have free tea, coffee, and hot chocolate here. Ooooh, hot chocolate.... Maybe I'll make me a mocha on Wednesday and Thursday morning so I'll be awake enough to do whatever random things I will have assigned to me then. That sounds like a plan, yes yes.

Grownups and Psychics

2010-02-12T12:19:00.001-05:00

Okay, so now that I have a job--a real job where I'm a real employee and get benefits and retirement and paid vacations and everything--I have to dress like a grownup. No more wearing jeans and tshirts and sneakers to work. Now it's slacks and nice shirts/sweaters/blouses and heeled shoes. And I've started actually being able to balance in those heels. It's just WRONG. And now that I'm forced to act and dress like a grownup, I'm worried I might turn into one. That would suck. Luckily, I have my books and Wii to help offset that. Hopefully.

Speaking of books, I broke down and read my new book last night. Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye by Victoria Laurie. Bunches of people said it was good. So Ally, being the little devil on my shoulder, convinced me I should buy the new book when I bought First Drop of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost and since I have exactly negative 5000 willpower when it comes to book buying, I caved. I'm not supposed to start a new book after I get home from work, otherwise I'll stay up late to finish it. But I ignored my own rule and started it anyway. And it was good. So I stayed up far too late to finish it. Started around 10PM, finished around 2:30AM. Bad, bad Jenn. But it was a good book. It's a mystery series where the main protagonist chick is a psychic. But not the mystically woowoo psychic. She's mostly normal except she knows stuff about people when she focuses on them. It's got the mystery deal going on, with a light side of romanctic tension (most of which made me want to smack guy upside the head about, which is what you are supposed to feel, so good job author lady) and a decent amount of humor. One part in particular made me laugh out loud and I got dirty looks from the kittens since I disturbed their precious sleep. Honestly tho, they should be used to me randomly bursting out in laughter/anger/whatever as I read. Happens more often than I care to think about. Overall, it was a very good book. And, because the Fates, Borders, and the book population as a whole are conspiring against me, I got a Borders coupon today for 20% off a book thru Sunday and I really want the second book, so now I must go buy it on my way home.

I blame this entirely on Ally, by the way. Yes yes.

Okay, so it's me and my negative 5000 willpower about books that's at fault, but it will make me feel better if I blame Ally. 'Sides, my mental picture of Devil Ally is amusing. I wonder who the Angel should be?

Bookstores and their Fail

2010-02-11T11:33:00.002-05:00

New book by Jeaniene Frost came out (omg, it was soo good. Ally, read it soon!), so I made my normal rounds of bookstore calling to find out who had it. And I've decided that Borders absolutely sucks at having books on release day. I think I've gotten maybe 2 of the last 10 new release type books from Borders on their release day. I've either had to wait (impatiently, I might add) or go to another bookstore (Books-A-Million, to be precise). Seems to me, that's bad business. Not having books on release day (especially popular author type books) is bad cause we crazy purchaser people will just go elsewhere for the book. Fail, Borders. That's just fail.

Speaking of Books-A-Million, I had to go there for the new book. Which means I had to deal with the completely screwed up shelving system they have. Honestly, I have to check 4 different sections for books. Half the time, authors with series have books in at least two of those sections. And not the same books, either. Take Kelley Armstrong for instance. When I was buying her Otherworld series, it was split between 3 (count them, 1-2-3) different sections. Same series, same official genre classification, 3 different sections. And I can't buy series out of order. It makes me twitchy. So I had to make a couple trips between the sections to make sure I got stuff without skipping a book. Their shevling system makes NO SENSE. And drives me crazy. I HATE looking for books there. Lately, I've decided not to bother and just find a body and say "Where's this book?" and they can look it up and find what section it's in. Makes things so much faster and easier for me. Borders and Barnes and Noble generally match on what section a book is shelved in, it's just Books-A-Million that has to do everything differently (and stupidly, annoyingly, and whole bunch of other words along those lines).

And because Ally convinced me (it took so much convincing, really, it did), I got the first book in a new series. Many of my favorite authors and their fans have had good things to say about the series and the book description sounded good, so I'm going to give it a try. We'll see.

Books

2010-02-05T19:18:00.000-05:00

So, pretty much anyone who knows me knows that I simply adore reading my books. A better word might be "addicted". I don't think I'm "obsessed", but I could see that. It can't be helped. I like escaping my reality by whisking my brain away into another reality that's way cooler than my own. Where there are vampires, werewolves, demons, mages, and even aliens (though they are a recent and very picky addiction) and the "good guys" aren't always so good and the "bad guys" are sometimes the coolest characters in the book. I like my happy endings where yeah, people died, but the side you are rooting for wins (whether that happens to be "good" or "evil" and really, sometimes you can't tell the difference) and hopefully the author didn't kill off your favorite character. Or pull my personal pet peeve: the author giving a favored character a complete 180 personality reversal. Sookie Stackhouse books come to mind (True Blood series for those who watch TV). I liked the Original Sookie. The New Sookie the author morphs her into is annoying and drives me batty and I simply refuse to buy any more of that series cause I can't stand the main freaking character now. If Sookie had started off with the personality she turned into, it wouldn't be so bad, I think. But I liked Original Sookie better, so New Sookie is horrid and I can't concentrate on the story long enough to get into the book cause I'm annoyed by New Sookie. Grr. Yes, characters evolve. That's fine. I even like that. Stale characters are almost as annoying as personality reversal characters. But complete 180s (and in my opinion, not good 180s as it completely destroys the whole reason why you liked the character in the first place) are just Not Good and will get me to drop a series faster than just about anything else.

Within the last couple years, my book tastes have expanded into the paranormal romance section (which I would've shunned and avoided like the plague a few years ago). Mostly cause it seems the authors of the paranormal romance genre and the urban fantasy genre overlap. A book I would call a romance gets classified as urban fantasy and vice versa. I will never understand that classification. But I don't mind the whole label thing so much anymore. So long as whatever couple that the author has setup in the book stays together (the relationship itself is kind of it's own character at that point), I'm good. My only problem with this expansion into another genre of books is that I have found a freaking TON of new books I want to read. $1400 on books last year. Not including gift certificates or cash purchases. I can't do that this year. Which means I have to be good. And yet my "I want to read this" list keeps growing. (See the pretty little box to the left? Yeah, it keeps getting bigger.) I'm going to have to find a way to make this work. Somehow.

And the whole thing that started this little rant thing was I was trying to decide how much money to spend at Borders when I go this evening. I have birthday money left to spend. I could totally just spend it on books and stuff. I have job, so I don't need to save that money for bills and such now, right? Right. Now I have to decide how much to spend....

Post is a little disjointed, but brain is leaping all over the place, so forgive. Anyway, off to Borders to hopefully limit myself to two books. At least until Tuesday when First Drop of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost comes out. Whee! I can't wait!

I Have Stuff To Do

2010-02-04T13:01:00.001-05:00

I'm so excited. I finally have stuff to do. And it's breaking things! Which I love. Okay, so technically it's called "Testing" but whatever. The boss man and coder guy are realizing that I'm actually quite good at breaking things. Coder Guy's not as happy about that cause he has to fix a bunch of stuff, but he's happy in that I find them before the customers do and he doesn't have to spend as much time with the in depth testing. I'm just happy I have stuff to do.

And all my blog posts are about my job so far. That's kinda sad. But I'm just so excited that I have a job than it can't be helped. Once some of the shiny rubs off on the whole new job thing, I'll find other stuff to post about. Probably related to books or games since that's what my free time is composed of (other than sleeping, of course) but meh. We'll see.

First Day

2010-02-02T15:14:00.004-05:00

So my first day didn't start off all that well. First, I was close to 45 minutes late since the stupid accident on I-75 shutdown 3 of the 5 lanes during rush hour morning traffic. I left with normally plenty of time to make it here on time. It takes (with normal traffic) 40 minutes. I left an hour before I needed to be here. It took me almost 2 hours (1 hour and 53 minutes if you want to get technical) to get to work. So yeah. Not Good. But turns out it was okay cause they weren't ready for me anyway. Roy, my new boss, seems cool. All the other people on my team seem nice as well. The other girl on the team is super excited that there's another female around. Anyway, after I got here, everything got better. I got setup at my desk and went about getting my computer reconfigured Just So so I could use it. The boss took us all out to lunch as a welcome team building type thing. Never been to Shane's but I must admit they have good food.

It's weird here. People talk and stuff. And there's a bunch of people. That come to work every day. At the same time. It's so weird. Hopefully I'll get used to it quickly.

Oh! And the best thing about this place so far? They have Mountain Dew in their vending machines. Can and Bottle sizes. And the machine is like 15 seconds from my desk (no elevator rides or epic quests across buildings).

New Job Starts Tomorrow

2010-02-01T11:18:00.000-05:00

So my new job starts tomorrow. I'm super excited. I still need to fill out the paperwork for it, which I will be doing in a bit. I've got all these random ideas about food to take for work. I have a whole freakin' HOUR for lunch, I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself. I'm used to grabbing 15 minutes when I can to run downstairs to the caff to grab food and race back up to my desk, where it takes me close to an hour to eat a stupid 6 inch sub cause I try to eat while I work and work usually wins. But back to food, I'm having fun trying to figure out quick breakfasts that I can make to eat fast or at least in the car, then figuring out lunch ideas (sandwiches gets old really fast, so I have to figure out ways to make them less boring/repetitive/blah), then figuring out snack ideas as well. It's been fun. And annoying cause my brain suddenly decides it wants to think of these things when I'm trying to fall asleep and me telling it to shut up and sleep doesn't work all that well. Stupid brain.

Now to fill out paperwork. Whee! (That's actually an "I'm super beyond excited almost squeal cause paperwork means job yay!" noise. Which is a good thing.)

I Has A Job

2010-01-27T14:10:00.002-05:00

The awesome of awesome has happened and I got the job! I'm way excited and trying to keep it all internalized and stuff so I don't drive the people around me crazy (sorry Jake and Lauren). But I'm way super excited. I start Tuesday (on my birthday, so Happy Birthday to me!) so only a few more days of extreme boredom, but instead of being fueled by worry, they will be fueled by excitement. Honestly, I'm not complaining on that point. I got a job! Whee!

So, as part of the deal with myself (and Mom), I now get a Wii for getting a job before my birthday. Now I can have my very own Wii Fit and not have to invade Lauren's house and Wii and now she can't get mad at me for beating her scores. (I honestly don't set out with the intention of beating her scores, I just try my best/hardest cause the whole point is to lose weight and stuff and that sometimes means I get a higher score.)

Off to shop for Wii and Wii Fit with Balance Board. Yay!

For Real Post

2010-01-25T22:40:00.001-05:00

Now for my for real post. What shall I speak of? Ah! I know. Why I am so stupidly beyond bored. See, at the end of December, I was "let go" because some brilliant manager type people decided it was a wondrous move to send all of the work that my department did to some idiots in France. So I have no job. I am currently looking for one. I have a pretty good lead on one and unless something totally unforeseen and drastically bad luck happens, I should have a job starting Monday (as in next Monday). I'll find out for sure on Wednesday. If I do get it, it will be an awesome birthday present to me. Yes yes. On a related note, the Unemployment Office people are a pain in the ass to a) get on the phone, b) force to answer a simple question, and c) get money out of. Adventures in Unemployment Office land will recommence tomorrow. Hopefully I won't become too violent. Thankfully, Amy's off tomorrow, so should I become violent, I can go to her house and steal books to make it better.

Since I have been without a job for a bit, I decided to keep my head in PHP mode and wrote a little website dealy so I can track my spending (like how much on bills, how much on food, how much on books, etc). So I finally finished putting in all that data (that was a pain in the ass to get caught up). And because Lauren wanted to know, I spent $1410.84 on books last year. Which explains why my library suddenly got ginourmous.

Also, due to lack of job and much boredom to be had, I have been watching far too much FoodNetwork. Now I have Ideas For Food. We'll see how that works out. Speaking of food, I don't think I ate yet today, so I better go do that.

Bored

2010-01-25T22:02:00.002-05:00

I am so ridiculously bored, I setup a blog. Now no one can read how incredibly bored I am. Isn't that awesome?

This is mostly a test message so I can see what stuff looks like. Maybe I'll make a for real post in a bit.