books

Reading Survey

/ books, survey

1. How old were you when you got your first library card?
Eleven or so, I think. Can’t remember.

2. What’s the first book you can remember reading from a library?
Some book that I colored all over even though I was told not to. I was about five or six, and it was from the school library. I thought I was being nice.

3. Did you ever participate in a summer reading program or other kids’ event at a library growing up?
Not at a library. I did BookIt! through my school when I was in 3rd grade.

4. Do you remember when card catalogues weren’t computerized?
Yes.

5. When was the last time you went to the library?
I dropped some stuff on Monday.

6. How many books do you usually check out of the library at one time?
At least five.

7. Name one great author you’ve discovered at your library.
Cherry Whytock

8. What was the librarian at your elementary school like?
I can’t remember my primary librarian, but I do remember my 4–6th grade librarian. She was interesting. My high school librian(s) hated me because I was so disruptive, especially if anyone mentioned anything about Joe McIntyre having a girlfriend.

9. How many times a year do you go to the library?
At least 50.

10. If you could change on thing about your library, what would it be and why?
I dunno. It’s a pretty cool place. Everything’s computerized, the reserve system is great, The teen section is good, and check-out is also computerized. You can pay overdue fines online. It’s a swanky system. I’m going to miss it when I move to Chicago.

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Take Me or Leave Me (Pictures)

/ books, california, friends, life, pictures, san francisco, vacation

I haven’t written in just over a week, so here’s a recap of what I’ve been up to.

I finally got my hands on Leven Thumps and the Eyes of the Want, and OMG. It’s the best one in the series!!! I am so going to renew it when it comes time for it to be due—I can’t wait to reread it!

Seriously, I recommend these books to everyone because they’re so good. You have to be able to make that leap into the imaginary. It’s a huge leap. It’s like the deal with reading Madeleine L’Engle. You have be able to visualize—and the author does a great job of describing things in a unique but clear way—but it can be challenging because things in Foo are VERY different from Reality.

Go to Amazon, and you’ll see solid 5-star ratings for this one, and high ratings for the others. This one is Book 3, and there will be a total of five in the series. I’m already freaking out that I have to wait at least six months for the next one! I wonder if the publisher will put out a boxed set when they’re all done?

– I read Fast Food Nation. Um… Wow. That’s about all I can say about it. As hard as it will be, I am going to try not to support the fast food industry anymore, unless I am near an In-An-Out Burger or Carl’s Jr. The other places… sigh. Knowing that people work so hard in those meat packing plants with almost nothing to show for it. Those dangerous jobs. Those scary jobs. No benefits. Little pay. It’s like a sweatshop or something. 🙁 And the stuff in the meat. The things they feed to the cattle. Cattle is supposed to eat grass, not the remnants of other animals, or poop, or whatever the hell they feed them. The two restaurants I mentioned don’t use those awful meat-packing places. Unfortunately, those places are not in the midwest (not that I know of). That’s okay though, because fast food is not that good for me. And it’ll be great for me to stop eating it.

– I also read The Golden Compass. I started on the new A-List book, and I also have Kite Runner. Oh, and I’m in the middle of the second Daughters of Isis book. The 3rd one is in my queue.

– I apparently won one of the many book contests I enter, because I randomly got a copy of Stephanie Hale’s Revenge of the Homecoming Queen in the mail one day. Awesome, right? When I met Stephanie, it was at the Chicago Spring Fling conference in April of 2006. She hadn’t even had an agent yet. And now she’s all published and stuff.

– I became addicted to Earl Grey tea. Mmmmm. I take it with four sugars. Rosa and Richard tell me that I drink syrup, not tea. At any rate, I’m becoming a tea drinker. Digging out all the boxes of tea I’ve had in my cupboard, and they supply free tea at work. This is a good thing!

– I watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and watched my favorite line over and over:
He don’t eat no meat? What do you mean he DON’T EAT NO MEAT????

– I made it through 2/3rds of Rent without getting interrupted. One of these days, I’m going to get to watch the whole thing in one sitting.

– I got the original Broadway recording of Rent out of the library and have been listening to it like crazy for the past several days. I love Light My Candle, One Song Glory, Contact (my favorite!), Will I?, and Life Support. Every time I listen (which is a LOT!), I hear more and more that I really like. Someday I’d LOVE to see the actual show. Yes, I do realize that I’m ten years behind everyone in loving this musical, but hey, better late than never, right? 🙂

five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes….

But the big thing is that thanks to my rad friend (and bridesmaid) Rosa (meimeigui), and her cool hubby Richard, I got to spend the weekend in San Francisco!! Lots and lots and lots of sightseeing went down, as well as picture taking. I had a blast.

!!!^-^!!!

I flew in Friday, on Skybus. Skybus is a very inexpensive carrier, and if you’re lucky, you can get seats for as little as $10! The reason they can charge so little is because they use smaller airports (for example, I flew into Oakland instead of the big San Francisco airport), they charge for things such as beverages, meals (you can get real food!), and checking baggage. They also bring this little cart down the aisle with products one can buy—things such as perfume and jewelry and gourmet chocolate! I thought that was the funniest thing. There were people buying stuff up like crazy. Basically, they don’t want to charge everyone for what only a few people will take. Not everyone gets a beverage or checks a bag on flights. It was nonstop, and that was very nice. I had the His Dark Materials trilogy with me and that’s when I made a decent dent in The Golden Compass. I’m finding it easier to get into The Subtle Knife, now. My problem is that with these big books, I want to hurry and race to the end so I can see what happens. I have to FORCE myself to slow down and actually ingest the words as I am reading them.

Anyway, I got to the city, and Rosa got me and took me to the headquarters of imeem.com. What a SUPER DUPER cool place to work, let me tell you. When the drudgery of the work day gets too much, the office is equipped with a foosball table, a Playstation 2, a Nintendo Wii, guitars, a drum set, a kitchen stocked with snacks like whoa, a fridge stocked with Red Bull, just to name a few. OK. How awesome, right? Yeah, that would NEVER happen at ZB. Never, never. Ever. But can you imagine working in such a cool place? A place where the boss lets one of the workers bring in her puppy on Fridays?

Rosa and a Puppy

Friday was pretty low key. Hanging out with Rosa and Richard, drinking tea, and hanging out with their cool friends, one of whom was out of town as well. Played Scattergories, drank lots of tea, and watched the “wild ass.”

Saturday was super duper busy, and it started with a trip to the Farmer’s Market.

Me & Rosa
Me and Rosa!

Boquet
Gorgeous Organic Flowers

Pumpkins!
Pumpkins! Pretty!

Chicken Feet!
Chicken feet. Eeek!

Then we had tea service at Samovar in Yerba Buena. Yummy.

Tea

We popped into SF SOMA for a bit and drooled and dreamed over the cool stuff in the museum shop, then we hopped on the trolley (streetcar?) to head to all the touristy stuff. You know the things they had in the Rice-A-Roni commercials? Yeah, I got to ride two. Sweet, right? I also got to take this random picture of a steep street in the city, and also one of Coit Tower:

San Francisco is STEEP

Coit Tower

We hit the top of Lombard Street, and Rosa and I ran down with our arms out. When we got to the bottom, a hippie drove by and yelled “THAT IS FUCKING TWISTED!!!” Rosa and I cracked up because well, Lombard is twisted. And steep. And pretty.

Lombard Street & Me!

Lombard Street

From Lombard, we walked to Fisherman’s Wharf, which is TOURIST CENTRAL. OMG so many people. Lots and lots of people. Didn’t help that the Blue Angels were in town, being all cool and loud and stuff.

Blue Angels

One can see lots of cool stuff at Fisherman’s Wharf, like Alcatraz. And sea lions.

Alcatraz
Alcatraz

Sea Lions
Sea Lions

Sunday morning, I got to meet and hang out with Katy (drkangelmommy)!!

Katy and Me

Isn’t she so cute??? 😀

Of course, no trip to SF is complete without going to The Golden Gate Bridge. Rosa took me there early Sunday morning. It was a perfect day. Cloudless blue skies, no fog. Beautiful.

Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge & Me!

So YAY! Thanks a million to Rosa for making this happen. She’s an awesome gal and I had a blast with her. 🙂

I was in a cranky mood at the grocery store today because 1) it was crowded, and 2) they jacked the prices WAY up since I’ve been there last. An 8 oz. can of Hunt’s tomato sauce used to cost about 35 cents, now it’s 40 cents. Lord knows that the organic stuff is priced sky high. No wonder people love Aldi and Marc’s! I usually go to Marc’s anyway, because it’s closer to me than Aldi is. And sometimes Marc’s has obscure stuff one can’t find in a regular grocery store.

I’m heading toward crankiness again because there is one of those little flitty bugs flitting around and being annoying, and it’s already after 7pm (naturally the work day crawled by), and I’ll have to go to bed soon.

OH! I was on the Apostrophe Abuse blog today, and click to see what the cat dragged in: http://www.apostropheabuse.com/2007/09/thank-yous-note-cards.html. Yes, the same issue from Target that I emailed them about two years ago.

I got good mail today! A gift card, a letter, and a coupon for a free chicken sandwich and medium Coke from Chick-fil-A. You too, can have one. Just go to http://freechickenandcoke.com. If it’s still up and running, you can have free Chick-fil-A too! 🙂 Ka-CHOW!

mandibaby just got married! Congrats to her! She looked beautiful! 😀

All right. I need to get going. Time to make dinner. Tilapia, mashed potatoes, and spinach is on the menu for tonight. Yummy. 🙂

Cheers!

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Whatever

/ aidan, books, life

My laptop is officially dead. It doesn’t even bother to turn on anymore. The motherboard finally fried itself out. Aidan is a little bit sad; he used to play many Nick Jr. and Sesame Street games on that laptop. I’m sad too. I liked having the option of mobile computing. But as I said before, I’d originally gotten a laptop for writing, and seeing as I haven’t done much of that lately….

Aidan doesn’t say “four.” He says “foe-uh.” It’s soooo cute. He’s also been eating like a little piggy. And watching the Care Bears movie where they go to Joke-A-Lot. Over and over and over and over.

I have a headache, and I want to sleep. Aidan was up at 9am wanting to play Hide-and-Seek. I was like “Dude, it is way too early for this.” He’s a bundle of energy, so I’m thinking a nap today is out of the question. Last week we got to take a nice long one together.

Last night, as I was putting Aidan to bed, he said “Let’s talk about feelings.” I figured it would probably be the last time he ever said anything like that, so I took it and ran with it. Boys, ya know?

I started reading Fast Food Nation today. Not sure if I should finish or not. I’m already pissed off enough at big companies and corporations. I finished Love, Stargirl and I really enjoyed it.

It’s hard to focus with a four-year old hanging around.

He’s been so cute though, helping me in the kitchen. Now he’s gathering lots of toys together for some sort of toy road trip. They’re going “somewhay-uh.”

I also enjoy it when my friends who don’t use their LJs often have RSS feeds on the sites they DO update more regularly. I’m not inclined to go to sites, but if everything is included in a nice list on Google Reader, then I’m happy.

I need more light in my apartment.

The people who live in the apt. complex I live in are psycho and nuts. This morning I got treated to slamming doors, a revving engine, and loud conversation outside my bedroom window. I’m afraid I’ll have to deal with psychotic neighbors the rest of my life. Houses in Chicago cost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and let me tell you, editors/secretaries will never, ever, ever make enough to afford one, plus they’re all smashed up against neighbors as well.

I updated Anywhere Is just a little bit. I have too many Web sites. I might close the review site down, no one ever visits and I keep forgetting about it. I’m having more fun with the wedding/ronni&adam site (http://booknerdsinlove.blogspot.com).

I can’t believe tomorrow’s the last day of September. Months in which I see Adam move much more quickly than months I don’t get to see him. I wonder what that will be like once I’m living in Chicago with him?

Okay, it’s time to get off the computer for a while. Later.

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Harry Potter

/ books

Done.

J.K. Rowling FTMFW!!!

And I’m HUNGRY!!

That’s all I’m sayin’.

Time to re-read. 😀

Comments are back on, btw.

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Kind of a Neat Day

/ books, life

I woke up way early this morning. I’m talking 3am. Finally at 4am, I turned on the light and read a bit of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Again.

Then I managed to fall asleep for a little over an hour, and had a dream in which celinedion was prancing around and being very very very cool, as I’m sure she is in real life. Only in the dream she had this amazing haircut, and I think her hair is pretty normal in real life. Anyway, I had fun with the dream Erin, so I hope to meet the real one sometime in my life. 🙂

I packed two boxes full of books to lug to Half-Price Books after work. When I got to work, there was a mini flood in some of the parking lots and on the street. There had been a water main break over the weekend. The building had no water pressure, no running water, no bathrooms. I was starting to get restless, because I drink a lot of water and I have to pee a lot, and they were saying we had to go down the street to Tim Horton’s or BP to pee. I don’t think that’s very fair to the restaurants. Foot traffic, no business? Plus, isn’t it kind of dangerous to keep people working in a place where there would be no sprinkler system if a fire breaks out?

Hmm, I should check and see if ZB even HAS sprinklers…

Anyway, they closed the building at noon. Wheee! 😀 I went to Half-Price Books and turned in my two boxes. I ended up getting 3x what I expected, which was a nice surprise. She told me that most of my paperbacks were in really good condition, and that my YA books were by popular authors. So YaY. I stopped by the library and picked up my reserves. One of them is called Dream Factory, set in Disney World. (It’s really not helping my Disney craving, but oh well.) Went home, relaxed and read, played on the computer, talked with meimeigui, which is always fun. Looked for ideas for a tattoo (I’m pretty sure of what I want now, and where, now it’s just the time and place). Watched some of The Office on DVD, and ate a yummy dinner with lots of veggies.

Mmmm, veggies.

I can’t believe how much I crave green vegetables now! Just a year ago, it was just… rarely on my mind. And now, I feel weird if I don’t get a fruit or a vegetable every day.

I like this! Because grapes and spinach (not together!) are God’s gift. GOD’s freakin’ gift, I tell ya.

Mmm, spinach.

What else neat happened? Well, I felt well-rested today because I’d spent most of the weekend lying around, napping and reading. That was sooo nice. Got most of my stuff out of Bauer Street. Just a bit more to go. It’s kind of sad, you know. I just keep leaving homes behind. Maybe one day I’ll settle down.

I finally watched Borat. When i first got Borat out of the DVD sleeve, I thought that someone had snuck in a bootleg copy. Then I realized it was meant to look like that. Hahaha. The movie was okay. I enjoyed some parts a lot, but honestly, I can take it or leave it. I won’t be sad if I never see it again, but I wouldn’t object if someone wanted to put it on, you know? It’s just like how I feel about Papa John’s pizza. I won’t turn it down if it’s there, but I won’t pursue it. You’ll never hear me say “Let’s order Papa John’s!” Next on the Q is Rent. People keep telling me the show is better, but I don’t think I’ll be seeing that anytime soon. So, the movie. There are three good reasons to try it out: Aaron Lohr, Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs. Yes. Plus the song Seasons of Love is really cool.

Now I’m finally starting to get tired. But I don’t have to be up quite as early because we’re having a breakfast meeting offsite! I’ve been doing errata on these little readers which is neat because I get to read tons and tons and tons of little books, looking for mistakes. My favorite was:

Pepper’s curiosity was peaked.

Anyone know why that sentence is wrong? Correct it in the comments if you do! 8)

There’s a dog barking outside my window. Sometimes, if the dog barks, this lady yells out her window “SHUT UP, YOU DUMB DOG!” Like that’s helping ANYONE.

I’ve realized that out of the six HP books out so far, that Order of the Phoenix is my least favorite one, and Goblet of Fire is my favorite one. I also like the first one a lot, and I enjoy learning about Tom Riddle in Half-Blood Prince. As I read the books and start to drift as I get relaxed, my mind starts going crazy places. For example, I wonder if Fawkes will play a role in Book 7. How about Tonks and Lupin? How will Dumbledore’s portrait help, if at all? Just a few of the little things floating around in my mind. Not much longer ’til all the questions are answered.

Mmmmm, pain-killing pills are starting to take hold now. I hope they actually get to working on the actual painful parts on me and not just make me all fuzzy yummy ZZZzzzZZZZzzzzZZZ

‘Til next time….

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