Sunday Afternoon Randomness

/ books, life

My friend crimsonghost_oh visited me for the weekend. It was fun. I made him watch The Boondock Saints, and now he wants to go buy it. YESSSS, another convert! 🙂

My laptop is home from the doctor. The Geek Squad said they’d need $130 to do an “XP Reimage” because it had spyware and viruses on it. As if I have $130 lying around to give them for something I can do myself?

I just finished The Geography of Girlhood by Kirsten Smith. There are blurbs all over the back of the book, and one of them is from Julia Stiles. My first thought: How in the FRESH HELL did a first-time novelist get a blurb from JULIA STILES? Well, turned out that this author co-wrote some very famous screenplays—one of them being Ten Things I Hate About You, which if I am not mistaken, Julia Stiles played in, so yeah. Ha. Can you imagine, getting blurbed by an A-list actress? Well, she’s A-list in my eyes, anyway.

Speaking of writing, I entered that contest over at Gather.com, and I haven’t been back in two days to check my score or any comments. I kind of just want to forget about it now—if I obsess over it, I’ll be miserable and stressed. I’m proud I had the balls to enter, but now I just want to block it from my mind.

In the meantime, adamselzer‘s book is kicking butt in reviews. I saw it at the library the other day, and when I looked it up, the Columbus Libraries had 14 copies, 9 of which were checked out. Now, the library owns 16 copies. Go Adam! (If you can’t guess, I’m doing my favorite thing again—reserving books at the library! It’s like shopping, only FREE!)

Last week, I finally got through Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. I had a HARD time with it, only because it was very stressful to read. It felt like a continuous assault to me. Description, action, bang bang bang. I like fast-paced novels with strong voices, but this one was too much for me.

And now I am reading My Brother’s Keeper by Patricia McCormick, and Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares. After that, I will read Monster by Walter Dean Myers, and maybe I’ll try Envy by Robin Wasserman again. Actually, I might do Monster before the Sisterhood book because I’ve had that one longer.

Firefox updated itself on my computer and now none of my fun extensions and themes work. Let me tell you how annoying that is! As far as FF is concerned, my computer has no freakin’ clue. I can’t even import the bookmarks in another browser because the computer doesn’t know they’re there, although THEY ARE VERY CLEARLY IN FIREFOX. I don’t know what to do, I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled a million times, deleted directories and all that good stuff. It’s just a hot mess. Which is a shame because I love Firefox normally. Flock is okay, but the backward and forward arrows are just that. There are no drop-downs to get you to the other pages you visited. But all of my Firefox extensions are working in Flock so maybe I’ll just switch to that one, once I get all the bookmarks moved over somehow.

Tomorrow, I see Aidan for the first time in about 20 days. So weird, not seeing him for so long, although I did talk to him on the phone.

Here is a question I have: Why in the world would someone pay $249 for an 8 gig iPod nano, when one can get a 30 gig regular iPod for the same price? I mean, the logic should be obvious here, right? And yes, I am dreaming of a new iPod. Mine stays charged for about 20 minutes these days, IF I am lucky, and it’s not color nor does it play videos. I want a NEW one. I also want a MacBook Pro. Just because. I can’t afford any of these things, but I sure do want them. All because I love technology. Blah.

I have a coupon for a free panty from Victoria’s Secret. I’ll go on Tuesday to get that, yee-haw. I also have one for a free aromatherapy thing from Bath & Body Works, but of course, THEIRS is with purchase. Poopheads. But here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to buy a $2.50 bar of soap or something and then get my $13 value aromatherapy thing. I love their Cherry Blossom scent, so I’ll probably get a bar of the soap. Mmm. Soap.

I’m hungry, but I can’t decide if I want spaghetti, or a turkey sammich. I guess my stomach will decide for me before long.

Til next time!

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CHICAGO! (Pictures)

/ chicago, life, pictures, vacation

I promised you guys a recap with pictures, and I don’t like breaking my promises.

Just so you know, this is totally out of order and random. So here goes. 🙂

On my flight out to Chicago, there were some snafus. Firstly, there were tons of people going into O’Hare for some reason, so they asked us to reroute. But the pilot wasn’t sure we had enough fuel. So that possibly a delay (we were already 30 minutes late). This is the face I made when I heard that news:

Moof

We had enough fuel to take the reroute. But when someone asked the flight attendant if they were SURE, the flight attendant answered “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out!”

That’s SUCH a Southwest Airlines response!

But, I eventually made it there. The flight was scheduled to land at 6:15pm CST, and I landed at 6:30pm CST, so it worked out because the reroute ended up being quicker.

I spent several days and nights in Chicago. It was balls-freezing cold, but I enjoyed it anyway. I ate well, got a lot of exercise (let me tell you how hard it is to walk through 12 inches of snow, especially unshoveled!), and hung out with a lot of great people: adamselzer, saintscribble, jebbyk, ralinad, projectlost1 just to name a few, and of course, the awesome Mr. Mike Smith, who so graciously went along on a journey to Hot Doug’s for my first Chicago-style hotdog, which was THE BOMB.

Chicago-y Food at Hot Doug's

The line for this place wound around the block. It was freezing outside. I’d trudged through lots of snow to get here. I really did walk uphill in the freezing cold and snow to get there.

It was SO worth it.

On the left—The Dog. An all-beef hot dog with a bit of a snap to it, tomatoes, relish, mustard, celery salt, and a pickle, all on a poppy seed bun. There are supposed to be onions but you know I asked that those be held. I also didn’t get the sport peppers, which you really aren’t supposed to eat anyway. You’re supposed to throw them at cars.

OMGz THE YUMMERZ!!!!!! It was my first Chicago-style hotdog, will NOT be my last by any means.

On the right—Smoked Chicken Cordon Bleu Sausage with Apple Ale Mustard and Applewood-Smoked Cheddar Cheese. Interesting flavors. It was okay, no where near as good as The Dog, though. Mmmmm.

On the very far right—duck fat fries. Only available Saturdays and Sundays. Mmmmm.

A blizzard hit the city on Tuesday, which made trudging through the snow to find adamselzer‘s newly released book a challenge. It was that stinging snow, too. The kind that hurts when it hits your face. Yow.

Among the other things I did: took the Metra train out to Naperville to attend the Children’s Literature Breakfast. I’m glad I went because not only were there ace donuts, but I got a bag of free stuff, and I was surrounded by authors, some who said they’d tried submitting up to ten agented manuscripts before they finally sold. I immediately stopped being so hard on myself and felt compelled and ready to get back in the game. In addition, I got to hear best-selling author Brian Selznick speak, who wrote the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret which is pretty much like an epic novel if I’ve ever seen one.

The weird part was that at the Metra station, you wait by the tracks for your train to come, of course. There are these speakers with this weird, haunting voice: track number six, track number ten, track number eight. They say it over and over and let me tell you, at 6:15am, that’s CREEPY.

A huge group of people celebrated jebbyk‘s 30th birthday at a fancy restaurant called Marche. I didn’t eat much, BELIEVE ME. Anyway, Jen looked stunning:

The Birthday Girl

The Birthday Girl

Of course, there was Adam’s book signing:

Reading & Signing

A snowy sidewalk:

Snow in Chicago

And goood memories all around. I can’t wait to go back, when it’s warmer, and take more pictures. I saw many gorgeous opportunities, but it was just tooo dang cold. However, ralinad is an AWESOME photographer, and he got some beautiful pictures despite the chill in the air, so check out his LJ or his flickr pages.

And yup, that was my trip. In a nutshell of sorts.

Eventually, I’d like to post a video from Adam’s book reading/signing, but I’m having computer drama at the moment. Seems as though all of my USB ports have been disabled for some reason.

Later.

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…But What Doesn’t Suck

/ positivity

· Solving the mystery of the shorted paycheck;
· Getting a free limited edition Tristan Eaton silkscreen print on metal;
· Rollos from the Rollo Fairy 🙂
· Two new rubber duckies. Now I have a snow ducky, a vampire ducky, a jester ducky, and a ducky holding a heart that says “Be Mine.”
· Temperatures ABOVE freezing! Hallelujah! It’s 39Âş out there now. HEAT WAVE!
· Finding a free glare-reducing screen for my work computer;
· Heart-shaped chocolates all over the office;
· Only 20 minutes to go! YAY.

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You Know What Sucks?

/ sick

My nose is dripping like a drippy thing, my throat and ears hurt, my body feels like a shell of itself, my head alternates between feeling like it’s filled with helium or weighs 300 pounds, my back aches, and THERE IS STILL 90 MINUTES TO GO ‘TIL I CAN BLOW THIS POP STAND.

Time is going very slowly. If only it had gone this slowly when I was in Chicago…

Stupid time.

My bed is a-callin’. “Yoo-hoo!!!!” it’s saying. HURRY UP, TIME!

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Hmmm

/ adam, authors, books, life

I’d like to review adamselzer‘s book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, however, I probably will not because the rules for customer reviewers are apparently different from those for “real” reviewers. For example, “real” reviewers can use the words “sex ed” and they can use “profanity” such as “wiseass,” or “smartass” but someone like me cannot.

That is really annoying, not to mention quite the double standard.

Over the past week, I got to watch some Sarah Silverman. Some of her jokes are very funny, but honestly, I think a lot of them are just plain MEAN. It’s one thing to poke fun at races or what not, but there is a difference between poking fun and at insulting, and she borderline insults people. I think that’s her way of really showing how ridiculous stereotypes are… but I can’t tell if she’s playing a role or if she really believes some of the things she says, like this one:

“Everyone knows that the best time to get pregnant is when you’re a black teenager.”

I know I’m ultra sensitive, though, and she’s brash and in-your-face with the slurs and such. While her show is just plain wacky, I’m not sure how I feel about her stand up material. With that said, some of her stuff is hilariously funny. Her joke about Martin Luther King farting in the car while his family is with him, then putting up all the windows and turning on the heat had me laughing for hours after hearing it.

And now I digress.

I found the service plan for my laptop, so I’m going to back up the most important things and then take it in this Wednesday. That’s the plan anyway—provided I’m not still hanging on to this cold that’s currently making me miserable.

Speaking of, it’s lunchtime aka naptime for me. Later!

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