hmmmm.....

On the nightstand now: The River Wife/Jonis Agee, Whispers in the Night/Brandon Massey, Still Summer/Jacquelyn Mitchard, The Panic Hand/Jonathan Carroll, Still Life with Elephant/Judy Reene Singer

Favorite book when you were a child: Justin Morgan had a Horse/Marguerite Henry

Top five authors: Geraldine Brooks, Tracy Chevalier, Joanne Harris, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Nora Roberts

Book you've faked reading: Things Fall Apart/Chinua Achebe, A Tale of Two Cities/Charles Dickens, and the first chapter of The Scarlet Letter/Nathaniel Hawthorne (Go Hester!)

Book you're an evangelist for: Year of Wonders/Geraldine Brooks, The Virgin Blue/Tracy Chevalier, and Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him/Danielle Ganek

Book you've bought for the cover: NEVER!.....although my mom used to pick romance novels that way :)

Book that changed your life: The Canterbury Tales/Geoffrey Chaucer

Favorite line from a book: "Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll. Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."--Alexander Pope

Book you most want to read again for the first time: The Hero and the Crown/Robin McKinley

Book you've reread: I'd have to take a week off work to begin the first leg of answering this question. Books were invented to be reread people! I've read the cover off of Dark Horse by Mary Herbert and repaired it with a cut up cereal box. I reread tons of books, oodles, bunches, untold hundreds (maybe thousands!). I love the printed word! I am nerd, hear me roar!

evenin' ya'll!
htw

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Seed Daily Zeitgeist revealed horrible news just now! Alex, the 31 year old African Grey parrot of word-learning fame, was found dead in his cage Friday Sept 7th. Dr. Pepperberg, Alex's owner and the scientist working to teach him for the past quarter century, reports that Alex died of natural causes. I dug around a bit and also found a New York Times piece about Alex's passing.

This makes me so sad! I've always thought fondly of the little bird ever since I read about him and used some of Dr. Pepperberg's research for a nonverbal/animal communication paper in college.

goodbye alex :(

another great blog....

that I enjoy each and every time it's updated is A Good Poop, where the author makes commentary on scientific articles. Whether he reads them or not, I don't know, but here's a great example:

Stein D, Hanukoglu A, Blank S, Elizur A. Cyclic psychosis associated with the menstrual cycle. Br J Psychiatry. 1993 Dec;163:824-8.

Ha! Definite proof that PMS makes the ladies all crazy! I win! Or, more accurately, I lose!

Some of the others I have enjoyed included "Scientific article or death metal album?" and "Adventures with debilitating dentures." Good stuff...go check it out!

htw

for the g.r.r. martin fans out there!

I haven't read the books, but they're on my list! Some parts of this agree but most do not, although I love the squid (one of my fav animals!)

Your Score: House Greyjoy

54% Dominant, 36% Extroverted, 45% Trustworthy

Brutal. Opportunistic. Unforgiving. Rising again, harder and stronger, you are of House Greyjoy.

You are a dominant personality. Although you are neither the strongest nor the most cunning, you bend the weaknesses of others to your own advantage. Extremely opportunistic, you are the Wendy Pepper of Westeros, letting everyone fall over themselves and get tangled up before springing lightly over the pile of bodies. When others criticize you, you’re more likely to cut out their tongue than lend an ear. Your arrogance is hard-wired into you to such a degree that you barely recognize other human beings to be of your same species, let alone your equals.

You are also introverted, which means that nobody knows what the hell is going on inside your head. Spontaneous and extremely impulsive, your actions will always take people by surprise. As such, it’s unlikely that you have many friends or allies in the wide world; people just don’t find you trustworthy. And there’s a reason for that, too, which is...

You’re untrustworthy! You are opportunistic, greedy, stubborn, and more-than-willing to climb over anyone you must to get to the top. You are unwilling to compromise on anything, and instead of using strategy, you try to eliminate as many of the other players as possible. Let’s face it—by conventional moral standards, you’re just not a very admirable person. Perhaps if you stopped laughing when people cut their fingers off at your dinner parties...?

Representative characters include: Aeron Greyjoy, Asha Greyjoy, and Victarion Greyjoy

Similar Houses: Baratheon, Frey, and Lannister

Opposite House: Tully

When playing the game of thrones, you play it buck naked, flappin’ in the breeze.

Link: The Song of Ice and Fire House Test written by Geeky_Stripper on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Your Turn, Katie!

Book Cover Meme

I was not tagged for this, but I'm tagging myself 'cuz it's real damn funny :)

Over at Kimbooktu, it has come across the tag com lines to put your first name into Amazon's book search and blog about a title of interest that comes up, so *snicker* here goes! Gosh, how will I decide between these!

....and many, many more! I was named after this particular automotive superpower, so I don't knock it...I even have a Holley Equiped sticker on my car :)

Book Diva, The Burrow, Elizabeth's Thoughts and Musings, anyone else, Bueller?

You've been tagged!

htw

El Orfanato

I am reading review after great review of Juan Antonio Bayona's debut film, El Orfanato (The Orphanage)! Guillermo Del Toro has a hand in it, which is obvious, but he's the producer I believe. I can hardly wait for this to hit theaters as I have a definite fan crush on Del Toro...I have all the movies he directed that I could talk Amazon into sending, even Cronos, which was only available through third-party sellers and I paid WAY too much for (but I loved, loved, loved!). Cronos, Mimic, El Espinazo del Diablo, Hellboy, and El Laberinto del Fauno are all in my personal viewing library and I will add this one as soon as it comes out on DVD. Some are better than others, which I think is true of any artist's oeuvre, but I consider the sum of all the parts to be spectacular.
htw

we break from our normal programming....

....for this very girly moment, please allow a moment for pink-a-vision to slide into place....

This is from one of my new favorite blogs, The Book Inscriptions Project, where people send in interesting finds of book inscriptions. It seems to be a tide of used book finds and while I'm sure the person who initially made the inscriptions would no doubt be heartbroken to know that their (mostly) heartfelt gifts ended up in a thrift store/used book store/garage sale/etc, I would love to see an inscription I'd written end up here. As I've never inscribed a book when I've given it as a gift, I'll be sure to do that AND be thoughtful with the remarks...you never know who'll see them.

That being said, here's what the inscription above says:

Barbara
To have met someone and felt alive again is wonderful…Read this and realize that all is possible. You are beautiful, exciting, sexy, but most of all the possibilities that seem——are real. Thanks for being at Rodney’s on Saturday night.
Neal
P.S. You bet I want to make love to you, but then the whole world wants to.

You could decide she's a lady of ill repute...but I think this is one of the most romantic things I've ever seen...and it's a good (though quite sappy) book as well! As I said in my comment on the blog entry where I initially found this,

Way to go Neal! Where ever you are!

...you may now return to normal bitter, sarcastic programming!

evenin' ya'll!

htw

rejected, now has home

It's great, wonderful, stupendous even...thanks Daxx!

It's a long one, over 9 minutes, but SO worth every second! If you can make it to the end it goes all Ringu on you! fun, fun, fun!

In particular, KP might enjoy it the most...maybe?



what do ya'll think?

htw

some great timewasters

...as I am a champion timewaster when I put my mind to it, I've decided to share the treasure. PC Magazine has put out their Top 100 Undiscovered Websites of 2007 and there are some real beaut's available for your surfing pleasure!

I skimmed through them and chose some of the more interesting-sounding to add to my 1000 SITES TO VISIT BEFORE YOU DIE so be sure and go to the PC Mag article, you may just find a treasure for yourself!
htw

the crud continues....

.....and I will shortly be taking my sick @$$ to the doctor, hopefully this afternoon. I had an ear infection with a stomach virus chaser and now a snotty cold for dessert...the karmic implications are dire! KT has browbeaten me into going to the doctor, as she usually has to do when I'm sick. I have no idea why I always take the ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away approach, but I do and I'm miserable so I'm calling the doctor's office when they get back from lunch at 1:30 and taking my chances (and maybe some antibiotics). I just really don't want to be the breeding ground for some antibiotic resistant strain of plague. We'll see I guess.

htw