Monday, June 30, 2008

Ladies Who Lunch

One of the things that O. finds somewhat perplexing about me is the amount of time I spend with my extended family, and the eagerness that I have to just hang out with them. I was lucky enough to grow up with almost all of my aunts, uncles and cousins within an hour's drive, and we see each other often. One of the best examples of this is lunch.

For God only knows how many years, my aunts have gathered every Monday at noon for lunch. The roster changes based on availability, work schedules and who has retired recently, and every once in awhile there's an uncle or a cousin thrown in, but at twelve sharp every Monday, they can be found at one of these two restaurants.

I love lunch. When I was a kid, it made me feel grown up, and as an adult it makes me feel connected. One of the things I was most looking forward to this summer was getting to go to lunch. Sadly, this was my last week for awhile...my practicum must take priority. But while my body may be in Arlington for the next month, my heart will be at lunch.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Laziness

What I should do:
Email my practicum coordinator.
Study for my comprehensive exams.
Finish cleaning up after the party.
Work out on the Wii Fit.
Change the sheets.
Laundry.

What I am going to do:
Read this book.
Eat cheese.

God, I love the summer.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

I feel like the biggest moron in the world. In preparation for having people over on Saturday, I decided that the couches looked kind of dingy, so I took the cushion covers off and took them to the dry cleaner. I was halfway home before I thought to look at the receipt.

$168.

Jesus. For that much I could have paid someone to come over and clean both couches.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Bite Me, Sony



Don't piss off the librarians. You don't want to see us when we're cranky.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Fandemonium.

When xkcd gets it right, they really get it right...



Last night, I was up until 2:30 a.m. seeking out any and all information on this story. Why?

Sigh.

It started with this book, which features a character called Keelin. That made me think of this actress, but I couldn't remember her name. So I trotted on over to imdb.com to find her. Well, it turns out that she guest starred on several episodes of Battlestar Galactica, so I surfed on over to the show's IMDB page, where I discovered a new feature called NewsDesk, which collates news stories about particular shows and people. Because one of the Battlestar Galactica actors has been very, very vocal on this story, there was a link to it.

So that explains how I heard about it in the first place. Why did I care about a sci-fi convention that I did not attend, did not desire to attend and had in fact never heard of before it imploded? Damned if I know.

Well, I sort of know. Situations like this piss me off--when someone has so clearly and blatantly done something wrong, I want justice whether or not I was the wronged party. It's kind of like how it's so satisfying to see the guy who was weaving in and out of traffic pulled over by the police--even if he didn't cut you off, he still deserves it.

Or maybe I just have anger issues. That could be it.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Meet me in St. Louis...

...well, maybe not. Not this version, anyway.

When I start reading a series, I usually use the devouring method. I read everything as quickly as possible and then wait impatiently for more. I worked my way through Janet Evanovich's entire Stephanie Plum series in two weeks*--that was eleven books at the time--and began haunting the library's New Arrivals section the day the next book came out.

Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series is different. Three years into reading them, I'm only on book eight. They're my guilty pleasure, my indulgence--but I can only read them when I'm in the right mood, and that mood only comes around three times a year or so. It's not that they're that good, because they're not. I mean, they're decent books, but Hamilton is a little bit of a hack, and Anita is a classic Mary Sue. No, I don't come for the writing, or for the characterization. I come for the sex. And there's plenty of that, even in the first several books where most of the main characters were celibate.

Actually, that's not even accurate. I come for the sexual tension and the supernatural aspects, although whichever critic at the New York Review of Science Fiction supplied the quote on the back of all of the books was clearly on drugs. R-rated Buffy my ass. The only thing the two have in common is the vampires. The writing on Buffy had subtlety. Hamilton prefers to hit you with an anvil.

As does Anita, actually. As a rule, I can't stand books with obnoxious main characters, and Anita is certainly that. But somehow it works, for now. I understand that the later books in the series are worse--like throw the book across the room worse. I've been told that at some point, Hamilton drops all pretense and begins shoehorning sex scenes in wherever she possibly can--there is a succubus subplot that seems to be universally reviled, but I haven't gotten there yet. They're not erotica, but I can't put my finger on why, exactly--perhaps they're not explicit enough?

But for now, for me, these books feel decadent. They're made to be read in the bathtub with a glass of wine and some sort of bath-related smelly thing. So that's where Blue Moon and I are headed right now.

* If you have not read these books, do it now. You'll die laughing.