11 Months Down, 1 More To Go…

I am overly ecstatic today. My internet is finally fixed!!! Shortly after my last post, my roommate decided to change internet providers. According to my roommate, there was some problem with the router, then the replacement router crapped out too. Three routers later, we are online!

At the beginning of November, I won one the coolest concert tickets to date: Stone Temple Pilots!!! Here are a few pics:

My friend Chris and I saw Dave Matthews play an acoustic set to celebrate the opening of the first Microsoft retail store at a local mall. The place was packed and crazy, but well worth getting to see and hear Dave Matthews.

 

I said in my last post that I would post a book review, and I had every intent on keeping that promise. Now that my internet is working again, expect more book reviews! I’ve accepted a few books to review and I have a couple of reviews that way past over due that I need to post. 

October: A Little Late….

I finally have a little free time to write about the month of October… it’s only 2 weeks late :)

At the beginning of October my friend Chris and I checked out The Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle. It’s basically Paul Allen’s tribute to Jimi Hendrix and other music memorabilia. For as much hype as the EMP gets, I wasn’t that impressed. What did impress me, however, was the Science Fiction Museum, also located in the EMP. It’s a definite must for any SciFi fan.

I took a week off of work and ended up doing a lot of fun stuff.

On the first day of vacation I saw the silent black and white film “Underworld” at the Paramount theatre, complete with a live organist playing along with the movie.

On the second day of vacation I saw the play “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” at the ACT Theatre.

On the third thru sixth day of my vacation I went to a festival called the City Arts Fest, put on by City Arts Magazine, a local Seattle publication. They booked a handful of bands each night of the festival, which concert goers could either buy individual tickets to each show, or buy a wristband and get into any show they wanted to. My only complaint about the festival is that they scheduled many great concerts at the same time, and I had to choose which band I wanted to see the most. I ended up choosing:

• 1st Night – Gogol Bordelo and Forro in the Dark
• 2nd Night – Roky Erickson, the Maldives and Massy Fergusen
• 3rd Night – The Vaselines, Dum Dum Girls and Young Evils
• 4th Night – She & Him and Mike Coykendall & the Golden Shag

And on the 7th day of vacation I rested :)

To close up the month of October, I had the opportunity to go to a Seattle Sounders playoff game on Halloween. Unfortunately, the Sounders lost, but I had a lot of fun at the game anyways.

I’ve been asked a few times if I’m going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, and sadly the answer is no. I really wanted to, but I hardly update my blog. I definitely don’t have time to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.

Oh, and speaking of never updating my blog… I’ve been considering what to do with my blog. I’ve thought about shutting it down and just commenting on the blogs that I follow. I really enjoy writing book reviews, but I never have the time to write them. I keep turning down books to review, not because I’m not reading, but because I feel bad that I don’t have time to provide the author and/or publisher with a timely review.

But…… I’ve decided that I want to keep my book reviewing blog alive! I’ve recently accepted a book to review and hope in the next week or so to post the two book reviews I’ve been meaning to do since summer. With fall here and winter quickly approaching, I hope to be spending the cold nights curled up with a cup of tea, a great indie book and my laptop.

Ah, September! What a fun month!!

September was crammed full of great events! I was so busy, I didn’t get a chance to write the book reviews I promised last month. Now that fall is here, I’m hoping to return to the regularly scheduled programming on this blog.

I started out the month by checking out the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) with my friend, Chris. SAM has free admission the first Thursday of every month. I really wanted to check out the Kurt Cobain exhibit before it ended. I was very disappointed. The exhibit was actually art inspired by Kurt Cobain instead of his own art and was mixed with the work of Andy Warhol. After walking thru the Cobain/Warhol exhibit, we checked out the rest of SAM. 

Labor Day Weekend was awesome because I won my coolest radio concert to date…. BUMBERSHOOT!!! For those of you not from Seattle, Bumbershoot is a 3 day music and arts festival. On top of winning 2 passes for the whole weekend, I also won private mini concerts for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Crash Kings and Courtney Love. We saw 29 bands over the weekend! I didn’t take very many pictures because I wasn’t close enough to the stages, but here’s a few from the private concerts.

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

 

Crash Kings

Courtney Love

The Space Needle on a beautiful day

The weekend after Bumbershoot, I won another radio contest, this time to see The Smashing Pumpkins (or as I like to refer to them as Billy Corgan and friends). It was a great concert, but I really wished they played more songs from the 90’s. You can check out Chris’ review here.

Just a few days after seeing The Smashing Pumpkins, Chris got to review The Gaslight Anthem and had an extra pass, so I got to tag along. You can check out his review here.

The night after The Gaslight Anthem, I got to see Brandon Sanderson at University Bookstore!!! He read from his newest book, “The Way of Kings”, answered questions from the crowd, then ended with a book signing. Sadly, I did not have anything signed.

I got to tag along for another concert Chris was reviewing, this time for Massy Ferguson, Cody Beebe & The Crooks and Curtains For You. Chris writes way better concert reviews then I do, so check out what he had to say here.

Last month I mentioned that I won tickets to Vampire Weekend, but the show was cancelled. It was rescheduled for a different venue. They put on a good show, but I really enjoyed the opening band, The Head And The Heart.

I attended my first Oktoberfest, where I sampled 5 beers and had a great time people watching. I really wish I took some pictures, but at the time, I didn’t think about it.

Just when you think I’d be sick of concerts (NEVER!), Chris won 2 contests back to back! The first show was for Matt & Kim. I’m not a huge fan of their music, but they put on a very high energy show. We got to meet them for a few minutes before the show and they are very cool. I just checked to see if the pictures were posted for the Meet and Greet with Matt & Kim and they were not.

The next night Chris won tickets to see Arcade Fire, which I really wanted to buy tickets for, but could not afford it. Their concert was amazing, probably one of the top 5 concerts I’ve ever seen.

I was interviewed by my blog-mentor, Shelley, from Layers of Thought on my NaNoWriMo experience last year. Check out the interview on her blog here. If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, Shelley does a great job explaining it. NaNoWriMo is a great way for any aspiring author to challenge themselves to write!

I think that about wraps it up for September. As you can see, I have very good excuses for not writing book reviews. I’ve considered writing concert reviews, but as I said earlier, I don’t think I’m very good at writing them. Now that Fall is here and the weather will be soon turning rainy, I anticipate my book review posts to increase.

What!? Summer is over already?

Ah, Summer. Why did you forget Seattle? Did we do something wrong?

It’s already September! I can’t believe how fast the last few months have flown by. This post is a little late because the last week has been crazy busy with fun stuff, but I’ll save those events for another post.

Early in August, a friend and I checked out a great local band called Cody Beebe and The Crooks at a local bar. Here’s some video I found on YouTube that was taken that night.

I also went to the CD release party for Brad’s newest album called Best Friends? If you’re a hardcore Pearl Jam fan, you’ll know that the guitarist for Pearl Jam, Stone Gossard, plays in Brad, along with Shawn Smith (vocals, keys), Regan Hagar (drums), Keith Lowe (bass) and Mike Berg (keys).  I couldn’t find any footage of the concert that night, but the venue was packed and the band’s performance was amazing. Below is a promo video for Best Friends?

I won yet another radio contest, this time to see Vampire Weekend. Before the actual concert, the radio station hosted a private performance of Vampire Weekend for the contest winners at the Gibson Showroom. The band played 3 songs acoustically, then signed autographs and posed for pictures afterwards. Unfortunately, the lead singer of Vampire Weekend had to cancel the concert later that evening because he had enflamed vocal cords. The concert has been rescheduled for mid-September. Below is footage the radio station filmed of Vampire Weekend performing a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m Going Down”.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a book review. I have two reviews that I will post very soon (after I write them, of course!). The first one is called “Annexed” by Sharon Dogar and the second book is called “The Eleventh Hour Can’t Last Forever” by Alison Johnson. I hope to have both reviews up in the next week or two.

Thank God July is Over!!

I started this post a few days ago, but I keep getting sidetracked. It's about time I finish it! June was a very uneventful month. I can't say the same about July. I was very busy.

The month started out with car problems. My car kept dying on me, so I took it in to the mechanic. They informed me I was having some sort of electrical problems, which might me causing my car to die. So I got that fixed.

Since summer finally decided to show up in Seattle, I decided to spend a Saturday at the beach.

 

I used some vacation time and took a week off of work in the middle of the month. The Friday before my vacation started, I won Kings of Leon tickets from a local radio station. The concert was for the next day, so I started off my vacation driving 3 hours away to The Gorge, an amazing concert venue. The Features and Built to Spill were great opening acts for Kings of Leon.

 

The Bite of Seattle was also happening the same weekend as the concert, so I went to that Friday night and Sunday. We saw a few great local bands and ate yummy food from local restaurants.

While on vacation, I spent one day wandering around Pike Place Market (one of my favorite places) and the Seattle Waterfront with a friend. Later that night we checked out a local band playing at a bar, but before, we took a quick walk to check out a famous Seattle landmark, The Fremont Troll. For those of you not from Seattle, The Fremont Troll lives under a bridge just north of downtown Seattle. Yes, the troll is holding a real, full size VW Bug.

At the end of my vacation I drove to my hometown to spend the weekend with friends. We spent a lot of time at the river and my shoulders got really sunburned.

My first day back to work after my vacation, my car wouldn't start in the morning so I got a ride to work from a co-worker. After work I called roadside assistant to get a jump. They guy who showed up jumped my car and told me to drive around for a half hour to charge the battery. About 15 minutes into my drive, my car started to act up and wouldn't accelerate. I coasted into a parking lot. I called roadside assistant again, and he jumped my car, but it wouldn't shift into drive. I had to leave my car in the parking lot over night. The next day I had to have my car towed. My fuse panel was melted and the wires to the alternator were burned. The dealership had to order parts, so I was without my car for a few days.

With the exception of the car problems, July was a great month! Hopefully I'm done with car problems for a while!

Half of 2010 is already gone!

Have you ever had a month fly by, but looking back, you didn’t really do anything eventful? That’s how June felt to me.

I’ve been geocaching every weekend. This past weekend I tried to introduce my 10 year old niece to the wonderful world of geocaching, but we went 0 for 6. My niece wasn’t too discouraged, since I let her play at the parks we visited. Two of the caches were stolen, one we couldn’t figure out how to get on the trail without cutting though someone’s yard (later we learned that you have to go though the cemetery to get to the trailhead). Another trail had a group of teenage boys smoking and drinking at the trailhead. One needed an extraction tool (tweezers or needle nose pliers), which I did not have on hand. The last one was in a rock wall and we just couldn’t find it.

To date I have logged 18 finds! Here are a few pictures of the more fascinating geocaches I’ve found.

A toy rat hanging out in a shrub. I actually screamed when I spotted it because I am VERY afraid of rats.

 

A plastic rock underneath landscaping at a local clock shop. The owner of the store caught me poking around and kindly gave me a hint to the cache whereabouts.

The cache was actually hanging off the back leg of whatever this interesting creature is.

I’ve also been playing pool a lot lately. A few of my friends are on a pool league, so I’ve been hanging out with them, trying to learn a thing or two. I don’t plan on joining any pool leagues in the future, but I do enjoy playing and have even noticed improvement in my game.

That’s about it for my month of June. I’ll try to make July a little more exciting. Watch for book reviews sometime near the end of the week.

Where did April go?

The month of April was a crazy month for me. I settled in to my new place. Work is busy as usual. I had a really bad eye infection. But I always try to have a little fun. I went to a couple of concerts:

Angels and Airwaves at the Showbox Sodo

Civil Twilight at the Highdive

 

I went to a Seattle Mariners Game

 

This is a pic of the roof closing because it started to rain.

 

In book blog related news, I posted my first giveaway, a book called The Life O’Reilly by Brian Cohen, which was won by Logan from Rememorandom. Mr. Cohen read my review and was kind enough to offer an autographed copy of his novel to give away.

I was also contacted by indiereader.com to do book reviews for them. If you get a chance and enjoy independently published novels, I encourage you to check out their awesome selection. (I don’t receive any compensation from indiereader.com, I just love to support independently published authors)

In my last post I mentioned that I had 3 ulcers on my left eye. They have totally healed, so I don’t need surgery!!! I’m a little behind in my book reading because the ulcers made me very sensitive to light. Also, my book review pile is becoming overwhelmingly high, so I plan to post reviews soon before it falls over. I’m just glad I can see again!

Bye, Bye February!

I'm a little late posting my recap of February. But since this is my blog, it's ok :)


Let's start of with "I Never...And Now I Have!" for February. Let's see....

• Week 1 - I went on my first blind date ever....and it was horrible! I will spare you the details mainly because I don't want to relive them. I will probably never go on another blind date again.


• Week 2 - I drove a Toyota Prius Hybrid (and the gas pedal did not stick!). My beloved Jetta broke down....again. Luckily the problem was fixed by Volkswagen for free, but the part was out of stock and I had to be without my car for 5 days! My awesome Landlady let me borrow her Prius for a few of those days. It's a little different driving a hybrid. It took me a little while to get used to the fact that you pushed a button to start the car and pushed another button to park the car. And it's really, really quiet. Too quiet, but fun to drive once I got over the learning curve.


• Week 3 - I went to a Karaoke Bar. I actually didn't sing. That would have taken way more alcohol than I was comfortable to consume. The average age of people in the crowd was 60. Let's just say it wasn't the funnest time I've ever had.


• Week 4 - I finally saw Avatar in 3D. I liked it, but i'm not going to post a review because it's been out in the theatre for so long and I don't have anything unique to add to the millions of other reviews floating around in the blogosphere.

I'm hoping to try more fun and adventurous things I've never done before in March. I've been so busy with work that I haven't had a lot of spare time.

I finally finished the Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson. Great series! I plan on posting a review of all three books in the near future. I also checked out two of this other books, Elantris and Warbreaker from the library. I enjoyed Sanderson's writing style, so I have high expectations for his other books.

Speaking of book reviews, I have a bunch piling up that I need to post.

I'm loving the awesome spring-like weather we've been having in the Seattle area. I'm also excited that there's finally day light when I get home from work, so I can ride my bike on the trails near my house again. I ride the bikes at the gym, but it's just not the same as riding outdoors. I still plan on continuing my weight training at the gym, but most of my cardio will be done on my bike.

That's pretty much it for me. I'll try to make my March recap post more exciting.

How I Spent My Valentine’s Day

I know, two blog posts in one day! I’m shocked too!

Valentines’ Day started out as any normal Sunday. I slept in then made breakfast. Then I read a little bit (I’m reading The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson. Great book, by the way!). Then I decided to treat myself to a little date of sorts, since I am without a Valentine this year. So I showered, got dressed and checked the movie times for Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

I made my way to the mall and parked my car with about a half hour to spare for the 2pm showing. As I’m walking towards the extremely long line snaking in front of the movie theatre, a voice comes over the loud speaker saying that the 2pm showing of Percy Jackson is sold out. Crap. So I decide to use the Fandango App on my iPhone and buy my ticket for the next showing, which isn’t until 4:10pm. Then I made my way over to the Fandango kiosk and printed out my ticket. No standing in line.

Since I had almost 2 and a half hours to kill, I decided to wander around the mall. I walked thru Macy’s and Old Navy, but without a lot of extra money to spend, this was boring. And it only killed 20 minutes.  I then bought a drink at Orange Julius (blackberry xtreme, yum!!) and made my way down to Borders. I slowly wandered around the store, stopping every so often to pick up a book of interest, reading the back and inside cover, trying desperately to kill as much time as possible. I started to get tired from standing and walking, so I decided to sit in the little cafe in Borders and check my email, which lead to checking my Facebook, which lead to playing Solitaire. After a few games of Solitaire, it occurred to me that my actions screamed “loner” and “this chick can’t find a date on Valentine’s day” so I put away my iPhone and journeyed back to the movie theatre.

By now, I have about 40 minutes until the movie starts so I get in line to get a soda and popcorn (which cost more than my movie ticket!!). The theatre is pretty much empty, so I got to choose whatever seat I want. Soon, though, other people fill the seats around me. Since Percy Jackson is technically a Young Adult book, I am surrounded by children and their parents. To my right was a 4ish year old girl, who during the whole movie kept asking her Grandmother “Where’s Harry Potter?”. To my left was a 10is year old boy, who during the whole movie explained the book to his 8ish year old sister. But the real treat was the group of middle school boys behind me that also talked thru the whole movie and kept kicking the back of my seat. Luckily I’m pretty good at toning out the chatter going on around me, so it didn’t ruin my movie experience…much.

But I made it thru the day! To see my thoughts on Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, click here. I hope your Valentine’s Day was better than mine!!

One month down, 11 more to go...

Where did January go? It was here, then I blinked and the next thing I know, it's February. I've been really busy at work, working long hours and weekends. But you know what they say about all work and no play.... I managed to sneek in a few fun activities.

I was inspired by one of Chelsea's blog posts over at Triumphs and Blunders of a Kooky Gal (her blog is great. If you don't follow her, you really should!). Basically she started a meme of sorts called "I Never....And Now I Have!" The point is to do one thing a week that you've never done. I have a mental list of stuff I've always wanted to do, but haven't gotten around to doing it yet. Now that I have inspiration, I'm giving my best attempt to do one thing a week I've never done before. Here's what I did in January:

• Week 1 - I tried Sushi for the 1st time....and loved it!!!
• Week 2 - Fail....
• Week 3 - I tried Pho' for the 1st time....and loved it!!!
• Week 4 - I went to a wine tasting at a local winery, Chateau Ste. Michelle....so much fun!!!

I'm looking forward to February and the new things I'm going to try!

In other news, a few months ago I joined the gym. I go almost every day, and I still enjoy going!! In December I set a few goals for myself and about a week ago I exceeded my first goal of losing 13 pounds!!! YAY!!!

When I first started going to the gym, I met with Personal Trainer Ayla Riggle from Thrive Fitness, who got me started on my fitness regime. She's amazing and if you live in the Lake Stevens area and need a great trainer, I highly recommend her. She also has 2 awesome blogs, Live the Healthy Life and Fit Feasts.

In book-related news, I'm finally getting around to reading the Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson. This series was highly recommended to me by Dave, Krista, Logan and Shellie. I finished Book 1-Mistborn last week and I'm part way through Book 2-Well of Ascension. I plan on posting a review of the whole series when I finish Book 3-Hero of Ages. So far I'm loving the series and I can't wait to see the rest of the story unfold.

That's about it for me. If you get around to it, check out Rememorandom's Writing Wednesday tomorrow. Logan is in the middle of writing an epic poem called "The Absurdly Epic Tragedy of Oscambria". I find the poem very entertaining and hope you enjoy it as well.

An Update

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog. Besides working crazy long hours at work, let’s see what I’ve been up to, shall we?

On Sunday I went to the Seahawks game!!! I got tickets from a co-worker. I’ve been to a ton of Mariner games, but I’ve never seen the Seahawks live. My friend and I had a lot of fun and the Seahawks even won!! Here are a few pictures taken from my iPhone from my seat:

 

I’ve recently joined the gym. Usually I walk or ride my bike on a trail near my house, but it’s dark when I wake up and dark when I get home from work. Yesterday, I met with a personal trainer, who went over a fitness plan for me and showed my how to use the machines without looking like an idiot. Now I’m sore, but it’s the good kind of pain that produces results.

Now here’s what I haven’t been up to:

I haven’t updated my blog lately with any book review, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading! I have a stack of books anxiously waiting to be reviewed. Here’s a little preview, listed in no particular review order:

Stealing Death by Janet Lee Carey

I went to the Launch Party for this book a few months ago, where I picked up an autographed copy of this book.

 

 

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

This is the debut book by Becca Fitzpatrick. Will it live up to all the hype? Checked out from my local library.

 

 

The Bringer of War by Dylan Birtolo

How will this stand alone sequel compare to its predecessor, The Shadow Chaser? Purchased from the author.

 

 

The Victor by Marlayne Giron

The author contacted me from a comment I left on someone else’s review of this book! I never turn down a review copy.

 

 

Sanctuary by N.E. Julian

I received a review copy of this book from the author.

 

 

Dreamer by Philip L. Davidson

I received a review copy from the author.

 

 

 

I also have not started my novel for NaNoWriMo yet. Yes, I am officially freaking out. I have been thinking (ok, stressing!!) about this since before November 1. I have a 4-day weekend this weekend, so guess what I’m gonna start right after I post this?

In other news, I won a Radiohead CD from Shelley at Layers of Thought!! Yay!! I love free stuff and surprisingly I don’t already own this CD.

If you don’t already, I highly recommend you check out Logan’s Writing Wednesdays on his blog, Rememorandom. Each Wednesday, Logan posts a new segment of his various writing projects. He recently finished Part 1 of a serial story and has moved onto an epic poem that I found very impressive.

My vacation so far, NaNoWriMo, and contests

Sigh, only a few more days left in my vacation. Where does the time go? I feel like I haven’t done anything productive. I caught a nasty cold and have been sick for a few days now. I’ve been sleeping a lot and I haven’t read near as much as I was hoping to.

On Saturday I picked up my car from the mechanic (it runs AWESOME!!) and took my nieces Ali and Hailey to Penumbra – a fantasy faire. It’s an event put on by the Seattle Knights. There were pirates and knights jousting and faeries and more!! We had a lot of fun and Dave Matthews was even among the crowd!! If you ever have a chance to go to one of their events, I highly recommend you do. You will not be disappointed. I wish I had some pics to post to show you the awesomeness of their performances.

On Monday, I signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it’s basically a personal challenge to write a 50,000 (or more!) word novel from scratch between November 1 thru the 30th. There are no promises of a book deal or any other contest winnings, just the satisfaction of completing the task. I heard about this challenge back in 2005, but this is the first year I’ve actually committed to it. I almost forgot about it but Dave mentioned it a few days ago on his blog.

It’s been a life-long dream to write a novel. I participated in my first writing contest at the age of 11, but I’ve put my writing passion on the back burner since high school ended and I pursued accounting for a career. It’s only been just recently that I started writing again and began this blog. My writing skills are a little rusty, but you can’t sharpen your skills without practice, right? So, during the month of November, my faithful readers will get the privilege of seeing me post updates on my status in NaNoWriMo and if you’re lucky, I MIGHT post my story here if I finish it. If you’re a writer looking for a fresh challenge or a spark to light the stories bouncing around inside your head, I recommend you sign up to participate in NaNoWriMo.

If you get a chance, don’t forget to check out Shellie’s blog tomorrow and participate in her book giveaway!!

That’s all the excitement I have to share. I think I’ll take a nap now…

Where have I been?

I know, I know, my faithful fans are missing my posts and reviews. I have been really busy with a couple of work projects. I've been putting in a lot of hours at the office. By the time I get home, I'm exhausted and do not want to spend any more time staring at a monitor. But, my vacation starts Friday!!! Yay!!!

If you get a free moment, check out Shellie's contest here. She's giving away a Radiohead CD. All you have to do is EMAIL her your top 5 favorite albums and explain why your top one is your favorite. This was a very hard choice for me. I own over 700 albums, so I consulted my faithful friend, iTunes. I sorted my library by play count and here are the top 5 albums I listen to:

1. Some Mad Hope by Matt Nathanson

2. All Sides by O.A.R.

3. The Fray by The Fray

4. Busted Stuff by Dave Matthews Band

5. The Glass Passenger by Jack's Mannequin

In other news, some of you know my beloved 2002 Volkswagon Jetta has been acting up. It's been running weird and the front end was shaking when I go above 35 mph. Then it started dying on me. So I finally took it to my mechanic. Basically, my problems were a combination of a cracked drive axel, my transmission going out and 3 out of the 4 ignition coils were really bad and the 4th one was only kinda bad. Luckily, I still have 2400 miles left on my warranty so they are footing the bill to repair everything!! Sadly, I have been without a car because of diagnotics and the warranty company taking their sweet time to inspect the damage so they can approve the claim so my mechanic can do the work. I have my car back for now, but my new transmission will be ready to be installed on Wednesday, so I will have to be without my car again for a few more day. But when I get it back, no more shaking and dying!!

As for book related news, I was recently given a Barnes & Noble giftcard. I have over 200 books on my to-read list, so choosing books to purchase at Barnes & Noble was very hard. I decided to buy a couple of books that I've been waiting for from the library for a while and a new release that I really wanted to read. The new release is Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. I recently read Lament: A Faerie Queen's Deception by Stiefvater and really liked it. The other 2 books I got are Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris (the book HBO's True Blood is based off of) and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Dave, Logan, Krista and Shellie (their blogs are all awesome! If you don't follow them, you really should!!) all have been talking about Mistborn and how awesome it is. I didn't want to feel left out, so I jumped on the Mistborn bandwagon. I'm excited to read them all.

Yep, I went to PAX this weekend

Those who know me are probably surprised that I would go to an event like PAX. It’s a video game convention and I don’t even own a video game console (Please don’t hold that against me!!). But those who know me well are not surprised by my attendance to PAX. I love doing things that seem “out of character” for me and I like to experience new things. That, and my brother travels to Seattle every year to attend the 3 day event. For the last 3 years, he has invited me to go with him. PAX is always Labor Day weekend, and the Dave Matthews Band always plays at the Gorge Labor Day weekend as well. However, this year I could not afford the yearly pilgrimage to the DMB Mecca to see my favorite band perform, so I thought I would spend some time with my brother in his element. I had a lot of fun. I watched my brother play a bunch of games and I saw some interesting things:

Dragon Age Booth Guy

Yes, it appears that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a short bus…

I can’t remember which game this was for, but I thought it was pretty cool to watch some dude ride an evil looking horse.

This is about the only thing I recognized :)

Where else can you go dressed like this and not be considered strange?

(Pics courtesy of my rockin’ brother, Cliff)

 

In other news this weekend, I read Catching Fire, book 2 in The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Here’s my official review:

IT IS AWESOME!!!

If you’ve read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire is as good if not better. It definitely lives up to all the hype. I HIGHLY recommend reading both books. You will not be disappointed. I’m not going to post a review on my blog, because it seems like everyone else is reviewing it and I don’t have anything else to add that hasn’t already been covered.

Also, today I received my first email from an author who wants me to review his book!!! Yay!!! I’m very excited and can’t wait to get it in the mail.

 

Random thoughts for today

My niece tells me I'm the queen of random. Whatever that means. But I do find I stumble upon really weird, random things quite often. The ones I find amusing I will share here on my blog.

For example:

I just walked out of my department at work into the foyer, where I saw a guy from the landscaping crew watering the plants. You may think this is not strange, and I agree; plants need to be watered. But the weird thing was he was watering the plants with a gas can!!! Yes, a gas can. I must of had a shocked look on my face as I walked by because he said "There's water in there, I swear!!" I quickly rearranged the look on my face and said, "Hey, you would know better than me what a plant needs to grow", and continued on my way.

I think this is the same guy who, last fall, was using a leaf blower to clean up the leaves in the parking lot. This also is not an unusual task in itself, but he was actually standing below a tree aiming the leaf blower so that it blew the leafs off of the branches. Appartantly he was in a race with Mother Nature and really wanted to win. My co-workers and I were taking bets to see if he was going to climb the tree and start plucking the leafs off.


And while I'm on the topic of random things, I am a huge fan of word definitions, especially obsolete or "out of style" words. I have a Word Of The Day desk calendar on my desk at work and every once in a while an interesting word presents itself.

For example:

September 1, 2009 - nomenclator - a noun meaning;

1. a book containing collections or lists of words


2. one who gives names to or invents names for things
   

I found this word fascinating for a few reasons. One, I have a book obsession, so anything book related is of interest to me. Secondly, the same niece who dubed me the queen of random also accuses me of making up words and inventing names for things. I wonder if I can use nomenclator on a resume? Hmmmm......