I'm not a big fan of this sleeping at night thing. :p Also the not getting anything done thing. But I've been having a great time with Erin here, so it's worth it. I can always get back to my regular schedule and catch up on stuff once she's gone. (I actually did have a chance to do some work this evening since she's gone to visit her goddaughter for a day, but I was so glad to be able to just be on the internet again that I spent more time reading flists and greader and stuff than getting any actual work done. *sigh*)

Today we drove up the coast a bit to Malibu Lagoon, where we wandered around a bit and poked at sea creatures down on the beach. There's some pics here, though Erin's camera ran out of batteries before we could get pictures of all the awesomeness.

Also making me happy are the last week or so worth of posts on Cake Wrecks. It's all Thanksgiving-themed and wow, so many bad, bad turkey cakes out there. Just say no, people.

Title: War Dances
Author: Sherman Alexie
Number of Pages: 256 pages
Book Number/Goal: 68/75 for 2009
My Rating: 2.5/5

This is a collection of short stories and poems linked mainly by the fact that they're about whiny guys. I don't know. I did like a couple of the stories (especially the last one, Salt, and the title story), but the ones that left a bad taste in my mouth really left a bad taste in my mouth and kind of overpower all the rest. The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless was just gross, and I get that he was supposed to be a gross asshat guy, but I don't really need to read a story about a guy who's just wallowing in his assholishness while going "wah, wah, poor me", you know? I could go anywhere on the internet and find a million of them.

Added to that the fact that I'm not a big fan of poetry and these poems didn't do anything to change my mind, and that the writing itself wasn't that great, this was just really not the book for me. I'm glad this wasn't the first thing of his I ever read, otherwise I'd probably write him off and never read anything of his again.

Erin's sister got an earlier flight, so she was back over here by like 4.30, instead of between 8 and 9 like she'd planned. :D

We then went to Target (she rented a car for the rest of the time she's here, whee!), since she wanted to get some presents to take to her goddaughter tomorrow, and I found Tim Tams (at a cheaper price than the grocery store!) and a cute green and blue striped shirt.

Then we had a delicious dinner of grilled tri-tip and cheesy potatoes with leeks and bacon, with pumpkin pie for dessert. Om nom nom!

1. I got my new sweatshirt in the mail today! It's the same one Carla got a week or so ago, but in olive green instead of navy blue. I love it so! My old sweatshirt was...not exactly something I would choose myself (had a big picture of wolves on it and said Alaska; I think it was given to us by Carla's aunt when they went on a trip there), plus it was worn thin in many places and the cuffs were pretty much shredded. Also it was a pullover, which is fine for in the house, but as a jacket to wear out, I'd rather have a zip-up sweatshirt.

2. We bought a new sofa! Earlier in the week we got a flier from Easy Life, which had an advertisement for a $599 sofa with free loveseat or recliner and we both liked the idea. The sofa reclines on both ends, plus the centre folds down to be a little table with built-in cup holders!

At first we'd been thinking about getting the recliner to go with it, since that's what would fit better in our living room, but the recliner turned out to be a rocker recliner, which I do not like, plus the hand pull on the side felt really cheap. So we're now not sure exactly where the loveseat will go, but we'll find a place for it somewhere, either in the living room or maybe here in the computer room.

I am all O_o over the fact that we have bought furniture. It's so grown up! We did buy a bed years ago when we got married, but that is the only furniture we've bought, new or used. Everything else was already in the house or hand-me-down from relatives. (Oh, and we got a coffee table from Carla's folks for Christmas a couple years ago.) Well, we did buy the three computer desks we have, and the CD shelves, but those don't feel like real furniture in quite the same way, you know? They're not a sofa!

Anyway, they were out of stock at that location, so it has to be ordered and will be delivered around the 8th.

3. They had Tim Tams at the grocery store! FINALLY! I have been hearing now for a year or more that Pepperidge Farm sells Tim Tams here, but I never saw them anywhere. I was kind of disappointed in the price, though. On sale for $3.50, regular price $3.99. I'm not sure how much they are at Cost Plus, but it's not that much more expensive. I was hoping these would be a little cheaper. I did buy a pack, but even the sale price is out of my price range except for very special occasions (like finding them for the first time ever).

1. Had a nice dinner today. I wasn't thrilled with my family, but at least we didn't have to stay too long. :p

2. I have managed to survive on only about an hour and a half of sleep. I thought I might crash when we came back from my mom's, but unfortunately I still had Naruto and Bleach to translate since I didn't get those before we left. And then it was like five-thirty or six and I was thinking, really, if I just push on for a few more hours, I can be on a fairly "normal" schedule, which is what I'm wanting to keep to while Erin is here, because while I usually love my sleep during the day/up all night thing I have going, it's not so great for company (and Erin is not back here until Saturday, but I'd rather not disrupt my schedule more than I have to).

3. I don't have to do anything tomorrow. I mean, there's stuff on my to-do list, but there's nothing urgent, and we don't have to go anywhere, and I can just catch up on my sleep and relax.

There's something else that I have been meaning to put on the list for days and I only remember it when I'm away from the computer. D: And each time, I'm like, oh, I should totally put that on my happiness post! But now I have no idea what it is.

1. Well, I got most of my Jump translations done last night. For some reason neither Bleach nor Naruto are out yet. Hopefully they'll show up in the next couple hours so I can get them done before going over to my mom's for dinner... But at least I got One Piece (two chapters this week), Bakuman, and Psyren out of the way!

2. I went to Panera for the first time yesterday. OMG they have delicious pastries. I thought they were just a sandwich shop, but Erin wanted to go there for breakfast, so we walked down (nice walk, like three, three and a half miles round trip) and I got a gingerbread bagel and a orange scone. The scone had this icing on it that tasted exactly like those Pillsbury orange rolls. And the bagel was sooooo good (and cheap, too; their bagels are only $1.25). I'd definitely go down there again.

3. Erin's off with her sisters for a couple days, but she's coming back here on Saturday instead of Sunday like she thought, so that's an extra day to hang out, yay. Plus she's going to be renting a car, so I won't have to get my mom to take her to the airport when she leaves.

4. I'm cat/house-sitting for my former neighbors for a few days, so that means extra money, yay.

1. My friend Erin is here from out of town. I haven't seen her in almost three years, so it's pretty exciting to see her again. We've been friends since we were like six and eight or something ridiculous like that. She's going to spend tomorrow afternoon through Saturday with her sisters, but then be back at our house and stay until next Wednesday. We did two hours of karaoke this afternoon and hopefully will do more next week.

2. I got the last of the books I ordered for my mom for Christmas, so that is my Christmas shopping done! (That is really my only Christmas shopping, actually, considering Carla got her computer as an early Christmas present.)

I feel like I haven't got much done today because I didn't get much done on the computer, BUT! I did do a ton of housecleaning, because Erin is coming to stay tomorrow, and plus this weekend I want to put the tree up and would want to vacuum and stuff before that, so two reasons to clean means I actually got off my ass and tidied, dusted, and vacuumed.

Plus we finally made a decision on how we want the living room organised, so it's no longer in a half-assed state since we moved the furniture around. I thought of taking pictures tonight (both of it and the rearranged bedroom, which has also had some finishing touches put on it finally, like plugging the clock properly in so it's not got the cord stretching out across the floor), but I think I'll just wait until after I've got the Christmas tree up.

Anyway, so yay, house clean(ish).

And now I am super tired, so I'm going to try and get some sleep and that way I'll be on a more "normal" schedule while I have company (and for Thanksgiving, too, since dinner will be right in the middle of when I'd normally be sleeping).



Also I loved today's Dinosaur Comics.

This is for people in the US only, unfortunately, but a code for Amazon has $3 off digital purchases, plus some new albums like Adam Lambert's For Your Entertainment and Rihanna's Rated R are on sale for $3.99 each, so you could essentially get a whole album for 99 cents.

There's also some good stuff in the 50 for $5 each section, including The Crane Wife and a Flight of the Conchords album.

I already downloaded a copy of For Your Entertainment, but I figured for that cheap, I should buy the official version as well. I also apparently had $12 in mp3 credits already (they give you $5 whenever you buy anything to do with music (such as the headphones we ordered a few months back) and then I forget to use them), so I bought Rihanna's, too. I still have $8 left, so I should see if there's anything else I want.

1. Helped my mom and Tom move some furniture yesterday, which earned us $50 off the rent. Woohoo!

2. My hair is blue! It was really a huge pain in the ass, made even worse by the fact that we no longer have a bathtub faucet (well, the faucet is there, it's just broken so you can no longer switch from shower to bath; it's on shower permanently), so I couldn't rinse my head under the faucet, but instead had to do it in the shower, getting blue all over everything, including myself. But I like how it turned out, so yay.

Title: The House on Mango Street
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Number of Pages: 110 pages
Book Number/Goal: 67/75 for 2009
My Rating: 4.5/5

This is a series of vignettes about Esperanza, a pre-teen girl growing up in a latino neighborhood in Chicago. It's very, very short, even shorter than the 110 pages it appears to be, because each story starts halfway down on the page, and often end with just one paragraph or a few lines on the next page, so there's a ton of empty space. The stories are all just little ordinary things, like reading somebody's memories rather than A Novel. I enjoyed it a lot.

Mooch from BookMooch.

I got hardly anything done yesterday. I was really tired and went to bed early, then ended up napping a couple times during the day, too, and then have been tired for the last several hours which means I just sort of sat here not really getting much done (but I didn't want to go to bed until I had finished a few things). :(

Also for some reason there's some sort of fuckup between Verizon and T-Mobile, so when people with Verizon call our phones (T-Mobile), they get a message saying all circuits are busy or something. D:

Anyway! On to the happiness...

1. The excerpt for this really bad gay romance is hilarious. I am almost tempted* to pay the $6.99 for the full book because I know it would provide much enjoyment in ways the author never intended.

2. This whole hair-dyeing thing is going very slowly because I am lazy, but I did use the toner on my hair yesterday, and here is a picture of me post-toner. My hair's still pretty yellow, but it definitely took out the worst of the orange. I meant to do the blue today, but that didn't happen, so hopefully tomorrow.

3. There is a World of Warcraft version of Peggle! It's only ten levels, but I will take anything I can get! Also it's free, yay. (And it's not an add-on for Peggle or Peggle Nights, but a stand-alone edition, so you can play it even if you don't have the others.)

4. Carla's going back to Indiana to visit her folks (and friends) in January and her parents are actually paying for the ticket! This is pretty rare for them, and not due to any lack of money.



*Not really, but maybe if it were half that price.

1. Carla got her new computer today! My old laptop (which she's currently using) is really starting to die (looks like it needs a new hard drive), so instead of saving the new computer til Christmas, we decided she'd just start using it now.

2. Had a nice walk tonight. Four miles, which is longer than we've done in a while. She's been busy with school, I've been busy with work, there's yoga two nights a week interfering with our schedule, and then for the past couple weeks she's been sick. But tonight Alexander wanted something from the Apple Store, so we walked down to the Promenade and back. Stopped at El Pollo Loco on the way, yum.

3. Speaking of chicken, I was boiling a whole chicken earlier today for use in enchiladas and I kind of forgot about it on the stove and so it got cooked way longer than I meant it to...but that ended up being a good thing! The chicken was just falling off the bones!

( Supernatural 5x10 )



I also watched Modern Family, but I don't really have anything to say there. There wasn't anything wrong with it, per se, but it was the weakest episode so far and I just wasn't finding much to get excited about. (Probably because the main storyline was about Phil and Claire and I just don't care about them.)

1. Thanks to the people who recommended Sally's, I have hair dye! We walked down there last night and it turned out they had quite a large selection of non-natural colors by four or five different makers. I ended up gettin Manic Panic, so we'll see how that goes. Last night I did the bleaching (here's a pic of me all bleached) and later today I'll do the toner and then the dye itself.

2. We got our Walmart order in the mail today with this nice lined sweatshirt. It's so cozy! I really wish there was a Walmart near us because it's so nice to find clothes in large sizes that aren't horribly expensive. But if it's something we're pretty sure is going to fit okay, the website is a good option (I love the 97 cent shipping).

Title: Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet
Author: Sherri L. Smith
Number of Pages: 167 pages
Book Number/Goal: 66/75 for 2009
My Rating: 3/5

When a pipe bursts during Ana Shen's middle school graduation, flooding the field and cutting the ceremony short, it doesn't seem like things could get any worse. Then comes the announcement that the gym is flooded, too, and the graduation dance is cancelled. The dance was going to be Ana's big chance to tell Jamie Tabata she likes him before they go their separate ways for high school, but when her best friend Chelsea ends up inviting Jamie and his family over to Ana's for a graduation dinner, it looks like there might be hope after all. Assuming Ana can keep her grandmothers' rivalry from ruining everything.

I'd seen several reviews for this on 50books_poc and wasn't really that interested, but after reading and loving Flygirl, I decided to give some of Smith's other books a try. This...is definitely no Flygirl. It's cute enough, and it's nice to see a biracial main character (or any character!) who isn't half white, but I wasn't wowed or anything.

I really think the book could have used a lot more editing. Most of it is fine, but it starts to fall apart at the ending, which seems really rushed, plus has a couple of chapters that don't really fit. At one point her grandfather starts telling a story and instead of just making it quick or summarising, we actually get a random flashback chapter in his POV about the event he's relating. We also get a few paragraphs in one of the grandmothers' POV towards the end, in a story that has otherwise been very tight third person with only one POV. It just seemed sloppy.

Also I was really excited about the story being set in LA at first, but it ended up being more frustrating than anything because the author gave all sorts of conflicting details. The kids have gone to school together since kindergarten, yet for some reason they all go to an elementary school in a totally different zone than where they live. (One person going to a far away public school might have some excuse, but not a whole class.) Then the high school mentioned is not the high school that middle school feeds into. Neither is it the high school she would actually be going to for where she's supposed to live. Which being less than a mile from the beach would be Santa Monica and she'd go to SaMoHi, not Uni (also everyone keeps saying University High and I'm sorry but I have never heard anyone call it that; it's Uni). Plus the author gives a freeway exit that they're supposed to live near, which is not less than a mile from the beach, either.

I really don't know what she was thinking. The jacket flap says she lives in LA, so it's not just that she didn't know what she was talking about. It's like she wanted to use real names of stuff, but didn't want to be specific, so she ended up taking bits from all over. If you don't want to be specific, then either be vague or make up names of school and stuff. But if you're going to be specific then you have to get your facts right!

Of course most of the people reading aren't going to know or care, but it really took a lot of fun out of it for me.

1. I got all my Jump translations done yesterday, instead of just One Piece (which usually shows up late Wednesday nights, but was already up when I woke up at noon). So today I can just relax, no set schedule. Woohoo!

2. I got more writing done!

3. I got Super Mario Wii in the mail. So hard to wait til Christmas!

4. Speaking of things I ordered from Amazon, last month or so my mom was talking about wanting some books she used to borrow from my aunt, but now my aunt lives in Oregon, so that's not so doable. Anyway, I told her about BookMooch and said I had a ton of points if she wanted me to mooch her something. So I got her a couple books and then she remembered another author she wanted to reread and said if I found anything I could just give them to her for Christmas. I found one, then decided to look on Amazon for the others and I finally remembered to do that last night and found four of the five I needed being sold used through Amazon fulfillment, which means just like any other Amazon purchase, if you order over $25, you get free shipping. The books were like $3.50-4 each, compared to the ones from other sellers that were just a few cents, but shipping for a book is $3.99 now, so since I got enough stuff (we had one other thing to order that we'd been saving until we had enough to get free shipping) and got free shipping, they ended up being cheaper (plus I get them altogether from one place rather than a bunch of different sellers).

Title: Push
Author: Sapphire
Number of Pages: 192 pages
Book Number/Goal: 65/75 for 2009
My Rating: 4.5/5

Precious is sixteen, illiterate, and pregnant with her second child by her own father. But when she gets kicked out of junior high and starts attending an alternative school, her life finally starts to turn around.

This is written in an experimental style, very stream-of-consciousness, with lots of dialect to mimic the way precious talks. Some parts are even written as if Precious had written them herself, complete with spelling errors, which gradually improve over the course of the book. I didn't find that a barrier at all, though. It was really easy to read (I zipped through it in two sittings). The last fifty pages or so of the book are essays and poems written by Precious and the other girls in her class.

Pretty much everything bad you could imagine happening has happened to Precious and it sometimes seems like overkill, but overall I really enjoyed the book. And I'm glad the ending was optimistic but realistic and not all magically wonderful.

I'm definitely interested in seeing the movie, though probably not til it's out on DVD. I was looking at the cast, though, and um...wtf? The teacher is described as dark with dreads, yet somehow in the movie she is really lightskinned and has wavy hair. It's like they made her as close to a Nice White Lady as possible without actually casting a white actress. D:


(This is something else I would totally have nominated for yuletide! Damn it! I'd especially love fic about Jermaine.)

1. I was really good yesterday about doing a little bit of each thing on my to-do list when it came to large projects that couldn't be done in one sitting. I so often feel like I have to do a huge chunk and then I stress out about not having time for it and it makes me avoidant and then I don't get anything done on it. I'm trying to train myself to do smaller chunks. A page each day will get done eventually, but if I never have the time to do the whole thing, it will never get done and then I'll hit a deadline or be super behind and argh. More stress.

2. Speaking of which, I got some writing done! I find it really hard to get anything written when there's no deadline these days, because it always seems to be lowest priority on my to-do list, but I actually made myself write and got about 300 words done. It's not much, especially compared to NaNo folks who are writing like 3000 words a day or something, but for me it's a lot, and it's progress.

3. I finally got like six hours sleep yesterday evening. For some reason when I have insomnia, evening seems to be the best time for me to sleep. Unfortunately it's my least favorite time to sleep, and I don't like to get on that schedule, especially now with yoga on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6.30-8, because that means I'm tired during class or have to be woken up for class. I'm feeling tired right now, though, so I'm hoping I can get some sleep this morning.

4. Yesterday I told my mom I had some cash for her for the rent and when she came over she asked if I needed anything at Costco first, so I was able to have her get toilet paper and laundry detergent and bread, yay. I wish I had known earlier, though, as I went to the little market nearby and got a gallon of milk for $5, when I could have gotten two for the same price at Costco. :-/

5. I got an email from Amazon saying because I ordered Super Mario, I now had a $10 credit for any video game! So I'll see what I get for Christmas in terms of Lego games and whichever one I don't get, I'll buy that from Amazon. (The credit is good til the end of January.)

1. I think I'm pretty much over my cold, and I have to say, that's got to be the "best" cold I've ever had. I never did get more than a little congested.

2. We went ahead and bought Carla's new computer yesterday. Still going to save it for Christmas, but I wanted to make sure Amazon didn't suddenly run out or take forever shipping. We ordered from Amazon instead of the Apple Store because it was $20 cheaper, plus no tax (and tax on an $800 computer is around $80 so that's a big savings!).

3. We might be going karaoke this weekend! I hope they have the new Lady Gaga song.

Title: Bones of Faerie
Author: Janni Lee Simner
Number of Pages: 247 pages
Book Number/Goal: 64/75 for 2009
My Rating: 5/5

Before Liza was born there was a war, and humans were attacked by the faerie, magical creatures no one had known existed. Now the faerie are gone, but the world is changed. Animals and plants have been infected with magic and now hunt humans. Children are being born with magic powers, including Liza's little sister. When her father leaves the baby out in the night for wild animals to devour, it sets in motion a chain of events that will cause Liza to question everything she's been told about magic and the faerie.

This was really awesome. I picked it up a while ago because it sounded interesting, but by the time I read it, all I remembered was the bit about the baby being left out to die, so I had no idea this was a post-apocalyptic Earth and not just a random fantasy world. I love the idea of a magic apocalypse and this is really well done. It's a fast read and really hard to put down.

I wish we'd learned more of the backstory about the war, but maybe she'll write about that in future books. There's apparently a sequel planned for 2011. There's also a short story set in the same universe, though it kind of retreads a lot of the same ground as the novel, just with different characters in a different setting. (I wonder if perhaps it was the basis for the novel.)

Anyway, like so much fantasy, this book is thoughtlessly white. Apparently no people of color survived the apocalypse. :p But that's pretty much my only complaint. This was very cool.



I wish I'd read this before yuletide nominations. And that, you know, I'd known I could participate so I could actually nominate stuff, because this has so much room to explore. She's created such a neat world, but we only get hints about the war and what happened in the years since, both of which are things that interest me more than Liza's story itself.

Woohoo! The final batch of reviews!

Day 29: Tooth and Claw

This Side of the Mountain by wickedwords 3/5
5000 words. Zombie Apocalypse, 10 years later. A fusion with World War Z.
( I love World War Z, so I wanted to like this more, but... )

Day 30: Swan Song

Except for a Few Small Bruises by justbreathe80 3/5
14,800 words. He'd been living like this long enough to know what being scared felt like, and yet this wasn't like any of that. Rodney hadn't wanted to know so that he could hurt John or laugh at him or pigeon hole him as the bratty rich boy. He'd wanted to know John, and John knew that if he could keep from running, he might finally be free.
( Cute. )

Coda by callmerizzo 2/5
1000 words. The silver Swan, who living had no Note / when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat. (Orlando Gibbons, The Silver Swan)
( The writing was decent enough, but it feels like the prologue to something longer. )

1. Now that I beat Lego Star Wars, I've started playing Lego SW II again and am once more really into it (there was a lull between beating the first one completely and picking this up where I didn't really feel like playing, but once I got back into it I found it completely addictive). I played a level last night with the emperor as one of my characters and found it hilarious how he cackles the whole time. (Also it was a long and fun level with lots of stuff to bash and monies to find, which is my favorite. Plus I got True Jedi and the rest of the mini kits and the red brick for that level, woohoo!)

2. I am really loving this nice fall weather we've been having lately. Yay, fall!

3. I got an email from Amazon last night saying my package had shipped. What package? I thought, and then I saw...it was New Super Mario Bros for Wii! I'd preordered it and forgotten it was being released on the 16th. I have to save it for Christmas, but it's still exciting.

4. I got an email from a guy who pays me by western union and I have monies to collect later (after sleep). Yay, monies!

1. I was productive yesterday! Got two of the five Psyren chapters done. Got a short story and a couple very short doujinshi translated. Finished up the last of the Asano Inio shorts for Kotonoha. Finished reading a book (my 63rd this year!). And did some lyrics-tranferring on my website. I wish I'd done more, but it's not bad!

2. I seem to have caught Carla's cold, which is a total non-surprise. I think there's been maybe twice that she's gotten sick and I haven't. I pretty much expect it. But the nice thing is that I seem to have gotten a super light version of what she had. While she had a sore throat for a couple days followed by several days of heavy congestion, I had a scratchy/dry throat for a few hours, which then morphed into light sniffles/stuffed up nose. I definitely feel stuffy, but not to the point where I need to take decongestant, and at this rate I doubt I'll be hacking up gunk from my lungs or anything. Considering I had a lingering lung thing earlier this year, I'm really glad not to be doing it again.

3. Today the Metro Gold Line opens and you can ride it all day for free. Carla is going with Alexander and some folks to check it out, which sounds fun and I wish I could go, but while I'm not feeling horrible, I don't want to exhaust myself and make it worse. Plus my sleep schedule is off and I will probably crash this afternoon. Also I have a busy, busy weekend (still three more chapters of Psyren and a bunch of stuff for daemonicangel and I need to translate some lyrics so I can do an update and and and!). So no train for me, exciting though it is. Maybe some day they'll actually build a line that runs out to the westside. Ohoho. Who am I fooling? (Actually there is one planned to come out to Culver City, which is further than anything so far, but still not at all convenient for us.)

4. I got my yuletide assignment! I'm pretty excited about what I got. I had been thinking I might get matched on that, because it was one of the very rare fandoms I offered (I offered several that were super tiny, plus a couple that were bigger (plus Glee, which is one of the biggest this year, but I only offered Mercedes and Tina, so that probably cut out most chance of me matching anyone *cynical*)), so I'd already been thinking about what I might write if I got it and what I had been considering will fit right in with what my recipient requested. :D I don't think I'm going to try and get a pinch hit this year, but I will definitely be writing Treats when the time comes.

As this show goes on, I'm really finding less and less "glee" in watching it. And yet I can't seem to stop. But this is just a warning that this post is not squee-filled, and I doubt future posts will be, so if you don't want to see criticism, move along. And if you want to tell me how wrong I am, then by all means, go ahead, but chances are I won't respond. I just don't have the energy to argue this right now.

( Glee 1x09 )