Been a While, I Know.

I don't know why but I just really haven't felt like posting for a few weeks. Lame excuse, yes. Ugh. Still don't feel like posting.

In this case, why should I? Yep, not gonna post. Adios.

Movies, Anyone?

Being sick makes me want to hole up all day and watch movies, so uh, that's what I've been doing for the past few weeks off and on. I have to think back and remember all the ones I watched... I guess we'll start with the best.

A HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT

GOD such a good scary movie. It's not like the movie actually freaked me out, just the history did and the creepy rhyme and especially the end credits, for some reason. The end credits with the music and the black-and-white photos made my skin crawl. But good story line, despite slightly cheesy acting. Anyone else noticing a trend where some of the good scary movies have no-name actors?

AMITYVILLE HORROR

I watched this after A Haunting in Connecticut to make me laugh. And it didn't disappoint. Good for an old-school horror film, but the only scary part was how loud the bad audio got when it was supposed to be frightening. I kind of fell asleep halfway through (hey, it was midnight and it's a 2 1/2 hour movie, I was TIRED) so I didn't see the end, but I'm sure it didn't go well. It was a well worth my time, though; classic horror ROCKS.

BENNY AND JOON

One of Johnny Depp's off-kilter roles! Although knowing him, all his roles are a LITTLE weird at some point. Good movie, in my opinion... kind of cute, and slightly unrealistic, but good acting. And Johnny Depp makes everything better. He is the cure for the common cold.

GROWN UPS

Okay, this scene's from this hilarious part where all the moms are trying to wave over the guy with the awesome body who looks all manly and... they get quite a shock. See, my dad said this would be a WAY stupid comedy. And it was. But we all need one of those every now and then, and this one was pretty stupidly hilarious. It was GREAT! Totally wrong in some parts, but great! Keep an eye out for Rob Schneider's three daughters. Highlight of the movie for me.

I think that's all I watched. Of course, being sick makes me an un-bookworm, which SUCKS. Especially when I'm still swimming even with sinus problems and I had a birthday party to go to and ALL this other stuff going on for NHS and all that good stuff... *deep breath* so I haven't been reading that much. I did finish a really good Sarah Dessen book, though.

It's called Lock and Key (by, of course, Sarah Dessen). It follows Ruby, a burnout who's used to taking care of herself, living in a small house on her own after her mother disappears. Until she's caught, and taken to social services, and then taken in by her estranged sister and her awesome husband. Now instead of going to the crap school and getting high with her flaky best friend, she's going to a prep school and actually has a chance at college. Plus she's found a new friend in the honor-roll student president, Nate.

But why is Nate keeping her at a distance, and what is it that makes Ruby want to blow her second chance? She just can't seem to open up and let everything good in, which may be her own undoing.

This book was different from everything else that I've read by Sarah Dessen in that it's DARKER. All her other heroines are school girls, or girls with familial problems or stuff like that, and they may have best friends who get into trouble, but nothing like Ruby. Ruby isn't exactly a troublemaker, but yes, she drank and smoked pot. Doesn't mean she isn't an awesome person, as you find out in this book.

Well I'm going to go back to my tea and my homework. We just got back from the doctor to make sure whatever the heck is in my lungs isn't an infection, just a virus. So false alarm, I'm fine, I'm just supposed to have a spoonful of honey every once and a while (oh, the suffering) and sleep a lot. Which is good, because I NEED TO SWIM.

Did my first 200 IM and somehow survived it on Thursday, and I can't wait to do another. Which is why I need to get back in the pool!

Reading Slump? Possibly. Busy? Always.

Things have been crazy for the past week... I know nobody needs the full details of my life on here (let's face it, this place is mainly for books and music and pop culture and stuff) but a lot has been going on lately that has led to me... not reading enough to be worth it to post. My boyfriend and I broke up (long, COMPLICATED story), swim practice has been taking a lot of time up, and I haven't been trying as hard in school either so I need to get on top of that. Plus, I'm sick, and I just didn't feel like reading do to the fact that I can't breathe out of my nose.

But enough about that. On to what I DID read in this past week.

Burned by P.C. and Kristin Cast. This book is another installment in the House of Night series, following new vampyre Zoey who has found out she has an affinity for all five elements and is therefore very special in her new, vampyrical world. (Is vampyrical a word?)

I didn't enjoy this book as much in the others in the series. If you've read this far, you'll know Zoey's soul has shattered and she is trapped in the spirit world. Meaning most of the story is told through her friends, Aphrodite, Stevie Ray, Stark, and Rephaim (who is admittedly not a friend, though I hope he will be sooner or later). This made the book a bit dull to me at parts because Zoey's voice was what I loved about the series in the first place. Think Meg Cabot only with a slightly southern twang, and more kick-ass-ish than Mia from The Princess Diaries.

But even without Zoey's tone, there are other parts I enjoyed that have stayed true throughout the whole series. Like how mysticism from every culture is merged: we have a bit of the Wiccan magic with affinities for elements and all that stuff, and then the vampyre lore, and then ancient Native American folktales detailing how the evil spirit threatening Zoey and her friends can be defeated. It all comes together, somehow.

However, this book kind of felt like an intermission between the last book and the next book. I think it'll all come together in the next installment.

Then there was Hush Little Baby by Caroline B. Cooney. When I was younger she was one of my favorite authors, especially for thrillers, before I moved on to Stephen King. I found this one by her I hadn't read and decided to give it a try, and maybe it was just my reading slump-ish mood, but I wasn't that impressed. Books like these entertained me more when I was smaller.

This book starts off with 16-year-old Kit going to her dad's house while he isn't home to grab a sweatshirt and running into her ex-stepmother. Who has a baby. And leaves him there. With only Kit. Kit doesn't even know this baby's NAME, let alone his parents, and now there's strangers calling the house to offer money for the baby. There's definitely more going on than meets the eye; the question is, will Kit be able to figure out what it is before the stakes are too high and more people get hurt?

As far as thrillers go, it wasn't the best, but it was (at risk of sounding like Miley Cyrus) pretty cool. Caroline B. Cooney does this thing where she mixes random observations of how we, as people, live our lives in with the action and at times it does make you think. And she does a great job at describing how the criminals' minds work.

I'll probably loan this to Adrie.

Now if only I could get this song out of my head:

Listened to it a few days ago and it JUST. WON'T. LEAVE. I really wish these guys had stayed together; they kind of suck when they're apart. Well, not suck, but definitely not as good. REUNION NEEDED, GUYS!

Why Weekends Aren't Good For Me:

I get bored and lazy and stall on the things I need to do while doing many things I DON'T need to do, such as weed (part of) the backyard or write three blog posts in one day. When I SHOULD be studying for my history midterm. Oh well. Useless details.

I've been thinking a while about regrouping all my favorite kids' shows, so I have designated this post to be the nostalgia-filled jackpot of kids' show reviews! I'll try to go in order of my childhood, from what I remember.

THE BIG COMFY COUCH

I still get this theme song stuck in my head from time to time. And I had a huge crush on Major Bedhead, his hair is AMAZING. Plus, I still have a Molly doll. See how this show impacted my life?

LITTLE BEAR

Awwww. I LOVED this show. I still do. You don't get classy kids shows like these anymore, and Little Bear is ADORABLE! Plus Emily! And No Feet, the snake! I still remember the episode where he overdoes it on his sweet tooth and has to go to bed early. And how his dad was a sailor.

KIPPER
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmEXtRZTKVo) I can't actually find any good clips of this show that I'm able to embed, but here's a link to watch an episode on youtube. It was definitely lesser known and I almost forgot I watched this show, but fortunately my memories resurfaced! Where would I be if I didn't remember that episode where Arnold goes to Candy Mountain?

FRANKLIN

A turtle that teaches you moral lessons, how great! And that snail is adorable.

ARTHUR

Yes, being the bookworm I am, this song was my favorite. But it was such a good show! You know a kids' show is good when it's been on for so long. It's still on today (although I don't know if they air new episodes anymore). This show MADE my childhood, I watched it religiously for YEARS. It's STILL good.

SCOOBY DOO

Yeah, I meant to say Arthur is second best only to this show. =) If lasting long on television shows how good the show is, Scooby Doo is the KING of kids' shows, lasting more than 40 years with the oldest episodes still showing. And I love this song. Scooby Doo makes everything better...

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS

We've all seen at least one annoying episode in our lifetimes (although admittedly when we were kids this show was BOMB) so I decided not to use an actual clip from the show but this mix, with a pretty good System of a Down song. Which is cool because they're a great band. WIN WIN SITUATION! I like those. =)

RUGRATS

I didn't watch this ALL the time, and actually for a while I wasn't allowed to watch it because Angelica had an "attitude problem". But I heard the weirdest thing recently: there's this theory going around that Rugrats is all a figment of Angelica's imagination, that Tommy was a stillborn, and that's why Stu makes toys, to make up for his dead son; Chaz's wife died in childbirth with Chuckie and that's why Chaz is so OCD; and Phil and Lil's parents were only going to have one kid but they got an abortion and because Angelica didn't know the gender of the baby she invented two, one for each gender. IT'S CRAZY BUT IT MAKES SENSE! MINDWARP!

HEY ARNOLD

This is like a revamped Peanuts for Nickelodeon. There was some deep psychology between these kids, and yet it was so entertaining! Always one of my favorites, even though it was pretty much in reruns by the time I caught on.

Well, these are all the shows I remember watching, in chronological order... I know I'm forgetting a lot, but I'm lazy. Let's see... I left out... Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (cartoon edition), The Weekenders, Lloyd in Space, Phineas and Ferb, JIMMY NEUTRON, etc.

UPDATE: I started this post like two weekends ago and just now got time to finish it. So weekends aren't good for me, but neither are late Friday nights where I'm sugar high with nothing to, waiting for CERTAIN PEOPLE to log on and talk to me.

What's So Fascinating About British Books?

I don't know what it is, but I like 'em. Maybe it's the awesome British-lingo (you won't hear someone going "Like, that was amazing!" in a British book) or the fact that their emotions run a little different than the average American so things happen differently than you would have expected. Either way, every once and a while there's nothing like good British fiction.

So British chick-lit? DEFINITELY good. This writer reminded me of Meg Cabot if she was British, perhaps. The book was called Jemima J by Jane Green.

We start off with Jemima Jones, an overweight girl in Britain who is madly in love with her coworker, who is unfortunately drop-dead handsome and therefore will never fall in love back with someone like Jemima. So Jemima spends her days eating bacon sandwiches and chocolate bars and secretly loathing her two catty, super skinny roommates.

Until one day her entire newspaper crew gets signed up for the Internet (this is 1999, guys). Jemima discovers the thrills and perils of Internet dating, quickly catching the eye of a guy in Santa Monica, CA, who happens to own a gym and wants everything Jemima doesn't have. So Jemima lies, saying she's a news reporter and she's 120 pounds.

This starts the whirlwind of Jemima's life, forcing her to lose weight to meet this guy who thinks she's half the size she really is. The thing is, once she loses the weight, has she really gained any confidence? And whatever happened to the gorgeous coworker she was in love with?

The thing that was confusing at first and then kind of cool about this book was the narration. It starts off in first person, with Jemima talking, but then it switches to this omniscient, God-like narrator to show everything going on, the big picture. And when it does this, the new narrator will offer a lot of insight into the other characters, stuff Jemima can't possibly know but stuff that helps the story. I don't think I've read another book like that, but it was different. Different in a fun way, not different in a "weird kid who only eats tuna at school" way.

The best part for me was when Jemima came to California, because all the stuff about LA that's so foreign to her is commonplace to me, having grown up in SoCal. I love it when authors and characters are unfamiliar with stuff that you live with daily. =)

EMERGENCY AWESOME BOOK ALERT *alarm goes off*

Over the weekend I read THE BEST BOOK (or one of many BEST BOOKS) and I really didn't have time to mention it on here until now. Sorry. Been busy auditioning for Jeopardy and preparing to swim 100 fly and taking Driver's Ed among other things such as sleeping and eating.

It's called Unwind by Neal Shusterman and it's possibly the best book I've read so far this year. IT'S CRAZY GOOD!

It's not the shortest book in the world but I just couldn't put it down. Really. I was reading through Amazing Race (which I LOVE) and through meals. Kind of scary!

The story follows three teenagers: Connor, Risa, and Lev, who are all growing up where teens can be "unwound", or taken apart to use as transplants. So they're still technically alive, just all their parts are on different bodies. Scary thought, right? There are many different reasons to be unwound: Connor's parents just decided to sign the form, selling him to the government, possibly because of his temper, Risa was an orphan and the state home she lived at needed room, and Lev was a tithe, meaning his parents, being good Christians, have to give one tenth of everything to the church. Ten kids... you get the picture. Lev ends up growing up brainwashed to think it's a good thing to be tithed, it makes you special in God's eyes.

These three kids escape on the way to the "harvest camp" and try to change the world they live in by staying alive. They even find an underground network dedicated to keeping "unwinds" alive and out of government hands.

This book was like Scott Westerfield's Uglies and Lois Lowry's The Giver combined. It's this insanely trippy, backwards society they live in that allows it to be acceptable for teenagers to be killed for others' profit. And as a teen reading this, it's even scarier. What would happen if we actually lived in this world? Would YOU be unwound? (Knowing my luck, it would be me.)

And let me tell you, the ending made me CRY. Not just get a little teary or sentimental, but CRY. That doesn't happen often. These were Deathly Hallows/APOCALYPSE tears. Well it wasn't really the end, but it was this really horrible scene near the end and it was HEARTBREAKING. Just a warning. No major plot spoilers here, though.

The other awesome book we just finished in class: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I know I should have read this long ago, seeing as it's a classic and all.

But we started it in class before I had the chance. Only an amazing teacher like Mr. H. could make me love John Steinbeck like I do now; I didn't like him much last year, trying to read The Pearl. But this book was SO GOOD. The language and the emotion is really strong, it's amazing how much feeling this guy can pack into such simple words. And you can definitely see a pattern in how he writes...

Okay, enough with the literary analysis, even though it is fascinating. Most people know the story of George and Lenny, showing up on a ranch to work for some money so they can reach their American dream of having a farm and a cage full of rabbits for poor mentally disabled Lenny.

Only some people remember the ending, though. Another tearjerker of an ending (again, not ruining anything, although it is a short book, a novella) but what got me was the last line. Seriously. If you don't remember it, go back and read it. There I was, sitting there, despondent over this horrifically tragic ending, and the last line KILLED IT. It totally fit into the whole Steinbeck/simplicity thing, but that's not the point. I WANTED TO THROW THAT BOOK AT THE WALL.

UGH.









Okay. Over my book anger. Last lines like that TICK ME OFF.

I mean, I understand the ending really wouldn't have worked any other way, it wouldn't have sounded right for how Steinbeck wrote the book, but still.

UGH.

Dude. You Know What Sounds Good? Hometown Buffet.

I don't know what it is about swimming, but it turns us into rabid squirrels. Seriously. I'll come home and be like, "Okay, Ali, you're eating healthy right now, remember?" And next thing you know I'll have a spoonful of peanut butter in my mouth, followed by chocolate chips. (Although it's really good, it's like a huge Reese's peanut butter cup, I suggest you try it!)

So to celebrate my friends' first meet on Thursday, we're trying to plan a trip to Hometown Buffet. Because where else would you go to induce a carbohydrate coma after you swim a buttload, correct? Hopefully it works out. One of my lifelong dreams has been to go nuts at a buffet with two of my best buddies. Or at least, it is now.

Have you ever read an Irish murder mystery? I've read French, I've read British, but never Irish, until now. The Dead Hour by Denise Mina bored me for a little bit, but I ended up really liking the protagonist.


Meet Paddy Meehan, an Irish 21-year-old who is trying to support her family of five on a crappy journalism job following the police around and... reporting, obviously. She also has weight issues, which every girl can sympathize with at some point in her life, and this makes her so much more likeable (even though Kinsey Millhone, the stick who can eat 3 Big Macs and not feel a thing, is still my favorite).

In the dead of night, Paddy gets called out with the cops to investigate a noise complaint. At the door, there's a man, but a woman is also standing in the background with blood dripping down her head. The man bribes a few of the cops and Paddy (Paddy takes it unwillingly) to not write up the incident in the paper or make a big deal out of it. Next thing you know, the blond woman is dead. It turns out she was a high-profile lawyer. But why would a high profile lawyer not want help if she was being beaten to death?

And so starts Paddy on this whirlwind mystery, delving into the darker side of Ireland. No leprechauns there. And despite the fact that parts of this book get confusing or a bit slow, it's still a good book overall. Not my favorite, but whatever.

Speaking of leprechauns, the other book I read this week was about fairies. In fact, it was THE book; the one I've had on my list since it came out, an installment of one of my favorite series. It is: ARTEMIS FOWL: THE ATLANTIS COMPLEX by Eoin Colfer.

This book... didn't live up to all my expectations. But I did love being reunited with some of my favorite characters, except it always sucks when you remember which ones have died and you're like AWWW MAN, I REALLY LIKED THAT GUY, HOW'D I FORGET THAT?! Yeah. I did that a few times.

In this 7th part of the series, Artemis is now battling insanity as a paranoid, OCD mental issue catches up with him. And then there's bigger problems: someone is using Martian probes to attack spots on earth, possibly trying to get Artemis and his buddies (Holly the elf, his bodyguard Butler, and Foaly the centaur) out of the way for a bigger plot. But who?

I always loved these books because they're like Mission Impossible, Fantasy Edition. You've got these mythical creatures running around with guns and spy cameras and grappling hooks and minisubmarines, kicking butt against all the bad guys (pixies, rogue fairies, etc). It's a new concept, and it's definitely exciting to read.

It made me kind of upset, though, because I got a bad copy of the book! At page 280, my copy goes back and starts at page 249 and then back up to 280, and then picks back up at page 313. So it has the same amount of pages, technically, just about 30 of those pages ARE REPEATED, MEANING I'M MISSING 30 PAGES OF ARTEMIS FOWL ACTION!

As you can imagine, this made the ending kind of confusing to me. Argh. And I can't return it, because I bought it from a Target up north in Elk Grove over Christmas Break, and I have NO IDEA where that dang receipt went. But hey, maybe it's just my luck or something. Ali, Giver of Homes to Misfit Books.

I really wonder what went down in those 30 pages.

Do They Even Have A True Definition of Irony?

Seriously. I've been wondering about this. Because one person will say something's ironic, the other will be all, "OH NO IT AIN'T!" And next thing you know you and your friend are having a giant cake fight over whether or not your sarcastic remark about Teri Hatcher on Desperate Housewives was ironic or just lame sarcasm. However, cake fights are not a bad thing. Hello, frosting.

I read... exactly... ONE book this week! I'm so special. Either that or I'm a super slow reader right now due to the normal chaos going on in my brain: HOLY CRAP I HAVE A HISTORY TEST NEXT WEEK! AND I REALLY WANT BANANA BREAD! BUT I'M IN SWIM SEASON... AND THEY'RE MAKING ME DO THE 100 FLY! HOLY FISHNUGGETS I'M GONNA DIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE! I can't possibly read with this trauma.

So onto what I did read.

Diary of a Teenage Girl: Becoming Me by Melody Carlson. How to say this... this book WAS NOT that good.

Poor book, I'm so sorry you kinda sucked. It's just this author was writing a diary from the point of view of (you guessed it) a teenage girl and it was very unrealistic. It details Caitlin, a girl who wants desperately to be popular and ditch her unique-quirky friend Beanie for the plastic-perfect chick, Jenny. Um, didn't Caitlin ever see any Disney movies? Popularity never works out. Unless you were born that way.

Fortunately Caitlin gets her life straightened out and joins an awesome church. Then the whole book turns to this religious theme. And while I don't mind books becoming highly religious, I'd prefer they deal with the issue REALISTICALLY, rather than "La di da, I go to church now, LIFE IS BOMB!" Because that's kind of how Caitlin came off to me as. Maybe it's just me.

Or, since people usually come off way different than who they actually are in real life when they write diaries or journals, maybe this book is more realistic than we'll ever know.

Either way, not that enjoyable. But others may like it more. Maybe I'm just a reading Grinch this week.

Remind me never to type in yellow font again. With the white background, every time I check to make sure I haven't made any typos I feel like my eyes decided to swim in acid and then dance spastically around a strobe light. Man, that's giving me a funny mental image. It could be because of all the chlorine that my eyes hurt this bad, too.

You know what else is random?! I made it all the way through Valentine's Day without eating ONE candy or chocolate. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?! Everyone knows Valentine's Day is candy-binge day of the year, second only to Halloween. Of course, Thanksgiving still takes the cake in all things foody.

They signed me up to swim the 100 butterfly event in swim... Have you ever tried that? It. Is. EXHAUSTING. I don't actually mind it that much, it's just after 1/4 of the way through, on the first turn, it's like SWEET LEGOS WHY ISN'T THIS OVER ALREADY?!

Have you ever seen 100 fly? Let's view high school nationals, shall we?



It's SCARY! I look nothing like that, seeing as I'm a giant pansy, but still. Give the fliers credit. Most people can be too lazy to reach up for the TV remote and we're dragging our arms over our heads for 100 yards. Okay, I'm still too lazy to get the remote when I'm on the couch.

Today is a Sunday and I have to clean the bathroom. This should be against child labor laws. Anyone want to start a petition?

Hate It When Stupid Things Keep Me From Doing Stuff I Need To Do.

Muse at the Grammys! Watched them last night... must say, they were amazing. Of course, I've loved them since I first played Knights of Cydonia on Guitar Hero:

Good stuff. I could never play as well as this dude, though. And yes, I'm one of the nerds who would go on youtube to look up videos of people beating really hard songs on expert. But at least I was never looking up Call of Duty cheats like *ahem* my brother...

Anyway, life lately's been kinda weird. My cold's all better but I woke up on Saturday not able turn my head to the right! My neck kinked up and it's still a little spazzy... so we'll see how that goes during swim practice today. I already went to my best friend's birthday party with it and got into a giant cake/tickle fight without too much protest, so it should be fine.

AND I NEED TO GET BACK IN THE WATER, WE'VE GOT A FRAKKIN' MEET IN TWO WEEKS AND OUR POOL'S GETTING DRAINED! *awkward silence*

Please ignore the above spaz attack.

So the books I've been reading! I read Sophomore Switch by Abby McDonald on the way home from Arizona, and it was REALLY funny.

Two girls, one an uptight Oxford student and the other a laid-back UCSB student, participate in a transfer program and end up with each others' lives. Emily, from Oxford, is looking to forget about a bad breakup and try something new to break free from her meticulously-planned success schedule; Natasha, from Santa Barbara, is trying to hide from the press after she unknowingly broke up America's IT couple and turned herself into America's #1 Hated Skank.

The only problem is, classes are harder than Natasha expects and Emily can't help but do the wrong thing. Neither girl can loosen up in her surroundings enough to enjoy the change at first, until they talk to each other and realize how to blend in.

The thing I liked was it was almost like a cultural study as well as a great novel. You see how two VERY different types of people live and how one can go from one extreme to the other.

Plus, you know, you've got all those great plot elements such as adventure and romance making this a pretty good book.

And the book I just finished: Middleworld by J&P Voelkel.
As far as I know, this book had a completely new premise for kids' adventure fiction: a race through Mayan mythology. Rich and spoiled Max is pretty mad when his housekeeper books him a flight to the jungle of San Xavier to join his archaeologist parents on a Mayan hunt and then they don't show up. But he quickly realizes something more serious is going on, and he'll have to team up with a native Mayan, Lola, to not only find his parents but also possibly save the world from an evil spirit.

This book combines lots of Mayan history and lore with the bratty Max and funny Lola to weave a great adventure story. I've heard there are two more books in the series and I WANNA READ EM! Plus, the artwork in this book is pretty awesome too. Definitely made the story more interesting, although it's so fast-paced you feel like you're in the jungle with them.

And so ends my post. Hopefully I'll keep up with my reading this week on top of double practices every day, so I can post again sometime soon. =)

Wow, This Slump Is Worse Than I Thought It Was.

Well, it's not so much a slump as the fact that I've been SO BUSY. I had winter formal to go to, homework to keep up with, swim practice, and now to top everything off I'M SICK.

Actually, having this fever-flu combo thing is what's allowing me to post; I have nothing better to do. I mean, sure, I could get caught up on homework, but who would want to do that? That might make me sicker.

Although it's probably not possible for me to get sicker, since I can barely recognize my voice as it is from my throat being so raw. And I'm half-delirious from fever (I walked into a wall yesterday) so please excuse any typos or random ramblings. Because I'm sure there'll be a few.

So now, onto the books I've been reading!

Starting with: Uncle John's Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader by The Bathroom Readers' Institute, apparently. I didn't know they had an institute for that.

This book is FILLED with random knowledge, and it's like the 15th in a series. Thanks to Uncle John, I now know Cockney English, some of the dumbest celebrity quotes ever (yes, one of them was from Britney Spears), the history of bread around the world, and a few words to sound smarter. Now, this may not seem that important, but I assure you some of this knowledge is going to come in handy someday.

Okay, maybe not, but still, it was really interesting. Great book.

Number two (no pun intended): The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh.

Okay, this isn't the cover on my book, but I couldn't find a picture of that cover anywhere because my copy is an advance proof (doing community service at the public library has its advantages). My cover is all black with just three colored circles right above the title: green, red, yellow. Like a messed up traffic light. I like the simplicity of it.

This book follows Jack, a boy living with his father after his mother's mysterious death. After being almost killed by a car, Jack keeps running into weird strangers who seem to know something about his mother. His father sends him to a doctor in New York, where his mother died, and while at the train station he meets a girl, Euri.

Euri gives him a tour of the New York underground (hence the title) and pretty soon Jack is uncovering secrets about his family he never dreamed could be true.

This book was pretty good, for children fiction; kind of uncomplicated as far as subplots and storylines go, but that was part of the beauty of it. And the end keeps you guessing up until the last pages... it's one of those books where there is a happy ending, even though it's not in the way you might want it to be, at first.

Okay, last one for now: Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland.

I have to say, this book confused me until about 2/3 of the way through, and then suddenly I GOT IT.

The book starts off with this man talking about his colleague, who has shown him this painting that looks very much like an original Vermeer. In fact, his colleague claims it is. But why has he kept it hidden all this time? Apparently, his father stole it from a Jewish family during the Holocaust and he thinks it's too late to return it.

From then on, the book traces the history of this painting, chapter by chapter, showing how it came into all these people's lives since it was painted. The ending's bittersweet, and sort of sad, but all in all it's a good book.

And the language the author uses to describe these families' lives is beautiful in itself; the imagery and the storyline is brilliant, and you'd never guess where the painting's come from, how it's been passed on from person to person. It's almost like Sid Fleischman's Seed Folks except the people never interact with each other. The painting is what ties them all together in history.

Well, enough ranting. I'm going to go lie down with more movies and possibly annotate a little (but probably not) and maybe finish my book later (definitely).

This morning I watched Panic Room, with Jodie Foster and SURPRISE! Kristen Stewart. I remember being like 8 and wanting to see this SO BADLY but knowing it was R and I'd probably never see it. And now I have! Seriously though, look at how young she was:
Crazy! And even at this age, she was still only able to play that one type of character: the aloof victim. Have you ever noticed that? How she's only able to be that person? Like in Speak, or Twilight. I don't remember Zathura being this bad, though.

Whatever. Time to go occupy myself elsewhere.

Return From The Reading Slump

For whoever is reading this: sorry I haven't posted in so long! Allow me to apologize using this hilarious SNL clip:

I don't know what season this was from but it just keeps cracking me up! Vegetarian chili and guacamolito sauce, my god! How do they come up with this stuff?

But yeah, I've been in a sort of reading slump. It's been partly because of school restarting (which means having that homework load) and partly because of swim season starting, yay!!! I now have my daily dose of chlorine perfume and my arms are aching from churning the water ALL READY and it's only been a week. This season is even more special because two of my best friends, Adrie and Thomas, joined too. WE'RE ALL ON JV TOGETHER! Which means we spend that much more time together being reckless teenagers!

And even though I feel so much better seeing my friends daily at the personal hell known as school and I'm SO much happier back in my swimming groove, I just haven't been able to read lately because the book I was reading (and thankfully just finished) was SOOOOOO LOOOOOONG.

Enter Stephen King's Wizard and Glass, the 4th installment in the Dark Tower series out of 7. Isn't that depressing? I'm only halfway done.

Don't get me wrong, I love this series. It's just that this particular book seemed to be really DENSE. It started off well, returning to Roland the gunslinger, his friends Eddie from New York, Susannah, and Jake the kid, plus their talking weasel-dog thing, Oy. They were trapped on a moody monorail that they had to outriddle (I know, how does King come up with these things?).

But then it turns out half the book is a return to Roland's past to detail how he started his quest for the tower from the ashes of his first love, which sounds breathtaking but a lot of it just got to be too much for me to follow. It just got a bit depressing!

Fortunately the book picked up again with a good ending even though it was a bit bland. There are also some tie-ins to The Wizard of Oz which I thought was REALLY cool; I love when authors use allusions as allegories, if that makes sense.

I also just borrowed a book from Adrie since we just had this huge killer sleepover with TONS OF SUGAR! It's called, I Am Neurotic by Lianna Kong.

And boy is it hilarious.

It's a collection of confessions, basically; confessions of random people who have odd idiosyncracies and weird habits that make them neurotic. The funny part is as you're reading this book, you find yourself thinking, HOLY CRAP I DO THAT!!! Like the dude who liked his toilet paper to roll from the top. I SO have that problem, only I don't obsess about it like he does.

Then there are the ones you read and you go, How do they live? There are people who have to have twelve chocolate chips in each cookie, people who punch shower curtains to make sure there's nobody hiding in the shower waiting to get them, even people who can only eat the middle of foods... like sandwiches, for instance.

So this book was entertaining (and a quick read, took me less than an hour) and I recommend buying it... or hiding out in your local bookstore and just reading it there.

Well, time to go get out a new book to celebrate the full recovery from my reader's slump. Maybe I'll read outside... then I must pack my swim bag for a double practice day tomorrow. Yay, right? If this keeps up, I may not be posting as often as I have been for the past month, but I'll try REALLY hard. Promise.

"Today is the first day I am not dead."

To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is ow I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to. When I am a person, that is how I will live my life.
~The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

How cool would it be if we all lived this way? Just threw caution to the wind and lived each day as if it was a new gift that could never be taken for granted? I think we'd all be a lot happier. We all know that's not how it goes, but maybe this should be my New Year's Resolution. Or one of them, besides eating less processed foods (failed) and buying no new books (still got that one).

This book is from the point of view of a dog. Just putting that out there. Now normally this can be a little odd because dogs don't think like people do, but this one pretty much does. His name is Enzo, and he understands human life. And whatever he doesn't understand, he explains with the wonder and patience of an outside trying to learn.

Another warning: this book is horribly sad. There are some bad people in this book, and they do bad things, and Enzo the dog is witness to them all. That's what so sad; this innocent dog has to watch his owner go through such turmoil, and by the end of the book even though it's supposed to be happy, you're still crying.

Still, an amazing, amazing book (I can't emphasize that enough) and I thank my friend Sean for making me want to read it.

The DOOM and GLOOM Post

Okay, here comes all the downer stuff to make up for that super-happy gushy post. Let's start with this depressing but amazing book I read.

The Hollow People by Brian Keaney is definitely one I'm loaning to my friends. It starts off in a weird reality: in a world where dreams and free-thinking are all but forbidden, Dante is a kitchen boy at the asylum, the lowest of the low.

He has never known love because he didn't know his parents and nobody cares for him; his mother was a patient at the asylum who killed herself (or so Dante was told). He is given the unwanted jobs such as cleaning up the cells or taking prisoners their food. Life is pretty blah until he meets Bea, a girl dreading her coming-of-age ceremony who also thinks outside the box.

Together with the freaky new prisoner, Ezekiel, they discover and rebel against their oppression. A phenomenally great book.

I can't even say why it's so amazing, it just is. The writing, how it's so realistic even though nothing like this has ever happened... maybe that's another reason I love it so much, the idea is so fresh. It's kind of like The Giver (another of my favorites) only DARKER, if you can imagine that.

Now another video game addiction: BIOSHOCK! This game is gory as heck, really creepy (so don't start off playing at like midnight, like I did), and totally twisted, but I am in love.

This game has an AMAZING setting: the underwater city of Rapture, where everything has gone to the Splicers (zombie-like creatures that would just LOVE a human sandwich). The atmosphere takes your breath away, with creepy corridors and rundown buildings, with little tidbits from the sixties, since that's the time period.

I want to post a better screenshot on here, but unfortunately it's all too violent. So if you want to see more, go look it up or buy it yourself, at your own risk. Because as much as I highly recommend this game, it's not for the intestinally weak. This is the same reason I couldn't post the video promo. =)

This is also my first shooter game, meaning it's first person. It's a little hard to get used to, but I don't mind it as much as I thought I would... just the screen is really dark on some parts so you have to adjust the brightness a lot at first until you're used to it, and it's also a little unnerving to not be able to see someone coming up behind you. I got clubbed so many times because of that. Fortunately, I have a wrench and a pistol, and nothing can stop me in this game.

My Rainbows and Butterflies Post

It's only fitting that this post should be written in PINK. The reason for the title is everything in this post is happy (or at least, comparatively happy when you look at my next post).

Starting off, SONIC! We got an XBox360 for Christmas and one of the games was Sonic the Hedgehog.

When I was little, I would play this game on our old Sega Genesis for HOURS. So I was a little wary of a new Sonic game; would it blow my mind or would I be sadly disappointed? But I didn't have to worry, for it is AMAZING!

The graphics are cool, the storyline's pretty good (and it corresponds with the characters in the original games), and it's actually pretty challenging. More than once I have spent a day completely stumped trying to figure out how the heck to beat certain levels.

Unfortunately, the game is the same as the old Sonic in that it doesn't let you save very much. On the classic Sonic, you couldn't save AT ALL, and if you were lucky you could get a Continue option to start off at the last zone you started. Your best hope was to rack up lives.

In this game, you have to be in a town (not on a mission or specific level) to save, but if you go straight from a mission to a boss, it does give you a save option, which is way more than you get in the first game. Still, it sucks to play whole levels over because you got stuck and quit.

Subject change: do you remember the Bumpus hounds from "A Christmas Story"? The ones who ate that dang Christmas turkey? Well they're in this book! Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories by Jean Shepherd. This classic comedian brings us more anecdotes of growing up, most of these from his late childhood to teenage years.

This book was much enjoyed. The stories were hilarious and many will relate to his nostalgic experiences, especially the dreaded prom night. There were times where I found myself smiling and laughing at things I had done out of this book too, and then there were other times where I was cringing as I read about the poor kid asking out a girl from "the good side of town" to a movie at the dinky run-down theater. That was the night he realized what social barriers were.

My favorite had to be the Bumpus story, involving those pesky Bumpus hounds. His descriptions of their horrid neighbors is so stereotypical yet so insanely unbelievable that you can't help but laugh. It almost reminded me of Cletus from The Simpsons.

Get the picture?

It's Winter Break and I'm Not Allowed Out. What Else Do I Have To Do?

So I read. I'm at home this whole week doing nothing except reading, running with my dog, watching random movies (ZOMBIELAND!) playing Sims, playing Drake's Fortune, and playing Sonic. Speaking of video games, I should play more today.

But I finally finished Pride and Prejudice on my Kindle! This is the cover I found on wikipedia.org... I kind of like the old look. Of course on my Kindle the only thing that looks old about it is the language.

I'm really starting to like Jane Austen. She was like the Meg Cabot of her time: gossipy, seemingly vapid, but actually writing with the strong intention of telling a great story always kept in mind. She definitely knows how to employ the whole satire aspect, poking fun at upper-class snobbery that people like the Bennets have to live through.

And the Bennet parents in this CRACK ME UP. The mom is just SO COMPLETELY INSANE! Her ambition in life is to have all her daughters marry well, to people with high titles, and she is simply frivolous. The way her husband deals with her is by rolling his eyes and trying to come to compromises between the frivolity of living an aristocratic life and his way of reason, but there are times when he puts his foot down. Luckily, his daughter Elizabeth, the protagonist, takes after her father and not her mother as much.

The one part I didn't like: Mr. Darcy. He was too much of a downer in the first parts of the book. Lydia entertained me though, as did Miss Catherine de Bourgh in all her snootiness.

Second book:

The World's Worsts, organized and compounded by Les Krantz and Sue Sveum.

This book was so flippin' ENTERTAINING! I found the worst lawsuits, worst celebrity marriages (Drew Barrymore was listed TWICE in that category), worst deaths, EVERYTHING! There were things I never needed to know that I now know and am much happier for knowing.

Like how America doesn't have enough hospital beds for its population and how Titanic was a really bad idea (although I already was catching on to that one. But if it wasn't built, then Jack and Rose would never have met!)

I highly recommend this book if you like randomly uselessly awesome knowledge. Weird looks from your friends guaranteed.

I also read an E. L. Konigsberg book, The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World. This book is actually a companion to her other book, Outcasts at 19 Schuyler Place, my favorite book by her, so I was excited to read it.

What I didn't realize about her style of writing until now is, it really isn't middle-grade fiction like they say it is! This book was FILLED with allusions from older works of art and literature and references to events that happened WAY before the kids supposed to be reading this book were even born. Some of the jokes were even over MY head sometimes, but if you pay attention, you find she has a subtle amount of humor.

Of course, I always love a good obscure treasure hunt. And while this isn't a treasure hunt in the traditional sense, something lost is definitely found, discovered, and deciphered.

Well, I'm off to go hog the TV to play video games... maybe that will distract me from the fact that my best friend is having a party down the street and I CAN'T GO. Thanks, parental control. Nah, maybe I'll hole up in my room with a book. Sounds comfier.

Sims + Music = LOOOOOOVE

Let me tell you a story, young ones, about the person (whoever the heck this genius was) who decided Sims needed a soundtrack. A person who thought of this and then said, "Hey, why do THAT when I could possibly create MUSIC VIDEOS using SIMS?"

For those who don't know, Sims is the addicting video game that is modeled after real life. Meaning, you make a person (a Sim) who lives a life with a house and a family and you choose everything. Kind of like WE live, huh?

Can you believe someone actually made money off a video game based on LIFE?

Can you believe it's so POPULAR?

Moving on.

Somebody came up with the idea of making music videos with Sims, because you can videotape your live gameplay if you play on PC (which I do. Everyday). So here are a couple of GREAT ones I found.



Gotta admit, it takes talent.



Ah, Katy Perry... even she got SIMMED. It's like being Sweded. (Please tell me you've seen that movie...)



Just a warning, this one's really sad... but it's my favorite My Chemical Romance song.



But this will cheer you up! Metallica circa 1985 IN SIMS!!! This is possibly the best use of Sims I have ever had the honor to witness. *starts headbanging*



HOLY CRUD. Okay, this is amazing. Michael Jackson got SIMMED. How is that even possible?



Okay, I'm really astounded (or is it flabbergasted?) by just how many Sims music videos there are. This is insanity. I'm going to log off before I explode from the amazingness. Goodnight.

KABOOM! Book Post.

Yeah, I've been a way for a while. Between vacations and partying and stuff, I haven't had time to post. But that's okay because now I've got a whole STACK of books to talk about! Awesome, right? Or tedious. Depends on whether you're the reader or the blogger.

1. 13 Ghostly Tales by Freya Littledale. It's actually a compilation of tales, and the "author" actually edited. Plus this book was written in 1959. YEAH, IT'S 50 YEARS OLD. Which means... my copy is pretty beat up.

As you can see from this picture, there's no covers. It's merely a stack of paper bound together by what remains of the cover, that strip down the middle. I remember reading this book when I was 6 and it had a pink cover that was barely hanging on, and I vaguely remember the cover falling off (but not being the one who caused it), but I don't remember where it went.

And also, this book HAS NO END. That's the only scary part; in truth, the stories are meant to scare kindergarteners. Which explains why I first read it when I was seven. But yeah, it gets up to page 90, in the middle of the last story, and BOOM! no ending. I was ticked. I think this book, just for not ending, wins the award of Second Most Messed Up Book In This Post. (The first wins by a long shot.)

2. Night's Child by Cate Tiernan. FINALLY, I finished the Sweep series! It's been three years but I finally finished them all. And the ending was really good, I was surprised.

Of course, I thought I was going to HATE the book when, in the PROLOGUE, they killed off one of my favorite characters. But the book takes place in Ireland with the main character, who is 18 in all the previous books, is a mother herself and her daughter is discovering their secret past.

Fortunately this book redeemed itself at the end. Great ending in all fields, so I loved it. And the author's knowledge of Wicca (the concept the book is based around) is really thorough, and it adds to the reality of the book. Of course, I'm no Wiccan expert, so she could be lying through her teeth, but the series feels really true. Good book. =)

3. No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman. I've had my eye on this one since like 8th grade (the library TA days... good times) and I finally checked it out and read it! It's definitely a kids' book, and a bit farfetched seeing as all this drama (literally DRAMA, the book takes place around a school play) is happening in middle school. I don't know about your middle school, but we didn't have football teams, full-scale drama productions, and backstabbing boyfriend-grabbers at good ol' WSMS. (Sure, we had fights, and the occasional bomb threat, but that was all hushed up. I'm talking DRAMA.)

The book starts with this kid who tells the truth, even if it hurts, because his dad lied to his mom so he kind of makes up for it in a perverse, psychological way. He gets suspended from football because he won't lie in his book report; he lets the teacher know how much the book sucks. (In the book he reported on, the dog died, hence the title.) So he gets sentenced to detention helping the drama department put on a play instead of football.

This, of course, causes of feud of GLOBAL MIDDLE SCHOOL PROPORTIONS between the drama geeks and the football players. It gets intense. It also shows you how caught up we kids get in our own little problems.

Julia Roberts also makes a cameo in this book, just letting you know. The head drama geek in this book, Rachel (ironically like Rachel from Glee, to a tee) writes to Julia Roberts for advice. Yeah. They're that kind of middle schoolers.

4. Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have by Allen Zadoff.
This book was really touching, just it sucks because in the end not much has changed in his life. It isn't one of those books where the fat kid loses the weight; rather, the author kind of focuses on another aspect, self-confidence. Andy figures out where his place in life is, and while not a lot changes on the outside, his whole outlook changes on the inside.

And while this book cracked me up, it had a lot of sad scenes where I was cringing for this poor kid. Still really good... not NEARLY bad enough to merit the Most Messed Up Book In This Post award.

The best friend, Eytan (funky name), is AWESOME. Best character in the book. He's hilarious, he's witty, he's scrawny and nerdy, he's my kind of character. Think Ben from Paper Towns. Gotta love characters like that!

Now on to the grand finale.

5. Burned by Ellen Hopkins.


THIS is the book that wins the title of Most Messed Up Book in this Post. It's also Most Unique, because it's one of those books written completely in narrative poetry. Now I read Crank and Glass and they were both like that too, and I really like the style. It really adds to the story and I don't know if I'd enjoy the book as much otherwise.

The problem is, THIS STORY IS MESSED UP. This girl, Pattyn (named for a general) Von Stratton, is Mormon and her dad's INSANE. He goes nuts on the whole "woman's role" thing and gets drunk every night, wreaking havoc on Pattyn's mother, her sisters, and herself. So Pattyn becomes a rebel, starts dating non-Mormon guys, and gets herself kicked out of her house... to her amazing aunt's house!

Aunt J. is everything she hoped for, a lady who believes in freedom and choice and independence, everything Pattyn's been denied thus far. And for a while, everything's good. Then things get-- that's right-- MESSED UP.

I'm not going to elaborate on the plot, just let me say that after I was finished with this book, I was collapsed on my bed, drowning in tears, wailing "WHY did I read this stupid book if it was going to END that way?" GOD it was so sad. Just a warning. AMAZING book, but it's heartbreaking. Trust me, it takes a lot to make me cry over a book. It takes a death of Harry Potter proportions. =)

And that's my reading from... December 26th to now. Of course, I'm STILL trying to finish Pride and Prejudice on my Kindle, but I'll talk about that later. Enough posting for now.