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. =)