Up In The Air Junior Birdmen - Girl Scout Camp

After many decades, I still have fond memories looking back on my scout camp experience. I was probably 10 or 11—at that vulnerable age just shy of the terrible teenage years.

I went to camp two years in a row and the first year was, by far, the best. Although, the 2nd year taught me much more about life and relationships.

The first year, four of us friends who grew up together, went to school together and played sports together, resided for two weeks in a three-sided Gypsy Camp cabin. While there was some mild bickering amongst our quartet, we remained fiercely loyal to each other and pretty much stuck together. As I remember, we came in 2nd in the end-of-camp talent contest performing a skit to the tune of Junior Birdmen.

This is the way I remember it:

Up in the air Junior Birdmen
Up in the air upside down
Up in the air Junior Birdmen
Keep your noses off the ground

When you hear the doorbell ringing
And you have your badge of tin
Then you know, Junior Birdmen
That you sent your box tops in.

(If you have another version, please post it!)

The 2nd year wasn't quite as much fun. We graduated to the next level; a full-size cabin with 8 scouts, one of which was the daughter of the head counselor. "Lynn" (not her real name - I'm afraid she'll find me and beat me up, again) was a real, uh...snot. It was either done her way or she ran to her mother to squeal on how mean we were being to her. Like the four of us who grew up together, "Lynn" had 3 life-long friends in the cabin with her. Only difference was, they couldn't stand her either.

As stressful as that was, I learned some valuable lessons:

1) Those in charge are not always kind to the masses.
2) Life is not always fair.
3) I'm never going to be able to get along with everyone.
4) I can rise above injustice and have fun in spite of disagreeable people.

So, to all you Junior Birdmen out there..."Keep your noses off the ground!"

I have no idea what that means, but it seems like a good way to end this blog post.

I'm the author of the 'Tween time-travel series, Cynthia's Attic.

Download the series on Kindle today!

Mary Cunningham Books
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Lunch, coffee, and the premier of Eclipse

After a long and fun day out, I am finally home. It feels nice, but at the same time I must admit that I already miss my girls a bit. :O Well, well, here is a bunch of pictures from today’s lunch with Shilan and Lewar, and then the premier of Eclipse.

Since we haven’t met each other for quite some time, we wanted to go somewhere where we could sit for a long time and just talk, so our lunch took place at Dragon Palace (hmm, how come we always end up at that place? :P)

Had to check how I’d look if I am going to see the LA Lakers game at some point in life ^^

After walking around in some stores we grabbed some ice-coffee and ice-tea at Wayne’s Coffee…

My coffee frappe was mmmmmmm!

Later we met up with Bianca for some Eclipse

If I were to give my own quick review of the movie, I would say that it was good but that it didn’t give me the “wow, great movie!” feeling. The reason why, I don’t dare to point out once again, because that would make me seem even more nagging and obsessed with another vampire drama. No names mentioned, hehe.

Daily Thoughts 6/30/2010

Cover of the pulp magazine Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror (October 1932) featuring "The Hunters from Beyond" by Clark Ashton Smith.

Daily Thoughts 6/30/2010

I recommended Swann Galleries as an auction house for rare books. They have an excellent reputation. http://www.swanngalleries.com/index.cgi

Stores See Google as Ally In Ebook Market. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/business/30books.html?scp=1&sq=google%20e-books&st=cse

Today has been an interesting day. There are budget problems where I am and I waiting to see what will finally happen. It is not pleasant. I am trying to maintain my focus today.

I am starting to come to terms with it and think of next steps along the way. It is a matter of deep and abiding patience.

Going out

Waking up this morning made me realize that I am not only having lunch with two of my dear friends today, but also that Eclipse premiers tonight - and that I have tickets for it.

How could I almost forget such a thing? Well the answer is quite obvious to me I suppose: too much of The Vampire Diaries (or more precisely, Stefan and Damon) than of the Twilight Saga (as in Edward and Jacob). :O

Anyways, I better get ready. Have to meet the girls in about an hour and I have some things I ought to do before that. Ciao!

NEW BOOK COVER!

My publisher just sent me a copy of the book cover for my upcoming tween novel, Back to Bailey's Chase. It is the sequel to The Secret of Bailey's Chase. In case you haven't read it, it's about the adventures of two pre-teen cousins with super powers. Sparky and Grey Bailey live in Bailey's Chase, a town named for their great-great-great grandmother. It is her special gifts the girls have inherited, but they didn't realize it until tragedy brings them together.

The girls love to play detective and solve crimes and having magic at their disposal certainly helps. In the new book, the girls are a year older and their powers have grown with them. Now they find they have the ability to travel into other dimensions.

By the way, one of the main characters is a boy, Newt, a boy genius/scientist. He doesn't have special powers, but he goes along on their adventures with them.

Hopefully, the book will be available soon in paperback or an an E-Book. Kindle anyone?

You may visit me at http://www.marlisday.com/ or check out my blog at http://wwwmarlisday.blogspot.com/

or order my books at http://www.quakeme.com/

Daily Thoughts 6/29/2010

The New Novel, Winslow Homer, 1877 Museum of Fine arts, Springfield, Mass

Daily Thoughts 6/29/2010

We spent some time talking with a gentleman from GO2 media design about redesigning our website. They have designed a number of other library websites. http://www.go2mediadesign.com/taxonomy/term/49

I spent some time reading Jason Shhhh! an almost silent comic with a variety of slice of life scenes. They are curious with black and white line art. It is hard to describe the exact nature of the art. I rather like it. This is a link to an article about it. http://www.newsarama.com/comics/Jason-Almost-Silent-100129.html

Two new books came in for to read, Deank Koontz's Frankenstein lost souls and Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson.

Today has been fairly quiet. It was a chance to look at the displays and put some orders together as well as get ready for some meetings on telephone customer service, a staff meeting, and a meeting on using electronic ordering for our library this week.

I also had a chance to read some more Harry Mintzberg's Managing. I am reading a bit about the concept in leadership of moving away from I to we. The point is to be more team oriented and speak and identify as part of a community. This is difficult in some ways. He uses the word communityship which is a concept which I'm trying to get my mind around.

My new bag

I know I shouldn‘t be shopping since I am totally broke and stuff, but earlier today I did, and I found this adorable thing.

Hum hum…Guess from where - if it isn’t already obvious from my previous posts. ^^

Update

I have made up my mind. I am watching it. I need my eye candy ;)

The Vampire Diaries is my drug

I haven’t watched the Vampire Diaries since April (the good part about blogging is that the archive makes you remember things! :P), but just a couple of days ago I decided to finally catch up. At that time I was going to start watching episode 6 out of 22, and I thought: well it will sure take me quite a while to get through them all…

But what happens? I become obsessed and now I only have one more episode left! Which leads me to a choice of either saving it until tomorrow or to indulge in it right away…Hmm…

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is a First Person Shooter set during the United Nations intervention in the Somali Civil War. The game was developed by NovaLogic and was released on PC (Windows 2003, Mac 2004), Playstation 2 (2005) and Xbox (2006). This is the sixth game in the Delta Force series. The game also got an expansion on Windows and Playstation 2 called Team Sabre, which featured two extra campaigns, one takes place in Colombia and the other one takes place in Iran.

The player begins the game as a soldier attached to the 10th Mountain Division, taking part in Operation Restore Hope; part of the United Nations-backed humanitarian effort to end the famine in Somalia which had killed 300,000 civilians. Following the third mission, the player assumes the role of a soldier assigned to Task Force Ranger, taking part in Operation Gothic Serpent, a military operation conducted during the Battle of Mogadishu on October 3, 1993. During the latter section of the game, the player controls members of the 3rd Ranger Battalion and 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, commonly known as Delta Force.

The game is based on the 1992-93 UN peace missions in war-torn Somalia. The first few missions in the game are designed to make the player accustomed with the different types of weapons, their usage, enemy AI, (which is kind of stupid, when playing this game it looks like they're deaf, since they don't react when you fire a shot at them. They only react when they actually see you) terrain types and combat techniques. The majority of the missions involve convoy protection, providing security for food distributions, destroying weapon stockpiles, taking prisoners, etc.

The fans of Delta Force know that the earlier games in the series were very hard, but this game has been made a lot easier. In the earlier games one hit sometimes was enough to get killed, but here you can take three-five hits. You're also able to find health packs which heal you completely. Another thing that also has changed is that your freedom is limited, the maps in this game aren't that open as the maps in earlier games. Most of the time you are flown in by chopper and it all happens automatically, you only have to wait until it lands and listen to some instructions. You can also use a limited amount of quick saves which also makes the game much easier than its predecessors.

The graphics of the game aren't that special, but to be fair they have been improved compared to the earlier games in the series. Especially in the city levels you can see that the creators have put some time in the graphics. However, the desert levels mostly are very gray and bare. Another thing that I think that could've been worked out better is the sound aspect of the game. The ingame sound effects aren't that bad, but there is no ingame music. So over time the game will get boring.

The game also has a multiplayer mode, which can be played along with 149 other players. However I don't think that there aren't much people playing this game anymore since it's quite old, and there are much better titles around than this game. This is also my conclusion of the game: You can enjoy this game for a couple of days, but after you've completed the singleplayer you won't waste more time on this game, it has a low replay value.

Daily Thoughts 6/28/2010

cover scan of Old Sleuth Library, no.40, from the collection of Larry Latham

Daily Thoughts 6/28/2010

I took some time to read Iron West by Doug TenNapel. It is a graphic novel set in the old west. The style of the story is very tongue in cheek. The drawing is a bit different. Doug TenNapel uses a very loose style with very wide brush strokes. I liked the storyline far better than the art. It is very cartoonish. The drawings contain a lot of humor.

It is cowboys versus robots. The robots are replacing people. It is rather silly to look at robots with sixguns. There is also a sasquatch and an old native american medicine man. This makes for a kind of mixed up story. It is very much a mish mash. It seems to be drawn more for the action and humor than a coherent storyline.

There is a fight between the loch ness monster and a giant robot made from an old west train. Ultimately, it does pull together in the end, but not before a lot of silliness. If you want to relax and read something for lighthearted humor and action, this graphic novel would fit the bill.

There is a map of the pattern of library closings here. It shows a steady increase in library closings between 2008 and 2010 http://www.losinglibraries.org/

Today was the opening day for Summer Reading, June 28, 2010. We sat in the lobby next to the gallery and handed out flyers to sign up for the teen summer reading program and the adult summer reading program. We also signed people up online on a laptop. We are planning on having a raffle at the end of the summer for people who sign up and read books or listen to audiobooks. I also handed out flyers for events associated with the summer reading program.

It was a pleasant thing to do. We answered peoples questions and had cookies for people to snack on. I think I handed out a little over 45 signup sheets for adults and signed up a few more people online as well. The childrens signup was downstairs.

A funny take on Prop 8

If you can, take just over three minutes to watch this video. It's so funny to me and a different take on supporting gay marriage.

Bob Out

In bed

One of the best things about having summer break is that you can choose to stay in bed all day long if you want to. I have unfortunately not done that, since I dragged myself to the gym this morning and then decided to be a good girl by vacuum cleaning the entire barrack, but that didn't stop me from going back though…So now I am here again. :P

A bed can’t be more inviting than on a Monday afternoon. ^^

Sunday afternoon

Gosh, it is really steaming outside today.

It must be at least 30 °C in the sun but despite this I’ve just got back from some errands and a cooling McFlurry together with Vicki. Now I am cuddled up in bed while trying to finish the last bit of one of the three essays I have to write during this summer. Not very funny, but something that has to be done as soon as possible if I am to decide…Luckily, I will get a break soon since it is dinner time and One Tree Hill. Thank God, ;)

Vicki with her McFlurry

Daily Thoughts 6/27/2010

Profile of Adam Smith authors of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Etching created by Cadell and Davies (1811), John Horsburgh (1828) or R.C. Bell (1872). The original depiction of smith was created in 1787 By James Tassie in the form of an enamel paste medallion. Smith did not usually sit for his portrait, so a considerable number of engravings and busts of Smith were made not from observation but from the same enamel medallion produced by Tassie, an artist who could convince Smith to sit.

Daily Thoughts 6/27/2010

I have started reading Henry Mintzberg, Managing. Harry Mintzberg is a professor of management studies at McGill University in Montreal in Canada. This makes the book have a different perspective. The author writes about Canadian, British, French, and Dutch companies which gives a more international perspective to his writing. He also talks about the Harvard Business Review. This comes across as more international in flavor.

His focus is on practice, not just theory. The focus of the program he teaches at is practice. He covers the day to day activities of what happens inside organizations in private corporations, publicly traded corporations, government, and nonprofit sector. There is a focus on tracking what actually happens in the day to day activities from line managers all the way up to chief executives.

I took a brief break from reading and watched a bit of James Cameron's Avatar which is quite interesting. I am enjoying the film so far.

If you have time, and are in the United States, Tuesday is Library Advocacy Day, call or write your senator or congressperson about libraries. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/student-member-blog/take-five-minutes-make-difference-libraries

A Portrait of Amy

I think I am getting back to normal now with a new computer, no 'flu and school holidays.

The school holidays are nearly two months this year because of the World Cup (though why the two are connected, I don't know!), so I'm not teaching and there are no art groups.

I have, however, taken advantage of all the workshops that our society organises during the Winter months, and last Tuesday did an oil portrait workshop with one of our top portrait artists, Lesley Charnock.  For the first time I worked with just 3 colours and white - it was a revelation and something I realise I should have done 3 years ago when I first started painting.

Amy was a superb model and I think I caught her likeness quite nicely.  So here she is - in ultramarine, cad red, cad yellow and a bit of titanium white!

The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half: The Strategic Shopping Method Proven to Slash Food and Drugstore Costs- Stephanie Nelson

The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half: The Strategic Shopping Method Proven to Slash Food and Drugstore Costs by Stephanie Nelson

This book exists to sell a website http://www.couponmom.com/ . The website collects personal information then gives out online coupons. It is a trade off. I saved about $7 from the online printable coupons when I went shopping this week.

It also reminded me to check the grocery circular at my supermarket and my local drugstore while I was there. Money is tight so I tried it. I saved some more money at Walgreens on a few items like toilet paper and hand soap. Another $3.

While I was at the produce store, I got a few things which were cheaper at the produce store than the supermarket; yogurt, hummus, vegetables and fruit are cheaper at the local produce store than the supermarket. The reason it is this way is they don't spend as much on advertising and other things. The Coupon Mom book reminds you to comparison shop. There was probably a difference of another $10.

While I was at the supermarket, I bought a case of diet coke. It is cheaper than buying it from the vending machine at work. This probably saved me another $5 this week. The book reminds you to eat at home more. I have been packing a lunch starting last week. This probably saves me another $10 for the week.

I had a few coupons left over which I will keep in a folder for when I will need them.

There is nothing brilliant or new in this book other than the online printable coupons. I went shopping on Saturday so I did not get a chance to look at the coupons in the Sunday paper. This might have saved me a little bit more money. I saved $35 this week. I won't say it is half of my grocery bill, but I am just starting. It could add up to a decent amount of money over time. This is a solid guide on how to comparison shop and use coupons. There is a lot of hype in it, but it also has some good advice.

The real question is how much money is your time worth. It takes a little bit of effort to do this.

The book is easy to read. It has an index, basic charts, and lots of testimonials from people who have used her website. The testimonials are not that believable. There are also numerous shopping tips which are much more useful than the testimonials. For example, it is cheaper to buy spices and bulk dry goods from the produce store most of the time than the grocery store.

Stephanie Nelson has appeared on Oprah, CNN, and the Today Show. She comes across as practical and personable. There is something satisfying and practical about an Assistant Professor of Classics at Boston University writing about coupons.

When you tell the world you're mine

Everytime I listen to this song that the Swedish singers Agnes Carlsson and Björn Skifs sang at Victoria's and Daniel's wedding last Saturday, I am about to cry and I am serious! When I am getting married, I also want a song written especially for me and my man. ;)

Daily Thoughts 6/26/2010

17th century bronze lectern, Notre-Dame-la-Grande church, Poitiers, June 2008, Danielclauzier, own work, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0, Found on Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 6/26/2010

I finished reading Much Fall of Blood by Dave Freer, Mercedes Lackey, and Eric Flint. The Heirs of Alexandria series started with The Shadow of the Lion a fantasy set in a magical Venice. It was followed by This Rough Magic which was set in the Isle of Corfu. There was a standalone book by Dave Freer called A Mankind Witch that was set in Iceland. This book was quite entertaining because of Dave Freer's sense of humor. Much Fall of Blood could be considered the third book in the series, or the fourth book in the setting.

I have very much enjoyed reading this alternate history/fantasy. The magic is done well, so are the villains and heros. They are mashups of figures from history that are given magical powers; Countess Bartholdy, Duke Vlad of Valahia, Prince Manfred, Bortai from the Hawk Clan of the Mongols, Jagiellon Grand Duke of Lithuania, and others.

The settings are Aquitaine (a magical France), The Holy Roman Empire (think christianity with contact with angels and the forces of light and darkness), The League of Armagh (a kind of mystical Celtic state), the Territories of the Knights of the Holy Trinity (think of the knights Templar), the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland (controlled by the dark forces of Chernobog), and the Kingdom of Hungary (influenced by the wicked Countess Bartholdy). There are also cities in Italy, Milan, Venice, and Rome. With Much Fall of Blood, we get introduced to Prince Vlad, Duke of Valahia, grandson of the dragon, as well as characters from the mongol hordes. The setting is fantastic.

The breaking point in the series, The Heirs of Alexandria, with actual history is the survival of Hypatia and the Library of Alexandria creating a very different world filled with magic.

Music to Get You In...The Mood

Usually, I'm either writing in a notebook between patients, or dropping into my desk chair at night after a long day at work. Either way, I can't just flip a switch in my brain to put it into writing mode. Usually it only takes reading the last page or so of what I've written, but sometimes my mind is just a little too buzzy, and won't settle down.

In those cases, I have a backup plan. For most books I write, I make a soundtrack of songs that specifically remind me of the emotional climate of the book. I found out I wasn't the only one it worked on when I shared the soundtrack of a work in progress with a friend, who was pregnant at the time. The soundtrack, which was full of breakup and "goodbye, I still love you," types of songs, left my friend, in her vulnerable hormonal state, crying for 45 minutes afterward. Oops.

Other days, I sit down to write with no distractions but the ones I end up creating. That's when I love using soundtrack music. There are actually albums exclusively made up of driving, emotionally exciting soundtrack music, the best of the best, and I can tell you, this stuff is pretty much perfect for any project you're working on. Kerry Muzzey and Corner Stone Cues are some of the best of these, in my opinion.

Well, now you know all my secrets--make sure to check out the soundtrack music, you won't be sorry!

Jacquelyn Sylvan is the author of Surviving Serendipity, a YA fantasy containing absolutely NO damsels in distress. Click the link to buy on Amazon!

My midsummer

This was my Swedish midsummer in pictures. Enjoy - I know I did :D Haha.

Before the picnic could start, we had to make some yummilicious sandwiches to bring with us

Vicki and I went down to stadsparken (Uppsala’s cental park, if you could call it that?) to have our picnic. Even though we thought the place would be rather empty, it turned out to be the opposite. :O So going to the countryside is obviously not the only way to celebrate!

But we managed to find a less crowded place :)

My beautiful sister and one of my best friends ♥





Dinner - the classic midsummer plate with early potatoes and herring

Long time gone: 10 for 2010 update

Hey folks, how's life? It's been a while since I posted. I've been busy and just a little uninspired about blogging. It was never my intention to take a sabbatical...it just kinda happened. I haven't even been on to read blogs...but I'm still here and still queer(hehe). Hope you guys are doing well. I'm gonna try to look over some past blogs and check to see what you guys have been up to.

At the beginning of the year I did a post called "10 for 2010". It was about 10 goals I set for myself this year. You can read about my last update here.  Since then I've done a lot more volunteer work(I think I've logged at least 40 hours total so far this year). And...I finally visited Tallulah Gorge!

This place is truly stunning. It less than an hour from house. Don't know why I have never visited until now but I will be back...soon! It was a real workout to get from the top to the bottom of the gorge. And when I say real workout...I mean it! They have a set of step steps built onto the side of the gorge....1066 steps to be exact! No, I didn't count them. It was posted on a sign at the top :) 

Let me tell you...walking down 1066 is hard work but walking back up those 1066 steps is much, much harder. Maybe next time I will see if there is another way to get to the bottom without walking down those stairs or jumping. I found out they do kayaking trips there a couple of times a year. That might be fun. I have a Kayaking trip planned for next month at another river in NE Georgia. I'm looking forward to that. Hey, I think that counts as a new adventure which is another of my 10 for 2010 goals. I've only been Kayaking once and it was on a calm lake. You can read about that trip here. This place we are going is a four hour trip down a river complete with some mild rapids and small waterfalls.

                                            

I went to see Toy Story 3 yesterday! Y'all, it was fantastic! I laughed, I cried and I loved every minute of it.

If you liked the first two, you will love this one. If you haven't seen any of them...go rent the first two this weekend and then go see this one. They are so wonderful!

Since I haven't posted in so long, I will leave you with this...

A Friday Hunk...

Yoann Gourcuff

& A Friday Flashback video...

Whitney Houston

"I wanna dance with somebody"

TTFN

Bob Out

Midsummer

This time of year I am normally never home, so I must admit that I haven’t celebrated midsummer in Sweden since…2005? And by that time I was twelve, so it wasn’t like I made a big deal out of it. Acually, it’s not that I make that big a deal out of it now either (although it’s like the summer version of Christmas for the Swedes), but I am going to celebrate some at least.

Midsummer is all about spending time with the family and other people close to you and because of that, many of our friends aren’t spending midsummer here in Uppsala. So instead, Vicki and I are going out for a cozy midsummer picnic together. I think it’s going to be really nice actually because she is not only my sister, she is one of my best friends. :)

Haha, a picture of us last summer! ^.^

Daily Thoughts 6/25/2010

English writer Neil Gaiman. Photograph taken at the 2007 Scream Awards. Source is Neil Gaiman. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 from Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 6/24/2010

Neil Gaiman on closing libraries being a terrible mistake. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/7852404/Neil-Gaiman-says-closing-libraries-would-be-a-terrible-mistake.html He is a wonderful author and has done a lot to support libraries and intellectual freedom. My favorite of his books is Neverwhere and my favorite of his graphic novels is Stardust. The Graveyard Book is also an excellent read.

Ebooks Libraries at the Tipping is $20 for early bird registration it is on September 29 http://ebook-summit.com/ Hopefully, I should be able to attend this. It should be very interesting.

Today has been quiet. I spent some time updating the displays and looking at items that need to be processed to be added.

I also read some more of Much Fall of Blood by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer. I am enjoying the mix of history, fantasy, and magic.

Daily Thoughts 6/24/2010

Heyman Dullaert. A trompe l'oeil with plumes in an ink bottle, a letter, a seal stamp, a delft pot and a bottle, arranged upon a wooden shelf. Oil on Panel

Daily Thoughts 6/24/2010

The Westchester Library System where I work is facing cuts. This is an article on the cuts.
http://chappaqua.patch.com/articles/librarians-to-albany-stop-shelving-our-funds-3

I am looking at a graphic novel called Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush. It is beautiful in its style. The story is about a man who writes graffiti about the lives of people in a small Mexican town. The artist Christopher Cardinale is a muralist. His website has some very interesting artwork. http://www.christophercardinale.com/ The story and artwork are wonderful to look at. The writer, Luis Alberto Urrea has written many novels including Into The Beautiful North and a pulitzer prize finalist for The Devil's Highway. His writing is very entertaining and relevant. http://www.luisurrea.com/home.php

I wrote a flyer for The Summer Reading Events that are coming up at our library this morning. Mostly, I have been planning things like meetings. Tomorrow I am calling Poets House to see if they can help us with working on poetry at our library. http://www.poetshouse.org/

I am checking out Henry Mintzberg, Managing as the next book I will read. It is a book of theory. It looks quite interesting. He focuses on management in practice and is critical of a purely numbers oriented approach.

Errands in the sunshine

Spent a lovely day outside as I was running lots of errands both for myself and others, but as the sun was shining the whole day, I didn’t mind at all. Now I am going to watch some missed episodes of One Tree Hill and the Vampire Diaries. I have to catch up now when I have summer break and all! Haha. ^^

So good night!

Daily Thoughts 6/23/2010

Reading In The Forest, Oil On Canvas, 1880, Paris, Public Domain, Wikimedia, Eva Gonzales

Daily Thoughts 6/23/2010

I have been reading more of Coupon Mom's and looking at the website. There is a little bit of money to be saved, not a huge amount for the effort involved. The online coupons are kind of interesting. I don't buy most of this stuff.

This book is proving to be about much more than coupons. She describes the advantages and disadvantages of shopping at big box stores, supermarkets, discount stores, health food stores, wholesale clubs, and bare bones stores. I liked some of her ideas.

She reminds us that it is not good to buy giant packages of junk food from wholesalers, this leads to overconsumption and an unhealthy lifestyle. She also tells us that it is cheaper to buy fresh herbs and bulk food products like nuts from produce stores and healthfood stores than supermarkets. Stephanie Nelson follows the maxim that we must watch what we put into the refrigerator to make sure we are buying what we need, 15%-40% of food in refrigerators goes to waste in the United States.

The author tells us that it is cheaper to eat vegetarian on occassion. Vegetables, rice, and beans are cheaper than meats or cheeses. I am about half way through the book and am enjoying reading it. I have sent ten online coupons to my email inbox for things which I purchase regularly.

There is something different about writing about practical books. Most reviewers will not describe their experience using practical books; books on homeownership, power tools, carpentry, plumbing, personal finance, and other practical subjects are often not reviewed enough. Maybe, there isn't enough intellectual cachet in it.

Today has been quite busy. I have been working on a few things. The new display advertising for the playaways came in. We now have new bookmarks, signage, and posters for our playaways section and will soon have new packaging for the playaways. I also printed the Chick Lit bookmark today.

We are almost ready for the Adult Summer Reading in July and August http://www.summerreadingnys.org/. We just put together a banner for adult summer reading and I am working on creating a flyer for the events associated with the summer reading program. We have two author events in July, two brown bag book talks, and a literary tea planned so far.

One of my colleagues suggested a graphic novel, Rabbi Harvey vs. the Wisdom Kid, A Graphic Novel of Dueling Jewish Folktales In the Wild West by Steve Sheinkin. It came out in March 2010. Another book came in for me, Much Fall of Blood by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer. I especially like the writing of Dave Freer. I put in a request for a weird western graphic novel, Iron West by Doug TenNapel which I saw from this list http://www.morevikings.com/recs-and-rants/weird-west-reading-list/

On another thought, acccess to our library catalog will soon be available as an Iphone App http://www.sirsidynix.com/iphone/apps/bookmyne/

I finished reading The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills In Half by Stephanie Nelson. It has an old fashioned thriftiness to it. The author tells us she uses baking soda, vinegar, borax, and rubbing alcohol for her cleaning needs. She also makes a recommendation that you should grow your own vegetables, even using the term "victory garden". It has a homespun feel to it in parts even though it is very much touting coupons from major brands.

I started reading Much Fall of Blood by Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer, and Eric Flint. Each author has numerous fantasy novels to their name and a decent following of readers. They somehow mesh well writing this novel. This is the third novel in a series. The first two are The Shadow of the Lion and This Rough Magic. It is set in a medieval Europe filled with magic both black and white. The characters are drawn from historical figures like Madame Bathory, Prince Manfred, and Prince Vlad Duke of Valahia. It starts nicely, moving between Venice, the Carpathians, and the tents of the Golden horde.

Tony Abbott: The Finer Points of Idiocy in Public

With the approach of yet another Australian Federal election it becomes the right and privilege of bloggers around the country to bag out the candidates. In accordance, here is the sordid little history of Tony Abbott, and some of the highlights of the two decades he has spent ritualistically assassinating his own public credibility - seemingly without political repercussions bar being nominated as the Coalition candidate for (gulp) our next Prime Minister.

You're laughing already, aren't you, bitch?

Here is a collection of some of Tony's most memorable public statements, foibles, and episodes of apparently total public idiocy.

Back to your Ironing, Woman! (2010)

Tony was having a good old chin-wag with a country local dry-cleaner earlier this year about the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme. Being the sort of guy that he is, Tony thought he'd put in the terms of an ordinary person. This comment was taped:

What the housewives of Australia need to understand, when they're doing the ironing is if they get it done commercially it's going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up.

When his comments were criticised for being old-fashioned and sexist, Tony did little to reassure angry women, standing by his comment and claiming that his wife did all the ironing in house. When the predictable backlash occurred, Tony organised a film crew to follow him to a laundromat, where he learned to use an iron for the first time in his life, at the tender age of 52.

The Dying Man is Pulling a Stunt (2007)

Specifically, this guy:

His name was Bernie Banton, and he was dying from advanced asbestosis and mesothelioma. Here's a visual aid to put that into perspective:

Banton was a social justice campaigner representing thousands of workers who had been exposed to asbestos and other dangerous building materials in previous decades. During the lead-up to the 2007 Federal Election, Banton had been compiling an enormous community petition to try to have a new mesothelioma medication added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme - in other words, so that those who needed the drug could afford to get it.

Understanding the delicacy of the situation, Tony accepted to meet Banton at his electoral office and receive the petition - and then basically blew the meeting off cause he was interstate. Rather than apologise, Tony labelled the event as a stunt, and stated;

I know Bernie is very sick, but just because a person is sick doesn't mean that he is necessarily pure of heart in all things.

For the record, Bernie died three days after the election.

Gay People Are Threatening (2010)

Tony has never made it a secret that he feels this way, repeatedly opposing gay marriage, access to IVF for gay couples, and generally any extension of social recognition to homosexual relationships. To this day he remains unashamed of his standpoint, as recently evidenced by the failure of his tongue to communicate with his brain in a 60 Minutes interview. Upon being asked how he felt about homosexuality, Tony replied;

I probably feel a bit threatened... as so many people do.

He "clarified" this comment the following day, stating that:

There is no doubt that (homosexuality) challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things.

I suppose the one thing that the guy has going for him here is that he can actually admit he's a bigot. Unfortunately, he seems to think that everyone else is, too.

And it's a shame, cause he would fit in perfectly at Mardi Gras.

Tony Wins! (2002-present)

The Ernie Awards are to a political honour what the Razzies are to the Oscars. M0re specifically, the Ernies are annual awards for Australian men who make the most sexist, misogynistic, or otherwise unhelpful remarks about women. They've even compiled a book of this crap.

Tony, who seems to have a peculiar dislike for women's policy issues, was "honoured" with the 2002 Silver Ernie for Politics, for stating that a paid maternity leave scheme would happen "over this government's dead body!". He has been awarded four "Repeat Offender" Ernies in 2002 and 2005-7, and was also nominated for the Gold Ernie for his 2004 comment that "abortion in Australia has been reduced to a question of the mother's convenience."

There's a hot tip out there that he might well be re-nominated this year. If not for the ironing board remark, then for his bafflingly hypocritical statement to the Australian Women's Weekly that young women should consider their virginity to be a "precious gift" they should not give away lightly. Hypocritical? Well, yes, in light of...

The Phantom Love-Child (2004)

In 2004, a young man who had been adopted as a baby went in search of his biological parents. He found his mother, who directed him to the man she thought was the father - Tony Abbott, who it seemed had fathered a baby boy at the age of 19. Tony found himself in a peculiar and delicate situation - a son he had never met, a media pack swarming around his every door, and the need to reconcile the current scandal with his heavily self-promoted image as a Christian family man.

He ended up using his reconciliation with his son to promote his anti-abortion, pro-adoption stance - conveniently, in the run-up to the parliamentary vote on RU486. He published several mushy interviews expressing his delight in finally meeting his "long-lost son", and condemning how "callow" he was to put the child up for adoption in the first place.

In all the excitement, nobody bothered to wait for the results of the DNA test. By early 2005 it had become apparent that Tony bore no biological relationship to his widely publicised "son". Tony was left with a soiled reputation and no long-lost family members to show for it.

Don't Believe Me (2010)

As though in an attempt not to merely piss all over his credibility but actually stomp it into the ground and bulldoze it into submission, Tony came out with this purler on the ABC's 7:30 Report. Inexplicable failures of grammar and thought processing do little to mask the brilliance of this half-hearted admission to lying during interviews;

Politicians are going to be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you do go a bit further than you would if it was an absolutely, ah, calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark.

Which is one of the reasons why the, the the statements that need to be taken absolutely as, as gospel truth is those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.

You have it from the horse's mouth.