Monday, July 26, 2010

eReaders

I love to read. I can easily go through several books in a week. Because of this, I love my local libraries. No way could I support my habit if I had to buy everything. Which to me is a huge downfall of the electronic readers.

Yes, they are portable. But so is a book. Yes, you can easily carry more than one with you at a time and you can download more where ever you are. Ok, so I can see the benefit of that, especially if I were taking a trip overseas. But in most cases, books are small enough that I can pack one or two with me. And most woman have purses the size of small houses, they could fit an entire library in there (j/k).

The thing I see as the biggest drawback to an ereader, aside from cost, is the fact that you can't take it everywhere (no matter what they say). I just don't see myself taking an ereader in the bath, for instance. No more than I would take a TV or a toaster.

So it saddens me to see "The death of books is coming" articles. So Amazon reported that Kindle books sold more copies than hard back books for the first time. That could be a price thing again. Kindle versions usually are cheaper than hard backs. Or maybe its that people have stopped buying hard backs because of the expense. If I can't get a book at the library I wait for the paperback version to come out. And then I hit the used bookstore ;) Even before money was so tight, there were only ever a few authors that I had to have their newest books the moment they came out. Sadly, most of those authors have so disappointed on their last few books that I'll never buy one of their books again. It's the library or nothing. (*cough*laurellkhamilton*cough*)

Hell, maybe that's why the sale of hard backs is down. The quality of books is down! One long time favorite author's latest book turned into a political tome, used to ram her opinions down the readers' throats rather than anything resembling a plot.

I've returned several long awaited books to the library recently having skimmed through them, rather than actually reading them, because they just didn't hold my interest. That's the problem with series, I guess. After a while they just become repetitive or change so much that you don't recognize the main characters. Or my favorite, when one book contradicts all previously established background. I understand that when you've written hundreds of books it's hard to keep every detail straight, but you can bet your readers will ;) (There's a mystery series that springs to mind. One of my favorite authors in fact, but it killed me. In one book she states that a certain killer from a previous book is going on trial, yet in that book she killed the killer off, lol)

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Mac v. PC

Southpark style ;)



Pretty amusing, unless of course you're a Mac user. Then you have no sense of humor at all about your computer because Macs are soooo superior. *Cough*

BTW, I have nothing against Macs, just most of the snobs that use them. I'm sorry, but when I actually had a couple tell me that they waited until after dark to go shopping for a netbook so their friends wouldn't see them bring a PC home, I decided that elitism sucks...

I bought a PC because it suited my needs and the price was right. If I needed to run a lot of graphic design programs or edit a lot of video, then I would probably shell out the extra money for a Mac. It's all about my computer needs, not which brand I have to buy. There's also the simple fact that it's a hell of a lot simpler to find someone to fix a PC than it is to find someone to repair a Mac. And yes, despite what the elitists say, Macs crash too! I know, since we get asked fairly frequently if we work on them. ;)

As usual

the sequel stinks in comparison to the original, Get Shorty, but Be Cool did have one redeeming quality... Dwayne Johnson, aka the Rock. He was the only reason I ever went along to the pay per view events that my hubby's friends used to hold. I never appreciated just how amusing wrestling was like they did, but I certainly appreciated a bare-chested Rock ;)

I think you have to have a sense of humor to be a "professional" wrestler, but it's very obvious Dwayne has more than his share, lol. (You only have to watch the Hannah Montana episode where they stick dangling earrings on him and cake on the make up to see that) and of course there's his "music video" from Be Cool.


But aside from Dwayne, the movie stunk. I loved Get Shorty. It's one of my favorite movies. I loved the cast and the plot. Be Cool lost most of that cast and replaced them with other not so fun characters (Vince Vauhgn and Uma Thurman, ick.) and a really thin plot. Blech.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Woot!

The last box has been dealt with and I even cleaned house on Sunday. Now if I can just get some of the pictures up and the ones that we aren't putting up, tucked away. (Some of my older pictures just don't go with the current decor. The walls in the living room and master bedroom are sage green. My old master bedroom was done in blues so the pictures I have just look hideous, lol).

I want to buy a decorative clock for the living room. There's a niche above the fireplace that needs something in it to make the fireplace the focal point. Right now the TV is the focal point, not so much what I want.

I've discovered that even though the condo is smaller than the house we were living in, the only space we lost was a spare bedroom. We actually gained cabinet space and drawer space in the kitchen, even though we lost an island. I actually have two cabinets with nothing in them at the moment (3 if you count the weird cabinet that goes all the way back into the corner, but only has a little skinny door. If anything fell over into the corner I would never get it back out again!).

The master closet is big enough to use as a craft room (my old kitchen table in in there at the moment!), or even put a bed in for the kiddo should we have visitors. it's absolutely HUGE! You get to it through the bath, so there's a little nook with shelves for linens and towels. So nice to have the towels right there!

And my bathtub! Oh I get tears of joy when I think of the tub in the master bath. After 2 1/2 years of a hideously uncomfortable tub in the hall bathroom at the old house (there was an odd ledge that hit right in mid-back. Ouch.) the new tub is heaven! It's larger and deeper than most kid's wading pools and comfy enough that I can quite happily take a book in there and read in the bath for hours *grin* And conveniently, water is the one utility we don't pay!

There are actually cabinets, and even drawers in the master bath. I can keep the toilet paper right there instead of in the hall closet, where I kept the towels and linens as well. And I finally have a place to keep all the junk that one has in a bathroom. There are even *gasp* towel racks!!! (The master bath in the old house didn't have a single towel rack!)

I find that the longer we are here, the more I realize how much I actually disliked that house. (I said from the day we moved in that it was obvious it was owned by a single male, just by looking at the master bath. It was small, only had a shower and had NO storage what so ever). The layout of the house was odd as well. The layout here makes much better use of the space we have and the rooms feel larger, yet more cozy (that's the paint I think, no stark white paint in this condo, except for the kiddo's room).

And you can't beat the view from the back deck. I our last two houses we rarely sat outside, though at one point we ate dinner outside on the deck of the first place a lot the first summer, until the weather got unbearably hot, then never got back into the habit. In the last house I don't think I ever sat out on the patio.

Here though, we sit outside every morning and have breakfast and watch the lake with its ospreys in the nest, pelicans and geese, while listening to the red winged blackbirds calling (talk about a sound that brings back wonderful childhood memories!). We even saw 2 Great Horned owls one morning.

The other night we sat out there and heard coyotes yipping and howling. It truly is lovely and makes all the trips up and down the stairs while moving worth while!

Anyhoo. I will try and take some pictures and post them soon, since I need to send some to my mother anyway, haha.

PS. Speaking of pictures, my external hard drive just gave up the ghost. It has every photo we've ever taken on it. My boss is going to try to recover them for me, but it's maybe a 10% chance. But I don't have $1000 to send it off for data recovery. So keep your fingers crossed for us that it works, please!

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

A soggy 4th

was very, very wet! We spent a lovely morning and early afternoon just puttering about, the kiddo and I went to the bookstore and then we grabbed the hubby and went out for a late lunch, early dinner. Then the wind came. I had to move my poor plants down so they were out of the direct line, it was so bad. Finally, clouds that had been threatening all day opened up and poured. I had to tell the kiddo that if the rain kept up we weren't going to the fireworks.

Even then, I thought maybe we could find a spot to park and watch from the car so around 8:30pm we set off. We got to the golf course and parking nearby was nearly empty and the rain slowed to a slight trickle, so I pulled in with the though of just standing in the parking lot to watch. Then the rain started again and I told the disappointed kiddo it was time to head home.

We got stuck at a stop light while the police let massive crowds of people cross the street and I thought I heard an officer yell, "If you're here for the fireworks, go home!" But he never said they'd been canceled and between the radio, the rain and the windshield wipers I wasn't positive that's what he said.

So we drove home disappointed.

The good news was that they rescheduled the fireworks for the 5th and we all got to go see them. And it was a really good show. Short, less than 30 minutes, but the fireworks were different and fun. My favorite was a purple spiral, followed closely by the fountains that literally hung in the air for ages and slowly trailed into the lake (which reflected all the colors beautifully, I wish I'd had my camera and tripod, but I'd never have done it justice!).

The bad news was that traffic was an absolute bitch going home. I've never lived on this end of town before, and apparently most of the fireworks viewing population lives over this way as well! Next year we are taking back roads home lol. Anyway, hope y'all had a nice holiday!

For me.

It's been a long winter. Mentally, I feel even worse off than I was before, though things are finally looking up. I abandoned the gym. I...