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How in the nine hells is this little man 4 already??
( More of my favorite shots from today )
Rest are here.
( More of my favorite shots from today )
Rest are here.
Jul. 11th, 2011
It must be sweeps week in my head
Jul. 11th, 2011 09:31 amThis morning I had not 1 but 2 dreams about 30 Rock. The first one was that somehow one of the sisters had managed to get me, a couple of her friends, and herself a private tour of some of the sets, so were all hanging out sitting on Kenneth's desk (and oddly/appropriately enough wearing NBC page jackets) watching people bustle around elsewhere when Alec Baldwin comes by looking all Jack Donaghy dapper to chat with us, take pictures and just be all "yes yes, I'm a celebrity, I don't know you people, but I'm gonna be nice to you for five minutes." While he was at it, Dean Winters for some reason was passing through out of costume and makeup, so I had a crazy fangirl moment ("OMG! I loved you in OZ! And in all those Allstate ads! You do douchebags really well!") and he was really really nice about that, lol. And then Tina Fey showed up, appropriately cute and super pregnant (which she actually is right now - I guess the ep of SNL the other day saw fit to remind me of that), and we talked about comedy and what it was like working with various actors (Tracey Morgan neither came up in conversation or showed up in the dream, so no opportunity to punch him in the kidney transplant. Sorry.) I also asked if I could pose in Jack's office with Alec Baldwin wearing a tux and holding a scotch; while the idea made her laugh she said it wouldn't be a good idea due to network and copyright. Eh worth a try anyway right?
I woke up and was all like huh? remarked on it on Twitter, went back to sleep and the dream continued with watching the cast film scenes from an upcoming episode of the "Liz Lemon thinks she's losing her mind; mayhem ensues" variety, woke up for real and was all WTF.
Probably some combination of watching the opening of SNL last saturday (it was a rerun), wibbling about going to New York today, and other stuff going that cooked that up in my subconscious, but... really?
Anyway, must continue running about like a headless chicken and packing. Catch you guys on the flip.
I woke up and was all like huh? remarked on it on Twitter, went back to sleep and the dream continued with watching the cast film scenes from an upcoming episode of the "Liz Lemon thinks she's losing her mind; mayhem ensues" variety, woke up for real and was all WTF.
Probably some combination of watching the opening of SNL last saturday (it was a rerun), wibbling about going to New York today, and other stuff going that cooked that up in my subconscious, but... really?
Anyway, must continue running about like a headless chicken and packing. Catch you guys on the flip.
Wellp, since I have internet access and time on my hands, I might as well make a What's Andee been Reading lately? post, especially since I don't think I've made one since returning from the frightening, hilarious and at times just plain sick and wrong trek up Mount St. Twilight.
In anticipation for A Dance with Dragons dropping, oh, TOMORROW,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cell23 and I have been re-tearing through the entire song of ice and fire thus far. I'm actually rather glad I'm rereading it; the last time through I ended up skimming through the last half of A Clash of Kings and the rest of the series, and thus missed quite a bit. I'm taking my time this time and enjoying the side details I missed. Waiting for cell23 to finish with the library copy of A Feast for Crows - I needed a break after A Storm of Swords anyway. Not in any huge rush - at last check there were 27 holds on the one copy the Jones library had ordered and I think I'm somewhere like #13 in that queue, so I'm not feeling any huge imperative to OMG FINISH NOW.
Other stuff I've read recently:
A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan): I readnounsandverbs's LJ entry on this book and Goodreads named it as its Challenge book for July/August so I picked it up from the library. I wasn't sure what to expect of it, and I found it a charming slice of life story of this knot of people in or associated with some lower subset of the music business, the connections they make and maintain, and how they get from point A to point B in their lives. During all of this, music permeates the story until the words drip with references to punk and indie bands from just about every era and you can just about hear the soundtrack to the story as you read. Oddly enough, it strongly reminded me of Scott Pilgrim in a lot of ways, as if the characters could have been Sex Bob-Omb et al at an earlier point in their lives (indeed, many of them begin the story all in a not-so-great garage band together). I ended the book wanting to reread the comics, or at least see the movie again. That was interesting. But that aside, it was a good (and quick) read... and yes, there is a chapter told by way of powerpoint slides, and it's actually one of the most moving bits of the book.
And now I have "Garbage Truck" stuck in my head, lol.
George's Marvelous Medicine, Esio Trot, Boy, Danny the Champion of the World, Going Solo (Roald Dahl): In fourth grade, we had lists of books by specific authors we had to read in our downtime. One of those authors was Roald Dahl. Seeing as I've been a bit of a speed reader from an early age, I pretty much blew through everything he'd published up to that point (1988). Somehow I'd completely missed George's Marvelous Medicine at the time, and Esio Trot and Going Solo hadn't been written yet. Last Christmasextrajoker gave me a Roald Dahl box set, so I've been reading the books I've missed since then and rereading some that I had only read once and didn't remember. Happily they're all the work of less than two hours these days so I've been going through and enjoying them quite a bit. Roald Dahl's always been one of my favorites anyway, and even though I do wish they'd migrate back onto the shelves from whence they came, I'm absolutely thrilled that Kidzilla's been reading and enjoying them.
Anyway. I say especially that Esio Trot is an ADORABLE story and takes less than 10 minutes to read. I think it may be my new favorite.
A Mercy (Toni Morrison): Normally I really like Toni Morrison. This book however just failed to engage me. I did finish it, and I could probably give you some vague details about what happened in it, but it just didn't grab me as much as her earlier work did and still does, and I didn't give much of a rats ass about the four women it focused on, which is such a marked difference from other Morrison characters that I have been profoundly affected by - Claudia, Pecola, Sethe, Sula, or Denver to name some examples. Not sure what happened, but this is a problem I've run into in much of her later works - the characters just don't stay with me as much as her earlier ones do. Course it could very well be that having to write papers on each and all of the ones I listed at varying points in my academic life underscored them in my memory, except I never read Sula for a class and she and Nell stayed with me so maybe not. Anyway I was kinda eh on this one which kinda sucked. I wanted to like it.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (NK Jemison): I actually really enjoyed this one, though it is very clearly the author's first novel and it shows in more than a few places. That aside, I loved the protagonist and the squabbling family of enslaved gods - I would not mind reading an entire novel about just Sieh. While I liked Nahadoth, he seemed very much your dark, misunderstood, not necessarily evil antihero trope, though some of the ways in which he is described evoked some very strong anime style images and I could indeed see this book told as a manga or as an anime series. I hear tell that the rest of the series improves astronomically as Jemison grows as a writer, so I have the next one on hold from the library and look forward to reading it.
Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart (Sarah MacLean): Yeah, it's a romance novel. Yeah it's a romance novel written by a college buddy of mine. It's still an adorable, fun read, and a satisfying conclusion to Sarah's "Love by the numbers" trilogy. It's funny - these three books struck me as less romance novels and more love letters to the entire romance genre, which, if you know Sarah and her lifelong obsession with them (we used to borrow them from her on the d/l back at Lamont House) they probably are. The heroes are dashing, the heroines are feisty, the scandals are scandalous - hell even her love scenes are appropriately bodice-rippy. Looking forward to her next series.
Naamah's Blessing (Jacqueline Carey): Jusst finished this one over the weekend. As the last volume of the third trilogy of Kushiel's Legacy, it's good. I've been of the opinion that the first trilogy was great, the second and third mostly fluffy fanservice, which is fine because you do grow to love this world and the characters in it. This one's no different - Moirin has one last Very Big Adventure here, and while I did have a little bit of a problem with the portrayal of everything outside of Carey's Alterna-Europe being a mega-exotic locale to have adventures is before returning home safe to Not!France, and a slightly bigger problem with all of Carey's depictions of Not!Central America reading as if they'd been lifted directly from Gary Jennings' Aztec (seriously there were a few passages where I was all "wow, she's lucky he's dead and can't scream 'lawsuit.'"), I did like how it all wrapped up and another chapter of this series closed.
I do kinda hope Carey is done at this point, though - nine doorstop sized books in, and I'm a little Kushieled out. Of course, if we are indeed going for alternative history of Not!Europe, it would be interesting to revisit Terre D'Ange and its surrounding environs again with another jump into the future. I would not mind picking up events in the City of Elua around World War II, for example, or around the Not!French Revolution even. What happens to this society descended from renegade angels as the world becomes smaller? Does the Court of Night Blooming Flowers survive the societal upheavals of 500 years? Does House Courcel? Who knows. I'd love to read that. But far be it for me to tell Carey how to write her world; it would just be nice if she did something radically different with the setting if she returns instead of pretty much retreading the same general stuff over and over again.
Currently devouring an omnibus edition of Toni Morrison novels (Sula/Song of Solomon/Tar Baby) and as I said above, waiting forcell23 to finish up A Feast for Crows before no doubt getting my dinky little fingers on a copy of A Dance with Dragons and swallowing it whole. I certainly cannot complain about not having read anything this year. All hail 50 book challenges.
In anticipation for A Dance with Dragons dropping, oh, TOMORROW,
cell23 and I have been re-tearing through the entire song of ice and fire thus far. I'm actually rather glad I'm rereading it; the last time through I ended up skimming through the last half of A Clash of Kings and the rest of the series, and thus missed quite a bit. I'm taking my time this time and enjoying the side details I missed. Waiting for cell23 to finish with the library copy of A Feast for Crows - I needed a break after A Storm of Swords anyway. Not in any huge rush - at last check there were 27 holds on the one copy the Jones library had ordered and I think I'm somewhere like #13 in that queue, so I'm not feeling any huge imperative to OMG FINISH NOW.Other stuff I've read recently:
A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan): I read
nounsandverbs's LJ entry on this book and Goodreads named it as its Challenge book for July/August so I picked it up from the library. I wasn't sure what to expect of it, and I found it a charming slice of life story of this knot of people in or associated with some lower subset of the music business, the connections they make and maintain, and how they get from point A to point B in their lives. During all of this, music permeates the story until the words drip with references to punk and indie bands from just about every era and you can just about hear the soundtrack to the story as you read. Oddly enough, it strongly reminded me of Scott Pilgrim in a lot of ways, as if the characters could have been Sex Bob-Omb et al at an earlier point in their lives (indeed, many of them begin the story all in a not-so-great garage band together). I ended the book wanting to reread the comics, or at least see the movie again. That was interesting. But that aside, it was a good (and quick) read... and yes, there is a chapter told by way of powerpoint slides, and it's actually one of the most moving bits of the book.And now I have "Garbage Truck" stuck in my head, lol.
George's Marvelous Medicine, Esio Trot, Boy, Danny the Champion of the World, Going Solo (Roald Dahl): In fourth grade, we had lists of books by specific authors we had to read in our downtime. One of those authors was Roald Dahl. Seeing as I've been a bit of a speed reader from an early age, I pretty much blew through everything he'd published up to that point (1988). Somehow I'd completely missed George's Marvelous Medicine at the time, and Esio Trot and Going Solo hadn't been written yet. Last Christmas
extrajoker gave me a Roald Dahl box set, so I've been reading the books I've missed since then and rereading some that I had only read once and didn't remember. Happily they're all the work of less than two hours these days so I've been going through and enjoying them quite a bit. Roald Dahl's always been one of my favorites anyway, and even though I do wish they'd migrate back onto the shelves from whence they came, I'm absolutely thrilled that Kidzilla's been reading and enjoying them.Anyway. I say especially that Esio Trot is an ADORABLE story and takes less than 10 minutes to read. I think it may be my new favorite.
A Mercy (Toni Morrison): Normally I really like Toni Morrison. This book however just failed to engage me. I did finish it, and I could probably give you some vague details about what happened in it, but it just didn't grab me as much as her earlier work did and still does, and I didn't give much of a rats ass about the four women it focused on, which is such a marked difference from other Morrison characters that I have been profoundly affected by - Claudia, Pecola, Sethe, Sula, or Denver to name some examples. Not sure what happened, but this is a problem I've run into in much of her later works - the characters just don't stay with me as much as her earlier ones do. Course it could very well be that having to write papers on each and all of the ones I listed at varying points in my academic life underscored them in my memory, except I never read Sula for a class and she and Nell stayed with me so maybe not. Anyway I was kinda eh on this one which kinda sucked. I wanted to like it.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (NK Jemison): I actually really enjoyed this one, though it is very clearly the author's first novel and it shows in more than a few places. That aside, I loved the protagonist and the squabbling family of enslaved gods - I would not mind reading an entire novel about just Sieh. While I liked Nahadoth, he seemed very much your dark, misunderstood, not necessarily evil antihero trope, though some of the ways in which he is described evoked some very strong anime style images and I could indeed see this book told as a manga or as an anime series. I hear tell that the rest of the series improves astronomically as Jemison grows as a writer, so I have the next one on hold from the library and look forward to reading it.
Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart (Sarah MacLean): Yeah, it's a romance novel. Yeah it's a romance novel written by a college buddy of mine. It's still an adorable, fun read, and a satisfying conclusion to Sarah's "Love by the numbers" trilogy. It's funny - these three books struck me as less romance novels and more love letters to the entire romance genre, which, if you know Sarah and her lifelong obsession with them (we used to borrow them from her on the d/l back at Lamont House) they probably are. The heroes are dashing, the heroines are feisty, the scandals are scandalous - hell even her love scenes are appropriately bodice-rippy. Looking forward to her next series.
Naamah's Blessing (Jacqueline Carey): Jusst finished this one over the weekend. As the last volume of the third trilogy of Kushiel's Legacy, it's good. I've been of the opinion that the first trilogy was great, the second and third mostly fluffy fanservice, which is fine because you do grow to love this world and the characters in it. This one's no different - Moirin has one last Very Big Adventure here, and while I did have a little bit of a problem with the portrayal of everything outside of Carey's Alterna-Europe being a mega-exotic locale to have adventures is before returning home safe to Not!France, and a slightly bigger problem with all of Carey's depictions of Not!Central America reading as if they'd been lifted directly from Gary Jennings' Aztec (seriously there were a few passages where I was all "wow, she's lucky he's dead and can't scream 'lawsuit.'"), I did like how it all wrapped up and another chapter of this series closed.
I do kinda hope Carey is done at this point, though - nine doorstop sized books in, and I'm a little Kushieled out. Of course, if we are indeed going for alternative history of Not!Europe, it would be interesting to revisit Terre D'Ange and its surrounding environs again with another jump into the future. I would not mind picking up events in the City of Elua around World War II, for example, or around the Not!French Revolution even. What happens to this society descended from renegade angels as the world becomes smaller? Does the Court of Night Blooming Flowers survive the societal upheavals of 500 years? Does House Courcel? Who knows. I'd love to read that. But far be it for me to tell Carey how to write her world; it would just be nice if she did something radically different with the setting if she returns instead of pretty much retreading the same general stuff over and over again.
Currently devouring an omnibus edition of Toni Morrison novels (Sula/Song of Solomon/Tar Baby) and as I said above, waiting for
cell23 to finish up A Feast for Crows before no doubt getting my dinky little fingers on a copy of A Dance with Dragons and swallowing it whole. I certainly cannot complain about not having read anything this year. All hail 50 book challenges.Required reading
Jul. 11th, 2011 05:42 pmIf you perchance, haven't seen cbpotts' excellent entry Letters for the Daughters: Be Scary I highly suggest you fix that forthwith.
cbpotts' excellent entry Letters for the Daughters: Be Scary I highly suggest you fix that forthwith.