I’ll also being using this blog in a professional capacity to update on my availability, new projects I’ve completed and stuff like that. Basically I wanted a place for everything. In past I had tried to separate “professional me” and “private me”, but that’s just too much work to keep up, so this place will just be me, warts and all (Note: I don’t actually have warts!). I still have my food blog and my photoblog, so if you’re interested in either of those subjects, I hope you’ll check them out, but I wanted a blog where I could write more generally about the stuff that interests me and I can’t really do that on those since they have such specific formats.

Anyway, take a look around. I updated my portfolio and about page, too. It’s been a busy couple of months and that trend is continuing for next few, so hopefully I’ll have lots to talk about.

Did I think it was a bad book? No. Did I think the writing was bad? For the most part, no. There was just some really gimmicky devices he used that annoyed the hell out of me. Like when he starts having imaginary conversations with his “brother” or his friend “John” which are really just an excuses for some self-indulgent rambling. I originally thought that this was another example of being fresh in 2000 and stale by 2008, but then I went back and read the (amusing) Preface (which he advises you to skip in the first place) and he acknowledges that he knows he did some gimmicky stuff. So the fact that he admitted that kind of annoyed me even more.

The thing about this book is that it feels like you are reading this guy’s blog. Which is maybe why I think it hasn’t aged well? I read blogs every single day and have been for years, so this style is nothing new to me. In 2000, it would have been. Always late to the game, I guess.

Also, like a blog, it’s really pretty uneven. There’s some really good chapters (The first 4 chapters which he also suggests are the only ones you need to read and can stop afterward since it gets worse from there. Does it make it better that he knows the book is uneven? How can I completely get behind this book when the author doesn’t even stand behind his own work! See? Annoying.) and there are some that are just annoying or boring (or both). Like the whole chapter where he had the audition for the Real World and he turns the audition into this really long interview (that never happened) where he just rambles on and on about his childhood and none of it matters. We don’t need to know that Mr. T lived in his hometown to understand him as a person. Yes, it’s an fun fact and if it were me, I might want to try to find a way to include it in my memoir as well, but at the same time, it’s completely pointless for anyone else other than the author to know about. But that’s why it seems like a blog to me, because that’s the kind of stuff someone would write in their blog.

The thing that saved this book for me (and I think is the basis of whether you love or loathe it) is that I actually did care about him (even if his behavior annoyed me sometimes). Plus I could empathize with his situation. My life has certainly not been as bad as his, but I know what it feels like to lose a parent and all the crap that comes with that. I understood a lot of the feelings he had about life in general and will admit that I am just as neurotic and self indulgent as he is (and he’s really neurotic and self-indulgent). Since I was invested, I kept reading through all the boring/annoying parts. If I wasn’t invested, though, there’s no way I could have gotten through this thing.

Also, the ending? With the teen angst and rage crap? A little overdone and I don’t think it really gelled with much of the rest of the book. I liked the inter-cutting of stories in the last chapter all the way up until that point, though. But again, it adds to the “bloginess” of it all, because it’s very much something someone in his situation would write if he was having a bad day (Fuck you all!).  Not really the best way to end the book, though.

Reading back over this, it feels like I’m saying I didn’t like this book. That’s not really the case. I think as a whole it’s a good book. And it’s not all dead parents and orphans either. Yes, there are sad parts but he’s a funny writer and is able to put things in perspective and not be all sentimental or cloying about his situation. That’s definitely another saving grace of this book.

Would I recommend this book to others? Yes. But I might tell them to check it out from the library instead of buying. If you love reading blogs and memoirs, though, you will probably like this book. If you are more of a straight up fiction kind of person, you may hate it, but you should definitely give it a try, even if you only read the (superior) first four chapters.

I had no idea how early we should be there, but I figured the earlier the better.  It had rained the night before and was still overcast, but somehow it did not rain during the rally, despite looking like the sky was about to open up several times.  This was a good thing because they weren’t allowing umbrellas (or much of anything else, I heard that people with kids in strollers got turned away!).  We had parked and walked about halfway to the park when someone shouted this to us, so we had to walk back and leave everything in the car.  When we found the line, I cursed myself for not arriving earlier (we were about 1.5 hours before the gate opened, which was 2 hours before the event was going to start).  The line was already snaked around into two lines by then, but about 30 minutes after we got there it had snaked around into 4 distinct lines, so we actually got there at a pretty good time.

You can see the people ahead of us on left.

You can see a new line on the right side, eventually there was another line beside that one.

The line started moving fairly quickly after we’d been standing there for half and hour or so. It was a lot faster than I thought it was going to be judging from how many people were in front of us. Going through security was fast though, especially since I had dumped my purse in the car. People with bags had to go to a different line where they could be searched. I just had to get my camera and phone checked. I heard one of the security guys asking another women not to take pictures of the “security things” (after I had taken pics already), so the below picture might be illegal or something but it’s not like it’s showing anything you can’t see if you go to the airport.

We had moved over into the first line now! (LOL, just noticed this guy smiled for my pic!)

Security Checkpoint

Here’s the scene when we finally got to the park. It was maybe a quarter full at this point (about 2 hours before the event was supposed to start). You can see all the dark clouds over us. Obama stood in front of the big sign on the far right. He wasn’t actually facing the crowd, but the stage set up on the left side (where that flag is hanging) where all the cameras were set up.

So we packed in there as close a possible to the platform (it was a lot closer than I thought we would be with all the people that were in front of us in line) and commenced standing for the next 4 hours. That was hell. It was hot (duh) and the ground was wet from the rain the night before. I tried to persevere, but after about an hour or so of standing I give up and sat on the wet ground. I had brought a hoodie with me, so I sat on that, though it really didn’t help much. At one point they started passing around bottled water to the crowd which was much needed. All the while, a local band (I’m assuming?) played a bunch of motown hits with some Bob Marley thrown in for good measure to try to distract the crowd from their legs slowly losing all feeling.

I was sitting on the ground at this point, it wasn't worth standing up for.

I think the park was at capacity at this point.

The event finally started at about 3 (at which point I stood up and kept standing for the rest of the time). I expected there to be a bunch of speakers beforehand, but it got kind of ridiculous after a while because someone would come up and talk and then they’d say “And now I have the pleasure of introducing Senator….” (and here’s where the crowd collectively holds it breath) “Bill Nelson” and the crowd would groan. There was at least three senators introduced. After a bunch of people spoke, there was some more waiting, the crowd growing more and more restless. Eventually, Obama’s bus showed up and every time someone in a suit exited the crowd would start cheering. About an hour after it started, there was one more speaker (she kept it short) and finally introduced him and the crowd totally went crazy. I was able to snap a few shots before my camera battery died, but I was pretty much just holding the camera up as far as I could hoping I was pointing in the right direction because he was impossible to see with everyone jumping up and down with their hands and cameras in the air.

Kids of their daddy's shoulders get an unfair advantage.

Yay for digital zoom!

The speech was great as usual. Obama mentioned the bombings in Pakistan and thanked all the previous speakers. Then he started out by quoting Abraham Lincoln: “If you don’t stop telling lies about me, I’m going to have to start telling the truth about you.” (that is probably paraphrased from my memory though) He went into McCain for trying to blame all the recent financial problems on him and for all of McCain’s lobbyist ties. It was funniest part of the speech, just for how incredulous he was at the shit McCain’s been saying. He had some good one liners that I can’t remember off the top of my head. Then he went into his usual talking points that I’ve heard in a bunch of his speeches (didn’t mean it was any less awesome), the crowd was cheering throughout, breaking out into “Yes We Can” and “OBAMA” chanting several times. I’m not sure how long the speech was, 30 or 45 minutes? It sped by, unfortunately, and then everyone was cheering and jumping up and down like crazy again as he hugged and shook hands with all the lucky people that got to stand on the platform with him.

Getting out of the park took forever and despite being cloudy all day, I got home and realized I had the worst sunburn all over my neck and arms, but it was all totally worth it. I would definitely do it all over again. (Though it was take some convincing to get Brandon to go to another ones of these: he stood the whole time in his really old shoes, which just about killed his feet.) The crowd was really diverse: young, old, white, black, and every other race. The guy Brandon was standing next to said he voted for JFK and had gone to a rally for him as well. How cool is that? It was just really inspiring to see all those people come together and to feel the excitement from everyone. I feel really lucky that I got to participate in that.

So I went through one of the many cookbooks I’ve bought (and rarely opened) and picked out two or three weeks worth of recipes that looked good and that seemed simple enough to make.  I’m not the best cook ever, but I can follow a recipe, my only requirement is that it not have a million ingredients (especially things I’ve never heard of) or take hours to make.  I just don’t have the time or patience to cook like that.

I’ve never spent so much at the grocery store in one go in my life.  $225!  On food.  I don’t even spend that much money in Target (and Target takes a good portion of my income).  The majority of that was meat, fruits, and vegetables, so that has helped me to follow through with making the meals or else waste a crap ton of money.  So far I’ve done pretty good.  I made dinner for 4 nights straight last week.  That has probably never happened before.  Old habits die hard, though.  We went out on Monday and I had a recipe lined up for last night, but wasn’t in the mood for cooking so we went out again (but we ate at a deli and had salad and sandwiches, so I don’t really feel bad about that).

My plan is to limit eating out to twice a week (hopefully we can widdle it down to one, eventually), have one day of fending for ourselves (cereal!) and then cook the rest of the week.  4 days isn’t terribly intimidating top me, especially if I can space them out.  Brandon’s been really good about helping out, so I don’t feel like it’s all on me.  I get him to do all my vegetable chopping (I HATE onions) and can opening.  He’s a good assistant.

The really weird thing is that I’m actually starting to enjoy cooking.  And almost all the meals I’ve made have been good (and healthy!).  I’ll definitely be making most of them again (everything except this chicken/onion/pasta casserole thing, which was pretty blah).  It makes me want to start a food/recipe blog.  I’m not sure I’d update it regularly if it was just me, though.  Might be a fun a multi-author blog if anyone is interested in recipe sharing, though (let me know!).

Here’s my favorite recipe so far.  It’s easy to make, healthy (it’s from the Weight Watchers cookbook) and really flavorful.  We made it with rice.

Garlicky Red Beans and Pork

Ingredients:

1. 4 tsp. olive oil
2. 10 oz. lean boneless pork link, cut into 1.5 in. cubes
3. 1/4 tsp. pepper
4. 1 red onion, chopped
5. 6 garlic cloves, minced
6. 1 can diced tomatoes with chiles, mostly drained (or you can use 2 chopped tomatoes, and 1/4 cup chopped chiles)
7. 2 cans kidney beans, drained (original recipe only uses 1, but I like a lot of beans)
8. 1/2 tsp. cumin (reduce to 1/4 tsp. if you don’t like overly spicy food)
9. 1/2 cup of water

In a large saucepan, hear the oil.

Add the pork and pepper; cook stirring as needed, until the pork is cooked through and lightly browned, 5-10 minutes.

Add the onions and garlic; cook, stirring as needed, until the onions are tender, 5-8 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes, beans, cumin and water; bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmmer, covered, until the beans are tender, 15-20 minutes.

Makes 4 servings

Tonight is Southern Oven “Fried” Chicken.  Not so sure about the Weight Watchers version of “fried” chicken (notice the quotation marks), but most of the other recipes from that book have been surprisingly good.

It also helped that I was just really happy that we actually made it to the concert. I was stressed out the whole way up there. Brandon was supposed to leave early from work, but wound up being late. It was pouring rain the entire way so everyone was going slower than normal, plus we kept running into traffic at random places on the interstate. Both of us were starving from not eating anything all day so we had to make a detour and stuff greasy food in our mouths as fast as possible (which is always great for the digestive system). Then we wound up running out of gas about 5 miles from Savannah (less than an hour before the concert) so we had to make another detour to get gas. But our hotel wound up being closer to downtown than I thought (we couldn’t afford $200 a night to stay in one of the downtown hotels, so La Quinta it was), so we checked in, threw our crap in the room, rushed back to the car and rushed downtown where, thankfully, there was a (free!) parking garage a block away from the theater, otherwise finding parking would have been a bitch.

We got the concert with about 30 minutes to spare, so I could finally relax after that. We were in the third row, so the seats were great (We were on the right side, I would have preferred the center–Ben’s piano was closer to the left side of the stage–but I could still see him really well).

The thing that really surprised me was how good the opening act was. I hadn’t heard anything about who was opening and I was expecting them to be pretty bad because that’s how it’s been for many of the concerts I’ve been to, but this guy made a new fan out of me. His name is Eef Barzelay (yeah, I know) and if you like Ben Folds, then you’ll like this guy. He’s a bit more folky than Ben and he plays guitar, not piano, but it’s the same kind of interesting voice-good lyrics-simple catchy songs, type of music. He also had some funny songs that reminded me of Flight of the Conchords. I would definitely say he’s a cross between Ben Folds and Flight of the Conchords. Very good stuff. He was also really funny and totally won over the crowd. I realized halfway though that I had heard him before. If you’ve seen the movie Rocket Science (and if you haven’t, you need to Netflix it this instant, it’s a GREAT little indie about boy with a stuttering problem who joins the debate team at the urging of a girl he likes) he did the music for it. He even had a music video on the Rocket Science DVD and I remember watching it thinking “Wow, this guy is goofy” and he is, but in a super cute way. He plays the guitar kind of sideways so that he can do these little dances and flourishes while he sings. It is definitely a sight to behold.

So then Ben finally came out and, really, what can I say without turning into a thirteen year old girl? It was just a greatgreatgreatgreat concert. He played ALL my favorite songs (and I’ve loved Ben Folds for 10 years now, so that’s a lot of songs). The guy is a machine. I think he played for at least an hour an half or two hours? Half the songs were him with his drummer and guitarist (And a tamborine player that came out a few times and was awesomely hilarious. Ben said he knew he had finally made it when he could hire someone to come out and play tambourine on two of his songs. ), but there was a long stretch in the middle that was just him alone playing the piano. There were songs from every album, including his NEW album which they had just finished recording. They played at least 5 new songs and they were all great, so I can’t WAIT until the new album gets released.

The best part is the story he told about one of his new songs. He was in Japan and walked out on stage to start a concert, but it was so dark that he couldn’t see where the stage ended and he accidentally walked right off, fell on his head and practically busted it open (the chorus of the song is basically: “They watched me fall down”). He crawled back on stage and then proceeded to perform the whole set despite the fact he was bleeding all over the piano. After the concert he was rushed to the hospital and they took x-rays to make sure he had no head trauma or whatever. Obviously he’s fine, though. The cool part is he said those x-rays (with Japanese writing all over them) are going to be the cover of his new album. The even cooler part was the he needed audience reactions to add to that track on the album, so we did some cheering and some clapping and some singing for him. If he likes us, we could be on the new album, which would be pretty sweet! Besides that song he also got us to sing along to Not the Same and Army (he even got up on top of his piano to conduct us!)

The whole concert was just soo much fun and it was wonderful being back in Savannah again. It was really the best birthday present I could have and it was a nice release after three straight weeks of working with no breaks (for me and for Brandon who has been on a deadline at his new job as well). And I found a new musician I like in the process, which is always great. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to the Eef Barzelay album I just downloaded from iTunes.

Case in point. Fiestaware. I finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase some “real” dinnerware. We’ve been using hand-me-down Walmart plates for past 6 years, which do their job but aren’t very pretty or exciting. I like fiestaware because it has a reputation for being durable, but also it’s fun! and colorful! Yay!

It took me entirely too long to pick out the colors I wanted. I’m just obsessively crazy like that. I guess I could have just chosen one color and got a whole set of it, but that’s no fun, so I got multiple colors. 5 to be exact. Cobalt, Scarlet, Persimmon, Shamrock, and Sunflower.

With the exception of Sunflower (and possibly Scarlet since I haven’t received it yet) none of the colors look like they do on the site. The green is much darker, the orange is much lighter, but those I don’t really mind because they are at least close to what I thought they looked like. The issue is with Cobalt.

This is what Amazon says Cobalt looks like:

This is what Cobalt actually looks like:

Wha? How are those even remotely the same color? How much photoprocessing did Amazon have to do to even make their photo look like that? It’s even worse if you look at the all the cobalt products together because almost every item looks like a completely different color. And if you look at the products pages for each color, they’re all like that. I originally thought that Fiestaware had different glazes for each color until I went to their actual website and saw that wasn’t the case.

The good new is that I like the “real” cobalt color much more than I liked Amazon’s effed up version. But what if someone really wanted the lighter blue color and then they got these completely different looking dark plates instead? That’s just a really crappy thing for Amazon to do, especially since there is absolutely no warning (that I saw) that says the colors may vary from the photographs.

I’m still waiting to get Scarlet and I’m hoping like hell it’ll be more like the other colors that are just slightly off from the photo rather than a completely different color like the blue. I wanted to eventually have a set of 8 or 10, but now I’m wary of buying new colors. I guess I’ll just have make sure to check the fiestaware website since it’s photographs are much closer (though still not perfect).

The cool thing about Feistaware is that they introduce new colors every year, so I definitely wanted to leave some room to buy a new set if a color I like came out. I think the next set I buy (probably at Christmas) will be the purple. All the colors I picked match (sort of) this rug I have and purple is only color left that I haven’t gotten. That’s another one that looks completely different on Amazon, though.

I can tell this will be a lifelong collection because I already want a ton of the accessories like the salt and pepper shakers, canisters, mixing bowls, etc. I imagine I’ll be adding a new piece or two to my set every year for my birthday and Christmas. I’ve never really collected anything before, so that sounds like fun, although I know it’s going to wind up costing tons of money. Oh well, all the more reason to start contributing more to that savings account.

It’s an old question, but a good one . . . What were your favorite books this year?

List as many as you like … fiction, non-fiction, mystery, romance, science-fiction, business, travel, cookbooks … whatever the category. But, really, we’re all dying to know. What books were the highlight of your reading year in 2007?

Well, according to Library Thing, I’ve read 24 books this year. That’s not even counting that I re-read Harry Potter 1-6 and I read 7 twice. I also re-read my two favorite Nick Hornby books, High Fidelity and About a Boy. And I’m in the middle of a book now that I will hopefully finish before next Monday. So that actually puts me at 35. That’s about 3 books a month, which is a pretty good average for me since I’m a fairly slow reader.

Highlights would definitely be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (duh). Also the His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman. I’m so glad I finally read those books because I think they’re wonderful. Even though each book gets slightly worse, as a whole I think they are fascinating and thought provoking. I re-read very few of my books but I’ll definitely be re-reading these in the future.

I mentioned the Hornby books above. They are my FAVORITES and will always be, especially High Fidelity. Though when re-reading About A Boy, I realized I actually like the movie a bit better. The ending was changed to be more movie-ending-y, which I don’t really mind, plus the casting is just perfect, but the book is wonderful in it’s own way that books can be and movies just can’t. I read How to Be Good, another Hornby book, and it didn’t have the magic of the other two. It was pretty damn depressing actually. Won’t be re-reading that one.

I also got into comics and graphic novels this year as I’ve been reading Buffy: Season 8 and Angel: After the Fall. I’m currently reading Y: The Last Man, which is fantastic. I’m up to volume 4 and have ordered the rest because I cannot wait to find out what happens next.

Other favs for me include: Kitchen Confidential (I LOVE Anthony Bourdain and this book was interesting and wonderful in a way that I didn’t think a book about cooking could be). The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart was just a short little character driven tale with some mystery and romance and despite being a little cliche, the quality of the writing rose above it’s flaws which made it a nice, satisfying read. In the same vein is The Flawless Skin of Ugly People by Doug Crandell, another character-driven journey story with nice writing.

I also loved Magical Thinking: True Stories by Augusten Burroughs. He one of my favorite authors and I liked this collection of stories. I also read Possible Side Effects another collection of his stories, but I didn’t like that one nearly as much. It seemed he was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as story material for that one.

Lastly is Black Swan Green, which took me a while to get started, but turned out to be a beautiful and very wonderfully written book.

All-in-all it was a good year for books. I don’t think I read any that I hated or even disliked, most I liked a lot. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find equally good books in 2008.

So I just got Brandon’s PSP and two PSP games. I ordered them all from the same place at the same time and yet for some reason they sent each item in it’s own separate box. Witness the ridiculousness:

The PSP game:

The Box it came in:

The PSP game inside the box it came in:

That box could fit about 100 PSP games in it! And I got a box for EACH GAME? The PSP was larger, but not by much. The box it came in could easily have fit the PSP and BOTH games.

What a waste of cardboard.

Me: (Eats a slice of cucumber off Boyfriend’s salad plate)

Me: uhhhhggg (Scrunches up face in disgust, tries to get it down as quickly as possible)

Boyfriend: What was wrong with it?

Me: (Inhales half a glass of diet coke) I don’t know. (More coke) I can’t even describe how horrible it was. It just made me want to vomit. (Coke)

Boyfriend: That’s a pretty good description.

A few minutes later…

Boyfriend: (Eats remaining cucumber slice)

Boyfriend: (Scrunches up face in a myriad of unpleasant ways, obviously grossed out by what he’s eating)

Me: I told you it was bad, why did you eat it?

Boyfriend: (Inhales water) Well, Number 1, I wanted to know what you meant when you said you couldn’t describe it and Number 2, I’m an idiot. (More water)

Do you use any of the online book-cataloging sites, like Library Thing or Shelfari? Why or why not? (Or . . . do you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking to?? (grin))

If not an online catalog, do you use any other method to catalog your book collection? Excel spreadsheets, index cards, a notebook, anything?

I use Library Thing, which I like. I was reading in other places that some people don’t like it. Like, it’s too meticulous or something? I don’t know. I’ve looked at Shelfari and a few other similar places and they seem more social network-y. I don’t really care about that aspect of it. I just like to have a place to list all the books I’ve read. Plus since I took the time to add almost every single book I’ve read in the past 15 years, I don’t really want to have to do that again at another place.

Before I started using Library Thing (probably about a year ago?), I just wrote down all the books I read and the date I finished them on, in a little notebook. I started keeping it around 7th grade, I think. I was totally OCD even back then. Though I know I’m missing quite a few books from my Library Thing list because I would forget to write books down sometimes. But I’d say I have a record of about 85-90% of the books I’ve read since I was about 12.

Now, does that matter? Does anyone care? Probably not, but sometimes I just like to look over my list and I feel somewhat accomplished that I’ve read those books and that I still read regularly. Plus I just love the list aspect of it. It warms my OCD-riddled heart.