So our streak of terrible luck continues. No sooner does my husband get out of the hospital than everything at our house decides to break at once...most importantly my less-than-two-year-old laptop. The monitor just completely died. It's no longer under warranty, and the Geek Squad told us it would be about $300 to put in a new monitor on the laptop itself. So we decided to go the cheaper route and just buy a new stand-alone monitor and hook it to the laptop.
So that explains where I've been for the last few weeks. It's seemed like an eternity without being able to blog and read everyone else's posts. I have NO IDEA what's been going on in the blogosphere in my absence. The good news, however, is that I managed to read four books in my time away from the computer. FOUR! In like three weeks! That's some kind of record for me. I guess the internet is the culprit, after all, in the time suckage of my life.
Well, I fully intend to get back to my internet-heavy life now. I'll be catching up on everyone's blogs and hopefully posting reviews for those books (mostly REALLY good, with one little exception of okay-ness) for the next week or so. I'm a little scared to look at my Google Reader, but here I go anyway. Missed all y'all a LOT!
Showing posts with label Random. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Random. Show all posts
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, October 16, 2009
Sigh
Friday night, and I'm catching up on my Google Reader.
It's been an unproductive reading week here. I'm in the middle of Angela Carter's Shaking a Leg, which is a collection of her literary criticism and other articles she wrote, mostly for New Society. It covers a variety of topics and I'm finding that I quite enjoy her acidic writing style and thought-provoking pieces. She was a feminist of the 1970's variety, if anyone knows what I mean by that. I think they call it First-Wave Feminism? I'm not up on the lingo. I love her scathing review of Linda Lovelace's autobiography. (Linda Lovelace was, I believe, the "actress" who starred in Deep Throat...I had to ask my husband about that one!)
Anyway, this isn't meant to be an in-depth review of the work (I'm only about one sixth of the way through the monstrous thing). BUT what I'm trying to say is...I haven't gotten much accomplished on it this week. I was in jury selection Monday, which tired me out too much to read anything quite as heavy and intellectual as Carter's essays. And I was in trial Wednesday (well, supposed to be...), so I spent most of Tuesday night putting the final touches on my case. When the thing pled out on Wednesday, I was then too exhausted from the stress to pick up the book. All I could manage was Glee. Last night was a night full of TV with the hubby, so that leaves me...nowhere, really. I seem to get through more of the book when I read it during commercials of my beloved football games.
I wish I were one of those people who can read multiple things at once, but I'm not. I'd get a novel going on the side and forsake the non-fiction for that. Especially if it's a good novel. It's not that the essay collection is boring or anything, it's just that I need all my faculties about me to take it all in...and that's hard to come by on a weeknight.
This weekend I'm looking forward to seeing some friends for the Georgia game tomorrow, and hanging with the hubster on Sunday. He's FINALLY done with his week and a half of working nights, so...that'll be nice. Keep your fingers crossed for him. He had two job interviews today and we're really hoping he gets one of them!
It's been an unproductive reading week here. I'm in the middle of Angela Carter's Shaking a Leg, which is a collection of her literary criticism and other articles she wrote, mostly for New Society. It covers a variety of topics and I'm finding that I quite enjoy her acidic writing style and thought-provoking pieces. She was a feminist of the 1970's variety, if anyone knows what I mean by that. I think they call it First-Wave Feminism? I'm not up on the lingo. I love her scathing review of Linda Lovelace's autobiography. (Linda Lovelace was, I believe, the "actress" who starred in Deep Throat...I had to ask my husband about that one!)
Anyway, this isn't meant to be an in-depth review of the work (I'm only about one sixth of the way through the monstrous thing). BUT what I'm trying to say is...I haven't gotten much accomplished on it this week. I was in jury selection Monday, which tired me out too much to read anything quite as heavy and intellectual as Carter's essays. And I was in trial Wednesday (well, supposed to be...), so I spent most of Tuesday night putting the final touches on my case. When the thing pled out on Wednesday, I was then too exhausted from the stress to pick up the book. All I could manage was Glee. Last night was a night full of TV with the hubby, so that leaves me...nowhere, really. I seem to get through more of the book when I read it during commercials of my beloved football games.
I wish I were one of those people who can read multiple things at once, but I'm not. I'd get a novel going on the side and forsake the non-fiction for that. Especially if it's a good novel. It's not that the essay collection is boring or anything, it's just that I need all my faculties about me to take it all in...and that's hard to come by on a weeknight.
This weekend I'm looking forward to seeing some friends for the Georgia game tomorrow, and hanging with the hubster on Sunday. He's FINALLY done with his week and a half of working nights, so...that'll be nice. Keep your fingers crossed for him. He had two job interviews today and we're really hoping he gets one of them!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Getting More (Pop) Cultural
I've decided that Ricky and I don't DO enough. Our boring lives consist of working, eating, watching TV, and sleeping. We read, it's true, but we don't see movies, we don't go to any local events (partially because we live in the most boring place on earth that doesn't HAVE any local events), we don't participate in hobbies. We need to get off the couch and DO SOME STUFF.
So I thought about ways we could increase our activity level and I've come up with a few things I'd like to try. Number one, which doesn't really involve getting up off the couch, is a subscription to Netflix. Part of the reason we don't see movies is that it's really freakin' expensive. I blew $40 on his birthday this year to take us to a movie and get some snacks! We don't have that kind of cash. BUT, with a Netflix subscription, we can get almost any movie we want to see, delivered to us, for a lot less than it would cost for even one of us to see it in the theater. I can wait for stuff to come out on DVD, no problem. I've even thought of doing some sort of movie project, like watching all the Oscar winners or something. I like stuff like that.
Secondly, I've decided I want to go to the Renaissance Festival next February/March. We live in a small town, which doesn't have much going on in the way of cultural events, but there are some larger metropolitan areas south of us, one of which features the Florida Renaissance Festival every year! I went to the Ohio Ren Faire a few times when I was in junior high and high school, and I really enjoyed it. I'm not the kind of gal who would dress up and participate (welllll....get enough mead in me and I might), but I'm the kind of nerd who would really enjoy herself spending a weekend in the Middle Ages. It's twenty bucks a person just to get in (i.e., not counting food, drink, shows, and souvenirs), but if we save with a goal in mind, we can afford it easily. Although there isn't one super close to us, it's only about an hour and a half drive away, which is not bad (we live in a looooong state...it could be eight hours away!).
Third, and this is something I've thought about for a while, I'd like to try geocaching or letterboxing. This is where you use a GPS system to find hidden locations where people who have been there before leave messages and stuff. It sounds kind of lame when you spell it out like that, but I think it would be fun. Kind of like a treasure hunt! I have a friend from college who has just tried it and she raves about it. If my husband won't join me (he's allergic to the outdoors), maybe I'll get some of my local friends to try it with me!
Fourth, I'd like to get into some kind of hobby. Maybe try knitting or get back into cross-stitching. I cook a little, but I don't want to have a bunch of food that we won't eat sitting around just for a few hours of occupation. I've seen a lot of bloggers who knit and quilt. These are hobbies I've never been that much into, but I'm starting to become interested. Hopefully, they don't go the way of the beading mania I indulged in a few years ago...I spent a BUNCH of money on supplies, but gave up after a short while. I'm not very craft-y. I'm impatient and easily discouraged, but I'm better about that than I used to be, so I'd like to try some sort of craft again soon.
Anyone have any other ideas to get us out and about and keep us amused?
So I thought about ways we could increase our activity level and I've come up with a few things I'd like to try. Number one, which doesn't really involve getting up off the couch, is a subscription to Netflix. Part of the reason we don't see movies is that it's really freakin' expensive. I blew $40 on his birthday this year to take us to a movie and get some snacks! We don't have that kind of cash. BUT, with a Netflix subscription, we can get almost any movie we want to see, delivered to us, for a lot less than it would cost for even one of us to see it in the theater. I can wait for stuff to come out on DVD, no problem. I've even thought of doing some sort of movie project, like watching all the Oscar winners or something. I like stuff like that.
Secondly, I've decided I want to go to the Renaissance Festival next February/March. We live in a small town, which doesn't have much going on in the way of cultural events, but there are some larger metropolitan areas south of us, one of which features the Florida Renaissance Festival every year! I went to the Ohio Ren Faire a few times when I was in junior high and high school, and I really enjoyed it. I'm not the kind of gal who would dress up and participate (welllll....get enough mead in me and I might), but I'm the kind of nerd who would really enjoy herself spending a weekend in the Middle Ages. It's twenty bucks a person just to get in (i.e., not counting food, drink, shows, and souvenirs), but if we save with a goal in mind, we can afford it easily. Although there isn't one super close to us, it's only about an hour and a half drive away, which is not bad (we live in a looooong state...it could be eight hours away!).
Third, and this is something I've thought about for a while, I'd like to try geocaching or letterboxing. This is where you use a GPS system to find hidden locations where people who have been there before leave messages and stuff. It sounds kind of lame when you spell it out like that, but I think it would be fun. Kind of like a treasure hunt! I have a friend from college who has just tried it and she raves about it. If my husband won't join me (he's allergic to the outdoors), maybe I'll get some of my local friends to try it with me!
Fourth, I'd like to get into some kind of hobby. Maybe try knitting or get back into cross-stitching. I cook a little, but I don't want to have a bunch of food that we won't eat sitting around just for a few hours of occupation. I've seen a lot of bloggers who knit and quilt. These are hobbies I've never been that much into, but I'm starting to become interested. Hopefully, they don't go the way of the beading mania I indulged in a few years ago...I spent a BUNCH of money on supplies, but gave up after a short while. I'm not very craft-y. I'm impatient and easily discouraged, but I'm better about that than I used to be, so I'd like to try some sort of craft again soon.
Anyone have any other ideas to get us out and about and keep us amused?
Monday, September 21, 2009
The New Forgiveness Conspiracy
If you're interested in learning more about Go-Boy's "good conspiracy" (from my recent review of Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same), check out this site: http://newforgivenessconspiracy.com/. It's also just a fun and uplifting way to spend a few minutes of your day!
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