What Happened to May?
Hopefully not the same thing that happened to June...mostly because HERE'S A POST!!
Read Some Damn Books: Why no posts in May? Because I haven't read a book for that entire month! Or maybe I haven't finished a book is more accurate. I am a good 130 pages from finishing my first (sorta) read of the Hugos, or one of the three books I hadn't yet read when the list was released. I still need to chomp through Blackout (which should be extra awesome fun; I love me some Mira Grant) and the Bujold one...Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance. Eh. I'm currently slogging through 2312, slogging because I can't find a word for "I really wish the story was structured differently and not chopped up with weird interlude bits." Every chapter or two there is a break called 'lists' (which are...2-ish page lists of crap. The first one was kind of amusing but I've grown really SUPER tired of lists after the 11th one) and 'Extracts' which would be more interesting if it wasn't 2 to 4 pages of fragmented paragraphs. Extract 14 popped up the other night and my eyeballs rolled themselves 360 degrees, jumped out of my head and poured themselves a bourbon and coke. The story is really cool but the lists, extracts and the other out of sequence bits Robinson puts in there yoink you out of the tale every chapter or two.
The Mars series was really much better, both in keeping the reader in the story and the story itself was above and beyond better constructed. I am sad that 2312 won the Nebula actually.
Locally, Merrie Haskell is having a reading at the Grad for her new book Handbook for Dragon Slaying. Rumor has it that she will sign yours and then you sign her copy at your favorite part. I have until Wednesday to read it, which I am so going to do (because how cool is "sign at your favorite spot"? Way cool!). We went to Nicola's books to pick it up (and also managed to find the new Mercy Thompson book and a book called Donut) and while we were perusing, another customer found a mouse. We corralled the mouse under a shopping basket, told management and then participated in the mice follies. Apparently Mr. (or Mrs., didn't ask) Mouse was chilling under the basket, liking the way it kept customers from stepping on his or her mousey head, but wasn't too keen on riding a cardboard slider because as soon as we lifted up one end POP the mouse was out. We recorralled it under the basket, slid the cardboard under the other side and POP, the mouse just moseyed out between the basket slats.
"You could have done that at any time?"
"No, not at any time, only when it was funny."
We then got a cardboard tube and spent a good 5 minutes convincing Mousie that the tube was the best mouse place ever. Eventually, Mousie agreed with us and was taken for an alleyway ride. We got a free book out of the deal which was kinda cool. The book was not Donut which would have been the topper.
Origins: We went. The highlights include: We found a whiskey bar to eat at that was tasty (and full of cool whiskies) AND we took the bus to get there. That was pretty cool, we can take the bus lots of places and try new cool things. We also played Dread, which was neat. Lastly, the show was set up with dinner theater seating which we thought was going to be bad but turned out great overall. Audience loved it and the ballot collecting went much faster. Shave an hour off the show time faster in fact. It was also easier to collect the ballots in that set up although we will need more collectors on the whole if we continue with it in the future (at least 4).
Lastly, today is TinyCat's birthday. She is 3.
Read Some Damn Books: Why no posts in May? Because I haven't read a book for that entire month! Or maybe I haven't finished a book is more accurate. I am a good 130 pages from finishing my first (sorta) read of the Hugos, or one of the three books I hadn't yet read when the list was released. I still need to chomp through Blackout (which should be extra awesome fun; I love me some Mira Grant) and the Bujold one...Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance. Eh. I'm currently slogging through 2312, slogging because I can't find a word for "I really wish the story was structured differently and not chopped up with weird interlude bits." Every chapter or two there is a break called 'lists' (which are...2-ish page lists of crap. The first one was kind of amusing but I've grown really SUPER tired of lists after the 11th one) and 'Extracts' which would be more interesting if it wasn't 2 to 4 pages of fragmented paragraphs. Extract 14 popped up the other night and my eyeballs rolled themselves 360 degrees, jumped out of my head and poured themselves a bourbon and coke. The story is really cool but the lists, extracts and the other out of sequence bits Robinson puts in there yoink you out of the tale every chapter or two.
The Mars series was really much better, both in keeping the reader in the story and the story itself was above and beyond better constructed. I am sad that 2312 won the Nebula actually.
Locally, Merrie Haskell is having a reading at the Grad for her new book Handbook for Dragon Slaying. Rumor has it that she will sign yours and then you sign her copy at your favorite part. I have until Wednesday to read it, which I am so going to do (because how cool is "sign at your favorite spot"? Way cool!). We went to Nicola's books to pick it up (and also managed to find the new Mercy Thompson book and a book called Donut) and while we were perusing, another customer found a mouse. We corralled the mouse under a shopping basket, told management and then participated in the mice follies. Apparently Mr. (or Mrs., didn't ask) Mouse was chilling under the basket, liking the way it kept customers from stepping on his or her mousey head, but wasn't too keen on riding a cardboard slider because as soon as we lifted up one end POP the mouse was out. We recorralled it under the basket, slid the cardboard under the other side and POP, the mouse just moseyed out between the basket slats.
"You could have done that at any time?"
"No, not at any time, only when it was funny."
We then got a cardboard tube and spent a good 5 minutes convincing Mousie that the tube was the best mouse place ever. Eventually, Mousie agreed with us and was taken for an alleyway ride. We got a free book out of the deal which was kinda cool. The book was not Donut which would have been the topper.
Origins: We went. The highlights include: We found a whiskey bar to eat at that was tasty (and full of cool whiskies) AND we took the bus to get there. That was pretty cool, we can take the bus lots of places and try new cool things. We also played Dread, which was neat. Lastly, the show was set up with dinner theater seating which we thought was going to be bad but turned out great overall. Audience loved it and the ballot collecting went much faster. Shave an hour off the show time faster in fact. It was also easier to collect the ballots in that set up although we will need more collectors on the whole if we continue with it in the future (at least 4).
Lastly, today is TinyCat's birthday. She is 3.