How you doin'?

Books: Totally read Outlander in a weekend. I did not intend to read it in a weekend, but best laid plans and all. I'd been listening to the audiobook in the car (I highly reccomend it, the reader is awesome) and reached a point in the story wherein I had to know what happened next. Luckily, the book was sitting at home, after being purchased on a whim, and I spent allllll of Saturday night  and a good deal of Sunday afternoon reading. And now I need to read the whole series. Like, now. Love when that happens. Alternately, I've been reading a lot of Iraq War memiors. I dunno.

Knitting: I've been working on a Cabled/Fan & Feather Cowl with a green Malabrigo yarn that is to die for. I'm pretty sure this yarn is not "gauge appropriate," however I have a giant head so a bigger cowl will be more than okay. The mix of cables (yay!) and Fan & Feather (mostly "& Feather," I guess) is rather neat looking and it should end up being a nice scarf alternative for those 20 degree, negative wind-chill days.

Movies: Saw New York, I Love You over the weekend... I certainly wouldn't say "Don't see it," but it didn't pack the same punch as Paris, Je T'aime. I think my main problem with it was the attempt to connect the stories, like they did in the end of Paris, fell a bit flat.

Other: My hair is getting really long and it's starting to driving me nuts. But I feel like I need the length so I can have a presentable 'do for my sister's wedding come February. Additionally, planning a bridal shower is stressful.

Zombieland is possibly my new favorite zombie movie. Really, really funny. Just gross enough. And the unspoken cameo alone may worth your time and money. Whip It was also pretty great. The story is rather standard for the "sports triumph" genre, but you can tell Drew Barrymore and her cast had a great time making the movie. 

One of our theaters is doing a Dracula/Interview with the Vampire double-feature on Halloween. So there. 

And the New Moon soundtrack? Doesn't suck. Never mind, the links are down. 

Dear G20, 

I respectfully ask that you pack your bags and gtfo. You haven't even started yet, and you've given most of Pittsburgh a giant headache. We're cool not being in the international spotlight. Really. And we would prefer to not have our nice things busted up by protesters. We've worked hard to turn this place around; overturning garbage cans and breaking windows won't solve anything as far as I can tell. Maybe we can try this again when the economy has settled down and people aren't so angry? 

Thanks ever so much. 

Yours, 
Jess

I'm gonna try to not focus on the baloney going on at work (SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARIES, OKAY?) and instead look at the good things...

- MerchDirect sent out the new Brand New album early!!! I can't wait to get that CD into the car. 
- Bones, The Office and Community were all A+ tonight. 
- Jennifer's Body midnight showing in about an hour. Woo! 

ETA:
If you like The Lost Boys and/or Heathers, you will probably like Jennifer's Body. Really funny and just gory enough. 

 - Congrats to the Pittsburgh Pirates on 17 straight losing seasons! Way to dream big, guys! (I do have a soft spot for Garrett Jones, though. He's pretty and a decent first baseman.) 



Thank God for football and hockey... 

- Do yourselves a favor and read the Obama school speech that is apparently terrifying half of the nation. Folks need to chill out. Heaven help us if our President talks to the nation's kids about their responisibilities as students and he gives them a little bit of encouragement. 

[/end tiny soapbox.]

- Entertainment Weekly's "50 Best Beatles Songs" (what, no link?!) makes a heck of a playlist. I am sad that "I've Just Seen a Face" didn't make the cut, though. 

- I'm really stinkin' excited for Glee on Wednesday. 

Neil Gaiman's bookshelves. Now where are my jealous pants?  

"Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read." 

Sho' did. And now the man wants to take it away. I feel for the kids who won't get to experience it. 

Let's go to the bullet points: 

- The Time Traveler's Wife, as a film adaptation, wasn't a complete fail. But that ending was B.S. A big, steamy pile of it. Ugh. (A few thoughts on the casting: Rachel McAdams made a good Clare. Eric Bana still bugs me a bit - there had to have been a better Henry out there. I like Ron Livingston and all, but he was not the Gomez I saw in my head - should have been Paul Bettany. The woman they cast as Henry's mother was perfect.) 

- I'm currently reading Columbine, by Dave Cullen, and it is blowing my mind. Seriously, do yourselves a favor and pick it up. It seems like every five pages, I have an "Oh. My. God." moment. It's amazing how the information was handled - what we knew, what was held back, how information was getting out... 

- True Blood continues to rock my world. So, thank you Alan Ball, especially for bringing Alex Skarsgard into my life (and subsequently Generation Kill on DVD. Which is so brilliant, I can't even stand it). Also, Being Human on BBC America is on my hit parade. The first episode is a bit wobbly, but it's improved with each week. It has a great mix of humor and drama, and a pair of lovely British boys to oogle. 

- I applied for a university library job, but I'm not holding my breath. It'd be primarily interlibrary loan/resource sharing, with a side dish of circulation things - stuff I could totally handle - and I'm sure it has to pay more than my current salary. We'll see. 

"It's really human of you to listen to all my bullshit."

The loss of John Hughes brings this Summer O'Death to it's peak, I think. Thank you, sir, for bringing us Uncle Buck, Cameron Frye, Clark Griswold, Duckie, Bender, and of course, Jake Ryan, the dreamiest guy of the 80s. 

Dear True Blood, 
Why are you so good? Thank you for existing. 
love, 
J.
P.S. If anything bad happens to Hoyt/Jessica, I will be terribly upset. 

( Needs moar Eric.  )

Comedic highlight of the movie? Perhaps. 

( Will you stop eating? Your best friend is missing! )

Snatched up from caveat_lect0r ...  

01. Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?
Most of my reading is done while on my lunch break at work or in bed, before falling asleep. So, kind of? 

02. Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
I very rarely mark up stuff from my regular collection. My books from lit. classes in college are another story... 

03. How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
Bookmark of some sort, even if it's a scrap of paper. Never, ever dog-ear. 

04. Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?
Mostly fiction. Most of the non-fiction books I pick up these days are memiors/biographies or are about music.

05. Hard copy or audiobooks?
98% of the time, give me the hard copy. If I'm going to listen to an audiobook, I prefer to have read it myself first (like with Harry Potter). The one exception is David Sedaris stuff. 

06. Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
I like to finish a chapter if I can, but I have no real qualms about putting down a book at any point. 

07. If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away? Write it down to look it up later? Just try to infer what it means from the rest of the sentence, and keep going?
I'm pretty good at sussing out what a word means from context clues. 

08. What are you currently reading?
The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. And I'm trying to keep up with the Infinite Jest read-a-long

09. What is the last book you bought?
Shakespeare Wrote for the Money by Nick Hornby, the last volume of the columns he wrote for "The Believer." 

10. Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can read more than one at a time?
Lately, I've had a few things going at once. It's usually a novel and a graphic novel. 

11. Do you like re-reading books?
Not as much as I used to (I did a lot as a kid), but yes. I like to leave a long space between re-readings, though. Some books just need to be read over and over again. 

In college, I listened to this Romantic Piano collection that my mom found at Sam's Club for me and the soundtrack to The Pianist quite a bit.(Classical music really does make you smarter!) And for some reason, I did some of my best paper-writing to Fiona Apple. I think now, I'd probably listen to the BSG soundtracks. 

I've been doing this project at work called 23 Things... Which is supposed to help us library folk increase our knowledge of the latest and greatest in "Web 2.0" nonsense (. This week was all about the wonderful world of social networking and the assignment required us to join Facebook (check), Myspace (been there, done that, no thanks), or twitter. Soooo, twitter it is. I honestly don't know how often I'll be using it, but interested parties may find me here. 

Additionally, cold-like symptoms in summer are completely unacceptable. This sore throat/dry cough needs to hit the bricks. 

From the Bear McCreary concert over the weekend... 



I can't wait for the s4 soundtrack to surface - c'mon Bear! 

Other stuff I've been listening to: the new Phoenix, Grizzly Bear, and Placebo albums (all are full of win) and chill singer/songwritery folks like Peasant, City and Colour, and What Made Milwaukee Famous. 

 

- Waaaay excited to go see No Doubt play next weekend. I think I've loved Gwen since I saw ND perfom "Just a Girl" on some MTV Spring Break thing, when I was in 7th grade. She was one of the first female celeb-types that made me perk up and think "I want to be like her."

- Last weekend, one of my Westminster bffs got married. It was a very classy affair and Megan look gorgeous. And her mom hugged me after I introduced myself in the receiving line, with an "Oh my goodness, you're Jess! I've heard so much about you!" Which felt nice. Photos are HERE, on Facebook.

- Anyone else doing the Infinite Jest read-a-long? Info and whatnot can be found at Infinite Summer and the lj group infsum. I tried reading the book before, but failed, as DFW is terribly intimidating. I'm hoping to do better this time around with people to prod me along.

- The Hangover is A+ ridiculousness. My love for Bradley Cooper could not be greater. And I don't understand why, but there's this line late in the movie about the Jonas brothers that absolutely killed me.

- I'm looking forward to the real start of So You Think You Can Dance next week... ohnotheydidnt has the top 20 HERE. So far, the male finalists are impressing me far more than the girls. I can see getting behind Phillip Chbeeb, who is just out of his mind, and Pono Aweau, who reminds me a lot of Mark from last year, in a big, bad way.
( Let's go to the video )