ignoramus devious

Today I read an interesting article. It was about teenagers and young adults who robbed the homes of several celebrities over the course of the past year. They “allegedly” robbed: Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, etc, the list goes on.
The burglars were finally busted.

The suspects were teenagers and people in their 20s. Per the news article, some of them graduated from something called a “continuation campus”. I had never heard of this kind of school before, but apparently it is a school dedicated to educating students who can’t quite cut it academically in a regular school.

I hate to be mean (ok, maybe I do), but these young adults are clearly not the brightest bananas in the bunch. The whole debacle is sort of like an LD Ocean’s Eleven. Yet, not only did they pull off the heists, they got away with the crimes for almost a year.

Um, wow.

I also had to wonder how lax the security at these celebrity’s homes is.
They entered one of the homes through a doggy door. A doggy door?!?!?! When one is wealthy and/or possesses expensive items, perhaps it would be prudent to 1. not have such easy access into the home as an unsecured door and maybe 2. invest some of that designer dud money in more effective security.

Regardless of whatever consequences the suspects face now, they will probably end up with millions of dollars when they strike a movie deal with whomever. If they ever get out of prison, they’ll be able to buy those Chanel boots for themselves. Maybe that was part of the plan the whole time.

Here is a link to the article in case you want to read it.

http://www.theindychannel.com/entertainment/21455798/detail.html?treets=ind&tml=ind_ent&ts=T&tmi=ind_ent_1_12150110292009

netflix rules

soundtrack of the day - Robin Thicke, The Evolution of Robin Thicke
reading - my manuscript, still

Yesterday I read that Netflix is going to start offering streaming movies through PS3! This is me jumping up and down and clapping with delight. Once they get that whole thing going, I plan to abandon Blockbuster. Let us review what I will not miss.

1. Blockbuster's high ass per rental prices
2. Blockbuster's snotty ass employees. I mean, really? You wear a uniform and make like $7 an hour. Puhlease don't treat me like a subhuman.
3. The crowd/line on Fridays and Saturdays, screaming children, rude yuppies, giggling teenagers, that jerk at the front of the line that is somehow taking 20 minutes to check out
4. The new release that I want to see being out of stock
5. The drive to the store and the drive to return the movie. Did I mention I was lazy?

Ah yes. It will be worth every penny.

Rambling Tuesday

Have you ever tried to encourage silence by being silent? It doesn’t really work.


So, what’s going on today? Hmmm…I finished listening to an audiobook – Undead and Unwelcome by MaryJanice Davidson. It was ok. The main character was pretty shallow. The writing wasn’t fantastic. I liked the story though, that’s the most important thing, well not that I liked the story but that it was good. Was that a run-on sentence? Probably yes. It’s staying.

Cell phone picture of the day – butterfly in the parking lot at work. This is from a couple of months ago, but hey, it’s new to you!

jubilation and lamentation

soundtrack of the day - Seal, System
reading - demon book manuscript


The birthday weekend was pretty cool. My husband prepared my requested dinner of steak and pineapple upside down cake with perfection! I got to use the new camera at grandma's giant birthday party. The food for that function was just as good as Friday dinner. I think I probably gained around 5-6 pounds this weekend. I wasn't even hungry this morning, which is weird. There will be much working out and eating lite this week.

The drink of the weekend was a white russian made with raspberry vodka, skim milk instead of cream, and kahlua. LOVE it.

Now for the lamentation. My beloved EnV2 has croaked. Just so you know, if you break your phone in the middle of your contract, Verizon has no love for you. The website informed me of their generous offer to 'allow' me to upgrade for full retail price. Um, gee that's great, thanks. I mean, really? I can't get like fifty bucks off or anything? I've had phone service through them for like, seven years maybe? I didn't want to pay full retail for a new phone, so I hooked up my mother in law's old blackberry. It has no camera, cannot even receive picture messages and is apparently unable to download games and ringtones from verizon's website. Yet somehow, it costs $30 more a month than the service my EnV2. I appreciate the generosity on the part of my mother in law, but I despise this phone. It's an 8703e, in case you were wondering, and it is the least user friendly phone I ever ever seen in my entire life. It is my dream in life to smash this phone into bits and pieces against a wall. Every menu has a submenu. Settings that I should be able to change, I can't. For instance, I can supposedly remove password protection so that I don't have to enter the password every time I pick the damn thing up. It won't let me. That option in that submenu does not function properly. Joy. I have nicknamed it the crapberry. I am turning it off today.

so is my suffering.

happy birthday to me

soundtrack for the day - happy birthday song
reading - chapter 4-5 of the demon book manuscript

Today is my birthday! Oh yes. And I have requested a menu.

new york strip steak (on the grill if it isn't still raining)
baked potatoes
corn
king's hawaiin sweet rolls
and pineapple upside down cake for dessert

yes!!! so wonderful. I feel very spoiled. Hopefully I can squeeze in a workout to work off some of those calories before I commence book working.
My present was a very nice camera so you can expect to see more pictures on the blog!

Have a great weekend!

whining while I work

soundtrack of the day - Madonna, Confessions on a Dance Floor

reading - demon book manuscript

I am feeling frustrated. I spend so much of my day doing stuff that I don't want to do that I have very little time to work on editing the book. Who do I write to get 2 more hours added to the day? In a perfect world, I could write full time. That would solve many issues for me. Unfortunately, I can't do that. Noooo, I have to be a responsible adult and make a real living. growl.

I know this hectic way of life won't go on forever. I just need to focus on doing what I need to do to get to where I want to be.

on a Tuesday

soundtrack of the day - Silversun Pickups, Carnavas

reading - demon book manuscript

Today, whilst exiting the restroom stall at work, I was looking at the floor for some reason and I hit myself in the forehead with the stall door. Yuck and ouch.

So, my birthday is Friday! YAY me! My birthday is on the cusp between Libra and Scorpio. My sign varies sometimes depending on who writes the horoscope. In the wikipedia, 10/23 is listed on both the scorpio and libra pages. Maybe I have a split personality?

Now we will examine the differences in personality traits.

Scorpio is loyal, passionate, observant and dynamic, but is also jealous, obsessive, and suspicious.
Libra is diplomatic, graceful, peaceful, but is also superficial, vain, indecisive and unreliable.

[source - http://zodiac-signs-astrology.com/zodiac-signs/libra.htm]

I guess that makes me an indecisive beotch.

Also interesting is the fact that Libra and Scorpio are romantically compatible signs. Good to know if I ever decide to date myself. Why, self! I never thought of you in that way.

Grammar Rant – Know Your Language

No one uses perfect grammar all of the time, except for maybe crusty old English professors who probably would not be first on your party invitation list. That being said, there are some aspects of our great language that all adults who have had the privilege of attending third grade grammar class should know.

Today’s rant is about using correct words. While some words may sound similar when you say them out loud, they are not spelled the same and the definitions are not interchangeable. Allow me to demonstrate.

EXCEPT vs ACCEPT
Oh yes. I see this problem often – people use except when they should use accept. Thou shalt not be a moron.

Except is when you exclude something as in, “I think my coworkers are somewhat intelligent EXCEPT for the ones don’t know their native language well enough to piece together a coherent sentence.”

Accept is to willingly receive something or to believe something as in, “I accept the fact that I cannot raise the IQs of other people by writing a blog.”

When something can be accepted, it is ACCEPTABLE.
EXCEPTABLE is not the same thing.

THEIR vs THERE vs THEY’RE
Here we go.
Their = possessive form of they. “THEIR friends probably speak that way too.”
Easy enough, eh?

There = adverb for that place, you know, that place over there.
“The dictionary is over THERE. Seriously.”

They’re = contraction, word combo of they and are.
“THEY’RE not doing their English teachers any justice.”

It’s important to use words correctly, especially simple words. If you don’t, people like me will make fun of you.

is it Friday yet?

soundtrack of the day - Adele, 19

reading - demon book manuscript

Have you ever gone into something, knowing that it's a mistake but you do it anyway? That's what I'm doing. Generally, when one is editing their own work, distance is imperative. You set it aside for a while to distance yourself from it. It allows you to evaluate it more objectively. I don't have time to do that. I need to finish this draft by the end of this month to leave myself enough time to get the author website going and do some other miscellaneous promotion activities by January. I really like the word miscellaneous, don't I? I used it in the entry for yesterday too.

What I really need is a vacation day. I can sit in my quiet house and read my butt off for hours.

I want to finish this draft before I pick up anything else to read. I have decided what I'm reading next though. I've been thinking a lot about Alfred Hitchcock lately, maybe because it's October. I remember reading his stories as a child but I don't remember much of what I read. I feel like I need to revisit the genius.

stupid dentist

Soundtrack for the day - Amy Winehouse, Frank
Reading - absolutely nothing, should last about 24 hours

I went to the dentist today. I am not fond of the dentist. It was awful. He is a cruel, cruel man with long needles and other miscellaneous instruments of torture. I had three cavities drilled and filled. I am just now getting my feeling back. The left side of my mouth is, however, still having a little trouble keeping up with smiles and talking. On the up side, no one else at my dinner table noticed that rice and veggies kept falling out of that side of my mouth.

On a different note, I'm finishing the changes to the demon book manuscript. What happens next? I back up the file like three times, reprint (kill some trees) and give her another go round. Hopefully there won't be too many changes. I hate to obsess about it, but the story is so good that I'm afraid my writing won't do it justice. That probably sounds cheezy but oh well. I will not obsess. I will let the demon book go...eventually.

have a lovely

the jester

soundtrack of the day - The Clash, London Calling

I finished The Jester by James Patterson today. It was an okay book. Writing was meh, as it often is with Patterson books. The action and pace of the story was good so that made up for the aforementioned meh writing.

The Jester is set in medieval times. It's about a man who leaves to fight in the Crusades and comes back to find that his wife and his infant son have been killed. He sets off to avenge their deaths and ends up leading a rebellion against some very naughty nobles. The death toll in the story was rather high. I guess that's the way it worked during medieval times. Lots of children in the story died. That kind of thing always upsets me. I know, sometimes it's integral to the story and I'm probably a big baby, blah, blah, blah. It's still a turn off for me. There was a plethora of dick jokes too though, which was nice.

Overall I give the thing a 7 out of 10.

inane post of the day

on the mp3 player - Killers - Day and Age


This just passed weekend was rife with junk food and lack of working. I attended a wedding in South Bend, which quite a jog from where I live. It was okay but SO long. It was a Catholic wedding. Catholicism is really interesting to me. They have all of these tools and apparently programmed audience responses. The priest would speak and then out of nowhere, the audience would mumble something back to him. A couple of times, he held up a round thing and sort of sang some words. They also had holy water in a dispenser at the back of the church and little plastic flasks if you wanted some holy water to go!!! How awesome is that. It took all I had not to grab some holy water to go. Alas, I wanted it for the wrong reasons. I wanted it for the novelty of having it, not because I actually wanted to use it. And I don't think that keeping it around in case a vampire stops by the house counts as a valid use.

Who is Irving Penn?

I saw that Irving Penn died yesterday. I had no idea who he was so I looked him up. This man was a truly great photographer. When I saw his work, I felt a little guilty that I didn't know who he was. I'm not really tuned into the photography world, I'll admit. The only two photographer names I knew previously were Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz.

The world lost a phenomenal artist when Penn died. Here is a link to a gallery of some of his art. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. The website text is in another language but it doesn't detract from the photos themselves.

http://www.artpages.org.ua/index.php?option=com_datsogallery&Itemid=104&func=viewcategory&catid=78&startpage=1

Inferno

mp3 player - Black Eyed Peas, Monkey Business


I finally finished Inferno yesterday. That thing took forever! It was really awesome but by the end, it was starting to feel like homework. Inferno is totally worth the time to read though. There are many references to it throughout literature and movies, etc. Basically, our 'modern' idea of Hell is based on some of the imagery on Inferno, down to Lucifer having bat wings.

The torture the souls receive is of course, based on the sins they committed in life. Sound familiar? Some of the descriptions are deliciously disturbing. The souls are either mangled or bound in some kind of way. I guess that is the point of Hell, isn't it? To be at least slightly uncomfortable for all eternity?

In the Inferno, your offense also determines your location in the circles. You've probably heard the expression, the ninth circle of Hell? Well, that's a location. And, surprisingly enough, it's made of ice. In the center, people cry and their tears freeze to their body. And Lucifer? He's half immersed in the ice. How much would that suck? He also has three faces and chews on sinners like they're bubble yum. delish.

I looked up Dante in the wikipedia after I finished reading Inferno. I realize that wikipedia is not considered a reliable source for research, but guess what. It's my blog and I'm not trying to turn it into an official research paper. So anyway, Dante had some issues. He chose the losing side in a battle for power in what is now Italy and eventually ended up exiled. This irked him because he loved Florence. I think he wrote Inferno primarily out of frustration and to sort of 'call out' bad behaviors of the people who wronged him. There is one particular part of Dante's Hell which is reserved for corrupt religious leaders and such. That losing side of the battle that I mentioned earlier? Yeah, that was the side that wanted less papal control over the government.

Reading that wiki article took some of the mystique out of Inferno. But it was still a good read and if you want to be in on the references in literature and TV, you might want to pick it up.

That's all I have for now.
 

mo mo mo monday.

Ugh, happy Monday. Is it ever really a happy Monday? I didn’t get as much done on the book this weekend as I wanted to, which was heartbreaking. I am trying to get it ready to roll by January. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I keep plugging away at it but it seems like I have less and less time to work on it every day. I made it through almost three whole chapters. I need to focus. I need to not try to watch television while I’m working. It’s difficult though because all of my favorite shows are coming back on.
I did have a fun distraction this weekend. We went to the zoo. Here is a delightful photo I took of a meerkat sitting on another meerkat’s face as he lounged on his back. Perhaps he was trying to teabag his friend? Maybe not. Either way it makes for a highlarious picture, even if I do say so myself.

It is entitled Meerkat Teabag, copyright, bitches.
 

work and the pansy vampires

on the mp3 player - Sarah Bareilles, Little Voice

reading - Inferno (still)

Ugh, I have so much work to do this weekend. I have six chapters edited on paper and I need to transfer the changes onto the computer file. This is one of my least favorite writing activities. Tonight I am putting on the XM chill station and working as late as humanly possible. If I can keep from consuming too much beer in the process, I should be able to finish three of the chapters. That's my goal, at least.

Ok, so I was waiting for CSI to come on last night and there was nothing on that I really wanted to watch. I turned on the Vampire Diaries to pass the time. Is that thing runny crap on a stick or what?? It consisted of a bunch of well-dressed prissies running around making snarky comments to each other. There was pretty much ZERO action going on. In most cases, I couldn't even tell if someone was a vampire because they weren't doing anything. I picked out probably three of them for sure. It was very much a soap opera.

I haven't read the books so I can't really compare the TV show to them. Hopefully the books are better. Ok, that's enough on that subject. I won't spend too much time making fun of the pansy vampires because making fun of pansy vampires is almost as played out as the pansy vampires themselves.

That's all I have for the moment. I need to get to work.