It's been a long time since I updated on what I've read this year.

I Am America (and so can you)! by Stephen Colbert -- I'd been waiting for this one from the library for a while. It's very funny and just like The Colbert Report. Eventually I'll probably have to find a copy to go with America, The Book.

The Revenant by Carolyn Haines -- A small town Mississippi reporter (alcoholic, self-destructive, major issues from her past) helps solve the crime that has shocked the town. A grave has been discovered with five bodies from twenty years earlier. It's no doubt a serial killer, but then suddenly new bodies start showing up. I really enjoyed this book. The main character was damaged and destructive, but still managed to keep her crap together to do her job. I believe this novel was a stand-alone, but I would love to see this character again.

Black Magic Woman by Justin Gustainis -- Okay, I kept hearing about this book online and had it on my TBB list. But when I picked up a copy in the store I was thrilled with the couple pages I read so it moved to my library TBR pile. Quincey Morris (descendant of THE Quincey Morris) and Libby Chastain (bi-sexual, white witch) are on the case of solving a Hatfield-McCoy feud that's lasted since the Salem witch trials. I ended up loving this book and can not wait for the next one in the series.

The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski -- After her passenger, Marissa, dies in a car accident, June Parker finds a list Marissa had written: 20 Things to Do by My 25th Birthday. The items on the list range 'go braless one day' to 'change someone's life'. June ends up learning about Marissa's life and her own in her quest to complete the list. Again, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I bought it as a whim in the store and it ended up being a very delightful read.

What Happens in Vegas... by Jodi Lynn Copeland, Anya Bast, Lauren Dane, and Kit Tunstall -- Okay, I can really only give my opinion of two of the stories in this anthology, because I only read two of them. The other two I tried to read, but for different reasons, I couldn't finish either one. Stripped by Lauren Dane and The Deal by Anya Bast are both hot, sexy reads.. which if you know their work already, you won't be surprised by that. I loved the characters and stories in both. It's one reason they're both on my auto-by list.

... courtesy of James Dean (seriously, that was the name of the stylist).

theemmer and I were on the way to Fred Meyer yesterday to pick up a couple of things before we headed to Pugmania. We were waiting in a turn lane and someone was selling flowers in this corner lot (yes, what every mother wants, flowers that smell like exhaust fumes). They had signs going around the corner advertising their deals on flowers. These were the two signs sitting next to each other --

Sign 1: 12 Flowers 9.99

Sign 2: 1 Dozen 10.00

We both sat there in the car for a full minute just staring at the signs and then looked at each other and completely bust out laughing. I thought I must have been having a stroke or something because I knew I had to be reading them wrong. I don't think we stopped laughing for a good 15-20 minutes.

Coming up later... Pics from Pugmania...

I'm so glad it's Friday. Work has been crazy busy this week. I cancelled my 'date night' with Scott (dinner and BSG) so that I could just basically go to bed as soon as I got home. I'm going to put on my pjs and crawl into bed and veg in front of the tv and hit the sack early. He's Tivoing BSG, so we can watch it in HD tomorrow together. Speaking of tomorrow, he, theemmer and I will be hitting Pugmania! This is the yearly gala/fundraiser for the pug rescue group in Seattle. There's a pug parade, costume contest, kissing contest (which Scott wants me to enter with Sota), and raffles. Then tomorrow night, Scott and I are going to the KT Tunstall concert. And Sunday, C and I are going to the Seattle Symphony for Hollywood and the Age of Romance. It's going to be a busy weekend.

Last night's Supernatural... meh... First off, I think the writers and or director should issue an apology to nurses everywhere for how they had that nurse react when the guy walked in to the hospital in the opening bit. I know nurses and I'm insulted on their behalf (but I've been insulted by a couple of episodes this season so it's par for the course). My second big issue with the episode was Bela and the revelation about her past. Oh, like we didn't see that one coming. Gee, the writers couldn't have gone a more cliche way with that one? That was sorely disappointing (as has most of this season). I'll watch next week's finale and then give them a couple of episodes at the beginning of next season. But as it stands right now, it'd be pretty easy to walk away from the show.

First set of questions from this entry, this set from write_out

1. What do you think of blue cheese?

2. When did you last feel really good about yourself?

3. Wine or chocolate and why? (I know, a hard one)

4. What did you wear to bed last night?

5. What's your favorite mixed drink?

6. How would you spend $100 if someone handed it to you right now?

7. Who would you most like to be stuck in an elevator with?

( Answers behind the cut... )

Ask me seven questions. Not just any seven questions though. No, to keep it interesting, use the seven questions as per below - just copy and paste the following, replace the blanks with something you want to know/ask (e.g. 3. Donkeys or sandcastles and why?), anything you want, personal, silly, surreal or deep, comment away and I'll answer honestly as I can! Then post this in your own LJ and see what kind of things people want to ask you!

1. What do you think of _____________ ?

2. When did you last ____________?

3. __________ or ___________ and why?

4. What did you ______________?

5. What's your favorite ______________?

6. How would you ______________?

7. Who would you most like to ________ ?

The roomie and I have Comcast as our cable provider. We've had them for close to 5 years and I had them as my cable provider before that. A couple of years ago we decided to get digital cable for the living room. One of the perks of digital cable is OnDemand. I love OnDemand. But for the last month or so, it hasn't worked half the time.

Now, it seems more often than not when we try to try on OnDemand we get an error message on the screen. We have to wait 15-20-30 or more before it will actually work. And then heaven forbid you want to pause whatever you're watching on there. Either it won't pause or if you get it to pause, you'll try to start it again and get the damn error message again! (that happened to the roomie while she was watching Eastern Promises a couple weeks ago and the movie wouldn't restart)

Sometimes I'm not sure the price for digital cable is worth all the aggravation.

write_out and I were joking today that we should send each other pictures of our bruises to compare injuries. If anyone can empathize with falling down it's her :) The pics aren't great because I took them myself.

( Black and blue and sore all over... )

I've had blood taken or given blood many times in my life and never had any problems. In fact the last time I gave blood, the tech even told me that I'm a good bleeder (what do you even say to that 'thank you?'). Well, I'd received a letter from my HMO saying that my doctor wanted me to have some blood tests. So today at lunch I walked up to the clinic to get it over with.

I plopped down in the chair, stuck out my arm and expected to be done in a second. She took the needle in and nothing happened. Hmmmmm... She pushed it in further and sort of swiveled it around. No blood in the tube. Evidently the vein had rolled on her. Never in my entire life has this happened before! So she pulled it out and decided to go for a vein in my forearm instead. That one was easy and I was out of there in a second. But it was just another notch in the reason why this was a week to just stay in bed.

I did end up going to Urgent Care yesterday. My regular doc couldn't see me at all yesterday and I was in a lot of pain. I didn't figure anything was broken or anything like that. But, the one thing that did concern me was the pain in my ribs. After waiting forever at Urgent Care, I got in and the doctor said there was good news and bad news.

The good news was that nothing was broken or sprained or cracked, but that I had just wrenched everything really really badly. Because when I fell, I went forward and then twisted so that I ended up on my right side. The bad news was that while I felt bad yesterday, it was going to be worse today and tomorrow.

And she wasn't wrong about that. Today I can barely move my arms. Though the pain between my knees and hips is mostly gone (so yeah!). I've got a nice big bruised knot on my right knee and another one on my left heel (I think I caught it on the train's step when I went down).

But a certain someone stopped by on his way home to check on me yesterday and brought me a card and a cute basket with a pink cyclamen in it.

So I started my day by falling as I was getting off the train. I don't know if I missed the step or if my shoe caught on the step. All I know is that I went down and hard. theemmer thought at first that I had passed out. Luckily I still had my gloves on or my palms would have gotten messed up.

My head doesn't hurt so I don't think I hit it. But I've got a huge knot on my right knee. Plus lovely pain radiating from my hips all the way up my back and into my neck, mostly through my left side. I'm debating on calling to see if I can get in to see my doctor today, though I don't know what she could for me.

The other day, theemmer and I were driving along when we saw a billboard advertising Budweiser with Lime coming soon. C looks at me and says "It's beer, not fruit salad."

Everytime I see the billboard I start cracking up.

For more fun and hysterical Star Trek motivational posters, go HERE

I only have two books to update that I've read lately. I think I might be missing one or two. That's what I get for not talking about books right after I've read them.

Shockball by S.L. Viehl - This is book 4(?) in the StarDoc series. I enjoyed this book much more than the previous book in the series. I thought the medical/disease mystery in this one was a little more interesting because it wasn't some strange alien virus that she had to seek out a cure for. We also saw the elimination of one of the main baddies that's been pursuing Cherijo across the galaxy, so it will be interesting to see how the series develops without that foil in their way.

Death Masks by Jim Butcher - I have sort of a roller coaster relationship with the Harry Dresden books. When I start them I'm always a little bored in the beginning, then I really get into them, then I get to a point where I'm going 'come on, come on, get on with it', and finally the endings always just pull me in. This book was no different. Now, that isn't to say that I don't like the Harry Dresden series, I love it. Harry, the Shroud of Turin, the return of Susan, the Knights, and lots of ugly baddies - what more could you ask for? I have the next book waiting for me at the library.

I've started four other books over the last couple of weeks (a couple Blazes, a couple urban fantasies) and nothing is grabbing my interest. So I'm turning to non-fiction for now.

Disturbing on so many levels ....

Baby's First Brazilian

It's Monday again... blech! Back to work where mountains of paperwork waited for me. I'm not used to taking a couple of days off. theemmer and I had fun with marauderswolf. We hit the aquarium, took a harbor cruise, went to the Sci-Fi museum, did the Roman Art exhibit at the SAM, and ate way too much food (I'm surprised I fit into any of my clothes still).

BSG is back! Great premiere for season 4 and I can't wait to see where it goes from here.

I have a couple books that I've read that I haven't posted about. Let's hope I don't forget what they were. I have three more books waiting for me at the library and that's in addition to my overflowing TBR pile and all the books I've purchased in the last couple of weeks. Though I've been in a very non-fiction kind of mood lately with my reading.

I'm halfway through my belly dancing class and still loving it. Though one of the moves tends to hurt my right knee. I've almost got the undulation of the belly down (didn't think I'd get that one).

Tonight I'm going to try and upload all my pics from last week. I went a little crazy at the aquarium and took a zillion pictures of the otters (I love me some otters). I also took a special picture just for write_out

I dreamt I was a superhero last night. I don't know what my superpower was though. But I was part of like a superhero gang (think Fantastic Four, though I think there were 5 of us). It was a whole adventure involving a missing teenager, evil step-father, buried treasure, stealth plane/shuttle-type vehicle, giant mansion, and psychic visions. At one point I was trying to distract the people that were chasing us by throwing jelly beans at them. I never claimed my dreams made any sense...

Today is my Friday at work. Tomorrow and Friday, theemmer, marauderswolf, and I will be playing tourist in Seattle. Tomorrow we're hitting the Sci-Fi Museum, the Aquarium, and taking a Ducks tour. Friday, we will be doing the exhibits at the SAM and an author signing at the Seattle Mystery Bookstore.

Then Friday night, the night I've had to wait way too long for.... the return of Battlestar Galactica!

It's frackin' hailed on us in Portland on Saturday! What is up with that! Luckily we had just made it back to the car so good timing on our part. I was somewhat disappointed with Powells. They did not have most of the books I was looking for. Okay, I can understand that for one of them because it was the first of a series and the third book has just come out. But the Ilona Andrews book is a new release and they didn't even have it listed in their catalog. Whatever! I ended up only buying one book from there, which hadn't even been on my list.

Sunday was very nice. I spent a lovely afternoon watching a movie with someone special.

Tonight will be leftovers and recuperating from the weekend.