From L-R, BUNTHAI, KENNY, CELINDA, and DARRYL

Boo

Awwww! Group hug fuzzies time.

In other news&announcements, I’ve been trying to pronounce the Iceland volcano, and I’ve been tuning out radio and TV because Vcky believe Vcky can do it. Vcky can has fail. Someone help me out.

Eyjafjallajokull : AI-YA. Y’ALL-A-YOKEL. oui?

EDIT ADD: okay this is too cute

I was sitting in a busy coffee shop and I wanted to write about me painting this freaky ass ‘come-hither’ mannequin yesterday, and was in the process of bluetooth’ing the picture from my phone to my computer. I’ve done this SO many times in the comfort of my own home, that I get impatient and start tap-tap-tapping waiting for the notification to pop up.

It did, and I tap’d it, and VOILA! I sent it to another cellphone in the room titled X9000. I sent this picture, with this caption, to X9000.

you SO want a piece of me

It didn’t help that my cellphone ID is “vcky shiznit”, or that 5 seconds after sent-confirmation I hear a very confused, very male voice say “WHAT THE FUCK???????”

I kept my face straight and swiveled in my seat so I could
1) assess whether this ‘very male voice’ could possibly be ‘very good looking’.

Wow. Very good looking indeed. I flushed a deep attractive crimson and packed my stuff slowly before running out the door with tears streaming down my face but in my haste I ran out of my shoe, leaving behind one glass-looking plastic-hooker-heel behind on the curb beside a ditched hubcap. He ran after me and said “wait!! wait!!! and I ran onto the bus 1-hooker-shoe-less than what I left home with, and Never Saw Him Again.

And I Lived Regrettably Ever After.
The End.

what would you do if someone sent you a picture of a topless bodyform?

I’m writing about these two together because I read them both interchangeably and sporadically, and couldn’t finish one or the other for about 3 weeks – that’s a looooong time for me.

Shutter Island ended spectacularly. So much so, that I’m quite excited for the movie coming out in 2010 – the twist is going to be absolutely brilliant. So I wont say more about it here!

The Historian was such a slow moving book with super bland characters and incredibly forced relationships – I couldn’t help but groan every six pages. BUT it was a good read overall because – well, it was about Dracula, and try as you might, you can’t make Dracula boring It had a good ending too, but a conclusion that I came to expect about 1/3 through the book.

And, at the request and threats of my brother, I have to try again to finish reading the R.A Salvatore books about Drizzt. Any other recommendations?

I was at the airport, a messy haphazard shell of my former self (and completely unarmed against inevitable airport lag-time) – so I decided to buy a book. You can judge my ‘reading as escapism’ line of thought, but sometimes I gotta do what I gotta do.

The late-hour bookstores at the airport offered a horrendous selection of books (if you can even call it that). Row after row of Danielle Steele, Amanda Quick (what a pen-name, eh?), John Grisham and Mary Higgins Clark – along with a sordid selection of Bodice Rippers.

Now, before I go on – I’m going to admit that I flipped through a bunch of those Historical-Romance-Novels, and had a good uncomfortable giggle every surreptitious 10 seconds. Those books will refuse to disappoint if you want all your love stories to have flames and pirates, resulting in the inevitable:

“she spun away from his hot, passionate grasp and moaned at the sound of her tearing gown – half of her exquisitely tailored wine-colored sleeve lay tattered on the floor, revealing her silken smooth shoulder… He, unable to control his turbid emotions, literally panted at her as his strong, muscular, tanned, perfect, chiseled, shimmering, luminescent chest heaved under his torn ox-hide vest…”

OH Valentino Eduardo Frederickson Richard Vallesquez The Third.. take me. Take me now.

I have completely lost my-
Oh right. Drug Store Books and Bodice Rippers *giggle*.

Among the “I publish a book a month” author-fray, I picked up a Dennis Lehane Book. Have any of you guys watched or read MYSTIC RIVER? I’ve never watched the movie, but the book left me in a manic depressive turmoil that felt worse than one of those unscratch’able ‘under the skin’ itches. It was written in a very “meh” way so I’ll blame my subsequent depression on Imagination and Story Idea <— So I ought to have learned my lesson, right? “Leave the Dennis Lehane’s on the shelf unless called upon to define ‘Masochism’ in practice.”

I picked up Shutter Island. I know you’ll recognize it by it’s title because it’s been made into a movie as well. Leonardo Dicaprio? Island? Insane Asylum? Freaky-ass movie trailer, ring a bell? Yeah? Yeah.

I’m almost halfway in, and everything is exactly like I thought. Dennis Lehane writes in a way that makes me feel he’s following a Bestseller Per Month formula, like “1, Establish Setting. 2, Establish Characters. 3, Make Sure Characters behave as is Sterotypical Of Character Traits”. It’s what I expected, given where I pulled it from – but I have to give him props for giving me chills.

So far, the only other book that’s scared me this much is Stephen King’s “The Shining”. Neither reading helped me with the fact that movies were made of them, so I have Leonardo Dicaprio running through my brains while Rachel Solando hurls unearthly screams at him. Creeeeeepyyyyyy…..

I’ll give a short actual review when I finish.
How IS everyone re: scary books?

sorry for being MIA for a few days. “nature calls”.

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I then finished it that night at 3am, which was a horrible idea because the cliffhanger ending left me with dry, wild eyes and a slightly asthmatic shortness of breath.

I couldn’t sleep.

I booked it to the mall at opening hour Saturday, bought the 2nd installment ‘Catching Fire’…

… read it finished it obsessed about it and I am now completely inconsolable. The 3rd and final book comes out in 2010? LATE 2010?

“ARE YOU EFFING SERIOUS?????” I screeched, my eyes scanning my desk for weapons of self-destruction.

The Young Adult Dystopia genre that I totally trampled on in my last book post, is all but made up and forgiven (forgotten) because of this book.

In a slightly Firefly (the defunct TV show) take of the world, 1 excessively affluent Capital brutally governs 12 indecently impoverished Districts. To keep the Districts in check by fear governing, once a year a Hunger Game is held: 2 children under the age of 18 in each District are chosen randomly to fight to the death in a televised arena.

Sounds like Battle Royale, doesn’t it? Or that book Girl In The Arena. Or Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. Or-

But it’s so good. I can’t write a decent review until I get over my gushing, and by the time I get over my gushing I’m hoping I’ll have a slew of e-friends who’ve already read it and would like to get together for a gush gush party.

There’s extreme violence, a brilliantly tragic love story, pain suffering hope and THE MOST REFRESHING THING EVAR- when the characters reflect on something funny or witty, IT IS ACTUALLY FUNNY AND WITTY! Now I really don’t mean to pick on Bella Swan again, but her idea of intensely hilarious wit is “don’t get a brain hemorrhage, Jake’. FACE PALM.

okay.
talk to me about it please. will reply. need to gush.

GIRL IN THE ARENA, by Lise Haines
A semi dystopian future, a massively well-funded, ritualistic GLADIATOR sub culture exists. Think ULTIMATE FIGHTER, except the rules and rituals extend out towards your family and dress code. Called GLADS, they dress in a certain way, and GLAD WIVES are given ridiculous bylaws to follow (“always remind your husband of his victories”). You can’t choose who you fight, it’s TO THE DEATH, highly televised, and if your GLAD husband dies you can only marry 7 more times before you’re done. And IF SOMEONE OTHER THAN YOUR FATHER WEARS YOUR DOWRY BRACELET, YOU MUST MARRY HIM. Your gladiator sandals must have 15 straps.
We read books to get sucked into other worlds, right? This one sucks but is so interesting.

UGLIES, by Scott Westerfeld.
Everyone undergoes an operation at 16 years old, and becomes PRETTY. Once you’re PRETTY, you move into PRETTY TOWN with all your PRETTY friends. PRETTY TOWN is described as this amazing place that never stops having fun, neon lights, abundant alcohol, and crazy stunts. Everyone before turning sixteen is an Ugly.
There’s corruption and crap goin on, but uh… it really doesn’t sound that bad. Red Pill or Blue Pill?

Amazing worlds aside – both books were disappointingly written. With such ideas I kept thinking they could have been sUCH beautiful works of writing, but the product fell short of the premise. I wanted to forgive them that because they’r geared for young adults, but there’s no excuse because other amazing YA books have been published.

Uglies is a 4 book set and I wiLL get to reading them all – it’s just so disheartening seeing a brilliant idea get mangled.

Thoughts on good YOUNG ADULT fiction out there? I’ll read anything, good or bad.

My next YoungAdult IBS will be on “CRANK”, and “Living Dead Girl”.

For my inaugural IBS#1, I review “Dreams Come True – a Disney Princess Coloring Book”.

This book was seriously lacking. The paper was thin and newspapery – all the stickmen I drew ended up bleeding onto different princesses faces. i had to try a bunch of pencil crayonz before I found 1 brand that worked, so may that be a lesson to you all – laurentian pencil crayons OWN cheap night-market pencil crayons. And while I understand that these are DISNEY PRINCESSES therefore they need to follow movie precedence, but come on, isn’t this a massive empire now?? All my princesses had only ONE outfit to color! ONE! I am let down.

Here are some screenshots for you uhm. “enjoyment”.