Beautiful Creatures? eh.

Review by: Do



My husband and I had date night (spanned out over 2 days cuz we're good like that) and we went to see the movie Beautiful Creatures. I am a sucker for a good supernatural thriller, and this movie is NOT that. I do love me a good witch fight, buuuut this movie is NOT that either. I wasn't really in the mood for a romantic love story that gets me all teary....guess what? Yes, this supernatural witch thriller turned out to be 97% love story, 2% witch slap, and 1% comedy. All the witch brawling took place in the trailer, and that wasn't much. Although this movie was lacking in the supernatural thriller category, it was a fine love story. The main characters are good young actors, the supporting actors are well known, and the story line of forbidden love is an oldie but a goodie. I should have realized that a trailer that contained glowing eyes and exploding witches was nothing more than a teenage love story - silly me. The movie is over 2 hours long, but I didn't think it dragged or was dull in any section. I can't say I didn't like it, because I did. Would I see it again, no. Would I recommend it, maybe....if you are looking for an endearing love story that has just enough supernatural sprinkles to make it interesting.

Note to Self: Do more research on a movie you want to see instead of solely relying on the trailer.

Dog

Posted by Ju
We got a dog! Well, we got a dog a while ago. She's now 13 weeks old. She's a Shih Tzu and her name is Daisy. I'd fogotten about puppies. Holy cow. We've never had a dog as a family and she's fitting in quite well. She LOVES Matthew, and loves to chase Dominic. She is crazy about boxes, as you can see below; loves jumping on them, in them, chasing them and chewing them. If I'd known that, I'd have forgone the squeaky toys. Seriously cute. Think Matthew will let me get another one? A puppy to keep the puppy happy!

This dog rocks. You need to get you one. Or two...

Books...

Review by Ju
First, I'd like to say sorry for being a blogging slack. Second, I'm not really liking the new Blogger interface. WTH -- I know icons are fancy and all but STOP. It's painful.   Okay. Books. You like books? I like books. I've been reading a lot more lately and knitting a LOT less. What I've been reading...

• Silent Girl by Tess Gerritsen -- Rizzoli and Isles book. There books are seriously unlike the TNT series. I like the series but the books are rather different than the show -- the characters especially. It's rather strange how different. I really enjoyed this installment in the series; centers around Chinatown in Boston. Very interesting.
• The Passage by Justin Cronin -- this book, I'm still processing. Odd and overly long. It's about a virus that sweeps the world creating an apocalyptic type civilization with weird vampire-like beings. It's hard to explain. If Cronin had a much better editor, I'd have like the book better. I know back story is important but not that important. The sequel comes out in October but I'm not sure I am anxious to read it. It's 600 pages. Eeek.
• I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak -- I did enjoy this book. It is categorized as a YA book but I'm not so sure about that(language alone is pretty sketchy) but I can see that teens might enjoy it. This book is about discovering yourself and realizing everyone has secrets, desires and dreams. Make a choice, live a life, be something -- we all have the capacity to do great things. Neat book; great story, intriguing characters. He wrote The Book Thief also. Loved that book.
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand -- all 1168 pages of it. I started reading it over a year ago and kept putting it down because, at first, it is written in a strange way. Once you get past that, you can really pick up steam. It's an intriguing cultural and economic philosophy book disguised as a novel. Who is John Galt? He's the man that can stop the world. And he does, and it's a beautiful thing to see. You have to read the book to find out why. That's the "fun" in it.

Currently I'm also reading Righteous Indignation by Andrew Breitbart, An American Son by Marco Rubio, and Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly.

How about you? Reading anything good?

Books and music, music and books

Review by: Do

So today I received a gift from my husband. A gift that I am very appreciative of and that I will use until the day it dies. Yes folks, I am the proud owner of a brand new, shiny blue, small compact laptop!! My former laptop was faithful up until the day it decided to just go black on me. I thank my former laptop for its semi-reliability, and I think it would be happy to know it has been donated to science to further our knowledge of its inner workings (aka, my son is tearing it apart to see if he can make it run after a real live tech said it was beyond repair). I would like to blame the fact I haven't blogged on my dead laptop, but I don't like to talk ill of the dead (and it would be a lie anyway).

Books I have finished since my last blog:

I recently finished reading "The Forgotten Garden", by Kate Morton. Recommended to me by my sister, Ju, this book was very enjoyable. A well written combination of my favorites; mystery, touch of romance, and interwoven time periods. The author made you wait for tid bits of information from the past, making you wonder and speculate before you are given the answer to what actually happened. I was left guessing until the very end.

Prior to that I finished book#9 of the Dresden Files; "White Night" by Jim Butcher. I like to throw one of these in every once in a while. I really get into this series, but after all the magic, and killing, and vampires, and death...I need to take a break. Yes some of the actions are unbelievable and outrageous, but that's what makes it so much fun to read. And now that Harry has found a family member that he has to take into consideration, it makes things a bit more complex; he can't run into situations all gung ho and rambo-like...he has to think first, act second, which is hard for him. He also has an apprentice now and I am digging his new role as "master".

Current music adventures:

Amaryllis by Shinedown is a great follow-up to their "Sound of Madness" album. Although not as heavy, in my opinion, I think it is a very strong compilation of songs. Of course, with any album, there are some songs I don't care for and skip over without hesitation, but for the most part this album rocks. I have been a fan of Shinedown since their SOM album, and I even caught a glimpse of them at the Great NYS Fair. They are touring this summer with the Uproar Festival, coming to the Great NYS Fair this August, and my husband and I are in discussions on whether or not we are going to that event. We already have 2 concerts set for this summer, and the Uproar Festival is an all day event, which we may just be too old for. We shall see.

Oddly enough, I also borrowed the cd soundtrack to the movie "Burlesque" from the local library recently. This movie you will recall, or probably not, starred Cher and Christina Aguilera. I heard 1 song from this album (Show me how you burlesque) at a dance recital and decided to see what the rest sounded like. Unfortunately that 1 song is the ONLY song I like from the album. The rest of the tracks range from "ok" to "omg bad". The last song on the album threw me for a loop...it samples "Beautiful People" by Marilyn Manson...in a burlesque song? Really? In the immortal words of Florian Bellanger, "it dinn't work for me".

Happy 4th of July!

:)

Never again

Review by: Do

My day started out on a good note. I took a mental health day from work, and after the kids left for school, the sun came out, and I was planning for a wonderful day off. :-)

All was going just fine until I decided to check my online banking account.

I just wanted to check my deposit, and what did I see? A charge to my account for $9.06 that didn't belong to me. Now, I know $9.06 isn't a lot of money, but it's my money and no one BUT me (and my husband of course) has the right to take my money without my consent. Bastards.

This scenario is very familiar to me because it happened to me this past December too. Exactly 2 months ago I encountered a similar charge for $9.90 that was deducted from my account for a transaction I did not do. Why do people think they are entitled to money or objects that do not belong to them? Why do they think they should have MY hard earned money, and not me? Maybe if they got off their theiving, lazy, good-for-nothing hoodlum asses, they would make their own money and not have to resort to breaking the law and stealing mine or anyone elses.

So once again I had to call my bank, cancel my bank card, and now wait 7-10 days for a new one. As the bank stated, and only cuz I asked, these damn worthless thieves (I may have embellished that part) steal small amounts like that because most people don't notice them. The bank will probably just reimburse me MY money without an investigation because the amount is so small. And that's exactly why these bastards do it and get away with it time and time again. No one bothers to find out who did it, or how they got the stolen card numbers in the first place. Both transactions were for online stores (spornetzone.in and everingame.com), which means items were shipped somewhere to someone! And given the fact they can trace the card number to a transaction number, which in turn is attached to that certain someone who is using stolen card numbers, you would think someone would do something about it! Nope.

My point for this rant is that I think I know where the problem started. I find it VERY coincidental that I have only ever used the local Redbox kiosk TWICE in my life, and BOTH times I ended up with unauthorized transactions on my bank account within 10 days. The 2nd time only took 3 days. Same kiosk, same bank card, same outcome. So be careful, my friends, of your local Redbox because I have a feeling they are not as safe as they claim to be. I, for one, will never try to save a couple of bucks by using Redbox again...I will spend the extra $4 and order on-demand from my local cable company in the safety of my own home, and have the piece of mind that my bank account is safe.

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me".

>:-(

Arcadia Falls

Review by: Do

Wow it has been a while! I apologize for my absence. Not that I haven't done anything interesting to write about...maybe I just had too many interesting things going on to find the time to write about them...yeah, we'll go with that.

Any way, I finished a book last night that was a pretty good read. It's called Arcadia Falls, and it was written by Carol Goodman.

This book revolves around a Meg Rosenthal and the new life she is forced to create for herself, and her daughter, after the death of her husband. Meg's daughter Sally is a rude and rebellious teenager, and I didn't like the way she treated her mother at all. I sure hope all teenagers aren't like this character because the thought of that scares me a little.

Meg has taken a teaching position at a boarding school in Arcadia Falls, which is in upstate NY. There they become surrounded by many interesting people and some very strange school traditions. While trying to mend their own strained relationship, they are thrown into murder, mystery, some artsy stuff, a lot of snow (good ol' upstate NY), and a little bit of romance.

Intermingled with Meg and Sally, there is also another story going on at the same time. This story starts in 1927 and is about the life of Vera and Lily, the founders of the Arcadia School. You learn how they met, how and why the school was formed, and why the focus of the school is on art. This story is just as interesting, and at times I found myself skipping over Meg to read more about Lily.

Other than the occasional imagery overkill...the scenery is beautiful, I get it...I thought the book was very good. It contains a lot of things I found that I could relate to; upstate NY landscape, snow fall, fairy tales, and it also included plenty of art references. I would definitely recommend this book if you like any of the above mentioned items, and even if you don't, it's a well written historical fiction story that I think all will enjoy.

Reading much?

I have a confession to make. I'm addicted...to my NOOK Color. Do -- you have to go get yours again. We can share books!


I never, in a million years, thought I would have any interest in an e-reader. I'm a dorky librarian who loves books. They are ALL over my house and I will not be getting rid of them anytime soon, but I have become seriously attached to my NOOK. I've been reading like crazy on it. Since May I've read eight books on it and have three more downloaded to read.

I try only to purchase books that are over a year old. The new releases tend to be a bit more expensive. And with the NOOK Color, you get the apps. They have added the Android software to the new NOOK Color and holy moly! The Angry Birds are BIG. It works kind of like a tablet now and it's cool. Apparently there are things to do to hack the NOOK and make it fully like a tablet but I don't think that's necessary. I have a few games (like Sudoku and Solitaire) to keep me occupied when waiting around for any of a variety of things.

I love it. I'd buy it again and for other people if it wasn't so pricey. It's not cheap, but...I'm worth it! And so are you. I'd love to know what you think. Do you have a NOOK or Kindle?