I just finished reading: Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales by Stephen King It took me a long time to get through this book, I threw a bunch of other books in front of it. I don’t know why, out of the 14 stories I really liked 10 of them.

Tales:
01. Autopsy Room Four - This story was written in 1997 but all I could think of was the plot for the movie Awake even though I’ve never seen it. Still the end was pretty funny.

02. The Man in the Black Suit - “King described the piece as an homage to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “Young Goodman Brown”. He also states that the story evolved from one his friend told him, in which the friend’s grandfather had come face to face with Satan himself in the form of an ordinary man.” — Wikipedia

This was a creepy story, very detailed, I could see the fish, smell the creek and the sulfur of the man.

03. All That you Love will be Carried Away So very very strange.. I liked it, it felt very real. So many strange thoughts.

04. The Death of Jack Hamilton - “The story is written in the first-person. Homer Van Meter, a member of John Dillinger’s gang, tells of the slow, painful death of fellow gangmember Jack Hamilton. Van Meter begins by describing Dillinger’s death outside the Biograph Theater at the hands of Melvin Purvis’s men.” — Wikipedia

I didn’t care too much about this one, it was well written and certainly not boring, but not very interesting personally.

05. In the Deathroom - “Fletcher, an ex-reporter from the New York Times, has been captured by members of a South American government. The story begins as he is brought into the titular “deathroom” as he realizes that his captors, after interrogating him about a Communist insurgency he has been supporting, due to the government’s killing of a group of nuns which included his sister, will not let him leave this room alive, despite their claims that he will be set free.” — Wikipedia

This story was pretty cool. A nice twist on the torture scene. The ending was smooth.

06. The Little Sisters of Eluria - “The tale features Roland of Gilead, whose quest for the Dark Tower is in its infancy; its events precede those of the body of the Dark Tower cycle, but occur after Roland’s experiences in Mejis as chronicled in Wizard and Glass. At the time of telling he is accompanied by a horse and is already following Walter o’Dim, the Man in Black. He plans to eventually buy another horse, or perhaps a mule; which ties in with the events at the beginning of The Gunslinger.” — Wikipedia

The reason I bought this book was to read this story which ties in to the Dark Tower Series. I was not disappointed! It’s the best story so far and I’ll grab any piece of midworld that I can get.

07. Everything’s Eventual - I liked this story too. I wish it had been a bit longer and explained his power.

08. L.T.’s Theory of Pets - “Except getting mad at Lulu never did any good. Most times, if you had the king, she had the ace. If you had the ace, she had a trump. Also, the woman would fucking escalate. If something happened and I got irritated, she’d get pissed. If I got pissed, she’d get mad. If I got mad, she’d go fucking Red Alert Defcon I and empty the missile silos. I’m talking scorched fucking earth. Mostly it wasn’t worth it. Except almost every time we’d get into a fight, I’d forget that.”

Very good story, I loved this paragraph especially! Still I wish I knew more.

09. The Road Virus Heads North - Felt very short but right to the point I guess. No beating around the bush, no real history.

10. Lunch at the Gotham Cafe - “Before entering the Cafe, Steve impulsively buys an umbrella. Upon entering, he finds that the maître d’, eventually revealed to be named Guy, is talking senselessly about a dog.” –Wikipedia

A nicely laid triangle of crazy! It was all earthly crazy too, which is different from the other stories so far.

11. That Feeling, You can Only say what it is in French - I really dislike “groundhog day” type stories. They frustrate me for some reason and I don’t like it. This was bearable though, because you don’t know right away that it’s a groundhog day situation, and it’s a short enough story that it ends before it repeats too many times. It was more like a groundhog day going down a sink drain.

12. 1408 - I never saw the movie, I didn’t think I’d like it and I still don’t have a scary movie buddy. I was quite surprised when I really really felt creepy while reading it. For a short story it had the big and complete feeling of a full-grown novel.

13. Riding The Bullet - This was a very good creepy story. So vivid even I could see the smoke.

14. Lucky Quarter - Kinda out of place for the last story. I would have rather read Riding the Bullet last.

I’ve just finished reading Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart

This book was hilarious and I highly recommend it! The story is well written, entertaining, full of twists and snappy conversation and the characters are memorable.

I’ve lent it out to Ken’s cousin to read. If you wanna give it a try, just let me know! I’m sure Thori won’t mind it coming back to her well read

I am currently reading: Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales by Stephen King

Tales:
01. Autopsy Room Four - This story was written in 1997 but all I could think of was the plot for the movie Awake even though I’ve never seen it. Still the end was pretty funny.

02. The Man in the Black Suit - “King described the piece as an homage to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “Young Goodman Brown”. He also states that the story evolved from one his friend told him, in which the friend’s grandfather had come face to face with Satan himself in the form of an ordinary man.” — Wikipedia

This was a creepy story, very detailed, I could see the fish, smell the creek and the sulfur of the man.

03. All That you Love will be Carried Away So very very strange.. I liked it, it felt very real. So many strange thoughts.

04. The Death of Jack Hamilton - “The story is written in the first-person. Homer Van Meter, a member of John Dillinger’s gang, tells of the slow, painful death of fellow gangmember Jack Hamilton. Van Meter begins by describing Dillinger’s death outside the Biograph Theater at the hands of Melvin Purvis’s men.” — Wikipedia

I didn’t care too much about this one, it was well written and certainly not boring, but not very interesting personally.

05. In the Deathroom - “Fletcher, an ex-reporter from the New York Times, has been captured by members of a South American government. The story begins as he is brought into the titular “deathroom” as he realizes that his captors, after interrogating him about a Communist insurgency he has been supporting, due to the government’s killing of a group of nuns which included his sister, will not let him leave this room alive, despite their claims that he will be set free.” — Wikipedia

This story was pretty cool. A nice twist on the torture scene. The ending was smooth.

06. The Little Sisters of Eluria - “The tale features Roland of Gilead, whose quest for the Dark Tower is in its infancy; its events precede those of the body of the Dark Tower cycle, but occur after Roland’s experiences in Mejis as chronicled in Wizard and Glass. At the time of telling he is accompanied by a horse and is already following Walter o’Dim, the Man in Black. He plans to eventually buy another horse, or perhaps a mule; which ties in with the events at the beginning of The Gunslinger.” — Wikipedia

The reason I bought this book was to read this story which ties in to the Dark Tower Series. I was not disappointed! It’s the best story so far and I’ll grab any piece of midworld that I can get.

07. Everything’s Eventual - I liked this story too. I wish it had been a bit longer and explained his power.

08. L.T.’s Theory of Pets - “Except getting mad at Lulu never did any good. Most times, if you had the king, she had the ace. If you had the ace, she had a trump. Also, the woman would fucking escalate. If something happened and I got irritated, she’d get pissed. If I got pissed, she’d get mad. If I got mad, she’d go fucking Red Alert Defcon I and empty the missile silos. I’m talking scorched fucking earth. Mostly it wasn’t worth it. Except almost every time we’d get into a fight, I’d forget that.”

Very good story, I loved this paragraph especially! Still I wish I knew more.

09. The Road Virus Heads North - Felt very short but right to the point I guess. No beating around the bush, no real history.

10. Lunch at the Gotham Cafe - “Before entering the Cafe, Steve impulsively buys an umbrella. Upon entering, he finds that the maître d’, eventually revealed to be named Guy, is talking senselessly about a dog.” –Wikipedia

A nicely laid triangle of crazy! It was all earthly crazy too, which is different from the other stories so far.

11. That Feeling, You can Only say what it is in French - I really dislike “groundhog day” type stories. They frustrate me for some reason and I don’t like it. This was bearable though, because you don’t know right away that it’s a groundhog day situation, and it’s a short enough story that it ends before it repeats too many times. It was more like a groundhog day going down a sink drain.

12. 1408 - I never saw the movie, I didn’t think I’d like it and I still don’t have a scary movie buddy. I was quite surprised when I really really felt creepy while reading it. For a short story it had the big and complete feeling of a full-grown novel.

13. Riding The Bullet - This was a very good creepy story. So vivid even I could see the smoke.

14. Lucky Quarter - Kinda out of place for the last story. I would have rather read Riding the Bullet last.

I just finished reading Blue Sword by Robin Mckinley. It took me awhile to finish this one, 2 months, but it wasn’t exactly because it was a bad story. Here’s what I said on my books app in facebook.

I thought it was a well written book. I especially enjoyed that the characters were “normal”.. often they would say or think things that I had just thought about what happened. The overall plot was kinda cliche, I could picture the “training montage” or major problems get solved in a sudden fantastic way, but it wasn’t corny. It was more like a diary, you only write about the major stuff that happens.

Now Reading: Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart

We’ve received a lot of snow this month, and I really don’t mind it. I actually love the way snow looks on trees and such. Luckily we are able to choose not to go out in it most of the time. Even on the worst snow day (Saturday the 8th) there were still so many cars on the road. I don’t envy them.

March 2 (Sunday)
I met up with Sosena and we went to Kelsey’s and chatted over some Nachos. She gave me 3 bracelets she’d purchased that she didn’t really like as bracelets and asked if I would make them into something else. I’m pretty happy with what I came up with! Later we went to see The Eye. I’ve been a huge fan of Jessica Alba since the Dark Angel series. I’d give it 4 out of 5 stars. This is what I said on my facebook movies app:

This was pretty good. It had some very spooky moments but nothing too scary.

Afterwards, we hung out at Starbucks and devised a movie plot that will make us millionaires! Email me if you’re interested in funding us :p Sorry the video game adaptation rights were already sold to Nick. LOL Note to other people who hang out at Starbucks: You know when they close, especially when the staff have gone around giving 15 & 10 minute warnings, don’t bitch when they finally start moving people to the door.

March 3 (Monday)
Our car spent the day in the shop getting it’s check-up and getting detailed, the latter I only let Ken get done twice a year. I didn’t feel like going out to lunch so Ken and Chris went to the Indian buffet again. I don’t dislike Indian food, but I don’t really crave it either. They were supposed to pick me up something on the way back but they ran late and had to rush back for a work call. Ken later went out to get me some tacos from Moe’s. Andrea was over and poor girl had slipped on some ice that morning outside of her building. She was obviously a little sore :/

March 5 (Wednesday)
A very very Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law Missy! I got to talk to her, but she was trying to plan Daemon’s birthday party so we didn’t get to talk very long. I hope she got to relax some. It’s pretty stressful just trying to talk to anyone in that mad house sometimes

March 6 (Thursday)
I’d been missing Peter so I arranged a “Girl’s day” over at Chris & Lesley’s house in Milton. Unfortunately Sosena had to work, and Michelle had something come up at the last minute so it was just Erika and I. Still had a great time! We played more Rock Band, Erika brought her drum kit & guitar, I brought my new guitar and mic. Lesley made an awesome chickpea stew that I absolutely must get the recipe for! Peter was adorable as always, he kept running around singing songs from Mary Poppins. LOL We also teased Chris to no end when he wasn’t working, which is always fun. I wish they lived closer, I would definitely babysit Peter every day! I’m going to steal him. I’ll just have to settle being the crazy lady who teaches him strange words and what mazda’s say :p

March 7 (Friday)
We knew there was going to be a lot of snow, but I was supposed to puppy-sit Logan while Ken’s sister and her husband were in Buffalo. I left at 6 and it took me an hour to get there. The roads were very slippery. We’re on the lower level of the underground parking so we have a pretty steep driveway to get out. They had the “out” door open and the “in” door blocked off. I had to gun it up the ramp but ended up sliding into the massive snow drift lining the road to the front door. I didn’t hit it very hard, just tapped into it. It popped the corner of the bumper in slightly but Ken was able to pop it back out later. I stayed with Logan till around 9:30 when there was a break in the snow. The roads were much much better so I picked up Ken and we went to the grocery store.

March 8 (Saturday)
Just insane amounts of snow fell. Every time I looked out of the window I couldn’t help but say “good lord”. We just stayed home, played games and watched tv.

March 9 (Sunday)
I met Sosena at Yuk Yuk’s after her work get-gether, Nick also met up with us. First we went to Boston Pizza, chatted had some nachos. From there we spent the next few hours at the Tim Horton’s. Lots of fun!

March 10 (Monday)
I didn’t get home till around 5am. I don’t usually have much sugar but I had 2 medium hot chocolates so I was unable to go to sleep till around noon. Ken and Chris were too busy to go to lunch but Chris went down to Licks and got some food for them both. Sadly I slept through Andrea being over.

March 11 (Tuesday)
Clint, Erika & Brea came over to watch Ark of Truth the new Stargate movie. It was pretty good, it wrapped up a lot of the storylines.

March 12 (Wednesday)
Nick came over for lunch, we took him to Moe’s then Ken showed him Assassin’s Creed which he’s been playing a lot for the last few days. Very Happy Birthday wishes for my favorite nephew who turned 9! We got him the Danger Mouse Season 1-6 DVD (which my brothers and I used to love) and Princess Bride DVD (second best movie ever made).

March 13 (Thursday)
Melar and I got to finish the Borlis Pass mission in Guild Wars, only one more to go till we’re out of the Northern Shiverpeak Mountains and hopefully not long till we can make some prettier armor! I got my giant book on web design today. I’ve read the first 3 chapters but it’s pretty boring. I just want to learn how to make my own site and friends sites better. I’ve got a lot of ideas for my site, I’ve been sketching them out along with the site I made for the Malamute Rescue group and the one I worked on for Ken’s sister. Perhaps I will look for a course or something. Though last time I took a course I got stuck sitting next to a girl who didn’t know how to use a computer, in a graphic design course. I spent more time answering her questions about where to click than hearing the teacher. :/ Sucked big time.

March 14 (Friday)
Today I’ll be packing for my week in Virginia. I leave tomorrow morning at 9am which means I’ll be at the airport at 6am. It’s also Brea’s birthday today, so Happy Sweet 16! Happy Birthday to Ken’s cousin Greg! I’m debating on bringing some of my jewelry tools. I’ve got 10 bracelets to make for upcoming birthdays and I ordered the parts and had them sent to my mom’s. The stuff takes up a lot of room and we only have 1 good big suitcase left but I will probably have a lot of quiet time to work on it while I’m there.

Just finished The Changeling Sea (Firebird) by Patricia A. McKillip. Here’s the review I wrote on my Facebook books app: 2 1/2 stars out of 5

This was a little hard to read.. the paragraphs felt.. disjointed? I don’t really know what it was about the book that made it feel so poorly written. It was choppy.

The plot itself was a good one, and the descriptive scenes were very well done. I dunno. :/

Now I’m reading The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

Just finished reading Children of the Night: A Diana Tregarde Investigation by Mercedes Lackey. Here’s the review I wrote on my Facebook book app: 3 / 5stars

Lots of well written thoughts which made me understand Diana pretty well even though this is the first of the series I’ve read. I also liked that not *everything* was foreshadowed. Like in real life, many things are just routine and common-place. The chapters on the store barely played a part in the overall story but it’s something that Diana *did*, so it wasn’t out of place.

Now I’m reading The Changeling Sea by Patricia A. McKillip

Welcome back. In our last episode our heroine was reveling in the multitude of social engagements cast at her feet. Things got rather quiet in the weeks following.

*Update* I mentioned that we were supposed to go see the movie Fanboys with Clint, Erika and Brea on Jan. 18th (Saturday) but we ended up seeing I Am Legend in Imax instead. Here’s what I thought of it as posted on my Facebook Movies app:

I hear it’s well below the book quality, but I enjoyed Will Smith in this. The poor doggie was awesome too. I am still confused about how the woman and her son managed to survive alone traveling and how they were left alone at the docks right until they saved Will from dying. I will have to read the book I guess.

January 21st (Monday)
Regular Chris visiting for work day (Andrea was sick)

January 25th (Friday)
Happy Birthday Luvene! Wish we could have hung out
Nick came over for gaming and dinner

January 27th (Sunday)
Ken and Chris left for Sausalito, Cali to meet with the folks at FM. Except Ken lost his wallet at the airport just before boarding his plane. He IM’d me from the plane and I called the airport information line, explained the situation to them and asked if they could call the gate agent to take a look for it. She did and they didn’t find it. Ken told me he last had it at the Tim Hortons by the gate, so he may have lost it there so I told him I’d continue the search since he was about to take off. Mom suggested I should call the credit card companies right away to have them put a freeze on the accounts and possibly overnight Ken new cards. I called up Amex first and was told there was nothing they could do until the next morning and Ken would need to go to a branch office, and THEN he asked me for my account number. ?? I politely thanked him for his help, and said that I really didn’t think he needed the number to not help me.

So Plan B: Look up Tim Horton numbers and call around to find the one at the gate. The first one I called barely spoke english and I asked if they were the Tim Horton’s inside the Airport. The lady said “no this is tim hortons”, I explained again and asked if they were located inside the airport, “this is tim hortons” .. great .. then she hung up. ?? So I called at least 6 more Tim Horton’s that I thought were in the area, and all were “not it” but I asked if they happened to have the number for it, none did. An hour had passed since Ken’s flight had left. I called the Lost and Found office and explained what happened, the girl assured me that she would call me right away if it turned up there. I then tried calling the Tim Horton’s customer service line, which was closed for the night but I left a message. I never heard back from them by the way. Thinking it was my last shot, I called the airport information line again, explained what I was trying to do and begged for a phone number. The guy only had one number for Tim Horton’s in the airport but he couldn’t tell which gate it was located near. It was a good lead anyway, so I thanked him profusely and called it. It was not the one I sought but they did have another number I could try. BINGO! They were indeed the right Tim Hortons.. and they HAD THE WALLET! I damn near cried, my phone had been fully charged and was on the verge of dying by this point. The lady promised me that she would bring it down to the Lost and Found office as soon as she could. It was 7:30pm at this point.

The Lost and Found office would close at Midnight but as soon as they called me to tell me the wallet was there, I was ready to go get it. By 9pm I hadn’t heard anything, and not wanting to risk angering the 1 person in whose hands rested our entire financial well-being, but still needing to know what was going on, I decided to call the Tim Horton’s back. The lady sounded frustrated but promised she would bring the wallet down by 10pm. I thanked her and hung up, just hoping that if it made it to the Lost and Found by midnight, I could pick it up at 6am and hit a FedEx, Nick helped me locate one near the airport. I spent from 9:30 - 11pm waiting for the phone to ring, willing it to ring.. no luck.. Not wanting to anger the Tim Horton’s lady further, I decided to call the Lost and Found girl. She had just been about to call me, she had the wallet. Unfortunately she could not release it to me without Ken’s signature, which he could fax but his plane wasn’t landing until after the office closed. So I told the girl that I would get Ken to fax his signature as soon as he could and I’d be by to pick it up in the morning. Then I waited for Ken’s plane to land to explain everything to him, since he still didn’t know that it was found. Ken landed an hour late, and I was already convinced that I wouldn’t be getting any sleep if I was to go get his wallet, fedex it off, then meet his sister for lunch and then pick up Erika for our slumber party at Lesley’s. However, he could not find a fax machine so I gave him the number to the lost and found and went to bed.

I’m really going to buy a staple gun for that man…

January 28th (Monday)
So I finally got to sleep but set my alarm for 10am. Checked my email and Ken’s sister wasn’t feeling well so wouldn’t make it to our lunch date. I was a little relieved that I could grab 2 more hours of sleep before I went to pick up Erika at 1pm. I had packed up a small overnight bag with PJ’s and a change of clothes, and bathroom stuff already, and also our Rock Band guitar, Game & Mic. Erika was bringing her guitar as well. Lesley had never played Rock Band. Erika and I hit the grocery store near her apartment to bring drinks and snacks, and also stopped off at the Tim Horton’s for some coffee type stuff.. I tried not to grumble about the night before. Our sleep-over was oodles of fun, we played with Peter, who is way smarter than I am by the way. We ordered Chinese food for dinner, we watched a giant bear sing about the potty then after Peter went to sleep we played Rock Band till Midnight. I should have thought to bring my saved game with me, we played as a band for awhile, Lesley on the mic, Erika on Bass and me on Guitar. But realized quickly that all the songs weren’t unlocked so we round-robin’d the solo gig on guitar. Our band was named Limp Dalek’s :p Ask if you wanna know why!

I had left a note for Andrea saying that I was sorry to miss her again, she’d been sick the week before, and left her check.

January 29th (Tuesday)
I actually woke up pretty early for me. 8am I think it was. Lesley and Peter were already up and had breakfast. I made some toast and played with Peter so Lesley could have a shower. Do all mom’s get super speed boost for the 30 seconds they get to themselves? Erika woke while Lesley was in the shower and we were having lots of fun with Peter asking him what the animals say. I taught him what a Mazda says!! We hung out with them till around 2pm and then left to get Erika home so she could spend some time with her kitten before taking her to the vet. I accidentally left my purse at Lesley’s though and she called my cell phone as I was getting off the Gardiner at Jarvis. I know, what is in the water at our apartment huh? Though I left with 2 bags and a guitar so missing one bag on my arm would have been a miracle. She had an appointment to go to but thankfully I had my house keys on me so I told her I would come back for it once she got home.

My head was kinda foggy so I took a rather long shower and waited for the time to head back to Lesley’s. There was a little bit of traffic but I still made good time. When I got there, I knocked on the door a few times and heard no answer. So I opened the door and I could hear Lesley speaking, I only have one ear so I couldn’t tell where it was coming from so I guessed that she was reading Peter a bedtime story. I called her name a few times and started walking up the stairs. The sound got quieter so I realized she was in the basement. I called her name some more and started walking down the stairs. I already had my bag, but I thought it would be rude to take it without saying hi. I didn’t want to scare her so I kept calling her name, I even knocked on the basement door before walking in. She was sitting on the floor talking to Chris on her laptop. I called her name again, and took a few steps forward. She must have seen me out of the corner of her eye because she nearly jumped out of her skin. Such a horrible feeling scaring your friend that way. I would have had a heart attack. Peter was playing in the corner and thought it was pretty funny. I gave Lesley a big hug, apologized for scaring her, waved to Chris and Ken who were sitting at FM together and then headed home. Lot of driving! I don’t mind driving though.

January 30th (Wednesday)
Karen emailed me and asked if we could have our lunch date still, I had planned to pick up Michelle from Kitchener either Wednesday or Thursday depending on when Nick’s computer arrived in Niagara Falls. I was going with him to keep him company and to mail a bunch of burned dvd’s with TV shows and mp3’s for my brother DJ in Iraq. It looked like the trip would be postponed to the next week so I asked Michelle which day she wanted to come down. She thought Thursday would be better so I met up with Karen for lunch at noon, except I was feeling nauseous and she was still a bit sick so we just hung out at my place and chatted for awhile. Then she had to get home to study for her classes.

That night I heard from Sosena, she’d called my cell phone and asked if I could pick her up from the airport on Tuesday when she got back from Jamaica. I said I would but Tuesday morning I got a text message from her saying that her family would pick her up instead. So I couldn’t wait to hear about her trip, she had been pretty worried about the whole situation, going with co-workers, not staying at a hotel, etc. Turns out the trip was awful, but I did see some pictures and it looked pretty at least.

I also had the bright idea to take down our Christmas decorations. I should have known better, I always have an allergy death day after we put them up and after taking them down, but what I experienced doing it myself was like both combined. My face was red and itchy, my eyes were watery, I was sneezing faster than I type!, my head hurt from sneezing, even my teeth were itchy. I had to take my inhaler twice, after taking my regular doses of allegra, and I still wasn’t much better. I got all of the ornaments put away and tied up the first two sections of our fake tree and put them in the box before I almost collapsed and had to take a rather long break till I could function again. To top it off, Rogue got the idea to be a menace and launched himself off our corner shelf stand, knocking over my beautiful Fairy on a Unicorn statue I got from Clint, Brea & Erika this last Christmas. He’s lucky I didn’t see him for a few hours after (he scared himself) and that I was dying. Unfortunately he wasn’t done tormenting me though, and he later knocked over my external hard drive which I would have skinned him for if it had broken, especially in my not-so-cat-happy-miserable-walking-bags-of-death allergy mood. I finally did get the rest of the ornaments put away, but I’d forgotten the giant blow up penguin my mom got for Ken and our stockings, but decided they could wait for Ken. *grumble*

January 31st (Thursday)
I was supposed to go get Michelle but I had such a horrible night. I couldn’t sleep, my heart was racing from the adrenaline in my inhaler, I couldn’t breathe but I couldn’t take any more. I tossed and turned and sneezed and was a general face waterfall of tears and snot.. Lovely huh? So I wrote her and cancelled, thank goodness too because she thought she’d come down with strep throat and that’s something I can’t afford to get without insurance .. still.. My best-friend, Melar, picked up Guild Wars and asked me about it. I’ve had the game for a few years (since launch actually, I pre-ordered) but I’d never made it past level 10 because I didn’t have anyone to play with. She’s never played a game like it before, so it took a little while to get her accustomed to playing with another “person”. If you’re interested in playing, there’s no monthly fee or anything, you just buy the game which comes in a pack now with the 2 expansions (not including the new one). Message me if you want to play!

February 2nd (Saturday)
Nothing really happened on Friday, I was still recovering from the allergy attack. Saturday I had to be at the airport cell phone lot at 7am to meet Lesley & Peter and to pick up Chris and Ken. Their flight was an hour and a half late, but we’d known that it was going to be at least half an hour late so we’d planned for that. I sat in Lesley’s car with her and Peter and we talked, and Peter kept saying “no see Niki” for some reason. Weird but damn cute. Once the boys arrived we went to Perkins for breakfast and we were all about ready to drop face into platter I think. Peter informed Lesley that “mommy needs her coffee” !! We did pretty much nothing else that weekend, just recovered from our respective weeks.

My dad made it home to Virginia from Iraq, he’ll be back for 3 weeks. But we learned that he has a detached retina and needed surgery which could have him home for an added 3 weeks. The surgery went well though and he’s recovering. I ended up having to call him really late because DJ is bunking in his trailer for the week and had some questions about where he and his friends could secure their weapons and such. Having to apologize to your dad at 3am on behalf of your brother for eating all his oreo cookies in a war zone is kinda surreal.

February 3rd (Sunday)
So pleased to hear that Posey Doctorow was born! She’s healthy and adorable. Congratulations again Cory & Alice! Also, we had scheduled to have dinner with Ken’s cousin, Joel, but the weather was being iffy so we rain-checked.

February 4th (Monday)
Regular Chris & Andrea visiting for work day, nothing much else happens on Mondays. I finished my book The Oathbound, Vows and Honor, Book 1 by Mercedes Lackey. Here’s the review I wrote on my Facebook Books app: 3 /5 stars

The book mentions that there are previous stories of the characters, but this is the first one I read. Overall it was enjoyable, I liked the “world”, but every chapter there was a description of the characters and their motivations when I could have remembered on my own. Also, the 2 random foes combining at the end to form a super villain team? I would definitely like to see another book in this world.

Then I began reading Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

February 5th (Tuesday)
Nick’s computer had finally arrived in Niagara Falls so I drove over to his place by 11am and we made record time to the UPS store. I mailed off the DVD’s for DJ, the guy at the store was pretty funny. We were set to head back by 12:30pm and got back to Nick’s house by 1:30pm. Another record! I chatted with his mom while he tested his shiny new toy Then I drove him down to 151 Front St. on my way home. I was home by 3pm, our estimation had been 4 or 5pm. Thankfully I had no trouble at the border, I always worry. The weather was also in our favor, it was a cloudy but breaks of sun, 47 degrees.

February 6th (Wednesday)
Chris came over again at 3pm for a work upgrade. It was crazy snowing all day though, and I had a massive headache all day (and last night as well) so I read for most of the day, finally succumbing to a nap right as Ken and Chris were ready to go have dinner. Figures! I napped off and on from then till around midnight, when I got up and watched some of my recorded American Idol shows (still in auditions) and then went to go nap some more. I also finished my book Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris which was pretty damn good. I read it really fast. Here’s the review I wrote on my Facebook Books app: 4 1/2 / 5 stars

I really liked this one. I practically couldn’t put it down. Great story, great characters, great language. I’ll take 2 Erics, a Bill, a Jason and even a Sam. :p

Now I’m reading Children of the Night: A Diana Tregarde Investigation by Mercedes Lackey

February 7th (Thursday)
I was up at stupid o’clock, aka 6am which is usually my bedtime. My head still hurts, there’s tons of snow on the ground and Ken’s still sleeping (it’s 10:30am now) I’ve been playing the Sims 2 a lot since my sleep-over with Lesley. She brought up a bunch of stuff that I’d never done in some of the expansions. It’s been fun, and I played this morning. I’m waiting to hear from Ken’s cousin, Michelle about when she’s ready for me to come get her but I’ll write more about that in my next update.

This was a great ending to the series.. not how I would have wanted it to end, but things seldom do end up the way you want them. I finished this book while visiting my friend Melar in Georgia. I loved all of the real life references, even the real-but-fictional King.

I finished these two books a few months ago. I thought they were very well written, interesting and had great characters. Eragon was far far better than the movie, which I saw before reading the book. The only thing I didn’t like about the overall story but mostly in Eldest was that any problem thrown Eragon’s way was somehow magically solved instantly. The grit and determination of his training is glossed over for the most part, leaving it to the imagination but left me feeling that Eragon got off easy. Anyway, they were great reading materials for the sauna and airport.

I finished both of these books today and they were as good as the first. They didn’t feel like sequels but just the next chapters, which I really liked. Still they could have made the trilogy into one book I’m still thinking about the story, so I guess it was good