This past weekend, I drove down to NC to meet my wee nephew for the very first time.
On Saturday, my sis and her hubby put on a picnic for family and friends down at Topsail Island.
He was also christened today and put on quite the show - nice waterworks, indeed! :)
So, I've been using my Typepad account instead of VOX, and whenever I come back over this way I have shit loads of spam comments to delete. Surely, VOX, if you delete a spam account, it should automatically delete all of the spam comments they've left as well?
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
About a month ago, Jenna emailed me when I was in Glasgow and asked if I wanted to be a part of their group costume. I said sure...count me in for whatevers! The theme for this year was the 7 deadly sins. I was crossing my fingers for gluttony because who wouldn't want to own a fat suit...but I still lucked out with sloth.
As I scoured the interwebs, I slowly realized the only thing out there for sloth related costumes were slutty pajamas. Meh - so I got creative and decided that I'd kick it up a notch and go as Sloth from the Goonies. Here is my Halloween in review...
Simultaneously, on the other side of the world, T was participating in Glasgow's first ever Zombie Walk. I hate these pictures, which means they're awesome and he looked entirely too scary. He went as an emo zombie and cried tears of blood...obv. Check out his creepy zombie contacts too!
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
According to the Dominion Post, you could help out the environment when you eat your dog. Check out this odd article on the carbon-footprint of pets and their take on going green.
The eco-footprints of the family pet each year as calculated by the Vales:
German shepherds: 1.1 hectares, compared with 0.41ha for a large SUV.
Cats: 0.15ha (slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf). Hamsters: 0.014ha (two of them equate to a medium-sized plasma TV).
Goldfish: 0.00034ha (an eco-finprint equal to two cellphones).
I finished book 4, A million little pieces, awhile back but just forgot to report in on it. A short and sweet summary of my standard book report would be that James Frey ruined a perfectly edgy novel (one that started with great narrative and writing style) when he went overboard on the love story. A little love in the beginning was okay, but it was as if the book lost it's appeal when it turned cliche as the love story became the central focus.
I do recommend it as one of those books you should read and judge for yourself, but I wouldn't expect it to finish as strong as it started.
Book 5 of 2009, The Time Traveler's Wife, was actually a repeat read for me. I had read it in 2005 before the buzz of the movie and hailed it as a great novel. One of my favorites according to my Facebook profile. With the movie out, I had wanted to read it again, before seeing Hollywood's take on Niffeneger's novel. I bought the book again in August, and it sat on my nightstand for 2 months before I felt inspired enough to pick it up and read it. While I wasn't psyched to read it for some reason, I started on it during my last trip to Scotland. A quarter of the way through I still felt unimpressed and wondered why I had loved this book so much in 2005. Half way through it picked up pace and was satisfied with my original love of the novel. As I neared the end I started thinking back to 2005 and I remembered how I cried my eyes out the last few pages. That however, did not happen. I read the last few pages of the book and when I had finished, I let out a "hmph". Partially a "well that was interesting enough...hmph" and a "why was I so crazy about this book...hmph".
My only conclusion as to why I wasn't as impressed with the novel this time round is that my thoughts and definitions of love have changed drastically within the past 4 years. While I think the author puts forward a nice story, it's one I associate with my more ignorant/innocent self. If anything, I smile when I think back to how I cherished the love story at that point in my life.
So what did I learn? Well, other than the fact that I've grown up and my views on love/relationships have changed...not too much. Though now I'm extremely curious to go back and read all my "favorite books" to see if they still maintain favorite status.
Next on the list and currently underway: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.
ps. I think it's safe to admit that my original goal of 25 books this year (whoa...what was I thinking?) won't be happening. I'm quite impressed with 6 so far this year (and maybe 1 or 2 more), considering I probably read less than 2 in 2008.
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
