Giggle Fit Fun

Gerard Depardieu gets a gold star. I would probably feel different about what he did had it not led to Anderson Cooper suffering a giggle-fit.

Oh Andy, you adorable man!

Catch-Up Post #5

NPR has tallied their list of the top 100 science fiction and fantasy books, as rated by visitors to the article.

Some of them are no surprise. The placing of others is a little puzzling! However, what's most important is that Old Man's War is on the list. ;3

How did your favorite books do?

Catch-Up Post #4

I really meant to do this a looong time ago. I finished reading My Life As a White Trash Zombie back in June.

Here's a synopsis of MLAAWTZ: Angel Crawford (that's our protagonist if that zoomed over your head at 80 mph) is a sort of a-typical white trash 'loser'. She has been in trouble with the law, she's a junkie, and she has major family issues. The day she dies changes everything. After waking up in the ER with strangely no adverse effects from what put her there, she is greeted by cryptic messages and inexplicably handed a new job and a chance at a new life. It isn't long before she realizes her 'life' has changed drastically. When she finally owns up to it and accepts her new 'habits', a mysterious killer prevents her access to her necessary food supply. Angel must mature, change her habits, face some demons, and find out who the killer is before it's too late.

I'll start off with critiques and get that out of the way. I didn't always enjoy Diana Rowland's writing style. Not that I have any room to critique writing, I just felt the writing was simplistic. Sometimes Rowland also uses certain words and phrases too often or too close together. If you're going for a mainstream audience, however, I think this writing style is a good choice. I have a tendency to go for more complex writing and a storyline with deeper reflection and less predictability. There were a few passages that I actually winced while reading - but again, this is a personal preference.

As for the positive, Rowland took me on a great journey. She created some incredibly interesting characters that I'd love to know more about. I'm sad to say, [duh spoiler: people die in murder mystery books] that some of the characters I wanted to know more about will not be showing up again. I'm looking forward to the next installment. There will be delicious new characters and hopefully more depth to some of Angel's relationships. The existence she shares with her father really felt like the main storyline to me - that and her adjustment to her new life. Both were fascinating and a little heartbreaking.

The minute I read the title on John Scalzi's blog, I was pretty much 99% sold on buying the book. Rowland's backstory about her experiences and thoughts that led her to this book pushed me past that 1% needed.

I am not at all disappointed with my purchase. If you don't mind an easy read and you like zombies (and are not squeamish) I suggest you pick up MLAAWTZ!

Catch-Up Post #3

Maaaaaad props to defective yeti. In fact, I call for a celebration parade in his honor.

It's a little sad that more and more English speakers don't know how to write a sentence or use the proper words in their proper places. Not that I'm in ANY place to judge anyone for that. I just think it's unfortunate and we could all use a boost. Some of us learn better from our mistakes.

*Awkward Pause* Like me...

Defective yeti has proposed another use for CAPTCHA programs. Namely, logging on. If defective yeti had his way, every time you logged on to the Internet you would be greeted by something like this:

http://www.defectiveyeti.com/iacaptchas/

The fact that I laughed almost hard enough to cry when I first visited this site says a lot about me. Terribly unfortunate things about me. Wow. But you have to admit, it might be a clever tool to teach people the proper use of similar words.

Shout Out to WWSU 106.9

I just wanna give a shout out to my radio station, WWSU 106.9 FM.

On Thursday, my manager and former faculty advisor landed an interview with Barry Manilow. That's BIG news for a college radio station! So props to them. They recorded it but I can't directly link to it.

Sad Face.

Maybe someday soon I can link to it for posterity.

Catch-Up Post #2

This next post comes from GeekWire.

I was strolling through some posts and happened upon this one. At first I LOL'd. Then I became interested enough to peruse their website.

Ever been frustrated with a lack of motivation for losing weight? You might find some with Earndit. Basically, and I do mean basically, it's a reward system for working out. You pick what you want to be rewarded with among the available selections, set a goal, connect it to an approved app, and go! The site even provides the option to face off with other users, kind of like a PvP weight loss face off. 

Oh em gee. I think I just came up with a catchy TV show title...

The story behind the site is really interesting! Since GeekWire has it all down already, I'll let the more interested readers just click the link to learn more. That and....there's no reward site for re-posting yet.

Catch-Up Post #1

So far behind in my planned posts...I blame the Internet.

Also laziness and a lack of inspiration. Tonight I have energy and some cleverness left in me, so I'll be doing a few catch-up posts.

The first topic is, naturally, from another article on the blog Next Nature, also known as What is Next Nature. Sometimes? They took the banner down, so now I'm confused.

I should probably not post at 2 in the morning....oh well!

This post is about a new type of Jell-O that may have you thinking twice about grabbing some on your next shopping trip. Regardless of the new or old type available. The post reminded me just what gelatin is actually made out of - I'd learned once upon a time and promptly forgotten.

However, this post alerted me to the fact that The American Chemical Society has come up with "human-derived gelatin."

This was my reaction: [you have to click on it to make the GIF work for some reason...]

Now when I read the rest of the post, I understood the reasons behind it. But I think it'd make more sense to just eat a vegan version of gelatin...it doesn't seem like a smart idea to feed humans their own species' DNA. Then again, I'm not a brilliant scientist who understands all the implications. 

by chispita_666 from Flickr

Mmmm, processed animal skin, cartilage, and bones/human DNA. A healthy addition to any meal?