Wildly Crafty

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
November selection for Beyond Chapter 3 bookgroup.

Ann Patchett wrote a memoir recounting her friendship with poet Lucy Grealy, who at age nine was diagnosed with a malignant cancer. Over her lifetime Lucy had 38 facial surgeries that resulted in her losing half her lower jaw, and being unable to eat normally or close her mouth all the way. Despite this, she turned out to be a lively, vivacious woman who only let her closest friends in on her torment. Dramatic and clingy, Lucy was the consummate social butterfly, with many lovers and much excitement in her life that was cut short too young by a heroin overdose. Ann Patchett obviously loved her friend very much, even towards the end when she was also exasperated by her.

I'm reading this book along with Grealy's own Autobiography of a Face.

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Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
In the past couple of years the paranormal romance genre has surged with mixed results. Where there were once only a few authors writing stories laced with sex, vampires and witches, lately it seems as though a new series pops up every day.

Lori Handeland is no stranger to the genre; her Nightcreatures series has won several awards including a RITA and a National Reader's Choice.

Her new series The Phoenix Chronicles is a fast paced thriller that revolves around protagonist Elizabeth Phoenix. Elizabeth, or Lizzy to her friends, is someone just like you and me, except that she's psychic - and has been chosen by destiny to lead the army that will save the world.

Lizzy has greatness thrust upon her, as she goes from simple barmaid to head of the Seers. As a Seer she is responsible for guiding her demon killers to their targets. Unfortunately for her her powers are blocked and she can only sense the supernatural by touch, way too dangerous as a touch can kill. So to free her powers she must revisit her past.

The Phoenix Chronicles is an urban fantasy, highly reminescent of Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Which is no accident as the author states on her jacket copy that "she wanted to write something just like that". Lizzy doesn't spend quite as much time in bed as Anita, that's not to say that the sex scenes aren't plentiful, just that there's a bit more plot surrounding them.

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Schooled by Anisha Lakhani

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
A recent graduate from Columbia University, Anna Taggert decides that her life's goal is to become a teacher. Over her parent's objections she takes a job teaching English at an elite private school on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Here she learns that teaching is not all "Lean on Me" and "Stand and Deliver", in fact actual work and assignments are frowned upon. The more Anna tries to make lesson plans and actually teach, the more unfriendly phone calls she gets from parents. Discouraged by her small apartment and even smaller salary Anna begins to despair, until she receives the a phone call that turns her life around. So Anna becomes a tutor, and spends her ever diminishing free time shopping at Barney's, taking on more and more tutoring assignments so that she can live the lifestyle she thinks she deserves. Ironically it is a tutoring assignment with a new student that shows her the error of her ways, and the last few chapters of the book reflect on Anna's desire to become the teacher she has always dreamed of being.

Schooled is a debut novel by an author who has lived the world she is writing about. Anisha Lakhani was an English teacher at the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan. One has to wonder just how much of this novel is actually true, and if so, it reflects poorly on the educational system for allowing and encouraging such shenanigans to go on.

I enjoyed this book, and was fascinated by just how quickly the main character allowed herself to be corrupted. A quick summer read along the lines of The Devil Wears Prada or The Nanny Diaries.

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On one of the World of Warcraft boards I frequent someone posted this rant earlier:

I decided to start up a bank guild on my baby warlock.  So I wander around Elwynn, advertising in general and outright offering the occasional guildless individual a gold apiece for their signatures.

Finally, I'm down to my last sig (which took some doing).  I see this unaffiliated level 13 (hereafter "Snot") just standing there by the mailbox in Goldshire, and decide to ask her.  And this happens (note that these are quoted verbatim):
[Me]:  Hi.  Would you like to earn a gold?
[Snot]: Piss off!

WTF?

 So I call her an idiot.  Then, the idea of shaming her crosses my mind (not that people like that don't often lack any sense of shame).  So I announce in Elwynn Forest chat:  "Snot is a rude idiot.  Offer her money, and she'll tell you to piss off!"

No response from anyone.  I /ignore Snot and say the hell with it.

I make a deal with a guy doing the same thing for that last sig.  Then I register the charter and get on my warrior to sign his.  Since I have to go through Goldshire to get to him anyway, I consider that I might just do a /spit on Snot while I'm there.  (Yes, petty...but she earned it.)

By the time I get to Goldshire, no sign of her anyway, so I shrug it off.  I send some money to my 'lock from other alts, and sign back onto her.  And this message pops up:  "Ignore removed because the character no longer exists." 

There was no one except Snot on my warlock's ignore list.  I've got a few ideas as to what might have happened.  But one way or the other...good riddance.

Note:  Since people seem to have missed this, I did not actually do the /spit.  By the time I went through Goldshire on my warrior, Snot was already gone, and I was reconsidering.

Some of the other board members called the OP out on their behavior and pointed out that the OP was just as rude if not ruder than the person that they've dubbed snot.  This fell on deaf ears, and the OP kept defending their choices, editing their post and finally got so mad they took all their toys home and deleted it.

Way to get all butt hurt and upset because someone was rude to you in an online video game.   The irony was that the OP titled their post "Reasons for Single Player Games".  My comment pointed out that the OP should grow a thicker skin or go back to playing a single player game themselves. 

Duma Key by Stephen King

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is in the style of Dolores Claiborne and Gerald's Game, where King concentrates mainly on his characters and not as much on the supernatural/evil things that are happening to them.

It's an entertaining story about a man who survives a horrible accident, and as part of his therapy retires to Florida's Duma Key in order to paint. At first his paintings are just paintings but they soon become connected to a tragic story that occurred in the Key's past.

The painter's attempts to discover the connection and solve the mystery result in tragedy for his friends and family. Pretty classic King.

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Hehe, in the wake of all the recent memoir debunkings this is pretty funny:

http://roiword.wordpress.com (link shortened)

I've started a new stitching project, I took a class with The Tudor Rose Sampler Guild last year on my birthday.  I did the little bit of stitching that I could in class then put it away in order to finish up my Chatelaine Sampler piece.  This past week I finally pulled it out again and have started stitching in earnest.  This is the Maria Antoni Sampler from The Essamplaire.  I'm dying to buy about half of the rest of her catalog and sign up for the online class but I must control myself.

When I picked it up, it had the black lines on the top square done and about half of a row of the black satin stitch of the next square.  The rest I filled in this past week, this project has been moving along really quickly so far and I'm really enjoying working on it.   

 

(Mental note: Clean the camera) 

Should I be worried that my husband emailed me this morning and said this cartoon reminded him of me?

 

The cartoon is from Cat and Girl and it's good stuff. I laughed my self silly over "The opposite of peanut butter is vaseline" and "America out of the toilet in 2008"

Check it out!

100 people in the U.K., each in a different location (on the beach, at home, in bed), announcing their age and hitting a drum — though some just hit the drum (and, in the case of one rollicking 44-year-old, really just hit the drum).

From the Portable Film Festival  an annual online film festival presenting the best in short film and internet video culture.