Nov 9, 2012 | Current Events |
Last night I attended Fashion Forward at Northbrook Court. It consisted of a silent auction, live auction and fashion show – plus lots of edible goodies and drinks. All the proceeds went to various charities.
It was a lot of fun. The fashion show wasn’t crazy like Fashion Week but showed actual outfits you could wear from stores in the mall. For the live auction volunteers from the charities would walk the runway wearing outfits from a specific store in the mall and you would bid on a gift certificate to that store. The gift certificates were all in the $350 – $400 range. I bid on Tommy Bahama and White House/Black Market but lost both to higher bidders.
I also bid on a silent auction from Burberry which was a scarf and a $200 gift certificate. I lost that as well but my cousin bid on a Sephora silent auction with a bunch of products from their store and won!
There was also small bites from Whole Foods. I tried some of the Hors d’vours and they were ok but for dessert they had an assortment of mini-tarlets which were totally delicious. I liked the Key Lime Pie one the best. Whole Foods does such a good job with their tartlets I recommend you try them if you haven’t already. There was also coffee and tea from Corner Bakery as well as an open bar.
By far the best thing at the bar was the signature drink called “Glittering in Gold” It was a mix of Goldschlager and Apple Cider mixed together than topped off with Champagne. It tasted like cinnamon apple sauce and was absolutely amazing! I intend on serving these during Thanksgiving – they were that good.
All in all it was a fun night and if they have a similar event next year I will definitely go back.
Nov 4, 2012 | Hobbies |
Yesterday I decided to have a little retail therapy and ended up with these bad boys
That’s right, I own shoes with kitty faces on them! They may be ridiculous but they make me smile every time I see them so I think they do their job.
I also want to give a big shout out to Lime Mayo – I discovered this in a mexican supermarket a while back and bought it as a joke. Surprisingly its one of the most awesome condiments ever! If you haven’t tried it yet I highly recommend it.
You have to get this brand though. I recently tried the Kraft version (“touch of lime”) and it wasn’t nearly as tasty as this one. Trust me, you’ll love it!
Oct 31, 2012 | Bright Ideas |
Pothole…meet your new best friend!!
Shortly after this picture was taken the robot made a beeline for this Pothole and chased her out of the room! All part of it’s random cleaning cycle, but try telling that to Pothole 🙂
Oct 28, 2012 | Hobbies, Literature, Politics |
I got this book as part of the Humble eBook Bundle. I paid $25 for 13 books. (If you don’t know about the HumbleBundle, click here to learn more, its awesome!!) Over all I say its a 3/5 star book.
This book was released 10/2/2012 and you can also get it from Amazon.com. Here is a synopsis:
Trent McCauley is sixteen, brilliant, and obsessed with one thing: making movies on his computer by reassembling footage from popular films he downloads from the net. In the dystopian near-future Britain where Trent is growing up, this is more illegal than ever; the punishment for being caught three times is that your entire household’s access to the internet is cut off for a year, with no appeal.
Trent’s too clever for that too happen. Except it does, and it nearly destroys his family. Shamed and shattered, Trent runs away to London, where he slowly he learns the ways of staying alive on the streets. This brings him in touch with a demimonde of artists and activists who are trying to fight a new bill that will criminalize even more harmless internet creativity, making felons of millions of British citizens at a stroke.
Things look bad. Parliament is in power of a few wealthy media conglomerates. But the powers-that-be haven’t entirely reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people’s minds….
So why 3/5 stars? I think the content is appropriate to what is happening in the world now, but I felt the author tried a bit to hard to make it “geeky”. There was a lot of name dropping of actual programs and parts that I felt interrupted the flow of the story. It’s not because I didn’t understand the terms, but it was more a WTF moment on why you would even mention it unless you were trying to prove how computer-savvy you were to your audience. I also did not like the attitude of the main character. To me he felt very one dimensional and I didn’t really care how his story turned out. I didn’t feel he was responsible for any of the successes in the story – it was either luck/chance or the supporting characters turning the events to wins. The last point I will make is that since this story was set in England it was a bit weird for me to follow – mostly the slang terms. I’m sure the author was authentic here but not being familiar with some of the terms had me spending lots of time thinking about them. So much so that I often had to go back and re-read pages to grasp the meaning
Overall I do recommend it. The copyright/piracy/patent laws in the US are bad and they are getting worse as old-media corporations try to put in place laws like SOPA, ACTA, PIPA, etc. These corporations and lobby groups use many of the same arguments that were used in the books to pass the restrictive laws. I’m not sure if this book will spur anyone to action. I think it does a great job of opening your eyes to how people see it – that if it doesn’t affect them directly they don’t care – and why we must continue to spread the word against laws that restrict our freedom online. Give them an inch and they will take a mile
Oct 28, 2012 | Current Events, Holidays |
It’s that time of year again….
Oct 27, 2012 | General Chit-Chat |
Yes that’s right – I am now the proud owner of adult Heelys! jelly? go on, you can admit it 🙂
Oct 26, 2012 | General Chit-Chat |
2 weeks spent in hotel – number of kitty barfs: 3
6am – 9am this morning – number of kitty barfs: 3
….
Jun 20, 2012 | Literature, Media |
My recent dissapontment with HBO’s treatment of season 2 of Game of Thrones prompted me to write a review of the A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin. I will admit I was not aware of this series before the HBO show but the first season was so amazing that I decided to pick it up.
The first season is pretty true to the book. I think the only big difference I noticed about the book vs show for the first season was hearing the characters’ thoughts. In the TV show most subtleties have to been spelled out since soliloquies aren’t popular any more.
I read through all 5 currently available books in the sesries before the second season and was really looking forward to it. There was so much amazing stuff that was going to happen and I was looking forward to how HBO portrayed it. In the end I had to wait weeks between episodes because wastching 2 in a row made me furious.
I’m not usually one to preach on how books are better than TV/movies but in this case I feel you would be doing yourself a disservice if you are a fan of the world/characters and you didn’t read the books.
The books are more powerful and really bring you in to care about these characters and their journeys. There were characters I didn’t like in the beginning that I ended up rooting for and one I liked that I ended up hating. I felt drawn into the world and found myself caring about the choices the charaters made.
I will go so far as to say that I think this might be a better story that Lord of the Rings (which in some circles will get you an arrow to the knee). LOTR is a fantastic story and a must read for any fantasy fan, but I felt the characters in A Song of Fire and Ice series were easier to identify with. LOTR keeps their characters on a pedastal where its hard to imagine yourself in that situation.
There are some problems with the Song of Fire and Ice books. I feel that some of the women in the story are portrayed very flat or in a way where you can very clearly tell its a man writing about how he thinks women feel/act but its biased by his stereotypes. Obviously the unfinished nature of the series is an issue as well, especially now that show has come out and changed some of the events. The story telling style and flow change from book to book as well, which although expected from any new author, can be jarring at times.
All in all I would recommend A Song of Fire and Ice series to any fantasy fan, whether or not you watch the HBO show. It was the first series to make me feel so strongly about the differences between its book and tv counterparts and any work of fiction that can provoke such an emotional reaction is worth a read.
Jun 4, 2012 | General Chit-Chat |
Its been a long time since I wrote here. Either I want to make my posts “perfect” (I have tons of saved drafts) or I tell my story to someone and then no longer feel the need to blog about it. I would like to get back in the swing of things though so I am going to try to start posting here more regularly. My goal is to avoid my long epic tales that get locked in Draft phase and just post. I have an app for my phone in additional to several portable devices that should make this easy.
We’ll see how it goes. For now – here is a kitten for your entertainment:
Dec 6, 2011 | Business, General Chit-Chat, Philsophy |
Last night I was feeling a bit stressed out from work so I decided to snuggled Pothole for a little bit, because, as the saying goes:
She was on my bed so I laid next to her, and the heated pad was on so I dozed off for a little bit.
And I swear, as my head laid next to hers, I DREAMED HER DREAMS!
At this point you may think I am crazy but here is what I dreamed:
- that I was biting people with wild abandon (not mauling them, just biting as kitties do…)
- these water glitter bouncy balls were bouncing all over and I was having a blast playing with them
- Someone was in the kitchen pouring bags of goldfish (like you get from the petstore) on the ground.
Now you tell me those aren’t fantastical kitty dreams!! Regardless of their source, I did feel 100 times better when I woke back up 🙂
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