afp

This week's focus: awkwardness.

Please go to Awkward Family Photos.

Last (full) night in my bed. Tomorrow, I'll be waking up early and driving back to school. Today, I should ahve been able to sleep in a bit, eat some breakfast, pack some more...but no. This morning, the roofers came. When they called yesterday to say they were coming first thing in the morning, I had no way of knowing they meant 6:30. That's just crazy talk. But they came. And they hammered. And they are still hammering. And scraping. Hmm. Now that I'm listening it seems they finally left my corner of the house alone for a few minutes. If only they ahd done that at 7. Now I am awake for the day, after laying in bed trying unsuccessfully to fall back asleep, to let the repetitive noises (racket) lull me back to a dream I can't remember.

Now after watching an hour or so of television, I must start my day. In that hour, btw, I watched the music video for Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me." OK, I'm really not a big TS fan, but I like this video.

focus: hotties

So, it's wednesday. Hump day.

that means it's time for some good looking man candy.

Been watching Buffy a lot and recently seeing a lot of Bones too. So, there's some major love for David Boreanaz.

OK, so he may be 40...

BUT he's Catholic. Making him an RC hottie. way to go David.

he's also one of those guys that doesn't need to be shirtless with rippling abs to be attractive. but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt...

'While I Was Away'

Woke up early today to steal the car (aka drive my mother to work so I can use the car today), which means I listened to the radio. This morning on the Bert Show on Q100, they talked about this video which is just hilarious. Please enjoy.

Smart buy of the week:

so, as I mentioned earlier, I am in charge of buying my textbooks for fall semester. I groaned and griped, I turned down a trip to Savannah and spent days searching online. However, I only have four classes next semester. Western civilization, the class required of every honors student, is six credit hours so it counts for two. West Civ requires 4-6 books, but I'm buying them from my roommate from last year so DONE. As for psych stat, my suitemate who took the class with the same professor says he doesn't use the book and tells his students not to buy it so DONE. I'm trying to drop spanish, so I didn't buy that book, but eventually I will need a book for that class, whatever it turns out to be.

the point of this post is: the book I did buy (for intro to mass communications) was

$87 used from my school bookstore
$75 used on amazon.com
$56 to rent on chegg.com

I SPENT...

$41 NEW from campusbooks.com with free shipping, 3-4 days



I know, I'm amazing. use this website!

iLove Stephen Colbert

Two weeks until fall semester starts. Right now, I get to concentrate on buying my own books and getting all my stuff together. I've been counting down the days all summer, but now that I can actually see the day marked 'MOVE-IN DAY!!!" circled in silver sharpie, I can feel myself digging my heels in the ground. I don't have enough time! I can't finish my quilt or declutter my room completely (though I am pretty close). And once school starts, it's pretty much guaranteed that my posts on this blog will decrease even more. Although I could use it as an opporunity to avoid homework and other responsibilities. ...that sounds more likely.

Instead of working on these projects or doing anything remotely productive, I am watching iCarly. Again. (the movie is on tonight! squee!!!) and/or bidding on seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on ebay

On a less embarrassing note, I've also rediscovered my love for Stephen Colbert. And his amazing Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor: AMERICONE DREAM. My mom says that my affection for this food is unnatural and weird. It is not. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl. How could you not love it? Hm, maybe since I didn't buy donuts yesterday (friday is donut day! mostly to have something to eat with my amazing Dunkin Donuts iced coffee. wow, I'm just dropping names all over the place. I should get payed for product placement) I should buy some more Americone Dream instead. I'll actually be saving money. Oh, but maybe I should also save that for those dumb textbooks. Life is full of hard choices.

In other news, trivia was very disappointing last night. 6th out of 10. Who knows what the 4 H's in the 4H club stands for????

iAm A Loser

change everything you are and everything you were, your number has been called. fight: battles have begun. revenge will surely come. your hard times are ahead. best! you've got to be the best! you've got to change the world and use this chance to be heard. your time is now.

• to warm up my fingers I thought I'd share some Muse. there you go.
  
  
  I love rediscovering old favorites. There's the thrill of reminiscence and also of new joy. This could come from introducing a roommate to Alias (now it's a bit out of hand- I even got her family addicted) or setting your music player to shuffle or even cleaning out your closet and finding your Ricky Martin CD (which, of course, leads almost immediately to shaking your bon bon). I rewatch the same movies so many times I'm amazed I ever watch new ones. But I do. And I watch a lot. So much so that I took a test on an e-mail or similar that had a list of several movies and made you check off the ones you've seen. I'd seen a fair percentage, probably 100 of the 150 or similar. At the end, it told me that my number meant I had no life. Thank you again, internet, but I think I know that.
  
  
  Now I'm rediscovering Muse after a month or two break, and I feel like Twilight might be next. Please stop me now.
  
  
  This past week, at the beach...
  
  
  I surfed!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  true, but I also read some James Bond novels ala Ian Fleming! yay!I forgot how enjoyable those books are. Unlike the movies, the plot is clearly spelled out and the point of view is third person omniscient, so the reader gets a view into the mind of 007. A few things about Bond you may not know:
  
  in the early books, he wants to marry just about every Bond girl, until one of them inevitably dies, leaving him scarred.


• he has a scar on his face. hot.


• he drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney


• in Thunderball, he goes to rehab


• he really doesn't enjoy killing or think it's cool, especially in cold blood (which he refuses to do).

that's about all. In the books, just as in the movies, he's a badass secret agent with a license to kill and a hot bod. He also is an impeccable dresser and usually wears a dark blue suit and NOT a tux. You can't live in such an outfit. Just ask Daniel Craig. That Bond knows how to wear a polo. or a cardigan. or a speedo...

The Lost Continent

I'm back. Now to business.

I've been reading a lot as I've been driving to and from New Orleans and Isle of Palms, and also spending a lot of downtime either on a beach, porch, or atop a mound of unmade bedclothes in the center of the chaotic den of mess that is my bedroom.

I finally finished Bill Bryson's first book: The Lost Continent. and thank goodness.

At the beginning of the summer, I devoured countless books of his; accounts of treks through the Appalachian wilderness or sunburnt Outback. When I began reading Lost Continent, I became slightly put off at his attitude, writing style and general view of the country he was exploring: small town America. At first I thought I had simply had too much Bill; this was the last book of his I was reading, as I had exhausted all the others in the used book store. Then I decided it was his position in life that made him sound different, annoying even. He was fresh from twenty years in England and back to his homeland to gripe about the changes since the 60s and the excessive number of spray cheese flavors. It was also his first novel. Maybe, I thought, he's just more charming as a self-deprecating, balding, old guy. However, my judgement early on began to affect how I was reading his book. My inner monologue became hostile towards him as he described the south as backwards and stupid (how original!) and frequently made up town names that show his general feelings on the area: "[it was] in some place like Firecracker, Georgia, or Bareassed, Alabama." This was dangerous. Once I make up my mind about something, it's hard to stay objective, and once I notice something, it tends to poke at me (like the frequency and consistency of my R.A. using the word 'um' while delivering the fire safety talk: "...and um, if you could um, just make sure you know um, how long to cook your um, popcorn, we'll um, avoid any um, annoying fire alarms. um. um. um."). So, naturally, I began to dislike this favorite author of mine line by line, comparison by comparison, state by state.

Many things that annoyed me I chucked up to being a sign of the times (published in the U.S. in 1989), like his relative lack of political correctness. Perhaps today we're just too restrictive of certain terms, but it still bothers me in any publication to hear Asians referred to as "orientals" or all of latinamericans summed up as Mexican. In Lost Continent, Bryson refers to a college student in the news as "a black." Not "a black person" but: "[the students] were a twenty two year old black from Mississippi...and two white guys from New York." Just doesn't sound right to me.

Bryson goes looking for the perfect small town to bring his British family to, or as he calls it 'Amalgam;' a mixture of all the perfect elements a small town can have that don't actually seem to exist in the same place. Basically he quests after the perfect pleasantville of Leave it to Beaver, or more currently, Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls. In the end, I know from reading his books he ends up living in New Hampshire near Dartmouth. However, in looking for perfection, all he really finds is hatred. His attitudes seem too polar. Either he LOVES something, or it is despicable trailer trash. I do like that he describes Charleston as "perfect" but ultimately decides he could never live there because it is in the South which means upon moving his entire family would become uneducated and start speaking at the rate of dripping molasses. to which i say >:P

Overall, I did not enjoy the book nearly as much as his others (I highly recommend I'm a Stranger Here Myself). I was so eager to write about it, I began keeping a notepad next to my bed to write ideas, or more often criticisms. Among these are bullets like

• more cursing


• less apology for drunkeness??

or "he disses the Smithsonian!"

I can't even rate it. You read it and tell me how you feel.