Booking Through Thursday

1. What are the last five books that you finished reading? Reply here
2. How long did it take you to read them? Reply here
3. Did you enjoy reading these books? Why or why not? Reply here

From most recent backwards:
1. Promethea III – 2 days. It was alright. I enjoyed it more than the last one, but less than the first one.

2. The Know-It-All: One Man’s Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World – a week. I did really like this. Very humorous.

3. Read or Die 2 – 2 days. Geez! What’s with all the cartoons lately? This was pretty good. Big mystery.

4. Eats, Shoots and Leaves – 4 days. This one was fun and informative.

5. High Fidelity – 5 days. Pretty much it’s just like the movie, so there were no surprises.

Due to the insane amount of spam I’ve had recently, I had to put up a character recognition dealy. Please do still comment. Hopefully, it will only deter the spambots and not my dear readers.

Ha! I did notice. Take that! I’ve been meaning to change the poll, but I couldn’t think of anything to ask. Thanks for taking over that job for yourself.

You guys gotta scroll down to my post called “Say Wha?…” because there’s this guy called Cam who has commented twice. At first he just criticized Motley Crue, which I can deal with. Not everybody feels the same way I do. I can handle that. Well, now he’s insulting me. It’s really hilarious. Feel free to go down there and read his comments and my responses and comment yourselves. If you’re having a bad day, it just might give you a lift to take it out on this poor guy.

I always said I would not put up spam filter stuff until I had to moderate more than 50 pieces of spam comment in one day.

Well, folks, I just moderated 108 pieces of spam. 108!!! And that just built up over the last 3 hours. I moderated a few this morning, too.

Michael, do your thing.

This is too funny! I stole it from a comment at Box of Books. Ella has a great advice series regarding the purchase, care, and storing of books. The most recent post was about buying a trashy romance novel for her friend.

Edited: Oh, of course, as soon as I say it’s the most recent post, she adds a new one. Sheesh! Anyway, it’s in there.

Michael bought Karaoke Revolution because the only video game I’d play with him is Tetris, and he got real sick of it. I told him I’d play KR if it came in. Sounded fun. I like to sing.

So we plugged it in Sunday evening. We sang our butts off until 1:00 am. We love this game! It’s sooo much fun. It’s better than regular karaoke. There’s sim-like characters and varying venues. And you don’t just get the words; it shows you the pitch and the length of the notes. You get judged on how well you stay on pitch. Also, there’s a crowd meter which gaudges the audience’s response to your performance. I’ve only been booed off the stage once! During Brick House. Did you know there are words to that song other than “She’s a brick house?”

I was reading someone’s blog, and now I can’t remember whose because I read so many, and Laura (that’s all I know about her is that her name is Laura) asked what books the blogger has had to read for book club that she was pleasantly surprised by. Laura or un-named blogger, if you’re here, wave and say howdy. Or just leave a comment.

So here’s your question: have you ever been “assigned” a book, for bookclub or class or whatever, which you weren’t terribly excited about reading, and ended up really liking it? What was it?

Discuss.

A few weeks ago, my dog found out she likes to ride in the car with her head hanging out the window. She is 7 years old, and the fact that it took her that long to figure it out should have been a signal that she’s not very bright, but I was oblivious. We began taking her with us to take my son to school. She would ride there and back and then happily go inside the house.

Today, we were late getting to school. There was a big storm last night and the kids were in our bed not sleeping, so he slept in, this morning. I let him. When I finally got him to school, I realized I wouldn’t have time to take the dog home before taking my daughter to her pre-school, so I decided to take her along. She was a big hit in the drop-off line at school. She wagged her tail and grinned at the people.

Then, half a mile from the school… she pooped in my car. Yup. Just hunched up right on the passenger seat. Did I mention she’s a 65 pound labrador-boxer mix? Not small poop. Oh, and also, she pooped in the yard before we left, so it’s not like I should have seen it coming.

After she dropped her load, she jumped in my lap. I was doing 40 down a major street with a giant dog in my lap. I pulled onto a side street and screamed at her. She jumped back in the passenger seat, stepping in the poop and smearing it all over. By this time, I’m nearly in tears. Then, she jumps into the back seat and steps all over the kids’ car seats. Can you say rage? I had to call Marie at work and ask her to talk me off the ledge.

I went home and used the last of the carpet cleaner on the front seat, and tried to clean the rest of it with a damp rag. Not happening. I had to go to the store (in a stinky car) to buy more fabric cleaner. I spent an hour scrubbing the stains. The car no longer smells, but the stains are still there. So nasty.

She is currently hanging out in the garage waiting for Michael to bring her in for a bath and a severe talking-to. I expect he’ll call her all sorts of names whilst her scrubs. I’m convinced that he likes to give her baths because she hates them so much. Yeah, not a dog person.

Needless to say, her car rides have come to an abrupt halt. And I will be requiring alcohol shortly.

I love this. I like to look at the stats for my blog to see what search keyphrases people used to get to my site. I’ve had some great ones. My favorite one this time is this: “how does peeing feel for guys?”

Now, this is a genuine question, and one I’ve wondered for years. What I’m wondering is, what part of my blog caused a search engine to hit on that?

I’ve been a bad blogger. I haven’t been keeping up with reviewing the books I’ve read. I haven’t been keeping up with other people’s blogs. And I haven’t even turned on my computer since, what, Thursday? Sorry folks.

In answer to Denise’s question from the comments of my last post… I won’t read Lord of the Flies for the same reason I won’t watch boxing. I don’t enjoy witnessing people intentionally hurting each other. And these are children. No thanks. And I won’t read Dune, because it’s too big. Now, obviously I don’t have anything against big books in general, but I don’t really want to expend that kind of time and energy on a book I’m only lukewarm about even picking up. I’ve got way too many other books to read.

Right now, I’m grumpy and tired and sick of dealing with scheduling issues. Gaah! Sorry for the downer post.