Cubie's Confections

The Tudors Be Back!

2010-03-29T20:13:00.000-04:00

I just watched the first episode of the fourth (and *sob* FINAL) season of The Tudors on-line. When I went to this link, I clicked the WATCH button, then entered the code HABIT FORMING when prompted. You see, an email from Showtime made it out to be some sooper seekret VIP Insider code, but it turns out that all you have to do is go to Showtime's Tudor's page and watch it there.

On one hand, I can't wait to watch the full season, but on the other, I DO NOT WANT IT TO END!! It's so lush and addictive. Although there was one major problem with this first episode-- not enough Henry Cavill, dammit! And hooboyhowdy, that Catherine (or Kathryn) Howard (aka The King's mid-life toy) was just too damn stupid to live, or maybe it's just that she was just such a flighty teenage girl without a clue what was expected of her station. I mean, if I didn't already know what happens to her (and I checked Wikipedia just to make sure), I'd be HOPING it would happen!

And here's a sneak peek behind the scenes of the upcoming season:

*Sigh*
Damn that's good stuff.

The Runaway Paragraph

2010-03-16T00:14:00.000-04:00

Finishing up my Passionate Plumes books. About to start my Reader's Crown books. Working. Getting tax crappola together to lug down to the CPA. Working. Prom shopping (aka The Death March) with Demon Spawn #3. College visits, housing contracts, etc. with Demon Spawn #3 (more fun, more money, more joy). Working. Running Demon Spawn #4 back and forth to sports. Working. Running back and forth to and/or for my Mom. Working. Wasting a good chunk of today filling out my DABWAHA brackets (instead of working). Trying to convince Mr. QB that he WILL be going with me to see Garth in Vegas and I DO NOT CARE how much extra work that heaps on our employees at the store- it's only for 5 freakin' days and they will just have to deal with it, dammit (although he told me that he DOES need to get away... to a deserted tropical island... with Heather Locklear... who he'll hunt down every couple of days... note that he neglected to invite me). Working. Finally made up a grocery list last Sunday between loads of laundry, may even find time to take said grocery list to "My Happy Place" (/sarcasm) before the Demon Spawn (aka the Swarm of Locusts) are reduced to gnawing on frozen cookie dough for dinner (not that they think that's a particularly bad thing, you understand, but then there won't be any cookie dough left for ME, and THAT is a VERY bad thing). Working.

Oops, gotta go. My Josh is INSISTING that I need a relaxing massage. *sigh* Oh, the things I must endure to keep that man happy.

QB's February 2010 Quickies

2010-03-06T23:12:00.002-05:00

"So, read any good books lately?"
"What did you think of...?"

Here's my Quickie Reviews to answer to those questions. Click on the Links for more info.

The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley

Highland Pleasures, book 1

Category: Lava Cake - reads like warm Chocolate Lava Cake... à la Mode... sprinkled with nuts (A,A-)

Flame Height: 5.5" out of 9"

In our times, Ian would probably have been diagnosed as autistic as a child. But in the Victorian era, his father had him locked away in a brutal asylum. After inheriting the ducal seat upon their father's death, Ian's oldest brother demanded and received his release from the asylum. With his brothers' help, Ian then had to learn how to mimic "normal" human interaction without understanding or feeling it himself.

Look, I'll make my thoughts short and sweet on the story that unfolds-- loved Ian, loved Beth, loved Ian's family. Marvelously, beautifully unique story and characters.
Piquant Opines: KristieJ, Tracy, Karen Scott, Jill D, Dear Author-Janet, RT

Beyond the Night by Joss Ware

Awakening Heroes, book 1

Category: Peanut M&Ms - mmmm...devour... sigh... then reach for the next one. My daily dose of Insanity-B-Gone. (A-,B+,B)

Flame Height: 5" out of 9"

I normally wouldn't give a second glance to a post-apocalyptic SF romance- they are usually too bleak, depressing and hopeless- but I read somewhere that Joss Ware is another pen name for Colleen Gleason. Talk about extremes! From the Gardella Vampire Chronicles (aka Buffy Does Regency), to post-apocalyptic SF? I was intrigued. And you know what? I couldn't put it down! I've already bought the next book in the series.

A group of men go caving near Sedona Arizona in 2011. Something happens, and when they dig their way out, it's fifty years later, the world as they knew it has been destroyed, and they seem to have some special powers.

Besides the romance between one of these men, Dr. Elliott Drake, and one of the descendents of survivors, Jade, this book introduces us to a mysterious race of immortal beings and their zombie-like slaves. Did the Strangers have something to do with the destruction of civilization? Who or what are they? We DO find out in this first book, and I've got to say that I never saw THAT one coming! Can't wait to find out what's up with the blondes.

The hairs on the back of Joss Ware's neck should be permanently raised considering the cataclysmic events happening in spots around the world right now that eerily echo the events that happened in her 2011 reality.
Piquant Opines: Book Binge-Casee, Book Binge-Judith, Katiebabs-Kati, Stacy, RT

Queene of Light by Jennifer Armintrout

Lightworld/Darkworld, book 1

Category: Dark Chocolate - loved by some, just "meh" to me (C-,D+)

Flame Height: 2" out of 9"

This dark fantasy story SHOULD have worked, but it just felt too disjointed. I never figured out the difference between those in the Lightworld and those in the Darkworld- they ALL lived underground in dark, nasty subway tunnels. And why did they all hate each other? I never understood what kind of being Malachi (the male lead) was before he transformed into a... something (dunno what)... after touching Ayla. I didn't get how they went from mortal enemies to being, after a couple of brief encounters, twooly in luv and willing to give up everything for each other. I found it odd that poor, down-trodden, depressing Ayla suddenly decided she wanted to be Queen.

I REALLY couldn't understand, and REALLY found it odd that I slogged my way through this entire book hoping it would eventually make sense and get better.
Piquant Opines: RBTB-Amy, Feathered Quill, Night Owl, RT

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Th-th-that's all folks! Three, count 'em, THREE, whole books for the month of February. No, really, you may rise... It's truly not necessary to bow down in the face of my awesome book reading prowess.

Have you read any of these books? Feel free to review or link to a review in the comments. Even if you don't agree!

Classic Slash Trek

2010-03-04T12:10:00.001-05:00

Broke Trek: A Star Trek Brokeback Mountain Parody (thanks again to eGuiders)

Seriously laugh out loud campy and hi-lare-ee-ous. Wait'll you see the simulated buttsecksoring. But be warned that it's mildly NSFW.

Recipe for Sweet Beefcake Eyecandy

2010-03-01T12:06:00.000-05:00

Look at him, now back at me... I'm on a horse.

(Thanks to eGuiders)

Is there anyone out there that DOESN'T know what commercial I'm referring to? And to prove just how effective it is, is there anyone out there that doesn't know what PRODUCT it's shilling? (Um, okay, maybe I should qualify those questions and ask if there's anyone in the U.S. that hasn't seen it?)

Leo Laporte of TWiT Live interviewed the guys who created the ad to learn how it was made. Don't be intimidated by the length of this clip. Not only are the facts of its creation really interesting, but with heapin' helpings of sweet beefcake eyecandy, you won't even notice that much time passing.

And here's the short version they refer to in the above video. I hadn't seen this one.

I Haz a Giddee

2010-02-27T22:18:00.001-05:00

see more dog and puppy pictures

I'm finally going to go see Garth in concert! You've got no idea how much this means to me. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I'm going to start bawling happy tears when he walks out on that stage!

And my husband will be a total grump because A) He doesn't like Country music and B) I've always been straight-up with him about the fact that Garth is the only man I would ever leave him for (ignoring the fact that he's now married to Trisha, whose name I say in my head with the same inflections that Seinfield used to say "Hello Newman"). But we'll be kid-free and in Vegas, so Ima thinkin' I can find SOME creative way to exorcize da grumpeez outta him. *winkwink-nudgenudge*

Back in the early 90's I was mostly listening to Oldies and Classic Rock radio stations because there wasn't really much of anything new and exciting happening in Rock music and pretty much nothing worth listening to in Pop. I don't remember what year it was exactly, but around that same time, NBC aired that first Garth concert special. So I figured I'd tune in a see what this Garth guy was all about and... HOLY SHIT! What IS that?! I want more, More, MORE!

Naturally I went out and bought all the tapes I could get my hands on (yes I said TAPES- as in CASSETTES. Shut up. I had to work with what that MomMobile had.) and I loved every minute of them.

Later, his greatest hits CD, The Hits, ended up saving my sanity, and that's not hyperbole. My mother was staying with us for about 6 weeks after having back surgery. At the time, my two oldest kids were in 1st grade, demon spawn #3 was a demanding toddler, and #4 wasn't born yet. Because #3 was so demanding I was only working part time and had to do much of my work at home whenever she would let me or when my husband was home to watch her. So, add my demanding mother into the mix, and a husband who resented the way she treated me so that the tension between them made things worse, and really, there were days I was sure I was going to go bug-fucking nuts postal.

Only Garth's The Hits CD saved them all from Armageddon by Bevzilla. See my only escape was to go to the grocery store. So I'd go at night when it was dark and no one could see me. Then, after hurrying to get the groceries, I'd drive aimlessly around back roads singing to The Hits at the top of my lungs. Yeah, my singing would make your ears bleed, but at least singing along with Garth is easy enough that I didn't hurt myself trying. Anyway, after about an hour of that, I was always renewed and recharged and could go home and face the tension and pressure again for a few days until it built up enough that I needed to "get groceries" again.

And Garth also brought me, a rock fan, over to Country radio. I always liked Country Rock groups like Buffalo Springfield, Poco, The Eagles, but Country WESTERN? Nuh-uh, no way. Too twangy. Or it WAS, before the appearance of Garth, the rest of the "Class of '89", and many others they later influenced. And I've continued to be a Country fan, although lately I've found myself listening to Classic Rock a lot again (too many sound-alike girl singers, I think).

I always wanted to go see a Garth concert, but back when he was touring with that wild, kick-ass stage show, I just wasn't staying current with what was going on outside of home and work. So it never failed that, when he was playing in Cleveland or Pittsburgh, I wouldn't hear about it until weeks after the concerts were sold out.

So when it was announced that he would be playing at The Wynn Las Vegas in a small, intimate venue a few weekends a year, I knew I HAD to go. But I didn't bother to try the first quarter because I knew there would be little chance I'd get through. So I've been waiting for the next quarter sale dates to be announced.

Well Good News-Bad News. Good News- the tickets were going on sale this morning. Bad News- I'd be slogging around the slushy cold streets of Pittsburgh on a college visit with Demon Spawn #3 starting at 8 AM. NONONONONONO!

So I emailed ~~Demon~~ Angel Spawn #1 and asked her if she would try for me. I gave her the dates we could go, my Visa card number, and told her she had to pretend to be me because of the strict ticketing rules. I even told her she was my favorite.

Well, God Bless her, she was on the phone and online for over three hours, but she finally got through and got us two tickets! Did I mention that she's my favorite?

I still can't believe it. And I probably won't completely believe it until I'm sitting in the Encore theater and see him walk out. Thus the aforementioned happy tears will commence.

Nommin' Da Plumes

2010-02-26T22:23:00.001-05:00

I once again have the honor of being a first round judge for the Passionate Plumes, awarded by Passionate Ink, the erotic romance chapter of the Romance Writers of America (RWA). Winners will be announced at the Passionate Ink gathering at RWA's 30th Annual National Conference July 28-31, 2010 in Nashville, Tennessee.

As you know, my tired, old, baggy eyes aren't up to reading ebooks anymore. However, there are very few PP entries available in print. Last year I indicated a preference for print and well, let's just say I decided it was worth risking eyestrain in order to get a chance at a better selection this year.

So I've received 5 ebooks. ALL are paranormal this time (YEAH!)- one about the Sidhe, one vampire, one werewolf, one based on Greek mythology in a contemporary setting, and one based on psychic powers.

One's from Samhain so I have high hopes for it.

Two are from Loose Id who've placed something in their PDFs that blocks me from converting to LIT (a pox on them for that) which means I'll have to read them in PDF instead of MSReader; which means no saving my place, no bookmarks, no sticky notes, etc. Which means they better be good because I WILL be irritated!

Another book is from an epub I'm not familiar with. And the fifth is a cheesy sounding story from an epub that is known for its cheesiness. I'm trying to read that last one first to get it out of the way, but its constant scene jumping is irritating me to no end. Yowzer, is that Limburger I smell?

I do have to give kudos to Loose Id and Samhain for including the blurbs and series sequence right at the beginning of the ebooks. That is SUCH an appreciated convenience!

And since this year I will also be a judge for RomCon's The Readers' Crown™, AND since those books are due to be shipped next week, AND since it's my crunch time for work, don't expect to see me around much. I consider judging to be, not only an honor, but a responsibility I take seriously.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

And now because I'm still fantasizing about it and still hoping that once Microsoft releases its Windows Phone 7 Series (not that I'll give up my leetle pink Razr anytime soon) and HP releases its Slate, then maybe, just maybe, Microsoft will then turn to the release of what I consider to be Tech Pr0n, The Microsoft Courier.

You have no idea how much I'm lusting after this thing. I watch the supposedly "leaked" videos with as much intensity as some people watch internet porn. Seriously, who needs that oversized, underpowered, censored-to-all-hell-by-Big-Brother Apple iPad when you can have this. Man, this better not turn out to be vaporware. I'm still disappointed that Microsoft didn't announce this baby at CES last month.

Just look at it- the perfect size to fit in my purse; its got a clamshell book-like design so I can throw it in my purse without a cover; it uses finger touch or stylus (which I prefer); I can probably use MSReader for all my LIT ebooks, and I'm assuming that any ebook reading software for other formats that's available for Windows 7 will work on it; and... and... aw, hell, just watch the video pr0n:

*le sigh* Was it as good for you as it was for me?

2010 Audie Nominees Announced

2010-02-17T20:18:00.001-05:00

From The Audio Publishers Association (APA):

February 15, 2010

15th ANNUAL AUDIES® COMPETITION SHOWS STRENGTH OF AUDIO INDUSTRY
Winners to be Announced May 25 at The Museum of the City of New York

Princeton Junction, NJ – The Audio Publishers Association (APA) has announced nominations for its 2010 Audies competition, the only awards program in the United States devoted entirely to honoring spoken word entertainment. Winners will be announced at the Audies Gala on May 25, 2010, at The Museum of the City of New York in New York City.

Another record-breaking year with 1,056 titles entered, 2010 was a year of innovation for the competition. APA took the Audies into the 21st century and partnered with APA member, Audible, Inc., to distribute almost all titles for consideration digitally to judges. In years past, judges primarily received shipments of audiobooks on CDs and cassettes.

Finalists for the most prestigious awards, Distinguished Achievement in Production and Audiobook of the Year, will be announced in the spring. The Distinguished Achievement in Production award honors an audiobook that demonstrates excellence in all areas of production. The Audiobook of the Year award recognizes an audiobook that, through quality, innovation, marketing and sales, has had a significant impact on the industry. Other categories for the judges' consideration included Audio Drama, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Humor, Multi-Voiced Performance, Mystery, Romance, Spanish Language, Thriller/Suspense and many more.

“Each year the entries continue to grow in number and improve in quality and production,” said Janet Benson, APA President. “This is an encouraging indicator of the health of the audiobook industry. Also, such strong participation in the competition has allowed the association to plan for more widespread initiatives to ultimately help our member companies increase sales despite the challenging economic climate.”

Here's a few noteworthy (sez I) categories. Read the complete Nominee List PDF here.

AUDIO DRAMA
Focus on the Family Radio Theatre: The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, adapted by PaulMcCusker, Narrated by Andy Serkis and a full cast, Tyndale House
Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens, Narrated by Sir Ian McKellan and a full cast, BBC Audiobooks America
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett, Narrated by Michael Madsen, Sandra Oh, Edward Herrmann and a full cast, Blackstone Audio
The Rivalry, by Norman Corwin, Narrated by Paul Giamatti, James Gleason, Lily Rabe, David Strathairn and Shannon Cochran, L.A. Theatre Works
The Word of Promise® Audio Bible, Narrated by a full cast including Michael York, Richard Dreyfuss, Gary Sinise and others, Thomas Nelson Inc.
Holy celebrities, Batgirls! The list of narrators in that category reads like a Who's Who of Hollywood.

MYSTERY
Black Money, by Ross Macdonald, Narrated by Grover Gardner, Blackstone Audio
Devil in a Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley, Narrated by Michael Boatman, Audible, Inc.
The Dying Breed, by Declan Hughes, Narrated by Stanley Townsend, Isis Publishing
Revelation, by C.J. Sansom, Narrated by Steven Crossley, Recorded Books
The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1, by Arthur Conan Doyle, Narrated by Charlton Griffin, Audio Connoisseur
Hmmm. That Sherlock Holmes anthology sounds pretty good. Adding to wish list.

NARRATION BY THE AUTHOR or AUTHORS
Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs, HarperAudio
Kristin Chenoweth, A Little Bit Wicked, Oasis Audio
Neil Gaiman, Odd and the Frost Giants, HarperChildrensAudio
Tim Green, Baseball Great, HarperChildrensAudio
Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses, Simon & Schuster Audio

ROMANCE
Dark Slayer, by Christine Feehan, Narrated by Phil Gigante and Jane Brown, Brilliance Audio
The House on Tradd Street, by Karen White, Narrated by Aimée Bruneau, Listen & Live Audio
A Rogue of My Own, by Johanna Lindsey, Narrated by Rosalyn Landor, Brilliance Audio
The Untamed Bride, by Stephanie Laurens, Narrated by Simon Prebble, HarperAudio
What I Did for Love, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Narrated by Julia Gibson, HarperAudio
Yep, Phil G. was nominated again. BOO-YAH! The dual-reader format that he's been doing with Jane Brown for the Carpathian series has become my favorite narration style. He does all the men, she does all the women and they switch off on narration.
I've got The Untamed Bride here waiting until I finish my current Dresden. I'm looking forward to it. Simon Prebble's narration was excellent in Lauren's Devil's Bride.
A SEP audio book won a couple of years ago. I think she's a bit more "mainstream" and therefore garners more votes. Though I've never read/listened to one of hers, so I can't fairly judge.

SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY
Bellwether, by Connie Willis, narrated by Kate Reading, Blackstone Audio
The Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, Narrated by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer, Macmillan Audio
Kushiel's Dart, by Jacqueline Carey, Narrated by Anne Flosnik, Tantor Audio
Kushiel's Scion, by Jacqueline Carey, Narrated by Simon Vance, Tantor Audio
Podkayne of Mars, by Robert A. Heinlein, Narrated by Emily Janice Card, Blackstone Audio
Note to LissaNY: That's the Kushiel series I rec'd to you. Since they are so complex, I wasn't sure how easy they'd be to follow in audio, but the fact that they are nominated tells me they must work well.

SHORT STORIES/COLLECTIONS
Black Mask Audio Magazine Vol 1, by various authors, Narrated by a full cast, Blackstone Audio
The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1, by Arthur Conan Doyle, Narrated by Charlton Griffin, Audio Connoisseur
Just After Sunset, by Stephen King, Narrated by Stephen King, Jill Eikenberry, Holter Graham, George Guidall, Ron McLarty, Denis O’Hare and a full cast, Simon & Schuster Audio
Love Letters of Great Men, by Ursula Doyle, Narrated by Anton Lesser, Macmillan Audio
Nothing with Strings: NPR's Beloved Holiday Stories, by Bailey White, Narrated by Lorna Raver, Tantor Audio
Wow, the Holmes anthology is nominated in two categories; must buy/borrow.

About Audio Publishers Association (APA)
The Audio Publishers Association (APA) is a not-for-profit trade organization whose primary goals are to promote awareness of the audiobook industry, gather and disseminate industry statistics, encourage high production standards and represent the interests of audiobook publishers. Since 1986, the APA has worked to bring audio publishers together to increase interest in audiobooks. Please visit www.audiopub.org for more information.

We Dressed Up Our Barbies and Kens...

2010-02-11T19:15:00.000-05:00

...but apparently teh menz like to dress up their playthings too.

DapperDicks.com (via QueerClick) has an entire line of "designer wear for down there". WARNING: NSFW

I can't decide if my favorite is Pirate Hardwood (Yaaargh... Thar she blows!) or Stroker the Cowboy (YEE-HAH! Round 'em up and whip 'em out!) Coming soon (har) are Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Bone Yard.

So you say you need a last minute Valentine's present for your Mister and his Mr. Happy?

Happy 3rd Blogiversary to Me!

2010-02-11T16:38:00.001-05:00

PARTY

Yep, as of yesterday, this blog has existed for THREE YEARS!

Okay, yeah, I recently went on walkabout for a few months, but that wasn't my fault. No really. In addition to just not having TIME to blog (hence this day-late post), the fact is that I really didn't have much to say. I KNOW... ME with nothing to say! What's up with THAT?!

But I think what started it was a string of favorite authors/series with less than stellar, or disappointing, or in some cases flat-out AWFUL books. That snowballed into a reading slump where most books I picked up just seemed like too much of a commitment. You wouldn't believe all the books scattered all around here where I read the first few pages, sighed, and sat it down because I just didn't feel like committing to the time required to read it. And when I DID decide a book was worth reading, it took me DAYS of start/stop reading to finish it! Really, I think I read more books in January than I I have in TOTAL over the past few months.

I'm debating whether to do a blog post/series of blog posts about the let downs. Try to exorcize the bad-read mojo by purging all my negative thoughts at once. I dunno, is it bad sportsmanship to only post negative reviews?

One of the scary things is that, even though I've eagerly devoured books by these authors in the past, once I hit these disappointing books, in many cases I haven't been able to read any other books in these series. Kind of like when you eat a favorite meal over and over again- can't get enough of it- but then that one time, the flu hit soon after eating your favorite. The next time you start to eat that favorite meal again, you can't help but think of all the swirling chunky bits you ralphed into the toilet bowl the last time you ate it.

QB's January 2010 Quickies, Part II

2010-02-08T19:36:00.003-05:00

"So, read any good books lately?"
"What did you think of...?"

Here's my Quickie Reviews to answer to those questions. Click on the Links for more info.

Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn

Kitty Norville Book 7

See INDEX for previous books.

Category: Lava Cake - reads like warm Chocolate Lava Cake... à la Mode... sprinkled with nuts (A,A-)

Flame Height: 2" out of 9"

Talk radio host and werewolf Kitty agrees to participate in a reality show along with other shapeshifters, vampires, and psychics. Filming in an isolated location starts off pretty much as Kitty anticipated, but then things suddenly start to go alarmingly wrong. The participants are being hunted. Some die.

The best Kitty 2.0 story yet (Kitty Takes a Holiday is still my favorite Kitty 1.0, or pre-alpha, story). If you read this without reading the previous Kitty books, you probably won't quite understand why I enjoyed this so much more than many other Urban Fantasies.
Piquant Opines: Fresh Fiction, Nights and Weekends, RT

The Magic Knot by Helen Scott Taylor

Magic Knot series Book 1

The Phoenix Charm

Magic Knot series Book 2

Category: Peanut M&Ms - mmmm...devour... sigh... then reach for the next one. My daily dose of Insanity-B-Gone. (A-,B+,B)
Flame Height: 5.8" out of 9"

This fantasy romance series caught my attention with the recent release of book 2. So being the OCD Reader that I am, I bought book 1, which won the American Title IV contest.

I'm SO glad I did! Set in present day Cornwall with side trips to Ireland and Wales, some of the fae live secretly among humans, while others still live within the faery realms. You know, I'm pretty sure Taylor has even found a way to enchant the ink in these magical stories. There has to be some geis at work because, once the covers are opened, it's impossible to close them until the final page is read. And before I closed the cover on book 1, I was ordering book 2 from Amazon (Yeah for 2-day Prime!).

Just when I was sure I knew what happened next-- because I could see THOSE romance tropes coming from a mile away-- damned if Taylor didn't make a sharp turn nearly every time and gleefully skip away from the expected. (Spoiler hint: not all heroes have magic peens, and troo lurve doesn't always save the day- nor does it keep heroines from admiring other bits of sweet beefcake mancandy!)

This series may end up in my Lava Cake category eventually. There's still a few unanswered questions that kind of puzzled me. Some may be answered when/if Nightshade gets his own book (pretty please?). But I'm afraid that the mystery of how Rose's mother managed to escape with all the things she escaped with (can't say more) will remain unsolved for the reader. And why didn't Michael and Niall's father bother telling either of them the truths about themselves? Of course we may find out more about him someday in HIS own book, too. Oh, and I was disappointed that we never heard from Niall and Rose (from book 1) throughout the entire 2nd book. Considering what they left behind under Michael and Cordelia's care, I just didn't find it plausible that they wouldn't be checking in or rushing back.

But you know what? Set those questions aside for right now. Just sit back and enjoy taking the fun, magical ride that is The Magic Knot series.
Piquant Opines: The Book Smugglers, RT, RT, TRS

Call of the Highland Moon by Kendra Leigh Castle

The MacInnes Werewolves Trilogy, book 1

Category: M&Ms - a bit lighter and/or not quite as satisfying as Peanut M&Ms, but still Oh-So-Enjoyable! (B,B-,C+,C)

Flame Height: 5" out of 9"

Contemporary Highland werewolf Gideon MacInnes goes for a walkabout in America before he settles down to become his pack's Alpha. When injured, his wolfie senses lead him to his mate, Carly Silver, an American who owns a Romance bookstore. A light, entertaining read. Kind of fell apart a bit at the end. I'm disappointed that the next books in the series don't pair up Gideon's hound-dawg (har) brother and Carly's spunky best friend. They were both almost more interesting than the lead characters.

Piquant Opines: KristieJ, Ruthie (warning: auto-music), Bitten By Books

Shadowfae by Erica Hayes

The Chronicles, book 1

Category: Coconut Truffles - SO not for me! (D,D-,F)

Flame Height: 1" out of 9"

Most of my DNFs (Did Not Finish) books are the result of setting books down and intending to pick them back up, but losing interest and never getting around to finishing them (unfortunately, there's been a LOT of those lately). Not so with Shadowfae. I literally FORCED myself to give this book a chance since I had been eagerly looking forward to it and had even placed it on my Insatiable Lusts Wish List! The blurb sounded soo good. But by the end of Chapter 8, I honestly said out loud, "Enough of THIS! I've wasted enough of my time on it."

I knew this was going to be a difficult read fairly early in the book. The lead character, Jade, is written in 1st person past tense. Then, for no apparent reason, Hayes writes all the other characters in 3rd person PRESENT tense. Now I'm not a big fan of present tense anyway, but it can be used quite effectively to convey a sense of menace- think of a Linda Howard villian's POV. But all Shadowfae's tense shifting accomplished was jolting me right out of the book.

Add in a whole lot of drooling blood, poison spit swapping, and other gross-outs; then consider the fact that none of the characters or their lives were particularly likeable, and this story was just flat-out not my cuppa. It might work for someone else, but just pushed too many of my "Do Not Want" buttons.
Piquant Opines: KatieBabs, SciFiGuy, NOR, RT,

Have you read any of these books? Feel free to review or link to a review in the comments. Even if you don't agree!

Grrr, what is wrong with Google Reader? My first searches for Piquant Opines always start there. But for some reason searching ALL subscriptions doesn't always work. For instance, when I searched on "The Magic Knot", there were no review hits (just mentions and contests) within my subscriptions. Yet Helen Scott Taylor's website mentions a review by The Book Smugglers. Sure enough, when I searched ONLY their feed, the review came up, but it SHOULD have hit when I searched ALL FEEDS. So, if I missed linking to someone, please let me know.

QB's January 2010 Quickies, Part I

2010-02-08T14:29:00.002-05:00

"So, read any good books lately?"
"What did you think of...?"

Here's my Quickie Reviews to answer to those questions. Click on the Links for more info.

A Love For All Time by Bertrice Small
Sky O'Malley series, book 3

Category: Lava Cake - reads like warm Chocolate Lava Cake... à la Mode... sprinkled with nuts (A,A-)
Flame Height: 6" out of 9"

For years, this 3rd book in The O'Malley Saga (copyright 1986, but I've seen references to a 1981 release date) was unavailable except for expensive used copies. So you might imagine how thrilled I was to FINALLY complete my set with this reprint.

This one is about Skye's youngest brother, Conn, a charming Irishman considered to be "the handsomest man at court" and a particular favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. After he causes one too many scandals, Queen Bess marries him off to one of her wards, the relatively plain-faced heiress Aiden St. Michael.

The story that unfolds is vintage Small (yes, kidnapping and harems are involved). The only reason this one isn't Crème Brûlée like the rest of the series, is because, since the male lead is Skye's brother, we know going into it that he won't meet an unexpected early death. LOL, yeah, sounds bloodthirsty, but one of the myriad reasons I love Ms. Small so much is that I never know which man will be the ultimate survivor who wins the HEA with the heroine.
Piquant Opines: shira.net, AAR, allreaders

Wicked Enchantment by Anya Bast

Dark Magick series, book 1

Category: Peanut M&Ms - mmmm...devour... sigh... then reach for the next one. My daily dose of Insanity-B-Gone. (A-,B+,B)

Flame Height: 5" out of 9"

Wicked Enchantment definitely lands solidly in the ROMANCE genre, but its DARK FANTASY elements are what attracted me to it. Back in the 1600's, the fae were decimated by Watt Syndrome, an illness that may or may not have been magically created by a race of druids known as the Phaendir. Taking advantage of the fae's weakened state, the Phaendir teamed up with humans to hunt down and imprison the remaining fae within a magical warding. This warded zone, Piefferburg, is still in existence today; its warding maintained by a sort of collective hive of magic within the Phaendir. Through Phaendir-guarded trade with humans, the high ranking fae are now fairly wealthy, but nonetheless remain prisoners within this area around the North Carolina Outer Banks. On a humorous note, how hilariously appropriate is it that the humans would have a camera crew inside the Seelie court filming a 24 hour a day reality show called FAEMOUS?

That's the basic background of the world building. Apparently the series will delve into a quest to find the elements needed to break the Phaendir's warding of Piefferburg and be a free race again. In this book, one of the pieces had already been found which, as I recently found out, is Bella and Ronan's story, a novella-length prequel in the Hot for the Holidays anthology (I've since bought it but haven't read it yet). During the course of Wicked Enchantment we find out another crucial element has been in the possession of Aislinn, who had no idea what it was.

In addition to a fresh take on fae myths and unique world building, this book centers on Aislinn, who is a high ranking member of the Seelie court, and Gabriel, an important member of the Unseelie court, and his attempts to persuade her over to "the dark side". Lots of twists, turns and surprises made this a very engrossing, fast-paced read.

Having said all that, I personally would have preferred a bit more of an in-depth/extended look into the fae politics, but that's just my personal preference. However, I have to give Bast extra credit for just how much detail and imagination she was able to include within the framework of a romance (as opposed to an urban/dark fantasy).

I would say that if you enjoy Richele Mead's DARK SWAN series, Laurell Hamilton's MERRY GENTRY series, or the later books in Karen Marie Moning's HIGHLANDERS series, then Anya Bast's DARK MAGICK series might just be the new series you've been waiting for.
Piquant Opines: Book Chick City, Literary Escapism, The Book Lush

Unfallen Dead by Mark Del Franco

Conner Grey Book 3

Unperfect Souls

Conner Grey Book 4

See INDEX for previous books.

Category: Peanut M&Ms - mmmm...devour... sigh... then reach for the next one. My daily dose of Insanity-B-Gone. (A-,B+,B)

Flame Height: 2" out of 9"

Del Franco has really hit his stride with this urban fantasy/dark fantasy series as he delves deeper into Fae politics, mysteries, and intrigue.

Now that I've been listening to the audio books of Jim Butcher's Dresden series, I can say that fans of that series will enjoy the Conner Grey series. They have a similar feel and voice, however Del Franco's stories and world building are unique to Conner Grey's world.

Note that book 4 was a January read, but I read book 3 a while back.

P.S to the author: Mark... Dude, ya need to fix your website. Your Conner Grey links are not only not useful (where's the blurbs?), but some of them are fucked up.
Piquant Opines: Green Man Review, RT, Book Fetish, RT, BotM, Jennifer/Goodreads, Goodreads (all)

Fireflies by Ally Blue

Category: M&Ms - a bit lighter and/or not quite as satisfying as Peanut M&Ms, but still Oh-So-Enjoyable! (B,B-,C+,C)

Flame Height: 6" out of 9"

It was the beautiful, ethereal cover by Anne Cain that first drew my attention. For that alone, Fireflies was worth the price of a print copy. But Joey and Braeden's story, while not quite as substantial as I would have liked, was a lovely time spent within a charming faery tale.

Piquant Opines: Jessewave, Uniquely Pleasurable, Mrs. Giggles

Have you read any of these books? Feel free to review or link to a review in the comments. Even if you don't agree!

I Look FA-A-Bulous...

2010-02-06T18:19:00.001-05:00

...thanks to RuPaul's Drag Race Dragulator (via EW.com). Miss Tipsie Belmont is absolutely Fierce on Stilettos, don't ya think?

And my blog has now had a bit of a makeover too. Nothing major, just less work because I decided to let my Amazon Wish Lists do most of my sidebar work for me. I also added a couple of new pics of chocolatey goodness.

Yep, I'm reviving this poor old lifeless blog. Oh, I may not post as often as I used to, but I WILL post. In fact, thanks again to my Amazon Wish Lists, I am actually working up a post on my January reads. I'll probably never review my whole backlog, maybe a few here and there, but I can start up fresh with January and proceed from there.

Now, if only I can remember what little HTML I used to know.

Now THIS is news...

2010-01-20T12:07:00.006-05:00

... worth blogging about!

According to EW.com's Michael Ausiello, in the upcoming season of HBO's True Blood, Bill (Stephen Moyer, left) and Sam (Sam Trammell, right) "will forge 'not just any connection, [but] an erotic connection.'”

My bet is that, like Sookie with Eric (so far), it won't go any further than Sam having erotic dreams of Bill because he drank Bill's blood. But BOO-YAH!

The only thing hotter would be me and Eric steaming up the sheets. Okay, so that would undoubtedly not be hotter for any of YOU, in fact, you'd probably castrate, sew-it-up, or otherwise personally mame yourself into permanent celibacy. But hey, I'm a fashionista in Charlaine Harris' fictional world (Dead and Gone), so I could always declare myself to be fictionally HOT too, right?

Oh, btw, I've had to turn comment moderation on because I have a couple of persistant spammers/asswipes who have discovered this blog. What a fruitless waste of time. Get a life cuz I ain't clicking on, buyin' from, or friendin' the likes of you scumquats.

On My Short List...

2009-07-14T19:47:00.003-04:00

...of Most Entertaining Commercials Evah!

Thanks to eGuiders' Newsletter for the Heads-Up!

BTW, yes, I'm still alive, just never time to blog and seldom time to blog visit. As much as I love Summertime, it will be nice if/when I get the house back to myself someday.

2009 Audie Award Winners!

2009-05-30T18:08:00.002-04:00

I promise a nice, long chatty post later about what I've been doing during my Blogosphere Break, but first I have to say that, in addition to being a bad blogger, I also really suck as a fangirl. If it wasn't for an email from Phil G today (SQUEE!), who knows when I would have remembered to check the results of last nights Audie Awards! DOH!

Anyway, note the winner in the Romance book category-- uh-huh, that's right, Mr. Eargasm himself, Phil Gigante, for his brilliant ~~narration~~ performance of Karen Marie Moning's The Dark Highlander (the one with Dageus MacKeltar and Chloe Zanders)!!

Although, as I've said before, they really should have created a whole new Series Narration category so he could win that one too. Right along with Johanna Parker. Oh, have I mentioned that I'm a Phil G. fangirl? Hmmm... I might have had a thing or two to say about him here and here, here, here, here, and here, oh and here, here, here, and here.

As an audio book enthusiast (and in the interest of fairness), I want to congratulate ALL the deserving nominees. But really, there can't be too many other narrators that have fangirl groupies swooning over them, can there?

Here's a few of the categories and winners. For the complete list, go to The Audio Publisher's Association (APA) site (which should have them posted soon) or, as I did, go to AudioFile Magazine's Audies page.

CHILDREN’S TITLES FOR AGES 8-12
The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden, Narrated by Tony Shalhoub, Macmillan Audio
Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine, Narrated by Sarah Naughton and a full cast, Full Cast Audio
WINNER: The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, Narrated by Neil Gaiman, HarperAudio
One-Handed Catch, by M.J. Auch, Narrated by Ryan Sparkes and a full cast, Full Cast Audio
Nation, by Terry Pratchett, Narrated by Stephen Briggs, HarperAudio

CLASSIC
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, Narrated by Grover Gardner, Blackstone Audio,Inc.
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, Narrated by John Lee, Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut, Narrated by Jonathan Davis, Audible, Inc.
WINNER: Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, Narrated by Simon Vance, Tantor Media
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, Narrated by Simon Vance, Blackstone Audio, Inc.

HISTORY
The Bloody Shirt, by Stephen Budiansky, Narrated by Phil Gigante, Brilliance Audio
WINNER: Gandhi and Churchill, by Arthur Herman, Narrated by John Curless, Recorded Books
The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea – The Forgotten War of the South Pacific, by James Campbell, Narrated by Stephen Hoye, Tantor Media
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, by Annette Gordon-Reed, Narrated by Karen White, Tantor Media
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, by Mark Harris, Narrated by Lloyd James, Tantor Media

MULTI–VOICED PERFORMANCE
Family Audio Bible, Narrated by Dick Cavett, Marsha Mason, Andrew McCarthy, Martha Plimpton and Tom Wopat, HarperAudio
WINNER: Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan, Narrated by Joey Collins, Peter Jay Fernandez, Kate Forbes, Ezra Knight, Brenday Pressley and Tom Stechschulte, Recorded Books
The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich, Narrated by Peter Francis James and Kathleen McInerney, HarperAudio
The Word of Promise®: Next Generation-New Testament, by Various Authors, Narrated by Sean Astin and a full cast including Codey Linley, AnnaSophia Robb and Jordin Sparks, Thomas Nelson, Inc

MYSTERY
A Killing Frost, by R. D. Wingfield, Narrated by Stephen Thorne, Ulverscroft Group Ltd
Cross, by Ken Bruen, Narrated by Gerry O'Brien, Ulverscroft Group Ltd
The Silver Swan, by Benjamin Black, Narrated by Timothy Dalton, Macmillan Audio
Swan Peak, by James Lee Burke, Narrated by Will Patton, Simon & Schuster Audio
WINNER: Voice of the Violin, by Andrea Camilleri, Narrated by Grover Gardner, Blackstone Audio, Inc.

NARRATION BY THE AUTHOR or AUTHORS
Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter, Random House Audio
Joshilyn Jackson, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Hachette Audio
Cokie Roberts, Ladies of Liberty, HarperAudio
WINNER: David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Hachette Audio
Maria Shriver, Just Who Will You Be? HyperionAudio

POLITICS — JUDGES AWARD
Descent into Chaos, by Ahmed Rashid, Narrated by Arthur Morey, Brilliance Audio
WINNER: Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman, Narrated by Oliver Wyman, Macmillan Audio
Mike's Election Guide, by Michael Moore, Narrated by Michael Moore, Hachette Audio
The War Within, by Bob Woodward, Narrated by Boyd Gaines, Simon & Schuster Audio
The Way of the World, by Ron Suskind, Narrated by Alan Sklar, HarperAudio

ROMANCE
WINNER: The Dark Highlander, by Karen Marie Moning, Narrated by Phil Gigante, Brilliance Audio
Fire Me Up, by Katie MacAlister, Narrated by Barbara Rosenblat, Recorded Books
Forbidden, by Suzanne Brockmann, Narrated by Traci Svensgaard, Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Mismatch, by Tami Hoag, Narrated by Jen Taylor, BBC Audiobooks America
Tribute, by Nora Roberts, Narrated by Jennifer Van Dyck, Brilliance Audio

SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY
WINNER: Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer, Narrated by Jonathan Davis, Audible, Inc.
Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke, Narrated by Eric Michael Summerer, Audible, Inc.
Ghost Radio, by Leopoldo Gout, Narrated by Pedro Pascal, HarperAudio
Skybreaker, by Kenneth Oppel, Narrated by David Kelly, Full Cast Audio
Sunrise Alley, by Catherine Asaro, Narrated by Hillary Huber, Blackstone Audio, Inc.

TEENS
Burn Journals, by Brent Runyon, Narrated by Christopher Evan Welch, Recorded Books
The Compound, by S. A. Bodeen, Narrated by Christopher Lane, Brilliance Audio
WINNER: Curse of the Blue Tattoo, by L.A. Meyer, Narrated by Katherine Kellgren, Listen & Live Audio
Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine, Narrated by Sarah Naughton, Full Cast Audio
Paper Towns, by John Green, Narrated by Dan John Miller, Brilliance Audio
The Uprising, by Margaret P. Haddix, Narrated by Suzanne Toren, Recorded Books

THRILLER/SUSPENSE
Blue Heaven, by C.J. Box, Narrated by John Bedford Lloyd, Macmillan Audio
WINNER: Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith, Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris, Hachette Audio
Executive Privilege, by Phillip Margolin, Narrated by Jonathan Davis, HarperAudio
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, Narrated by Neil Gaiman, HarperAudio
Sweetheart, by Chelsea Cain, Narrated by Carolyn McCormick, Macmillan Audio

AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini, read by Gerard Doyle, published by Listening Library
WINNER: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, read by the author, published by HarperAudio
A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father by Augusten Burroughs, read by the author, published by Macmillan Audio

Distinguished Achievement in Production
WINNER: Curse of the Blue Tattoo by L.A. Meyer, read by Katherine Kellgren, published by Listen & Live Audio
Fairest by Gail Carson Levine, read by Sarah Naughton and a full cast, published by Full Cast Audio
Many Things Invisible by Carrington MacDuffie, read by the author, published by Blackstone Audio
The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer by various authors, read by Stacy Keach and a full cast, published by Blackstone Audio
Louis Vuitton Soundwalk: Shanghai read by Joan Chen, published by Soundwalk

About Audio Publishers Association (APA)

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) is a not-for-profit trade organization whose primary goals are to promote awareness of the audiobook industry, gather and disseminate industry statistics, encourage high production standards and represent the interests of audiobook publishers. Since 1986, the APA has worked to bring audio publishers together to increase interest in audiobooks. Please visit www.audiopub.org for more information.

Just Sayin'...

2009-05-08T20:45:00.001-04:00

You can imagine my reaction when I received this from Charlaine... so, um... are your ears are still ringing from The Fangirl Squee Heard 'Round the World? **

** Confused? Click here.

WINNER Blue Diablo Contest

2009-04-22T19:18:00.003-04:00

Ann Aguirre - Blue Diablo, Corine Solomon book 1

And the winner is...

KRISTEN

Contact azteclady1 at gmail dot com ASAP with your physical address so she can mail your book. CONGRATS!

It's a Wrap: Ann Aguirre's Reader Blog Tour and Contest

2009-04-20T00:01:00.007-04:00

Ann Aguirre - Blue Diablo, Corine Solomon book 1

Yes, that's right, in between her world travels and calls to the gas company, Ann Aguirre has been doing a whirlwind Reader Blog Tour that ends right here before she jets off to RT Con in Orlando.

Ah well, last week I finally gave up and cancelled my hotel reservations for RT Con (I had reserved suites at two different hotels just in case I ended up going). So, since I won't be meeting Ann in person after all (or you either, AZL), I'm at least lucky enough that she's stopping by today to share a bit of warm Chocolate Lava Cake... à la Mode... sprinkled with nuts (Yep, it's that good).

Read on to find out how you can also be lucky enough to enjoy a copy of Ann's urban fantasy, Blue Diablo, or if you've already read it, watch for Ann's alternate prize.

But first, Ann dishes about Corine's sex life (note Ann's casting choices that I want to disagree with SO badly)...

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By now, many of you will have read Blue Diablo. (If you haven´t, what are you waiting for?!) That means I can discuss the book in a bit more detail than I have done previously in the tour. Yippee!

Since this is Bev´s blog, I´m going to talk about sex and relationships, or vice versa, maybe. [Bev: Whatever could you mean? ::bats eyes innocently::] In Blue Diablo, I explore the trope of lovers reunited or star-crossed lovers, if you will. That´s Corine and Chance.

She broke up with Chance eighteen months before the start of the book, believing he didn´t love her as much as she loved him. She felt as if he only maintained a relationship with her because it was convenient, and he wanted to profit from her gift. So she left him in the middle of the night, after an accident that nearly cost her life.

Chance represents many things to Corine: adventure, danger, excitement, potent sexual attraction. Blogger Katiebabs did a great job of describing him, in fact. Let me quote her briefly: ¨Chance is that seductive type of guy a woman would do anything for... a slick guy...¨

YA author Stacey Klemstein, also known as Stacey Kade, had the following to say about the book: ¨It was so REFRESHING to read something different but still an urban fantasy, if that makes sense. Also? Chance is HOT. His ability in particular or his luck, however you phrase it, was particularly intriguing because it was like nothing I'd ever heard of before. I'm totally 100% Chance. I like Jesse, too, don't get me wrong, and he's probably a better long term relationship choice, but...I have a thing for bad boys. Not that Chance is bad exactly, just more dangerous somehow.

I LOVE that about these characters too. Corine's gift is a gift but it hurts her and leaves her with physical marks. That, too, is something I'd never read before. And Chance is dangerous, not because you could get your heart stomped on, which is the usual kind of danger, but with his luck, you could end up being a victim. Basically, loving him could kill you.¨

She has totally hit the nail on the head, regarding the conflict inherent in their relationship. It´s not just that they have communication and trust issues (and they do). There are also real concerns about his gift. He nearly got Corine killed once before because of his luck, and it doesn´t have an off button. (You´ll need to read it to understand, and if you´ve already read it, good for you!)

As for Jesse, he represents safety and securty, home and earth. With Jesse Saldana, Corine could realize her dream of being normal, marrying into a family of ¨Gifted¨ humans, who have known about their abilities for many generations. She would have extended family, inlaws, cousins. This is stability. He represents everything she´s ever wanted. But is that what she wants, really? Should she make the safe choice?

Chance, on the other hand, has only secrets he hasn´t shared, including his real name and the identity of his father. He has a mother who is nearly as mysterious as he is, but with him, Corine will never have the sense of community and belonging she so fiercely desires. Is passion enough? Chance also has difficulty communicating and suffers from an inability to give of himself fully. In Blue Diablo, we see him struggle with that, and we see Corine´s reaction to his failure to meet her needs. But he loves her, desperately. It´s intense and bittersweet and heartbreaking at times.

As for sex, that will be handled differently in this series. Corine is a highly sexual woman, but she has enjoyed a series of one-night stands in Mexico, men she didn´t bother to get to know, and who fulfilled a physical need but not her emotional ones. Before she gives of herself again, she wants to know she´s found the person she can build a life with. That means she won´t be jumping in and out of bed, however much she may want to. No spur of the moment flings. She wants it to mean something, this time. She wants to be sure. That means there will be massive sexual tension before this thing is resolved and her heart is won.

Readers are asking me who she will choose. I honestly don´t know. A few them are surprising me by naming Kel or Booke as possible love interests. Well, I never intended that, but I honestly don´t know how her story ends. That´s part of the joy in writing: finding out.

What do you guys think? I invite you to speculate on who she might end up with and argue for your favorite. If you haven´t read it, you can pick someone at random. A random commenter will win a copy of Blue Diablo (if the winner hasn´t read it yet.) If the winner has read it, I´ll buy them any paperback they want that also costs $6.99.

And chat on!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Contest Rules:
Leave a comment INCLUDING YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS to have a chance at winning.

Contest lasts 24 hours and the winner will be randomly selected and announced here on this post tomorrow. Winner will also be contacted via email, and a valid email address must be provided for the comment to be entered in the giveaway. Good luck!!

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Thank for visiting, Ann, and thanks to the wild and glue-crazed Azteclady for arranging your visit. For what it's worth, I'm not sure who I think Corine should end up with (although, based on your casting pics, Jesse wins hands-down). You've left everything so deliciously open-ended. You gave us enough resolution to be satisfied for now, but I can't wait for Corine to let me back into her world. So, how long DO we have to wait anyhow?!

A Few of My Favorite Things

2009-04-07T20:06:00.006-04:00

No raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, just a few things that have given me Teh Happy lately:

Ann Aguirre - Blue Diablo, Corine Solomon book 1

Category: Lava Cake - reads like warm Chocolate Lava Cake... à la Mode... sprinkled with nuts (A,A-)
Flame Height: 3.5" out of 9"

Today is the offical release date for Ann Aguirre's Blue Diablo. Yes, I read the eArc, but this one's a keeper and I'll be buying the print too.

In case you haven't seen it yet, head over to Ann Aguirre's site to download her April newsletter (or you can join her Google group to read it). Why? Because AztecLady, who creates the newsletter, was apparently crafting with some of Tracy's glue and asked me to contribute a short piece on Urban Fantasy heroines.

Here's the section of that article that pertains specifically to Blue Diablo (quoting myself. heh.):

You know how you’ll often hear a guy referred to as “a man’s man”? Well Corine is “a woman’s woman” that I couldn’t help but identify and empathize with.

Ann has given us a heroine who’s more BFF than avatar. She’ll have your back in a bar fight; but she won’t be bailing you out of jail because she’ll drag your butt out from under the bar and through the window before the cops ever get there. She loves food, drinks, and damns her hips. Corine sometimes has to bite her tongue to hold back inappropriate comments, and sometimes she doesn’t bother to hold back. She gets horny and gets satisfied, whether alone or with someone else—unless she’s denying herself to prove a point. She unabashedly appreciates a nice helping of eye candy. And, oh yeah, she also happens to possess a few paranormal gifts that have kept her on the run most of her life and get her involved with other not-quite-normal characters. Those other characters include her ex-boyfriend, Chance, who’s complicating her life again, but still needs to prove to Corine that he’s not just offering lip service (in more ways than one).

Within just a few moments of meeting Corine I eagerly followed her away from my world and into hers. Is there anything better than feeling reality slip away as you settle into a great book? Blue Diablo reminded me why I love to read, and Corine reminded me why I love to read Ann Aguirre’s characters.

Really, I could go on and on about Ann's new type of Urban Fantasy heroine but that quote pretty much sums up why Blue Diablo really is as nummy as "warm Chocolate Lava Cake... à la Mode... sprinkled with nuts".

Read more about it here. And while you're on Ann's Site, check out her blog's sidebar to see all the stops in her Blue Diablo blog tour- she'll be here on April 20th. She's giving a copy of Blue Diablo away at each stop of the tour!

Piquant Opines: Book Smugglers, Darque Reviews, Rosie, Katiebabs, RT

Have you read this book? Feel free to review or link to a review in the comments. Even if you don't agree!

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American Idol- or more specifically, Adam Lambert (at right in pic) and his opening acts Kris Allen (left), and Allison Iraheta (center). Okay, I'll add Matt Giraud in 4th place, but I think Danny Gokey and Lil Rounds are overrated and not unique enough. Same goes for Anoop Desaii, but I never did get Scott MacIntyre's appeal. Alexis Grace should have been part of my top 4 or 5.

However Adam is the one I wait for each week, the rest just entertain me while I'm waiting to see what he'll do next. The term "gifted" gets thrown around way too often, but this kid truly does possess a gift. What I find hilarious is the non-scandal that occurred when he was "outted" (can you out someone who's already out?). Straight men do NOT sing Cher songs! DUH! Nothing shocking going on here people, move along.

The best way to describe his voice is that he's the luv child that resulted when Steven Tyler, Sam Harris, and Freddy Mercury got together and gang-inseminated a drag queen Liza Minelli impersonator. Yeah, sometimes he's over the top (an Indian influenced Ring of Fire, Adam? Seriously?! Holy Shit, Dude!). But what a gift he has! This kind of singer rarely comes along. And when he reigns it in and keeps complete control of his gift, the results can be unforgettably brilliant (although I'm not too crazy about the Elvis/Dean Cain look instead of his edgier look):

What's odd though is that the iTunes downloadable studio version is overproduced instead of haunting and stripped down like he did it live. My guess is that he was allowed more control over the live version.

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Season 3 of The Tudors on Showtime- although it's scheduled rather oddly since the promoted episodes are available On-Demand about a week EARLIER than the promotion date. So, even though the the first episode of season 3 just aired this past Sunday, I've already watched the second episode On-Demand. Go figure.

Anyway, I mentioned before that each episode is like an Oscar-worthy movie, but have I mentioned that I have a complete Cougar Lust Crush on Henry Cavill who plays Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk? Fortunately, his character has only had a loose connection to the real life Duke of Suffolk, so I don't have much advance knowledge of what happens to him in the series. But DAYUM, I could nom him!

nomnomnomnomnom

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I haven't quite decided if this next bit of news gives me Teh Happy or not. Back in November 2008, I posted that IFC (Independent Film Channel) had commissioned Lionsgate to develop a TV pilot based on the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton.

Well, on March 31, 2009, the official announcement was released that the project is on IFC's schedule for Summer 2010. This LKH blog post contains several links to the announcement details. However I'm still trying to wrap my head around this being an IFC project. Yet Lionsgate is no lightweight in the industry, so this could be interesting or a disaster, particularly in light of the following section of the press release (bold WTF-ery emphasis added by me):

“‘Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter’ marks the first time in IFC tv’s history that we have created a fictional feature film for the network. IFC is appealing to its core base of men ages 18-34 who are looking for vampire content. The popularity of the network in this demographic indicates that there is a clear demand for films that delve into provocative topics and nothing is more classically provocative than vampire lore” said Jennifer Caserta, EVP and general manager of IFC tv. “Anita Blake fits perfectly with our successful original programming.”

“Laurell has created a fascinating heroine in Anita Blake and we quickly recognized the onscreen potential for this vivid character,” said Kevin Beggs, Lionsgate’s president of television programming and production. “We have an outstanding creative team and are excited to be moving forward with IFC, which will allow us to fully explore the complex world of Laurell’s highly intriguing and erotically charged novels.”

See what I mean? Are they mixing up the later books with the earlier books and producing one-handed viewing for the ComicCon crowd? BTW, I always thought that vampires were more popular with women.

So will this be entertaining or a clusterfuck... or possibly an entertaining clusterfuck?

Castelnuovo, Italy

2009-04-07T11:15:00.002-04:00

Some of you may remember that my oldest daughter spent the fall semester (2007) of her junior year in college living in Rome right outside the Vatican walls and studying at Pontifical Urbaniana University within Vatican City (I think I have that name right).

The first three weeks that her study abroad group spent in Italy was in their advisor's hometown of Castelnuovo. While there, in addition to intense Italian language lessons, they explored the countryside, hiked a couple of mountains, and spent a day playing in the Aegean Sea.

The people of Castelnuovo and the surrounding towns like L'Aquila welcomed those kids with open arms and she will always have fond memories of her time there.

Right now, her professor is on personal leave in Italy (outside of the Castelnuovo area) to be with her dying mother. While everyone's prayers are with her during this time, it turns out that it also saved her and any new study abroad students from being in Castelnuovo during the earthquake that has killed so many and destroyed so much.

My daughter and every student that has been part of her college's Vatican studies program mourn with the residents there every time they hear of another death or see a picture showing the rubble of another building they became so familiar with, such as the apartment building they lived in and its adjacent restaurant, and the church where they attended Mass every week.

Most moving of all however, was the picture of Bianca, a neighbor's lovable pet whom they all spent time playing with, searching through the rubble for its missing owners.

We humans are odd creatures, aren't we? All the human grief and loss, yet it is a picture of a forlorn pet that has the most emotional impact illustrating the losses in that devastated area.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the people of Castelnuovo and the surrounding areas.

Save the Contemporary Romance?

2009-03-14T21:30:00.000-04:00

Oh HELL NO!

AAAAAHHHHHHH... Make the bad words go away!!!!!

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As I said previously, THREE out of the five books I’m judging for this year’s Passionate Plumes are Contemporary Romances.

Book one is from an author whose paranormal I judged VERY highly before. But this Contemp? Not so much. The ~~heroine~~ female lead has a nasty personal hygiene problem. After a double penetration ménage scene that involved condoms and copious amounts of lube, she pulls on her clothes and leaves. After another scene that involved anal sex and no condom, she again merely pulled her clothes on and left. Then came the complete gross out scene— after an entire night of marathon sweaty sex, her alarm goes off in HER HOUSE, and she gets up, gets dressed and goes to work.

Now, I can hear you saying, “Bev, REALLY, do you honestly expect an author to detail every trip to the bathroom?” No, no I don’t. However, when an author describes in great detail every little thing the female lead does—from what drawer she pulled clothes out of to what she pulled out of each drawer and what color each item was- I think it’s reasonable to expect at least a brief mention that this woman also stopped by the bathroom to finish getting ready. I mean, they were awake BEFORE the alarm and she got out of bed as soon as it went off, so it’s not plausible that she was too rushed to pop into the bathroom to hose herself down. Instead, this author had the heroine pulling on each item of clothing as she talked to the hero and then rushing downstairs to feed her dog (I’ve chosen to presume she had a doggie door and the poor dog wasn’t expected to hold it all night and all day) and then out the door to work. At no point did she make ANY stops to take a shower, comb her hair, or even wash off. Note that there was also NO TEETH BRUSHING either and this skanky smelling woman WENT TO WORK THAT WAY! EEEEWWWWWWW! Can you imagine working beside this oozing spooge queen all day?!

However, I DID make it through the book because the storyline wasn’t completely awful. Mind you, it wasn’t great, and I’d have a tough time calling it good, but it wasn’t awful. On the Passionate Plume Judging Scale of 1 to 9, I gave it a 5.8. I think I would let it just barely slip into the bottom (heh) of my M&Ms category with a Flame Height of 7” out of 9”. Wait, I take that back, the hygiene issue was a complete turn-off so I’m deducting Flame Height for that. So let’s say 6.5” out of 9” Flame Height.

I decided to break up the Contemporaries with the two Historicals between each of them. They are both by the same author and are books 2 and 3 of a series. I finished the first historical (book 2 of the series) and it really wasn’t bad- VERY erotic and definitely pushes the envelope for mainstream press. If it was from an epub, I’d say it probably would receive one of their higher heat or flame ratings. As for the storyline, I often felt like chunks of the story were missing. Not characters or info from the previous book that I haven’t read, but sections that would help make more sense of the plot of THIS book seemed to be missing and I often felt like I’d walked into the middle of a conversation or scene. All in all though, I liked the characters despite their professed arousal at body odors (Yes, I’ll cut the historical SOME slack about hygiene), and I was COMPLETELY surprised by the identity of the villain and their motivations. So, this one gets scored 6.8 out of 9, and I’d place it firmly in my M&Ms category with a Flame Height of 8” out of 9”.

But then I picked up the third book (second Contemporary Romance) I needed to judge. Oh Great Balls of Badness! By page 22 I had already chalked the book off as a DNF at least three times. Let me repeat—BY PAGE TWENTY-FREAKIN-TWO, I had already REPEATEDLY fought back the overwhelming urge to flush this craptastic tome down the toilet. But I didn’t want to fuck up the plumbing so here it sits and the thought of picking it back up causes gagging dry heaves in much the same way that the thought of drinking any more of the GALLON of thick, slimy, salty bowel prep before my December colonoscopy did.

The premise is silly; the coincidences absurd- a woman who can’t achieve orgasm decides to try uninhibited sex with a stranger AND DOESN’T USE A CONDOM. And oh yeah, the stranger just HAPPENS to be the professor who will be teaching her upcoming sexuality class (of course she doesn’t know this yet) that her ex-boyfriend signed them up for before they broke up (I understand he shows up later in the book for a ménage). Yet, during this CONDOMLESS RIDE ON A STRANGER, she bumps and grinds but gets frustrated because she can’t reach the Big O with this guy either. Yet neither Ms. TSTL nor the Sexpert ever touch her magic luv button. HellooooOOOOO... the clit, the clitoris... ever hear of it Mr. Sexpert? Ever read Cosmo magazine, Ms. TSTL? Shit, even my kids’ health classes at a Catholic high school show the clitoris in their female genital illustrations.

Or wait, maybe the author is saying that women who can’t achieve orgasm without direct clitoral stimulation (which includes all but about 27% of women) are sexually dysfunctional. Hmmm... or maybe the author doesn’t have a clue WTF she’s writing about.

At this point I was desperate and hit the interwebs to find out if there was ANY chance- even an eentsy, weentsy one- that this sludge heap got less stinky if I could just force myself to read further. Okay, as expected the usual culprits are saying it’s one of the Best.Books.Ever. in exchange for being quoted in print. And RT gave it 4 stars (WTF?), but what’s REALLY scary is that the last Contemp I need to judge was only given 3 STARS by RT! ::*meep*:: So if this fecal matter is a FOUR STAR, then speaking in relative terms, the last Contemp WILL be flushed and damn the plumbing bill! Or there’s some m/m interaction in it. Because when it comes to m/m, an RT 3 star is the equivalent to a straight romance’s 4 or 4.5 star. ::*sigh*:: Somehow I doubt I’ll be that lucky.

A search through my Google Reader subscriptions turned up only one “regular” blogger who mentioned this piece of crapola- Kati and she gave it a D+. So, I’m assuming it doesn’t get any better and I don’t know WHAT I’m going to do about this book. And how the hell am I going to get through that LAST Contemp? NO ONE in my Gooogle Reader has reviewed it! But the blurb sounds like it might lean toward romantic suspense so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. At least I should be able to get through the last historical since it’s a sequel to the other historical I read.

In the meantime, these books had almost completely wiped out ANY urge I had to read. Now keep in mind that I haven’t read an entire book in TWO FREAKING MONTHS (just bits of anthologies) so I SHOULD have been open to ANYTHING and devoured it like a ravenous beast. THIS WAS NOT GOOD, PEOPLE!

But I had one hope and I had deprived myself long enough. In case of emergency, open eARC. GOD BLESS ANN AGUIRRE! Within just the first few pages of Blue Diablo, I said to myself, “THIS is why I love to read.” Seriously, I’ll write my full review shortly (Ann will be guest-blogging here on April 20th), but my mental movie reel started up right away and allowed me to escape the awful Contemps. And it hasn’t stopped (Yes, Jen and MB, I’m a dork). Even though I have had to frequently put Blue Diablo down and tend to other matters ::grrrr::, the movie stays in Pause mode in my head just waiting for me to hit the Play button again. No, wait, that’s not quite right... it’s also as if I need to hurry back to it so I don’t miss anything. Okay, I realize that probably makes more sense in my head. Nonetheless, halfway through and DAYUM I’m enjoying the hell outta this one! Like I’ve said before, I’m not able to read many ebooks on my PDA anymore, but this one is well worth the risk of eye strain. Unfortunately, I had a queen sized headache all day yesterday and didn't dare try to look at that screen.

However, I STILL don’t know how I’m going to be able to read those last two Contemps, but right now I couldn’t care less because, even though it APPEARS that I’m sitting here in front of my computer in the Land O’ the Grey (NE Ohio), the truth is that I’ve escaped to Mexico and Texas. See ya in Laredo!

Another Secret Revealed!

2009-02-27T09:44:00.006-05:00

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I'm guest blogging over at the DIK Ladies blog today talking about... well... DIKs! Oh, and Secret Coves. And there are hot menz involved.

Intrigued? Click here.

True Life True Blood

2009-02-25T19:21:00.004-05:00

Well, this is an interesting exclusive interview from TV Guide via Popeater today:

True Blood's True Romance

True Blood stars Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin say it’s true love. The pair—who play romantically linked 173-year-old vampire Bill Compton and telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse on the HBO series—have confirmed they are dating. “We are together,” Moyer told TV Guide Magazine exclusively on the True Blood set—right after finishing an intense scene where Bill and Sookie have a major lover’s quarrel.

Moyer and Paquin’s real-life romance first sparked at the True Blood audition, but the couple decided to wait to go public. “The reason it was dodged last year was very intentional on both our parts,” says Moyer. “It was very important to me that the cast and crew we were working with didn’t feel it was fickle, and didn’t feel it could possibly potentially encroach on their lives, you know, just like, ‘Oh the two stars are having a thing.’ We didn’t want to take anything away from the show. The show is the star, not the two people having a relationship.”

So where is this romance going? Well, it seems Moyer, 37, and Paquin, 26, are living together—at least on this side of the pond. Moyer, who is British, divides his time between Los Angeles and London where he has two young children from a previous relationship. “It’s just exciting and that was there from day one,” Moyer says. “We always take the piss out of each other and are silly with each other and it is great. We’re very, very happy. She’s the best.” —Kate Hahn

I imagine gettin' it on for the cameras every week let's you get to know someone fairly quick. I wish them all the luck in the world, but how many times have we seen serial monogamists in the acting community who find a new "true love" on each different project.

Having said that, I can't help but wonder if producer Ball will luck out and this real life romance will start hitting the skids, as Hollywood romances usually do, about the time that Bill and Sookie part company. Wouldn't THAT make for some genuine scenes! I know... my bad.

The Best Laid Plans

2009-02-24T13:15:00.001-05:00

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"I am determined to not read another book until I've got my sidebars updated including writing QB's Commentaries and updating my index for all the books I've read in the past few months!"

‘memba that proclamation in the last post? Uh... I probably should have checked the calendar first. SOOOO can’t happen this time of year!

You see, once again I have the honor of being a first round judge for the Passionate Plumes, awarded by Passionate Ink, the erotic romance chapter of the Romance Writers of America (RWA). Results of the first round voting will be announced sometime in April, with the final results announced at RWA National Conference in Washington D.C. July 15-18, 2009.

I’ve been really lucky so far and have only received books in my #1 ranked genre, Paranormal. This year, however, I received NO paranormals. Instead I received two of my #2 ranked Historicals (in print), and THREE of my #4 ranked Contemporaries (1 ebook, 2 print, all appear to be menages). I don’t know if that means there was a dearth of Paranormals this year (say it ain’t so!), or there was an overabundance of Contemporaries and everyone got some, or if there is really any significance at all to the genre I received.

To be fair, I did select a preference for print if possible and that might have something to do with it. I figured anything to prevent more strain on my eyes, right? But then again, last year I selected “No Preference” and received paranormals in print. Maybe it’s just a spin of the wheel.

As big an honor as it is to be a first round Passionate Plumes judge, I still have to quibble with the way they categorize the books. I just don’t think the categories make sense:

_ Contemporary
_ Historical
_ Futuristic/Fantasy/Sci-fi
_ Paranormal / Time Travel
_ Novella

It seems to me that “Futuristic/Sci-fi/Time Travel” should be together and “Paranormal/Fantasy” should be together. Actually, Paranormal and Fantasy might even be separate categories. But the real puzzler for me is that NOVELLA is a genre category. HUH? Doesn’t that just refer to the LENGTH? So how can I say whether I do or do not want novellas when it would depend on the genre/theme/subject matter/whatever?

Really, it’s almost impossible to rank my preferences, so this is what I ended up sending in:

4- Contemporary- (rank 1-2 if m/m)
2- Historical
3- Futuristic/Fantasy/Sci-fi (Fantasy rank= 1-2; Futuristic Sci-Fi rank=5)
1- Paranormal / Time Travel (TT rank= 3-4)
-- Novella- Yes, ranked within the above genre rankings

Yeah, I know, confusing. But then so are the PP categories.

Anyway, back to the books. I really am not too crazy about straight Contemporaries, yet here I am with THREE of the things to read. And not even just three Contemporaries, but apparently three M/F/M ménage Contemporaries, so there might not be much variety among them. RUH-OH! Ironically, the Contemporary ebook and the two Historicals are written by authors whose PARANORMAL stories I’ve enjoyed in the past; in fact I previously judged the ebook author’s Paranormal with a very high score in a previous PP year. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad omen.

But, because I take the honor of judging for the PP awards VERY seriously, I am determined to keep an open mind and judge each book on its own merits again this year. So to help facilitate that happening I plan to read a Contemporary, then a Historical, then Contemporary, Historical, Contemporary. Last year I received a book about Demons, Dragons, and Angels. Any ONE of those themes would have had me running the other way, but I kept an open mind and was surprised by a strong, enjoyable story.

If I start to feel overloaded on Contemporary ménages, I’m going to use that as a perfect excuse to take time out and read the ARC for Ann Aguirre’s Blue Diablo that I’ve been denying myself the pleasure of for far too long. Unfortunately, I’m about to start end of month work crunch again, so I don’t know how far I’ll get on any of these books until I’m done with that.

Happy 2nd Blogiversary to Me!

2009-02-16T11:15:00.001-05:00

Actually, it's a BELATED Blogiversary because I trusted my memory (BIG mistake) and thought I popped my blogger cherry (in a post aptly titled Virgin No More) on February 17th, 2007. Turns out it was February 10th. DOH!

So here I am two years later. I've made a lot of online friends, more than a few enemies, and a handful of frenemies. There's a few people that I no longer care to visit, some that have made it clear that I shouldn't visit, but even more that I follow in Google Reader and would definitely miss if they weren't around. I think there's probably a reason why certain people play a part in our lives (cyber or real) for a while, and then when they are no longer needed because they've fulfilled or failed to fulfill whatever our initial needs were, we drift away or something happens to take them out of our (cyber or real) lives and we move on.

A lot of days (actually it seems like MOST days lately) I'm sure that I have nothing more to say. But then something silly or impassioned or bawdy will set me off and I'm back to posting and commenting again. Hell, you guys would have to turn off your blog comments to get me to shut up and leave you alone. And in case you don't realize it, I really appreciate those of you that drop by this blog and make blogging so much fun!

The very first Sweet Beefcake Eye Candy pics I posted were oldies but nummies. I find it interesting that they illustrated how I saw certain characters in books (LKH's) and here I am two years later discussing how I envision characters in books again (Madelynne Ellis').

And OMG, I was bitchin' about Sunny and her Monere series back then, yet I'm STILL reading that damn deritive, yet addictive, sludge. It's a SICKNESS I tell you and I owe every single LKH "negative fan" a huge ass-kissin' apology for any and all thoughts I may or may not have expressed that involved words that in essence meant "If you don't like them, don't read them." It seems I've fallen on my own sword and I can't get up!

Somehow, though, as I browse through some of those first few blog posts, it seems surreal that it's been two years since I wrote them. Sure seems like it's only been a month or two! Damn, I went off on a lot of F-bomb laden rants and nauseating whines. Either I've mellowed a bit since then or maybe it's just that I'm more cognizant of the fact that a few people actually READ what I rant/whine about and, when I realize later how asshatty I sounded, I also realize that I probably should have just STFU. Ah well. Live and learn that not every single thought in my head needs to appear on my blog.

To honor this auspicious occasion, I've decided to dial down my over-the-top decorating theme and replace the cherry blossom strewn chocolate wedding cake background that I've had for two years (except for the Holiday snowflakes) with something more than a wee bit different. Let me know what you think or if it's displaying hinky. I couldn't decide between that matching header that you see or some chocolate books on a black background that I have. Who knows, I may change it again. We'll see.

But lest you think I've suddenly acquired good taste, let me assure you that the rest of the over-the-top confections theme WILL remain unless I someday grow tired of Eye Candy and Books. At which point, please shoot me and put me out of my misery, kthx.

I've also decided that I need to remember the main reason I have this blog-- to keep track of books I've read and books I need to buy. With that in mind, I am determined to not read another book until I've got my sidebars updated including writing QB's Commentaries and updating my index for all the books I've read in the past few months! Will I be able to hold out that long? We'll see.

Speaking of my index, I did a quick fix over there simply by getting rid of the cherry blossom strewn chocolate wedding cake background and replacing it with a chocolate silk background. That's pretty much all I'll probably do over there for right now since it uses a standard Blogger template that I really don't want to bother messing with. We'll see.

And now, on to Cubies Confections, year 3! Anyone wanna come along for the ride?

From the Jeff Files

2009-02-15T20:25:00.001-05:00

Yes, it's another of my brother-in-law, Jeff's, endlessly forwarded emails:

All women should live so long as to be this kind of old lady!

During one Sunday's service, the Minister asked, 'How many of you have forgiven your enemies?'

80% held up their hands.

After a rousing sermon on forgiveness, the Minister then repeated his question, 'How many of you have forgiven your enemies?'

ALL responded this time, except for one small elderly lady.

'Mrs. Neely? Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?'

'I don't have any.' She replied, smiling sweetly.

'Mrs. Neely, that is very unusual. How old are you?'

'Ninety-eight.' she replied.

'Oh, Mrs. Neely, would you please come down in front & tell us all how a person can live ninety-eight years & not have an enemy in the world?'

The little sweetheart of a lady tottered down the aisle, faced the congregation, and said,

'I outlived the bitches.'

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory!

2009-02-10T13:40:00.004-05:00

Madelynne Ellis and I have a mini-discussion going on about what characters look like. The problem is that I really can't disagree with the creator of the characters in question, now can I? I mean, after all, SHE's the ONLY one that REALLY knows what they look like, right? Yeah, yeah, Madelynne and other writers say they like it when readers interpret books in their own way, but as far as I'm concerned, the writer is the ultimate authority on her creation. UPDATE: Madelynne picked up the gauntlet and ran with it on her own blog.

So anyone who's been around here any length of time knows that Madelynne's A Gentleman's Wager is one of my all time favorite reads and re-reads, followed closely by its first sequel, Phantasmagoria. My recent gushing about The Tudors started this entire discussion since, at one point, Madelynne mentioned that Jonathan Rhys Myers (with long hair) reminded her of how she pictured Vaughan (from AGW, etc). I remember that when she compared Vaughan to JRM, my jaw dropped because it was SOOOO different from how I had pictured him. Vaughan is as close as I will ever get to truly understanding what writers mean when they refer to their characters as if they were living breathing people, so it's very hard for me to let go of my OWN image of him and drop in Madelynne's instead.

But how does the writer let her readers know what those characters look like in her head? Here's the thing, no matter how detailed a writer describes the physical characteristics of one of her characters, the fact is that, unless she can point to a real life person and say "He looks EXACTLY like so-and-so", then each reader will have a different picture of that character in their head. And then to further complicate matters, none of us can directly beam our mental images onto a piece of paper so we therefore have to again turn to photos of real life people to convey what WE are envisioning and we can seldom find a photo that EXACTLY matches OUR interpretation either. Thus board wars have started. GAK!

Anyway, Madelynne said she was curious to see how I envisioned Vaughan and Lucerne.

As I said before, Madelynne thinks Jonathon Rhys Meyers reminds her of Vaughan (or vice versa): "Not so much as I picture Vaughan as JRM, as JRM occasionally produces an expression that is entirely Vaughan. It's flashes of Vaughan rather than a totality."

I envision Vaughan as fitting the descriptions of beautiful and intensely sensual, but with no androgyny because there's something still very masculine about his beauty. The pic at right is pretty damn close to how I see him, but Vaughan's a bit less "hard" looking with a touch more of the TYPE of beauty portrayed in this next pic (although the pic on the right definitely captures the brooding/plotting Vaughan):

But his build is closer to this pic, although his muscles don't bulge quite as much. Definitely not as slim as JRM, but still a bit on the wiry side:

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that Vaughan is VERY close to the same vision I have of Jean-Claude from Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. They are close enough that they're pretty much interchangeable in my head, no matter how hard I fight it. So here's Jean-Claude/Vaughan on the right in the comic adaptation of the ABVH series:

Yeah, I know, I've spent WAAAAYYY too much time thinking about this.

Okay, so that's as close as I can get to how I envision Vaughan. Now Lucerne is MUCH easier because Jason Lewis is about as close as a guy can get to how I envision him:

So, whether you agree with me or not (and please do let me know), at least we've had a nice bit of eye candy today, haven't we?

2009 Audie Nominees Announced

2009-02-10T00:01:00.003-05:00

From The Audio Publishers Association (APA):

2009 AUDIES® COMPETITION BRINGS IN MOST ENTRIES TO DATE!

Nominations Are Announced in 29 Categories

Princeton Junction, NJ – The Audio Publishers Association (APA) has announced nominations for the 2009 Audies competition. Winners will be announced at The Audies gala on May 29, 2009 at the New-York Historical Society in New York City.

The only awards program in the United States devoted entirely to honoring spoken word entertainment drew in a record 1,000 entries from audio publishers this year, reflecting the health of the audio industry. New this year, the category Distinguished Achievement in Production joins Audiobook of the Year as one of the most prestigious audiobook honors. Nominations for these two juried categories will be announced this spring. The Distinguished Achievement in Production Award goes to an audiobook that demonstrates excellence in all areas of production, while the Audiobook of the Year recognizes the audiobook that, through quality, innovation, marketing and sales, has had the most significant impact on the industry.

“Not only did we receive a record number of submissions this year, our judges commented that the quality of the entries was better than it’s ever been,” said APA President Anthony Goff. “Our industry has worked hard to raise the bar and we look forward to recognizing everyone for their accomplishments.”

The Audies gala brings together narrators, authors, producers, publishers and media to celebrate the best audiobooks published in 2008. Categories for judges’ consideration included Fiction, Non-Fiction, Inspirational/Faith-Based Fiction, Multi-Voiced Performance, Romance, Science Fiction, Spanish Language, a special Judges Award in the Politics category and many more.

Winners in all 31 categories including Distinguished Achievement in Production and Audiobook of the Year will be announced at the New-York Historical Society, located in the heart of Manhattan, overlooking Central Park. All gala attendees will have the unique opportunity to tour the Society’s docent-staffed archives.

Finalists in this year’s competition include the following titles [for the complete list, go to the APA site]:

CHILDREN’S TITLES FOR AGES 8-12
The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden, Narrated by Tony Shalhoub, Macmillan Audio
Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine, Narrated by Sarah Naughton and a full cast, Full Cast Audio
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, Narrated by Neil Gaiman, HarperAudio
One-Handed Catch, by M.J. Auch, Narrated by Ryan Sparkes and a full cast, Full Cast Audio
Nation, by Terry Pratchett, Narrated by Stephen Briggs, HarperAudio

CLASSIC
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, Narrated by Grover Gardner, Blackstone Audio,Inc.
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, Narrated by John Lee, Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut, Narrated by Jonathan Davis, Audible, Inc.
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, Narrated by Simon Vance, Tantor Media
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, Narrated by Simon Vance, Blackstone Audio, Inc.

HISTORY
The Bloody Shirt, by Stephen Budiansky, Narrated by Phil Gigante, Brilliance Audio
Gandhi and Churchill, by Arthur Herman, Narrated by John Curless, Recorded Books
The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea – The Forgotten War of the South Pacific, by James Campbell, Narrated by Stephen Hoye, Tantor Media
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, by Annette Gordon-Reed, Narrated by Karen White, Tantor Media
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, by Mark Harris, Narrated by Lloyd James, Tantor Media

MULTI–VOICED PERFORMANCE
Family Audio Bible, Narrated by Dick Cavett, Marsha Mason, Andrew McCarthy, Martha Plimpton and Tom Wopat, HarperAudio
Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan, Narrated by Joey Collins, Peter Jay Fernandez, Kate Forbes, Ezra Knight, Brenday Pressley and Tom Stechschulte, Recorded Books
The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich, Narrated by Peter Francis James and Kathleen McInerney, HarperAudio
The Word of Promise®: Next Generation-New Testament, by Various Authors, Narrated by Sean Astin and a full cast including Codey Linley, AnnaSophia Robb and Jordin Sparks, Thomas Nelson, Inc

MYSTERY
A Killing Frost, by R. D. Wingfield, Narrated by Stephen Thorne, Ulverscroft Group Ltd
Cross, by Ken Bruen, Narrated by Gerry O'Brien, Ulverscroft Group Ltd
The Silver Swan, by Benjamin Black, Narrated by Timothy Dalton, Macmillan Audio
Swan Peak, by James Lee Burke, Narrated by Will Patton, Simon & Schuster Audio
Voice of the Violin, by Andrea Camilleri, Narrated by Grover Gardner, Blackstone Audio, Inc.

NARRATION BY THE AUTHOR or AUTHORS
Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter, Random House Audio
Joshilyn Jackson, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Hachette Audio
Cokie Roberts, Ladies of Liberty, HarperAudio
David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Hachette Audio
Maria Shriver, Just Who Will You Be? HyperionAudio

POLITICS — JUDGES AWARD
Descent into Chaos, by Ahmed Rashid, Narrated by Arthur Morey, Brilliance Audio
Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman, Narrated by Oliver Wyman, Macmillan Audio
Mike's Election Guide, by Michael Moore, Narrated by Michael Moore, Hachette Audio
The War Within, by Bob Woodward, Narrated by Boyd Gaines, Simon & Schuster Audio
The Way of the World, by Ron Suskind, Narrated by Alan Sklar, HarperAudio

ROMANCE
The Dark Highlander, by Karen Marie Moning, Narrated by Phil Gigante, Brilliance Audio
Fire Me Up, by Katie MacAlister, Narrated by Barbara Rosenblat, Recorded Books
Forbidden, by Suzanne Brockmann, Narrated by Traci Svensgaard, Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Mismatch, by Tami Hoag, Narrated by Jen Taylor, BBC Audiobooks America
Tribute, by Nora Roberts, Narrated by Jennifer Van Dyck, Brilliance Audio

SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY
Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer, Narrated by Jonathan Davis, Audible, Inc.
Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke, Narrated by Eric Michael Summerer, Audible, Inc.
Ghost Radio, by Leopoldo Gout, Narrated by Pedro Pascal, HarperAudio
Skybreaker, by Kenneth Oppel, Narrated by David Kelly, Full Cast Audio
Sunrise Alley, by Catherine Asaro, Narrated by Hillary Huber, Blackstone Audio, Inc.

TEENS
Burn Journals, by Brent Runyon, Narrated by Christopher Evan Welch, Recorded Books
The Compound, by S. A. Bodeen, Narrated by Christopher Lane, Brilliance Audio
Curse of the Blue Tattoo, by L.A. Meyer, Narrated by Katherine Kellgren, Listen & Live Audio
Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine, Narrated by Sarah Naughton, Full Cast Audio
Paper Towns, by John Green, Narrated by Dan John Miller, Brilliance Audio
The Uprising, by Margaret P. Haddix, Narrated by Suzanne Toren, Recorded Books

THRILLER/SUSPENSE
Blue Heaven, by C.J. Box, Narrated by John Bedford Lloyd, Macmillan Audio
Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith, Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris, Hachette Audio
Executive Privilege, by Phillip Margolin, Narrated by Jonathan Davis, HarperAudio
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, Narrated by Neil Gaiman, HarperAudio
Sweetheart, by Chelsea Cain, Narrated by Carolyn McCormick, Macmillan Audio

About Audio Publishers Association (APA)

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) is a not-for-profit trade organization whose primary goals are to promote awareness of the audiobook industry, gather and disseminate industry statistics, encourage high production standards and represent the interests of audiobook publishers. Since 1986, the APA has worked to bring audio publishers together to increase interest in audiobooks. Please visit www.audiopub.org for more information.

Note that Phil Gigante received two nominations again this year. WOOT! However, I personally think they should create a whole new award category just for his brilliant narration of Karen Marie Moning's Highlander series. In addition to our Phil, I'd like to see Johanna Parker nominated for her narration of Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series.

Really, why not have a Series Narration category? Maybe it's because series are more common to genre fiction instead of the [finger quote]serious[/finger quote] oh-so-intellectual books?

QB's Video Quickies

2009-02-09T16:55:00.008-05:00

"So, WATCHED any good books lately?"
"What did you think of...?"

Here's the Quickie answers to those questions. Click on the Links for more info.

These are the DVDs and On-Demand movies I've been watching during my previously mentioned recent anti-social crabby(ier) bitch(ier) weeks.

Category: M&Ms - a bit lighter and/or not quite as satisfying as Peanut M&Ms, but still Oh-So-Enjoyable! (B,B-,C+,C)

The Age of Innocence: A love triangle set in New York Society during the Victorian Era. Beautiful to watch, seems to be fairly true to the period, but it's really rather sad, depressing, and kind of pointless. Worth watching once through On-Demand, but I doubt if I'll bother watching it again.

The Duchess: One major flaw marred what should have been a great movie- We’re not shown how Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire went from a silly, naïve 17 year old to become a politically savvy, sought after trendsetter with Princess Diana like popularity. Otherwise this movie is worth watching for the not quite accurate, but truly STUNNING, period costumes, 18th century British setting, and the vivid portrayal of the inequality between women and men and how little personal freedom women had.

The Other Boleyn Girl: This was lovely to look at, but once I got curious about its authenticity, it lost some of its glitter. All in all it was still watchable because of the lush costumes and scenery. But they can't quite make up for some awkward scenes, particularly the ones that portray Henry as pussy-whipped and gullible rather than a self-centered ruler who presumed his own deification.

Category: Peanut M&Ms - mmmm...devour... sigh... then reach for the next one. My daily dose of Insanity-B-Gone. (A-,B+,B)

Across the Universe: Set in the mercurial 60's and early 70's, this musical uses Beatles songs as much as dialogue to tell the story. It could have been hokey, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing. It’s amazing how universal and timeless those songs are. I watched this one on On-Demand but I might just buy it since it's worth repeated viewings.

Wall-E: Very cute and certainly entertaining, fantastic animation, but I’m a bit mystified why it landed on so many “Best.Movie.Ever.” lists.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: I enjoyed this one even more than the first one mainly because the Pevensie kids were older, which made the fight scenes a bit more plausible. Although I feel guilty for pervin’ on the guy who played Prince Caspian, Ben Barnes. He’s a flat out nomnomnom, but the mushy scenes between him and Susan (Anna Popplewell) can, at best, be described as awkward and forced. Glad to hear there’s going to be another Narnia movie after all, especially since Ben Barnes is set to play Prince Caspian in that one too.

North & South: No, not the American mini-series with Patrick Swayze, this is a 2004 BBC production set during the early Victorian era. Thanks to KristieJ and Marta Acosta (who is a fan of his Robin Hood), Richard Armitage became a must-see. N&S offers an absolutely outstanding immersion into the time period- our first look inside the mill was both beautiful and horrifying.

I was a bit disappointed with the development of the relationship between Margaret (Daniela Denby-Ashe) and John (Richard Armitage) though. It seemed they went from curious then longing glances to the proposal with nothing in between. His sudden declaration of love and her angry reaction to it came out of the blue and the entire proposal scene lacked credibility, although the deleted proposal scene adds a bit more explanation. Nonetheless, that’s the only major misstep in this lush BBC mini-series and their relationship from that point on will have you biting your fist.

Of particular note is the relationship between John and his mother (unforgettably played by Sinead Cusack), the unlikely relationship between John and one of his workers, Nicholas Higgins (Brendan Coyle), and the contrast between the lives of those in the tiers of the upper classes versus the lower working class. I highly recommend this one. But, what was up with those butt-ugly hats that Margaret wore, even after she could afford better?

Category: Lava Cake - reads like warm Chocolate Lava Cake... à la Mode... sprinkled with nuts (A,A-)

The Tudors, Season 1: Oh.My.God. Every episode is like an Oscar-worthy film. I missed the first couple when they first aired on Showtime and gave up. Man, do I regret that! The only trouble is that I don’t know British history well enough to reliably recognize which characters will and will not prove to be significant. So it bugs the hell outta me whenever certain characters are on screen unless I stop and go look them up in Wikipedia.

Oh, and I’ve had to take the series' historical accuracy with a few grains of salt since Henry Fitzroy dies as a child in this story, unlike the real Henry Fitzroy who died at 17 (although, according to Tanya Huff, he was actually turned into a nummy vampire at 17). In addition, one of my favorite storylines involved Henry's sister Princess Margaret and his close friend Charles, Duke of Suffolk. Not only was it short lived (literally), but it turns out that the Margaret portrayed here didn't really exist and some bits and pieces of the REAL Margaret and her sister Mary's lives were incorporated into the fictional Margaret.

Ah well, it's still an absolutely amazing and addictive production. I'm ashamed of myself for ever thinking that shows like Dallas and Dynasty were addictive entertainment, particularly when you take into account that, for the most part, the events of The Tudors really happened. BTW, the cover for season 1 cracks me up- note the headless women.

Still to come: I've slowed down now that American Idol and Lost are back on. Although I've found myself parked in front of the TV on Thursday nights now too. CSI has become must-see again, and I find Rufus Sewell in Eleventh Hour completely captivating, almost mesmerizing. However the show would be seriously "meh" without him.

The Tudors, Season 2: I’ve only watched the first episode so far, but season 2 looks like it will be just as absorbing as season 1.

Elizabeth: I saw this a long time ago, but I think I'll appreciate it more now that I'm older, and watching The Tudors has helped me become more familiar with the events prior to this story. The only thing I remember about it is that The Virgin Queen was misnamed and I remember her funky transformation at the end of the movie. Plus I'm hoping it will help clear up some historical events that I'm curious and/or confused about. Those peeps had some verra complicated relationships!

Elizabeth: The Golden Age: I'm curious to see how this compares to Elizabeth's portrayal as a character in Bertrice Small's Skye O'Malley series. Yes, that's right, I've said it before and I'll say it again... Everything I know about British history I've learned through Romance novels (and now DVDs).

HAH! Looking over that list, it seems that I have a definite preference for period films, doesn't it?

It's All Good Now

2009-02-09T10:40:00.001-05:00

WOO to the freakin HOO!!!

I just scored 4 Pavilion seats to see Jimmy Buffett in (near) Pittsburgh on June 23!! WOOT!

Not front row or even front sections but Row Q in section 5 so still under the pavilion which is the important part. But Holy Scalpers-- those puppies were $136 buckos EACH and when you add in all the fees, and even selecting the email option for tickets, it totals out to $155.58 per seat plus parking when we get there! OUCH, but it's not something we do every year. We have friends that go every year by buying the cheaper lawn seats but I can't see these old bones parked on the ground for a few hours. They'd need the jaws of life to unfold my legs. Not to mention all the joys of weather related issues.

Anyway, here he is at the same venue last year. Of course, I couldn't get tickets to that one. Or the year before, or the year before that, and so on and so on and so on. This ticket score bodes well for a faaab-ewe-lus summer ahead of us.

Enough Already!

2009-02-08T12:45:00.002-05:00

Yes, I’m still among the living, to the disappointed chagrin of some and morbid curiosity of others. So what have I been up to? Besides the holidays, followed by end of calendar year work, followed by end of fiscal year work, mixed in with preparing for taxes, mostly I’ve been feeling rather anti-social. I love blog hopping, I really do, or at least I USUALLY do, but reading and commenting on blogs pretty much seemed like more than my grouchy old self could handle— I hadn’t even been visiting icanhascheezeburger.com until last night because I didn't FEEL like smiling, dammit!

And I’ve been grouchier than usual. Not just in the blogosphere, but even here at home there has been more than the usual snapping going on between all of us. It’s all the damn snow and cold... we’re sick of it. Living in northeastern Ohio, we’re no strangers to winter hassles, but this winter has been particularly brutal and enough is enough already! Unfortunately it’s only February. A few years ago we had another bad winter, not because it was brutal, but because it lasted from the end of October to the middle of May. I sure hope this brutal winter doesn’t last that long, but realistically we won’t see much relief until sometime in April. Whatever happened to global warming anyhow?

Even worse, I haven’t read a book in... Holy Crap, over a month, maybe even six weeks! At first it was because I didn’t have time to read a whole book and I knew if I picked one up I wouldn’t put it down until I was finished. I just couldn’t take the time away from work. But as time went on, I realized that I had deprived myself too long and to pick up a book now would set off a reading binge that would bring everything else going on to a complete halt. Now I’m starting to get the uncontrollable yearning to escape into the pages of a good story and I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. I'm still working on the most excellent anthology, The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance, that I keep in the MomMobile to read when I'm waiting at the dentist, doctor, etc. Lately it's all I can do not to snarl like a rabid beast when it's our turn and we get called in.

A few non-work related things I HAVE been doing though is watching DVDs, listening to CDs, and listening to audio books. My family hates trying to figure out gift ideas for me because when I want something I just buy it for myself. So this past holiday season I came up with a list of DVDs and CDs that I wanted, and between Christmas and my birthday they came through for me (although I used Amazon’s holiday DVD sale to buy a few for myself too). New CDs from Blake Shelton, Sugarland, and David Cook are all loaded in the MomMobile and I’ve been listening to them while plowing through the snowdrifts and careening across the ice packs. Audible.com offered up the first Southern Vampire audio book, Dead Until Dark, at $4.95 so my collection is now completely up to date and I've been happily listening to the earlier audio books in the series while working. I swear that some days audio books are the only thing standing between me and a complete freak-out.

Now, here’s the thing with the DVDs—I seldom sit down to watch movies because I just don’t have the patience. I’d rather create the movie in my head while engrossed in a book. Movie Theaters? Yeah, I’ll enjoy them when they stop the movie for me to get up and go pee, or grab a snack, or give me a lamp so I can read a book during the boring parts. People don’t seem to appreciate my PDA light either. Go figure. Yet during my anti-social grouch time, I’ve been not only watching the DVDs I received as presents, but I’ve been surfing through the HBO, Starz, and Showtime On-Demand channels. And I’ve ENJOYED them! In fact, coming up next is a QB's Commentary post about some of them.

I've got a few non-work related projects I've got to take care of too and I've put them off long enough. I need to finish clearing out my HP TX1000 laptop so I can send it in for repairs before my extended warranty is up. Remind me to never, ever be an early adopter again, okay? I've got to finish weeding out our bedroom closet, and then I need to finish physically organizing all my books, although with the Need-To-Read Beast trying to take control, the latter may prove to be a real time suck since I won't be able to resist reading as I sort. After I've tamed the book piles, maybe I can actually start loading them into LibraryThing. Oh, and I've yet to get around to calling Time Warner about supplying me with a different cable modem so I can install the new router that I bought over the holidays. My youngest demon spawn is chomping at the bit to get on XBox Live and I won't let him suck up all the bandwidth from our current ancient modem/router combo unit.

Have I mentioned how in awe I am of all of you that seem to effortlessly do everything? I mean, I have it relatively easy and I'm whining about not having enough time. I cannot imagine how those of you who truly seem to have a bazillion things to do manage to accomplish ANYTHING, yet you somehow GET IT ALL DONE! I particularly don't understand how you can do it all and still be prolific bloggers. Seriously, this post and the next one, which is a video review, took me ALL day yesterday and half of today to write and pop in the links and pics. I have got to be the slowest blogger ever.

Inflatable Nookie

2009-01-16T10:50:00.003-05:00

Lest you are under the mistaken impression that I am the only bawd in the family, LissaNY sent this to me this morning along with another pic I'll be sharing later.

This Durex condom commercial is BEYOND perverted and funny. Probably NOT work or kid safe. Be sure to turn your speakers on because the sound effects add to the hilarity.

More Sookie 411

2009-01-16T10:30:00.002-05:00

From Entertainment Weekly [Emphasis added by me]

Jan. 6, 2009

Question: We all know that Lafayette was the best character in Season One of True Blood. How can we make sure Alan Ball brings him back next season? -- Brody
Ausiello: Well, as Ball himself recently reminded me, "Lafayette did die in the books." But, he adds, "That doesn't mean he won't be back. Anything's possible." [OOOOO, Lafayette as a vamp maybe?!]

Question: What's the deal with Michelle Forbes' character on True Blood? Is she Tara's Demon? How does Sam know her? -- Marcy
Ausiello: The mystery surrounding who (or what) Maryann is will play out front and center in season 2 -- and you may not find many clues in the books. "She's definitely a new kind of supernatural creature in Bon Temps," teases Ball. And as new as "it" is, it's also old. "Ancient. Ancient," Ball stresses. In other words, not a Cylon. BTW, production on True Blood's second season begins this week! [See below for more on Maryann]

Jan 9, 2009

In 2009, Werewolves Answer Hollywood's Call of the Wild
The furry beasts are popping up everywhere, including the upcoming Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, New Moon, and more

Buzz up!More
By Tanner Stransky
Take a gander at the big screen this year because you're likely to spy a full moon — and we aren't talking about Will Ferrell's bare butt. If 2008 marked a comeback for the vampire, the next 12 months belong to the werewolf. On Jan. 23, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans showcases the woolly beasts, while a furrier-than-usual Hugh Jackman returns in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1). Later this year, Benicio Del Toro stars in The Wolfman (Nov. 6), and in the Nov. 20 Twilight sequel New Moon, heroine Bella moons over werewolf Jacob. TV loves a lupine too: Fox just ordered the ludicrously titled dramedy pilot Bitches — about a quartet of female werewolf friends in New York City [not sure about that one- works for Shelly Laurenston though]. — and it's rumored that season 2 of HBO's True Blood will get hairy. So what's with the comeback? ''The last time this happened was World War II,'' notes Brad Steiger, author of The Werewolf Book. ''It's reflective. We want to worry about something that can get us besides bailouts. I'm eager to see [these projects]. Benicio, God bless him, looks like a werewolf without the makeup.'' [HAHA! That's the exact thought I had]

Jan 14, 2009

Question: Thanks for telling us that True Blood started shooting its second season last week, but could you tell me when the episodes will start airing? -- Katie
Ausiello: This summer, which means season 2 will air roughly eight months after the conclusion of season 1 -- a lightning fast turnaround by cable standards. "Alan Ball is a very fast writer," explains an HBO source. In other True Blood news, I caught up with Sam Trammell (Sam) at the Globes and he teased that his new love interest ([Daphne] played by The Bold and The Beautiful's Ashley Jones- Dec 16, 2008) is up to no good. "I don't know the whole storyline, but I've read the first three episodes, and it's going to be really twisted and dark and exciting. She's got some serious secrets and questionable intentions

January 16, 2009

Buzz up!More
By Michael Ausiello

Killer True Blood spoilers!
Season 2 of HBO's fangtastic True Blood doesn't bow until summer, but I've already got intel from series creator Alan Ball. Fancy a bite?

Three's Company: Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Bill (Stephen Moyer) will wing it to Dallas, where they'll assist the local bloodsuckers in locating their MIA sheriff. But the couple's bigger problem may be their new third wheel, the irritating Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll). ''She's part of their life now,'' says Ball. ''Bill made her; he's responsible for her.'' [By the time they got to Dallas in the books, Sookie and Eric's teasing relationship had begun and was in full bloom by the end of that book. I hope they develop Eric's character further than they did last season.]

Diff'rent Strokes: The question of who — or what — Maryann (Michelle Forbes) is will play out, and the answer doesn't lie in Charlaine Harris' books. ''She's a new kind of supernatural creature.'' [Hmmm... so not what we all assumed. But in the books, the direct result of her (or what we thought was her) attack on Sookie is the growing friendship between Sookie and Eric and Pam.]

Dead Like Me: ''I can't tell you if Lafayette [played by Nelsan Ellis] will be back,'' says Ball, adding ominously, ''He did die in the books.'' He will reveal that Lois Smith's Gran returns in flashbacks.

Highway to Heaven: Sookie's sex-obsessed bro, Jason (Ryan Kwanten), will get mixed up with the nefarious Fellowship of the Sun. ''He realizes something's missing in his life,'' says Ball. Aside from his pants? [My guess is that Jason and "series-regular role of Sarah, the hot-to-trot wife of Steve Newlin (aka the Fellowship of the Sun's big kahuna- Dec 16, 2008)" will be spending some "quality" time together.]

Interesting. It sounds like Ball will be switching things up so that, while the basic premise of the books is there, no one can quite be sure where he'll veer off on his own with the characters and/or storylines. Familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time.

What's Poppin'- Part I

2009-01-11T16:11:00.002-05:00

I've been spending way to much time following all the different Engadget blogs as they cover CES. I shouldn't admit this, but I'm such a gadget nerd that I've got Engadget, Engadget HD, Engadget CES Headlines, CEA Digital Dialogue, and International CES Headlines in my Google Reader (I'm link lazy- just hit that main Engadget link and you'll stumble upon the others). I don't understand how 90% of it works, but new electronic shinies fill me with technolust.

However, this little gem falls into the "What Were They Thinking?!" category:

Engadget found a kinetic charger at CES. It looks pretty innocuous until you watch the video of this device in action. I dare you to watch it without snickering, if not out-right cackling. Feel free to write your own captions. WARNING: do not attempt to drink beverages while watching.

Really, if they would just create a hollowed out version of that thing, we'd have a natural and permanent end to worldwide power shortages.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Speaking of gadgets, I LOVE looking at HP mini's Vivienne Tam edition. I really have no use for one, but it hasn't stopped me from salivating over it for months now. Last week Geardiary posted some hands-on pictures that are the equivalent of technoporn. Too bad that matching Vivienne Tam mouse costs extra.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

All of Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire (Sookie Stackhouse) books are now available in downloadable audio book form from Audible. I now have all but the first one, and only because that first one, Dead Until Dark, is always so expensive. What's up with the outrageous price on that one, Audible? It's totally out of line with the others!

Oddly enough I only had a couple of them in print so over the holidays, when Amazon ran a Gold-Box special on the boxed set of the first 7 books, I jumped on it. At only $30.29 that worked out to only $4.32 per book! I've already got the first one in the original cover, but the boxed set came with the True Blood cover.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

ATTENTION, Please: Author Jules Jones is offering her entire Syndicate series as FREE downloads on her site. This series was one of my earliest M/M fascinations and cemented Jules in my mind as one of the best creators of memorable characters around. Go get it and read it NOW!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

You know I don't read too many ebooks anymore because my poor old eyes just can no longer handle reading from any of my computers or my PDA screen. So, I have to be pretty damn sure a book is worth the eye strain before I consider reading it in ebook format.

Well, thanks to azteclady and Ann Aguirre, I have an early review copy of Blue Diablo, Corine Solomon book 1 (April 7, 2009 Roc print release). I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this book. Feel free to express your extreme jealousy. Stay tuned to Ann's blog because she's got some creative plans in the works for the days leading up to Blue Diablo's release. In the meantime, here's an excerpt.

ASTAK... Epic Fail

2009-01-08T18:52:00.000-05:00

ASTAK is finally, FINALLY taking orders for one of the versions of it's long promised EZ Readers.

Okay, technically it's not even theirs-- they "Americanized" a Hanlin V3 instead of releasing their own reader as announced a year ago (5" promised August 2008, 6" promised November 2008).

~~I'll be damned if I can recreate how I did this, but somehow~~ clicking on the EZ Reader on Astak's site took me to Mobiebook where they are selling both the Astak EZ Reader and ebooks. Oh wait, here's how: instead of clicking on the EZ Reader sidebar button on Astak's main site, click on the words "take a deep breath and you can almost smell" under the News & Events/CES sidebar button. But do NOT click on the word "more" because it will blow out (at least in IE7), so make sure to click on the sentence. NOW you can click on the EZ Reader sidebar button. At this point you will either see side by side sales offers for the EZ Reader OR you will be re-directed to Mobiebook. I've gotten both. Or you could just go straight to Mobiebook and stay the hell away from Astak's screwed up site.

Holy Platters of Fail, Astak... did you test your eReader as well as you tested your website?

And from there the fail only gets worse.

Here's the front and center caveat on the Mobiebook home page that is worthy of a Jay Leno Headlines segment:

All eBooks on this website are powered by Mobipocket eBooks common library and you can read it on your PC, but not on the EZ reader. EZ reader supports NON DRM ebooks currently. We are working hard on DRM version format and EZ reader user can update firmware from this website when it is done

*blinkblink* Yes, you read that right. Buy the EZ Reader there, buy the ebooks there, but read the ebooks on your PC because they won't work on the eReader! OMGWTFBBQ?!

After a year of announcements and empty promises, THAT's what ASTAK finally offers?

EPIC. FAIL.

SOLVED: Man Candy Mysteries- Episode II

2009-01-02T16:30:00.002-05:00

MYSTERY SOLVED (see below)

Do you know this man? (click for a larger pic) ~~His identity remains a mystery and~~ we ~~would like to find~~ found more photos of this stunningly gorgeous vision.

If you'd like to join or aid our quest, post this pic on your own site. Think of this as a voluntary meme for a good cause. [FYI: the idiots at Photobucket do not like him]

If you post this meme, post the link in the comments and I'll add your link here. And if you get an answer, feel free to announce it on your own blog, but please comment here or at MB(Leah)'s place to let us know.

Now, here's how this all started:

Madame Butterfly [MB(Leah)] was innocently out searching Google for something completely unrelated to man candy [No, I did NOT just roll my eyes] and came across this interesting MySpace page which contained a picture of our mystery man. She then used his pic at the end of her New Year's post-- I *think* there were words in the post, but once I laid eyes on tall, dark and gorgeous here, any thoughts I had melted right out of my brain.

So can we solve another Man Candy Mystery? Can we find out his name or find more photos of him?

UPDATE: WOOT! Perv Powers Activated! Our Man Candy Virtual Milk Carton has expanded its distribution to include:

Eyre32 - Who is This Mystery Hottie?

SOLVED: Chris, Lead Hunkologist at Hunk du Jour immediately recognized our dangerous beauty- he's Romanian model Andrei Andrei!

WOOT! Chris linked to him at MostBeautifulMan which, ironically, shows a picture of him that I already have in the same Eye_Candy/Faces folder as this more recent pic! He looks so much more dangerous and brooding in the later pic! But a quick Google Image search verified that, yep, Mr. Manolicious IS Andrei! Check out his site and his blog- you won't believe how different he looks with short hair in the most recent pics.

I don't know why I didn't think to just email Chris to begin with. I mean really, a gay man candy site that claims to be Mom-friendly because his Mom really DOES stop by every day? C'mon, any wonder why this pervy ol' broad lurks over there? Ah, geez, speaking of OLD, I just noticed that Andrei was born the same year that I got married. ::is depressed::

Oh, and sorry, Wave, you didn't even get a chance to post your Man Candy Milk Carton yet but, what the hell, he's worth looking at anyway, right?.

For Auld Lang Syne

2008-12-31T22:55:00.002-05:00

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
A follow-up to my Holiday High Jinks with Borders:
I have been in the local Borders Store TWICE since then and on BOTH trips, the Sony 700 was NOT FUNCTIONING... DEAD TO THE WORLD... A BIG FLAT PAPERWEIGHT. However, I did not contact Billy because either A)- He lied to me or B)- the 700 is so much more fragile than the 505 that sits next to it (and always seems to be working) that I am now re-thinking whether it's worth considering. So Borders Customer Care- E for Effort; Sony Reader and my local Borders- F for FAIL.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Belated Happy Birthdays to Sam Kane, Sam's Big Brother, ME, Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones, Meredith Viera and Matt Lauer, Tiger Woods and LeBron James, and any other December 30th babies I missed!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Madame Butterfly has a mystery for us all to solve. Stay Tuned for details on joining the meme. What a great way to start off the New Year! HINT: It involves this bit of nomnomnom at right. Click to enlarge... if you dare. Seriously, this guy is dangerously beautiful.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

2008-12-24T22:43:00.001-05:00

Santa Ponders by ~BreakTheDay at DeviantArt.com

I've grocery shopped, wrapped, baked, cooked, wrapped more, cooked more, stuffed and hung the stockings, and now I am completely, absolutely, utterly exhausted. Hopefully, I'll have time to make some Christmas blog visits tomorrow night after the family is gone. VERY small gathering this year. No out-of-towners and only part of the locals.

I miss the nights when Santa would set their stuffed stockings in front of their bedroom doors while they were sleeping so that Mom and Dad could catch a few extra minutes of sleep in the morning. I do NOT miss the nights when presents couldn't appear until the troops were well and truly sound asleep. Although, sometimes Santa showed up before Mom and Dad were asleep when he had gifts that couldn't be assembled until they were at our house. I do NOT miss assembly at 3 in the morning.

I miss the magic and awe in their faces Christmas morning. I look at them now and can tell that they are missing it, too. Do any of us EVER get over missing that magic?

Although we did have a bit of a Christmas Miracle at our house today, and I've got pics to prove it! All four of my ~~demon spawn~~ angelic progeny were laughing and working together to decorate gingerbread men and women.

May Peace, Joy, and Love enter hearts around the world tonight and every night.

Prezzies from The Evil One (updated)

2008-12-19T22:15:00.000-05:00

It's an early Christmas over on Madelynne Ellis' (aka The Evil One's) blog where she's been posting snippets from her WIPs and upcoming publications.

Fortuna (upcoming ~~Black Lace~~ release connected to the Georgian era AGW; we met Fortuna in Phantasmagoria)

The Dreaded Contemporary (that's what she's been calling it as she's worked on it)

Pure Folly (this will be a Total-E-Bound release)

Maybe if we are very, very good, she'll post more because I can't imagine The Evil One would pass up a chance to tease us some more.

ADDED: We must have been VERY good because she's posted more WIPs:

Sheer Desperation

Burn

For more about Madelynne's historicals, see my offsite reviews:

A Gentleman's Wager

Phantasmagoria

A Q&A with Madelynne Ellis

For her non-historicals, which I haven't reviewed yet, visit Madame Butterfly's blog:

Dark Designs

Passion of Isis

Sarah ROCKS!

2008-12-15T13:15:00.001-05:00

OH GREAT GOOGLY-MOOGLY! Sarah's got an interview posted with FARHAD Z!

Beware of the Doghouse

2008-12-15T12:51:00.003-05:00

My daughter just sent me the link for this video (can't embed, but it's worth a click). I don't have a clue how/where JC Penney is deploying this marketing campaign, but it sure is funny.

Beware of the Doghouse - the mini-movie.

Beware of the Doghouse - the interactive website.

Holiday High Jinks: Part IV, Audible.com (updated)

2008-12-15T11:00:00.001-05:00

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ME to Audible, 12/04/2008 03:40 PM:
Last month there was a promotion to receive a $10 credit with the purchase of 4 audio books. So I went ahead and bought some audio books that I would have eventually bought one at a time, but certainly didn't need just yet.

However, I am not seeing the $10 credit on my account. Please advise.

AUDIBLE to me, 12/04/2008 4:25 PM:
Thank you for contacting Audible.

I see that you're inquiring of the $10 coupon that's to be issued because of the Listener Rewards promotion we started on 10/28/08. As outlined in the emails we sent out, the promotion ran from the end of October and ended on 11/27/08. I certainly see that these purchases were made within the above dates. Also, all eligible purchases must have a regular price of $14.95 or higher. In looking at your account, that only one out of the four titles had a regular price of at least $14.95. It's for this reason the $10 coupon has not been added to your account.

If you did not see the promotion details we outlined on our site at the time offer, I do apologize.

Here at Audible, we truly value and appreciate your business; if you need further assistance, please respond to this email or if you wish, please provide me with a contact number and the best available time to reach you.

For additional questions, how to contact us and hours of operation, please visit us at: www.audible.com/contactus

Sincerely,
Edwin S.
Audible Customer Support

ME to Audible, 12/04/2008 6:25 PM:
I DID see the promotional details that were included in the email sent to me, "*Eligible audio programs must have a regular price of $14.95 or higher. Offer ends Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 11:59 pm EST. Customers who purchase four eligible audio programs during the promotional period will have a $10 Audible coupon dropped into their account no later than Monday, December 8, 2008"

Now, upon re-reading that, I see that I may have expected the $10 coupon too early since the promo states I would receive it no later than Dec. 8, but I am NOT misunderstanding what the conditions were for the promo. In fact you repeated those same conditions, "all eligible purchases must have a regular price of $14.95 or higher". Please note the use of the term "REGULAR PRICE" and NOT "Member Price". When I visit Audible.com, those are two distictively different figures.

My purchases during the promotional time period were as follows:
Undead and Unworthy - REGULAR PRICE: $25.07;
Club Dead - REGULAR PRICE: $31.47;
Living Dead in Dallas - REGULAR PRICE: $29.37
Living with the Dead - REGULAR PRICE: $20.97

Therefore, based on the above information, I DID meet the requirements of the promotion and purchased those audio books in good faith based on the stated promotion requirements. If you are unable to add the $10 coupon to my account, please pass this incident report onto a supervisor who CAN add it.

AUDIBLE to me, 12/05/2008 10:41 AM:
Thank you for the reply and I am very sorry for not further clarifying the purchase. The books purchased during this period was purchased during our Semi-Annual Half Price Sale. These qualifying books' regular price was, therefore, modified to reflect the sale. Please consider the following list of titles purchased on 11/11/08:

1).Undead and Unworthy
Regular Price: $25.87
Regular Price on 11/11: $12.93

2). Club Dead
Regular Price Now: $31.47
Regular Price on 11/11: $15.73

3). Living Dead in Dallas
Regular Price Now: $29.37
Regular Price on 11/11: $14.68

By the time you purchased your forth book,"Living with the Dead: Women of the Otherworld, Book 9", the Semi-Annual Sale was over and the regular price for this book was and is $20.97. As you can see, this was just as I outlined in my previous email: only one of the four purchases was eligible in the Listener Rewards promotion.

For additional questions, how to contact us and hours of operation, please visit us at: www.audible.com/contactus

Sincerely,
Edwin S.
Audible Customer Support

....................

ME to Audible, 12/5/2008 11:42 AM:
Nice try. But again I tell you that the promo stated REGULAR price, NOT half price sale price. I made my purchases based on the promotion's statement of conditions and it is reasonable to expect Audible to comply with those conditions. To any reasonable person, it is beginning to appear that Audible engaged in a deceptive sales tactic. I want all communication in this incident forwarded to Audible management.

I never heard back from that ol' Christmas Weasel, Edwin Slippy (as I've affectionately named him; note his artist's depiction at right and above right), but I checked my Audible account the next day and there was a $10 credit sitting there. Then, a couple of days later, I received the following:

AUDIBLE to me, 12/08/2008 12:03 PM:
Congratulations! You've received a $10 Listening Reward. This coupon is good for any audio program in the store.

We've already dropped this gift of savings in your Audible account so you can spend it right away. Remember, this $10 coupon expires on December 31, 2008, at 11:59PM (ET).

So I bought Stephanie Laurens' Four In Hand for $2.56 after the credit. It's actually a sweet, not spicy, Regency from 1999. But I needed something to break up all the Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance I've been listening to lately and, after sampling this one, I liked the sound of the narrator, Ashford MacNab's (a woman!), voice. Besides, with all the smexiness behind closed doors, that means I won't get a bad case of the 12-year-old-girl-giggles.

In conclusion, Audible Customer Service... UR doin' it WRONG. Regular price means regular half-price SALE price? REALLY? That's the best you've got?! Might I suggest you recruit your people from Health Insurance Claims Departments? Now THOSE people are masters in weaselocity!

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So, will there be a Holiday High Jinks: Part V? Gawd, I HOPE not!

I've spared you from the details of the Victoria's Secret shell game. They only allow three promo codes per order yet there are multiple codes in play AND I was shopping for both my daughters and myself. So, I've completely lost track of the number of orders I had to generate to take advantage of every combination of promo code and items to gain the maximum freebies at the minimum prices. GAK, maybe I should tackle the Big Three Auto Bailout next! Oh man, I won't even start with my opinions on THAT mess!

(Oh, btw, you may have noticed that I redecorated again. I have to admit that this Christmas color scheme is more my style.)

ADDED: WOOT! I just went back to OfficeMax.com to check on the price of the laptop I bought my oldest daughter (her old one is dying of old age) and not only is it $50 bucks LESS now, but there's a promo for a FREE designer(ish) laptop bag. So I called OfficeMax Customer Service and, while it was no problem to refund the $50 dollars, they couldn't send the laptop case without another purchase. So, I ordered another laptop WITH case and I'll just return the original one to the store for full credit since it's unopened. WOOT! We LOVE the discounts and freebies!

UPDATED:
AUDIBLE to me, Today 12/15/2008 10:10 AM:
Thank you again for the reply. As requested, I've escalated this discussion to a supervisor. As a reminder, the Listener Rewards program you attempted to take advantage of was to issue a $10 coupon on or around December 23th for the purchase of four books at $14.95 or more. While at the time of the purchase, all of the books were not eligible, the regular prices for those books are clearly $14.95 or higher.

Taking this into consideration, coupled with the loyalty and patience you've already shown by using Audible, the $10 coupon has been issued to your account. Per the terms and conditions of the promotion, however, it will be dropped in your account on December 23, 2008 and will expire December 31, 2008

Once again, I do apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience in this regard.

For additional questions, how to contact us and hours of operation, please visit us at: www.audible.com/contactus

Sincerely,
Edwin S.
Audible Customer Support

OMGWTFBBQ- these people do NOT have it together AT ALL! So does that mean that on December 23rd I'll get ANOTHER $10 credit? Or does it mean that one hand has no idea what the other hand is doing over there at Audible.com and ol' Edwin doesn't know I already received the credit? And maybe Edwin is a bit confused and is referring to Dec. 23rd but really means Dec. 8? Guess I'll find out on the 23rd.

Holiday High Jinks: Part III, Shopping as Sport

2008-12-14T12:04:00.002-05:00

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The Mission:
Obtain a D-Link Dual Band Extreme N Gaming Router, DGL-4500, and at least one Extreme N wireless USB adapter, at the best price possible to replace our ancient modem/router that Time Warner supplied us with YEARS ago.

Round 1: Venue= Circuit City; Game Day= Thanksgiving 2008

The Deal: Buy a D-Link Wireless N router, get one of 3 models of USB wireless adapters free (savings over entire deal would add up to a free router)

Execution of the Play: DGL-4500 regularly $199.99; sale price= $179.99; savings= $20
Dual Band Wireless N USB adapter DWA-160= $69.99; but out of stock
Wireless N USB adapter (not dual band) DWA-130= $59.99

The Challenge: Rebate link is not working so no way to know what the conditions of the rebate are.

The Strategy: Assume that rebate requires purchase of router and adapter on same order to get the rebate for the free adapter; So, I want the DWA-160, but will settle for the DWA-130. Place order. Further luck out and score both Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero Arrowsmith WITH GUITARS for $59.99 each. AND scored an extra guitar (regularly $49.99) for $9.99. Receive email confirmation that also includes a 10% coupon code.

Round 2: Date= Black Friday
Dual Band DWA-160 adapter miraculously back in stock at Circuit City. Use coupon from previous order to get 10% off the adapter AND an extra wireless control and rechargeable batteries for the Xbox 360 I bought from Target (see Holiday High Jinks: Part I).

The Personal Foul: Rebate link is now working. It seems the REAL reason that Circuit City is closing is because no one there is smart enough to perform simple math equations.

Here's the ACTUAL deal I got instead of the FREE wireless adapter:

DWA-130 Adapter= $59.99
Router Savings= less $20.00
Rebate= less $30.00; Yes, that's right, the rebate for a free adapter with regular prices ranging from $59.99 to 69.99 WAS ONLY $30!!! WTF?!

So, my "FREE" adapter ends up costing $10.00 plus tax. And that's assuming I still want to take a chance and send a rebate form into a company that may go out of existence before I can get the rebate.

Still with me?

Now, I KNOW you're expecting to see my email correspondence with Circuit City Customer Service right about now, but that's NOT what happened.

Round 3 (this past week): Circuit City puts the DWA-130 adapter on sale for $39.99, so savings over what I originally paid at Circuit City= $20.

Now we bring a new player into play- Amazon. They've got the DGL-4500 router on sale for $159.99, $20 less than the Circuit City sale price and $40 less than the regular price. AND they've got the Range Booster DWA-140 wireless N adapter that Circuit City doesn't even carry.

Offense now on da field: So, I order the router from Amazon and decide to order the long range adapter too for $59.99. While I'm at it, I check their prices for Xbox 360 accessories. The wireless controller I bought at Circuit City ($49.99 less 10% off coupon) is on sale at Amazon for $36.99. So I ordered one of those too. In fact they also have the Xbox 360 wireless adapter, which sells for $99.99 everywhere, on sale for $82! So I scored one of those too.

Defensive Play: Returned original router and Xbox 360 wireless to Circuit City. I brought the original wireless adapter with me just in case, but they DID price match it and refunded me the $20 bucks.

Bonus Round:

ME, via Amazon Customer Service Form (Thursday, Dec. 11)
D-Link DGL-4500 Xtreme N Dualband Draft 802.11n Gaming Router
Comments:As you can see, I placed this order Monday and received it on Tuesday. However, the item already has a $10 instant rebate available. Since I just purchased this item, how can I receive this rebate/credit?

Seriously, I didn't have much hope with this one because Amazon discontinued their price protection policy a few months ago.

Amazon Customer Service, via email:
Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com regarding the price change.

I've requested a refund of $10 to the payment method you used for your original purchase. This refund should go through within 2 to 3 business days. You should see it as a credit on your next statement.

You can also view completed refunds by clicking the "Your Account" link on the top right-hand side of the Amazon.com homepage and clicking "View Recent and Open Orders" in the Orders section. Completed refunds will appear at the bottom of an individual order's summary page.

If you still have further questions please contact us:

http://www.amazon.com/contact-us

I hope this solution is satisfactory. Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
[customer service, we're doing it link]
If not, click here:
[customer service, we're NOT doing it link

The Final Score:
DGL-4500 Router regularly $199.99, then $179.99, then $159.99, finally $149.99. Total savings= $50.
DWA-130 wireless adapter regularly $59.99, finally $39.99. Total Savings= $20.
DWA-160 dual band wireless adapter regularly $69.99, finally $62.99. Total Savings= $7.
So, total savings so far= $50 + $20 + $7= $77.
DWA-140 Range Booster wireless adapter list price $104.54, finally $54.92. So see? I DID finally end up getting an adapter free!

Uh-oh, just checked and the DWA-140 Rangebooster adapter now has an instant rebate that brings the price down to $39.64. Dare I try Amazon Customer Service again? Yes I dare.

ME, via Amazon Customer Service contact form (Saturday, Dec 13)
D-Link DWA-140 RangeBooster Draft 802.11n N Wireless USB Adapter
Comments:I placed this order Monday and received it on Tuesday. I paid $54.92 for this adapter but it already has an instant rebate available that brings the price down to $39.64. Since it's only been a few days since I placed my order, how can I receive this rebate/credit without placing a new order and returning the first adapter?
Thank you.

Amazon Customer Service, via email TWO AND A HALF MINUTES LATER (no lie):
Hello from Amazon.com.

Thanks for writing to us about the recent price change on "D-Link DWA-140 RangeBooster Draft 802.11n N Wireless USB Adapter". I understand you bought this item from us just recently at a different price. Unfortunately, we cannot extend a refund to you for the difference between the original price and the lower price you saw posted on our website.

While we don't always beat the best available price on every product, we do offer deep discounts on many thousands of items. From time to time, prices on some items will change due to special offers from suppliers and manufacturers or our inventory and sales volumes. When we can offer a lower price for new purchases we will, but we cannot extend these discounts to completed orders.

I understand you may have taken advantage of a 30-day price guarantee policy in the past. However, that policy was discontinued on September 01, 2008.

We recognize that you have a choice of retailers and are pleased that you would prefer to order from us.

I apologize for any disappointment that this may have cause.

We here at Amazon customer service continuously strive to assist the customers in each and every way can and feel disappointed when we are unable to address customer's concerns. I hope you can understand our limitations in this regard.

In the meantime, you may wish to visit other areas of our web site for great deals everyday.

We offer you consistently low prices on our entire selection of books, CDs, videos, DVDs, toys, electronics, and much more. In fact, you'll save up to 40% on hundreds of thousands of items.

In addition, we offer deep discounts on items from all of our product lines every day in our Outlet store:

[blah blah blah links to watch for upcoming sales blah blah blah]

I encourage you to check back on our web site in the next few weeks. Any special offers will be advertised throughout our web site.

Please be assured that we value all of our customers highly, and we appreciate your loyalty. We appreciate your business, and we hope you will be able to take advantage of our discounts in the future.

I know you are concerned about the price you paid, and certainly understand if you choose to return the item and purchase it at a lower price. I've checked your order and confirmed that you bought this item less than 30 days ago and may return it by visiting our Online Returns Center at www.amazon.com/returns.

[blah blah blah how to return an item blah blah blah]

Best regards,

Vijay Karthick Siva Subramaniyam [I shit you not, that is the name]
Amazon.com -- Earth's Most Customer Centric Company

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! Taken out in the final play!

So, Amazon Customer Service... UR doin' it half right... or would that be half wrong... or would that be half assed.

Ah well, ya can't win 'em all, now I just have to decide if re-ordering and returning is worth it. However, I WILL be nailing Circuit City for a $34.00 refund because they just put some of the Guitar Hero accessories I bought on sale for even less than their previous sale prices. WOOT!

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Stay tuned for the laugh-out-loud antics of those oh-so-funnah Audible Customer Service employees.

Holiday High Jinks: Part II, Borders

2008-12-13T14:20:00.001-05:00

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ME, via Borders' Customer Care online contact form:
I have been highly anticipating the addition of the newest Sony eReader (the 700) to the Sony display in my local Borders so I could "play" with it. I am 98% certain that I want this device but needed the hands-on demonstration to make my final decision.

Unfortunately, while the older model (the 505) was working, the Sony 700 was NOT working. When I asked for help, I was told that the Sony devices were not connected to a charger and the 700 had a dead battery. The employee explained that someone "comes in every now and then and switches them out for newly charged devices." When I asked when that would next be done, the employee informed me that the person "had just been in a couple of days ago and wouldn't be back for quite a while."

So, in conclusion... a very high priced lost sale for Borders AND for Sony. Why aren't those devices connected to chargers?

By the way, it's rather difficult to type in this comment box with the "select store" drop down boxes lying on top of the typed t[ext]

Borders' Customer Care, via email:
Thank you for contacting Borders Customer Care and making us aware of your concern.

I would like to apologize for your experience at your local store. I will be glad to forward your comments to the General Manager for the store and the District Manager for the area. It is our practice to pass on any feedback regarding customer experiences in our stores, such as the feedback you provided, to the GM and the DM. It is our belief that they are best equipped to address feedback from customers regarding experiences in their store. I am sure they will be grateful to receive your feedback so that they can rectify the situation. Please reply to this message with the city and state or address of the store location and we will take care of this for you.

Again, thank you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention. If there is anything else we can do for you, please let us know.

Sincerely,

Kaleena
Borders Customer Care
http://www.bordersstores.com

Me, via email reply:
Thank you for your response Kaleena.

The incident occurred at the Borders store at [my nearby Borders]

It seems my email should also be forwarded to your Borders.com web design team since I DID select the state and store when I filled out the contact form. If you look at the last sentence of my email (which I now see was partially truncated), those were the drop down boxes I referred to that were overlayed/floating on TOP of the comment box on the form. As I typed in the text, it disappeared underneath the state and store drop down selection boxes (although I could scroll to read between the boxes). Your web design team will want to know that I am using Windows XP Pro and IE7.

Borders' Customer Care, via email:
Thank you for contacting Borders Customer Care back with your information.

We want to thank you for taking the time to give us detailed feedback regarding our website. We value and rely on feedback so that we can evaluate our programs and services and make changes to best meet our customers' needs.

Please note that I am forwarding your comments to the General Manager for the store and the District Manager for the area regarding the issue with the Sony eReader. As well, I will forward your feedback to the our e-commerce and marketing team members regarding the issues you encountered on our website.

Again, thank you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention. If there is anything else we can do for you, please let us know.

Sincerely,

Susan
Borders Customer Care
http://www.bordersstores.com

Borders, via phone... that's right, I said BY PHONE!!!
The local head honcho, Billy (see artist's rendition of Billy at left ;-p), called and said my emails had been forwarded to him. He apologized for the incident and told me that the battery wasn't dead on the Sony 700, but the unit had been broken and, based on my email date, a new one was in place within a couple of hours of my first email to Borders. He then invited me to come back and test the Sony out and when I did, he told me to ask for him because he wanted to buy me a beverage at the cafe.

Now I see why Borders has renamed Customer Service to Customer Care.

Borders' Customer Care... UR doin' it RIGHT, akshully.

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Still to come: Winter Sports: the Price-Matching Finals; and then a jaw-dropping tale that combines stupidity, arrogance, and amateur grade weasellyness. (IS a word!)

Holiday High Jinks: Part I, Target.com

2008-12-12T14:08:00.001-05:00

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Me, via Target.com contact form:
re: Pro System Value Bundle for Xbox 360 Video Game on above order.

Order confirmation Thursday, 11/27/2008 at 6:29 AM; Item ship notification Friday, 11/28/2008 at 2:55PM; Item received Wednesday 12/03/2008 at 3:45 PM.

Target newspaper ad of 11/27/2008 states "Closed Thanksgiving Day- Shop Target.com on Thanksgiving Day!" [note this was a 28 page ad]; Xbox Pro Bundle in ad states "Free $60 Target Giftcard with purchase". After carefully re-reading the ad, I am confident that the ad does NOT state that this is an in-store deal only.

I could purchase this Xbox system from other stores at the same price. I chose Target because of the $60 giftcard offer and was expecting it to be included in the shipment I received yesterday. It wasn't.

I would like to receive the $60 giftcard. Please advise.

Target Customer Service, via email:
Unfortunately, the promotion for the "Xbox Pro Bundle in ad states "Free $60 Target Gift card with purchase" Is just an "IN STORE" promotion. If you get on the Target.com and view the weekly ad, it tells whether the item is available in store or online. Thanks for getting in touch with us.

How Did We Do?
Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
[customer service, we're doing it link]
If not, click here:
[customer service, we're NOT doing it link ]

Me, via contact form accessed through NOT link:
The answer I was given was not reasonable or logical.

Why should I be required to view the weekly ads on Target.com when I have the ad from the newspaper in my hand? The fact that Target either changed the deal or failed to specify in-store only in the print ad should not effect the fact that I made a purchase based on information provided by Target in a public newspaper. To place the burden on the customer by expecting me to consult an additional source that contradicted the original source can by no means be construed as a reasonable, good faith business practice.

No, it was Target's omission and I firmly believe that, based on the newspaper ad, I should be given the ad deal which included a $60 Target gift card.

In addition, does Target not have any price protection policies in place that would apply in this situation?

Target Customer Service, via email:
Thank you for contacting us at Target.com.

First, I would like to apologize for the misunderstanding that this promotional offer has caused. The giftcard offers that appear in the Target circular are valid only for in store purchases. They are not valid for purchases made online.On the reverse of the flyer, you will see the pertinent restrictions listed in the lower right hand corner.

If you wish to return the item for a refund, you can either visit our online returns center, or return the item to a local Target store. Most items can also be returned to a Target store, but we wouldn't be able to refund your shipping. If you do return an item to a store, you may be asked for a photo ID.

I hope that this information is helpful. Thank you for shopping at Target.com.

How Did We Do?
Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
[customer service, we're doing it link]
If not, click here:
[customer service, we're NOT doing it link

Me, via contact form accessed through NOT link:
Let's see if I understand the previous answers I've received. To summarize: when I read a multi-page Target newspaper ad tab, I should not ever assume that it contains the actual deals that Target offers. I must first view the ad online AND even though the front page of the ad invites me to shop at Target.com, I should turn to the LAST page and search for any fine print that tells me that I can't actually receive the advertised deals.

Does that about sum Target's policy up?

So, Target ads toe right up to the line of misleading and/or deceptive business practices without stepping over? Am I correct in my understanding?

Target Customer Service, via email:
I'm sorry for any confusion, but this promotion is only available in Target stores.

However understanding your concern as an exception I've requested a refund for $60.00, which should post to your credit card account within 7 to 10 business days. We'll also send you a confirmation e-mail when we finish processing your refund.

If you ever want to check on the status of your returns or refunds, you can do it right on Target.com:

We're always looking at ways to make Target.com even better and your comments are a big help to us. I'll make sure to share them with the right team.

Thanks for shopping with us. I hope we can be of more help to you in the future.

How Did We Do?
Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
[customer service, we're doing it link]
If not, click here:
[customer service, we're NOT doing it link

I clicked YES!

But wait... they weren't quite done fucking with me yet.

Target, via email:
Thank you for your recent order from Target.com.

We're writing to confirm that we have processed your refund for USD 10.00 for the above-referenced order.

We hope this is a satisfactory resolution for you.

Thanks for shopping with us. We hope you'll visit us again soon.

OMGWTFBBQ??!!!

But then...

Target, via email:
Thank you for your recent order from Target.com.

We're writing to confirm that we have processed your refund for USD 50.00 for the above-referenced order.

We hope this is a satisfactory resolution for you.

Thanks for shopping with us. We hope you'll visit us again soon.

PHEW! Okay, Target.com, you are officially off my Holiday Shit List. In fact, even though I sent that last response, I had given up on ever getting the deal. So, Customer Service, UR Doin' it RIGHT!

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Still ahead: More Holiday High Jinks with Amazon, Borders, and Audible.

BTW, you like my Holiday Decorations? I thought about REALLY taking them over the top, but then I realized that it would probably take forever for the damn thing to load.

The Race is On!

2008-12-01T11:13:00.001-05:00

WHAT A LOOOONG-ASS WEEKEND! Or maybe I should say a WIDE-ass weekend since, when I wasn't cooking and/or eating, I was parked in front of my PC shopping online. Although I DID get a surprise early Christmas present from a certain someone (I don't know if she wants it kept hush-hush or not) that made me all kinds of happy. You can be sure I'll be reviewing that prezzie soon!

Kudos to GottaDeal for the advance notices of not only WHAT would be in the Black Friday ads, but also what time those deals would be available online on Thursday. I grabbed a few hot deals that way. But then again, I lost out on a few because they were in-store only and nuh-uh, wasn't doing THAT!

By yesterday evening, our main credit card had placed a fraud alert hold on our account until we verified that it was me using it and it hadn't been stolen. But really, it would be much easier to place a few large orders than 5 or 6 or 20 small orders. However, the way the coupon and promo codes work, you have to plan out the orders just right in order to get maximum discounts. So therefore, our wonderfully protective credit card company flagged all those rapid fire multiple orders to the same merchants. We luvs them.

Of course, all this shopping means I haven't had time to start my end of month work crunch. And today's already the FIRST! EEK! So that means I'll be disappearing again except for occasional Google Reader browses.

However, there's one place I won't be missing this week. Our favorite evil genius Samhain editor, Angela James, is hosting a 12 Days of Holiday Hell Contest which includes a scavenger hunt to win one of TWO Kindles! There's a new chance to win one of a bazillion (give or take a few) prizes each day, with separate contests for each Kindle.

That's a whole lotta someones who will getting a whole lotta extra sumpin' sumpin' this Christmas!

Nominations Needed, Please!

2008-11-20T11:25:00.001-05:00

I KNOW I've been MIA lately both here and on everyone else's blogs. My blog guilt is stressin' me out. But I iz sooooo bizzy lately! Hopefully I can play catch up on some of your blogs over the weekend.

Unfortunately, being busy means I almost missed this email and I would have kicked myself had I done so.

Dear Beverly,

We're comparing notes and compiling reviews to determine the Best Audiobooks of 2008, and we'd love to hear your thoughts. Nominate your favorites by sending us an e-mail – Bestof2008@audible.com – with the title and author of the books you think deserve to be in the running for Audiobook of the Year.

We'll collect the most popular nominees, and, starting next week, put them to a vote so you and your fellow AudibleListener members can declare the winner.

We'll announce your choice for Audiobook of the Year on December 4 along with our Editors' Picks for the Best of 2008.

Make sure your voice is heard — Click here to send us your nominations!

– The Audible Editors

NOTE: Only audiobooks released in 2008 will be eligible for the title of Audiobook of the Year. Make sure your nominees fit the bill by double-checking the audio production's copyright.

Now, you may have your own preferences, and that's okay. But if not, might I ~~beg you~~ ~~plead for~~ make a few suggestions? After much deliberation (damn, it was hard to choose between Highlander books!), here's the email I sent to Audible. Please note the required subject line. And also note that they gave no guidelines, so I just said what I felt needed saying! Hee.

To: Bestof2008@audible.com

Subject: Best of 2008 Nominations

Series, Romance:
Highlander series by Karen Marie Moning, narrated by Phil Gigante

Individual book nominations in Romance:
The Immortal Highlander by Karen Marie Moning, narrated by Phil Gigante
Spell of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning, narrated by Phil Gigante

Series, Fantasy: Paranormal:
Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris, narrated by Johanna Parker

Individual book nominations in Fantasy: Romance:
From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris, narrated by Johanna Parker

And, you didn't ask, but I'm nominating Phil Gigante as Narrator of the Year for his amazing performances in the Highlander series by Karen Marie Moning

Of course, you would want to use your own format for your email. Oh, and PLEASE DO IT NOW (as in RIGHT NOW) since I actually received the email on Tuesday the 18th and I don't know how many days they'll be taking nominations. I'm fairly certain that next week's voting will be for members only, but the email doesn't say anything about only members being able to nominate audio books. So PLEASE send those nominations in!

She Did It, She Really Did It

2008-11-15T12:30:00.001-05:00

Anyone who has read Faefever could not possibly forget the MacHalo. Well, before including it in the book, KMM built a prototype just to make sure the idea was feasible. Today on KMM's blog, we finally see EXACTLY what she envisioned to protect Mac from the Shades.

Here is Karen Marie Moning wearing the MacHalo:

Yeah, I'm A Sexist

2008-11-14T22:10:00.002-05:00

While there've been a whole lot of female singers past and present who had a song or two I liked, there are only a handful that I can honestly say I CHOSE to listen to.

A glance through all the drawers in my CD chest will show Lorrie Morgan's Greatest Hits, Wynonna's Greatest Hits, and The Judds Greatest Hits filed alphabetically along with all the CDs from male singers/groups (except for Garth who gets his own drawer). And if I took the time to look through all my old LPs, there wouldn't be too many more in there either- Carole King's Tapestry, Janis Joplin's Pearl, Heart's Dreamboat Annie, Four Sides of Melanie, and... hmmm... I don't remember any more so maybe that's all.

Yeah, I'm a sexist when it comes to music. Always have been, probably always will be. I just prefer to listen to and sing along with male voices. The deeper tones are more pleasing to my ears and kinder to my vocal chords (My singing would make your ears bleed, but I love to sing anyhow).

So it's rather rare that a female singer starts growing on me so much that I keep going back to YouTube to play her songs over and over again.

I'm talking about Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland. Here she is singing live at the 2007 CMA's with an entire audience of her peers and fans entranced with every note and every word that flows from within her:

And here she is singing live with Bon Jovi. Just listen to how her voice twirls and whirls around, through, over, and under his, which elevates BOTH their voices.

As you just heard, the reason I picked those two particular videos was because they were live and they make it clear that Jennifer Nettles does not need a studio engineer to give her voice that rich, unique sound.

Here's a few of the songs from CMT Crossroads in 2005. I remember thinking before this episode aired that I just HAD to watch it because I could NOT picture Sugarland and Bon Jovi singing together. But it ended up being where I first started to pay attention to Jennifer Nettles.
It's My Life
Something More
Wanted Dead or Alive
Just Might Make Me Believe
ADDED: Cool, found it! Who Says You Can't Go Home live premiere on CMT Crossroads

Oh, and speaking of Bon Jovi, I think my favorite all time song of theirs is Blaze of Glory (from Young Guns 2). Although, now that I think of it, I wonder if that's because it has such a Country influence.

You know, I probably should stay the hell away from YouTube for awhile and actually use all that time to maybe write a commentary or two or even READ another book. It's just ridiculous how much time I've been spending over there lately because I've been in the mood to listen to music. Or maybe I should get some work done. Meh.

Oops, I Did It Again

2008-11-10T15:00:00.003-05:00

Back in 2006 at the Rt Con in Daytona, there were a lot of truly amazing panels that I am so glad I did not miss. But hands-down, the most memorable one was the Vampire panel with Charlaine Harris, Maryjanice Davidson, and Laurell K. Hamilton.

I was not alone in saying that they should take their act on the road! The hilarious way they interacted with each other, which showed an underlying warmth and a genuine affection and respect, had everyone in the room in stitches.

That Con is also where I decided to give Harris' Southern Vampire series another chance. As I've said before, I read the first one and just felt it moved too slow for me. But, after seeing the throngs of adoring fans of Ms. Harris and finding her to be so absolutely charming in person, I realized that I needed to go back and revisit Sookie.

Well, thanks to Johanna Parker's brilliant narration of the audio books (see my index), I realized that I just wasn't hearing the "Southerness" of the books when I read them to myself. The problem boiled down to me using my clipped, Midwestern voice to read (which works well with LKH's ABVH series) instead of the smooth mellifluence found in Ms. Harris and Sookie's Southern charm as so wonderfully portrayed by Parker.

So, ever since that first Southern Vampire audio book (Book 5- Dead as a Doornail, although I did go back to read book 4- Dead to the World), I cannot wait for each new audio release. And now, with the HBO series, True Blood, I get to see the stories from multiple POVs. Although, I admit that I had my doubts about it since I SO identified Sookie's voice with Ms. Parker's portrayal but, through sheer luck, Anna Paquinn's Sookie sounds close enough to Johanna Parker's Sookie that I was able to make the transition fairly easily.

Anyway, ~~I don't remember where I found the link, but~~ Marta Acosta's VampireWire pointed me to this auction that recently appeared on eBay:

This is your chance to purchase immortality . . .

or maybe not . . .

New York Times best selling author

Charlaine Harris

will allow the winner of this charity fundraising auction to

"Name a Character"

in the next book of her hugely successful

Southern Vampire Mysteries (Sookie Stackhouse) Series

_______________________________

This very special opportunity has been generously donated by Charlaine Harris and all proceeds from this auction go directly to the American Heart Association - Greater Southeast Affiliate.

The highest bidder will win the naming rights for one character in Ms. Harris' next book in the Southern Vampire Mysteries series featuring Sookie Stackhouse, a psychic cocktail waitress in rural Louisiana. Charlaine Harris has received numerous awards and recognitions, and currently all 8 of her books in this series are in the top 25 on the New York Times Paperback and Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers Lists! If you are a fan, you also know that this Sookie Stackhouse series is the foundation for "True Blood," a current HBO hit show.

The character's chosen name must be mutually agreed to by the winner and Ms. Harris and the auction winner will release all rights to the created/chosen name's use within the specified novel. Additionally, if the character is named after an actual individual, the said namesake must agree to the use of their name. There is no direct or implied financial benefit for the winner or any namesake. At this time, the release date for the next novel in this series is undetermined, but will likely be within the next 12 - 18 months.

If and when the bidding exceeds $1,000, all future bidders must be pre-approved. To gain approval, please click on the Pre-Approval Request link that will appear at the top of this listing and provide your full name, e-mail address, phone number and a statement confirming you are at least 18 years of age. Approval will be granted at our discretion and will be based partially on your eBay feedback rating. We will contact you if we need additional information and will notify you upon approval.

Thanks to Charlaine Harris, we are thrilled to offer this incredible opportunity to be a part of literary history. Bid high knowing that your enthusiasm will aid the American Heart Association - Greater Southeast Affiliate!

Now, here's where the REALLY interesting part (at least to me) comes in...

Allow me to point out a couple of facts about that auction...

First of all--- IT'S OVER!

And second of all---

OMFGHOLYSHITICANNOTBELIEVEIT

I WON!!

I Feel the Power, Part II

2008-11-08T16:40:00.001-05:00

Last year, I wrote that, if I ran a television network, I'd be very selective about the type of commercials I'd allow to run.

Well, in that post, I embedded the seven William Lawson's ads. But little did I know that one day I would unearth an elusive EIGHTH one!!

And if you thought that one was good, you'll be in a kilt-lust coma by the time you finish watching the other seven.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

So while I was over at the world's greatest timesuck (YouTube) I came across a couple of other commercials that I feel are worthy of my TV network. It probably will come as no surprise that they are also ads for alcohol.

This first one is just breathtaking:

Damn, those Guinness folks are creative:

Oh, and I might add some cultural programming to my network. With that in mind, enjoy Vagina (The Dance)

There Were No Losers Last Night

2008-11-05T16:00:00.002-05:00

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
-Martin Luther King at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (August 28, 1963)

And that is what happened last night.

But it wasn’t until this morning that I realized... TRULY REALIZED... what the impact would be of having a Black man elected to the Presidency of the United States.

Yeah... DUH, Bev... he’s been Black all along, how could you not know?

Look, I made no secret that I was against many, if not most, of the Obama/Biden economic plans, but you see THAT is what makes MLK’s words so profound. THAT is the fulfillment of MLK’s dream— to me, Obama wasn’t a Black man running for President, he was a MAN running for President. Period.

But this morning, I saw film of all the Black men and women watching Obama’s acceptance speech with tears of joy on their faces. Repeated over and over again from people from all walks of life- from Black newscasters to just average, everyday Black supporters- was that “For the first time, I can TRUTHFULLY tell my son/daughter that, in America, you can be anything you want to be.” Then, after, listening to snippets of Dr. King’s speech throughout the morning, a speech I’ve heard a thousand times, I got it. I felt the awesome enormity of this historic milestone. And I have to tell you that MY tears started flowing too.

Or as John McCain said about Obama in his gracious and heartfelt speech last night, “...his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.”

And the thing is, it’s not just the Black population that has been inspired by Obama’s election. It’s EVERY minority, and it’s women; it’s people in OTHER countries, and it’s young people of EVERY race.

So, you know what? I think Obama’s election WILL bring about a change for the better. He has excited and united a whole lot of people that felt apathetic toward and disenfranchised by the government of this country and hopefully they will continue to vote, to care, to be involved, to be motivated to make their lives better.

So, now I say to President-Elect Obama, Vice-President-Elect Biden, and to the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress: keep the momentum going-- MAKE THINGS BETTER. You've got a clear path, with few checks and balances. You have no partisan excuses; there’s nowhere for you to point the finger of blame when entitlements are added to important bills. Do right by this country, and leave us in better shape than we were when you took the helm.

As John McCain went on to say, “Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.”

John McCain November 4, 2008:

Barok Obama November 4, 2008 Part 1 of 2

Barok Obama November 4, 2008 Part 2 of 2

Oh, and Arkansas? Consider yourselves slapped upside the head. WHAT were you thinking?! And California? You guys just plain confuse the hell outta me.

Cue Sousa Music

2008-11-04T08:43:00.004-05:00

LKH's Anita Blake TV Pilot

2008-11-03T16:07:00.003-05:00

From Television Business International (via SciFi Guy)

Lionsgate to produce Anita Blake for IFC
27/10/08
US cable network IFC has commissioned Lionsgate to make a two hour sci fi pilot based on vampire novel Anita Blake.

The series, which is based on a series of erotic fantasy books by Laurell K Hamilton, is set to be executive produced by X-Files and Final Destination producer Glen Morgan.

Craig Cegielski, EVP, programming and sales, Lionsgate International Television, told TBIvision that the Rainbow Media-owned broadcaster will air the two hour pilot next year, before deciding whether to order a full season. "It's a sexier Buffy The Vampire Slayer," he says.

Hmmm... looks like it's more than just speculation this time, huh? But IFC?! How odd.

Haunted Jeff Files

2008-11-01T16:32:00.001-04:00

DISCLOSURE: The following should NOT be construed as a political statement in ANY WAY!

At least not by me.

Now my brother-in-law, Jeff, who forwarded it to me? That's a whole 'nuther ball of wax.

The reason it's in a scroll box is because it completely creeps me the hell out and I don't want to view it accidently. Seriously, the hairs on the back of my neck try to climb up over my head when I look at it. But it certainly falls within the spirit of the season, doesn't it?

Now, to get that image out of your mind, let me direct you to Gennita Low's blog where she's got a freakin' hilarious pic that is too big for me to fit here. And yes, I'd think it was funny no matter who was in the driver's seat. Man she's got some unbelievably funny and/or pervy pics throughout her blog! I think I'm going to have to add her to my Google Reader.

And now, I start my end of month work crunch (which I should have already started) so I doubt I'll be around much over the next week. I'll TRY to keep up with Google Reader subscriptions as best I can, though I may not take the time to leave comments.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T16:50:00.002-04:00

So what do you do about that pillowcase full of 40 pounds of candy that your kid brings home? Don't you get tired of being the "Candy Police"?

One year I got so tired of it that I told my kids to "Go ahead. Eat as much as you want." So my oldest son completely pigged out. A few hours later, he was barfing his guts out. Hee. I never had to police his candy intake again.

Anyway, listen up. This was on the Today Show this morning and I think it's a brilliant idea:

Head over to HalloweenCandyBuyBack.com for more details, but, in a nutshell, your kids take their candy to a participating dentist, who pays them $1.00 for every pound of candy!

Now here's the absolute best part- the dentist then sends all that collected candy to our military people overseas!

Is that not a freakin' BRILLIANT idea? Unfortunately, there's no dentist anywhere near me who's participating, but I'm giving the link to my dentist next week when I go in.

Last night was our Trick or Treat. No one would DARE have it on a Friday or Saturday night because *gasp* it might interfere with high school sports!

I thought you might like to see a pic of me in my costume:

HEY! I HEARD THAT SNORT!

And now I leave you with these words of wisdom passed on to me by a wise old co-worker of mine many, many years ago...

When the weather's hot and sticky,
That's no time for dunkin' dicky.

But when the frost is on the pumpkin,
That's the time for dicky dunkin'.

Like to be scared? Check out Switch.com's 15 Scariest Ghost Videos on the Web.

More QB's SUPER Quickies

2008-10-30T09:00:00.001-04:00

Since things like work, sleep, family, and reading seem to use up the time I need to write insightful, intelligent, witty, and LENGTHY commentaries (HEY! Did you just roll your eyes?!), Super Quickie posts give me a way to simply group books into my commentary categories and, more importantly, keep track of what I've read.

Click on the links or go to my INDEX for more info.

Category: M&Ms - a bit lighter and/or not quite as satisfying as Peanut M&Ms, but still Oh-So-Enjoyable! (B,B-,C+,C)

Jes Battis - Night Child, OSI (Occult Special Investigator), book 1

Kresley Cole - Dark Needs at Night's Edge- Conrad and Néomi - Immortals After Dark, Book 4

Kathrynn Dennis - Dark Rider

Yasmine Galenorn - Darkling, Sisters of the Moon, Book 3

Yasmine Galenorn - Dragon Wytch, Sisters of the Moon, Book 4

Mathilde Madden, Madelynne Ellis, Anne Tourney - Possession, multi-author Black Lace paranormal anthology

Have you read any of these books? Feel free to review or link to a review in the comments. Even if you don't agree!

Getcher Red Hot Freebies Here!

2008-10-28T13:28:00.008-04:00

I got this from Kiss and Tell

*****Permission to repost or forward granted*****

It's our birthday and we're celebrating by giving you a present!

All Romance eBooks will be celebrating our second birthday on November 1, 2008 and we couldn't think of a better way to mark the occasion than by passing on the gift of an eBook to as many readers, publishers, and authors as possible.

On November 1st all registered customers will receive a code good for one* free download! The customer picks the book, we purchase it, and authors and publishers earn their royalties. It's as simple as that.

And, not only is it simple now, it's simple every day to shop at All Romance eBooks. Simple category searches, simple checkout process, and a simple buy-ten-get-one-free reward program.

Help us spread the word to those that read eBooks and to anyone you think might like to try one. We have All the romance you need from all the publishers you love—and now we're giving it away!

Lori James and Barbara Perfetti
All Romance eBooks

*one click buys and bundles excluded

I've never bought from them before, so what the hell, it won't cost me anything to check them out, right?

Now, this is something that bugs the living hell outta me, not just with this site but with MOST ebook sites-- why can't they include a secondary category? By that I mean (for instance) there are 1169 books listed under GLBT. Who the hell has time to browse through and read the blurbs for all of those? But if I could select a sub or secondary category like shape-shifter WITHIN the GLBT category, then I've just narrowed down the results to books I'd be interested in and eliminated those that I'm not.

At this point, I would select anthologies to browse through (253 of those), but since anthologies may or may not be included (bundles are excluded and the site lists the category name as Anthology/Bundle, so I dunno if those are the same thing) in the free book offer (bad move since that would allow me to try more voices), I'm looking for recs.

WHAT ARE YOUR TOP RECS FOR ME AT ALL ROMANCE eBOOKS?
Keep in mind that, until I lay my hands on an eInk eReader, my ebook reading is next to nothing, so this has just GOT to be a REALLY good one that I absolutely should NOT miss!

QB's SUPER Quickies

2008-10-28T12:02:00.003-04:00

Since things like work, sleep, family, and reading seem to use up the time I need to write insightful, intelligent, witty, and LENGTHY commentaries (HEY! Did you just roll your eyes?!), Super Quickie posts give me a way to simply group books into my commentary categories and, more importantly, keep track of what I've read.

Click on the links or go to my INDEX for more info.

Category: Peanut M&Ms - mmmm...devour... sigh... then reach for the next one. My daily dose of Insanity-B-Gone. (A-,B+,B)

Patricia Briggs - Cry Wolf, Alpha and Omega, Book 1

MaryJanice Davidson - Dead Over Heels, single author anthology- Betsy and Sinclair, Con and Reanesta, Saul and Cain

Kim Harrison - The Outlaw Demon Wails, The Hollows (Rachel Morgan), Book 6

Cheyenne McCray - Shadow Magic- Garran and Hannah - Magic series book 4

Rachel Vincent - Rogue, Werecats, Book 2

Christine Warren - Walk on the Wild Side- Marcus and Kitty - The Others, Book 5 (see FAQs for correct reading order)

Have you read any of these books? Feel free to review or link to a review in the comments. Even if you don't agree!

The Darkest Touch by Jaci Burton

2008-10-27T14:30:00.001-04:00

Jaci Burton - Demon Hunters series

1. Surviving Demon Island - Derek and Gina (see previous)
2. Hunting the Demon - Nic and Shay (see previous)
3. The Darkest Touch - Ryder and Angelique
Release Date October 28, 2008

Category: Peanut M&Ms - mmmm...devour... sigh... then reach for the next one. My daily dose of Insanity-B-Gone. (A-,B+,B)
Flame Height: 6" out of 9"

WAIT! WAIT! Come back! I know that, if you are like me, you see the word DEMON—YET AGAIN—and you can’t get away fast enough. But remember that Jaci started this series BEFORE demons started showing up in every PNR and UF book. And this series is so filled with adventure and romance that it would be a shame if you missed it just because you've had enough of the latest “demons are the new vampires” trend.

You know, I’m having the same problems reviewing this book that I did with book 1, Surviving Demon Island—it’s very hard to talk about it without revealing something that each reader should discover for herself.

The Darkest Touch continues the relationship between the Demon Hunter Ryder and Angelique (Angie) Deveraux, an archeologist last seen in Australia fleeing the diamond mine with the Black Diamond. You may remember that the Sons of Darkness seemed to think she might be their queen and realized they had “the wrong one” when Angie’s touch produced no reaction from the Black Diamond.

Angie ran with the diamond once it occurred to her that, if she was “the wrong one”, then that probably meant that her twin sister, Isabelle, was “the right one” and the Sons of Darkness AND the Realm of Light would be looking for both Isabelle and the Black Diamond.

So now in The Darkest Touch, Angie has hidden the diamond and herself but hasn’t located Isabelle yet. Ryder, however, finds Angie just in time to rescue her from a new, impossible to kill creation of the demons.

Meanwhile, another Demon Hunter, the mysterious Dalton, has found Isabelle and has used a ruse to get her into his protective custody. But he’s in for a surprise himself when he realizes that Isabelle has her mother’s diary which contains some explosive information about Isabelle, Angie, and the Sons of Darkness.

We meet and learn more about the Sons of Darkness in this book. And we meet another Keeper for the Realm of Light, Michael, and learn a WHOLE lot more about the structure of the Realm. BTW, Michael... Mandy... sparks a-flyin’. Just sayin’.

The Sons of Darkness are indeed hunting for Isabelle and they figure they might as well grab Angie back again too. The final climactic scene of this story is filled with one “OMG” event or revelation after another. Jaci doesn’t pull her punches and it quickly becomes clear that each one of her characters is in danger. Although, to be perfectly honest, I have to admit that after two books of speculation among the demon hunters about what exactly the Black Diamond is, I was a bit disappointed that Lou and Michael knew all along and said nothing. As it was, the revelation of its true power felt a bit patched in so that a certain heroic sacrifice could occur. For me, integrating its history- how it became what it was- would have made for a more interesting and fulfilling scene. Frankly, I feel like that bit of the story was left dangling and, because of how the scene ended, I doubt that Jaci will be revisiting it.

Other than that one quibble, Jaci has written another excellent installment to this series. She knows how to write heroes and heroines who respect each other and who fight beside and for each other.

With Hunting the Demon and now The Darkest Touch, Jaci has started giving us a unique twist to this series (even if I do think she’s an evil tease). The series falls firmly into the paranormal romance subgenre and as such, Jaci makes sure we get an HEA for the central couple. Notice that I said CENTRAL couple, because in addition to ongoing urban fantasy like adventure storylines, Jaci also gives us a SECONDARY couple. Yes, in many ongoing series we often see sparks flying and guess who the next couple will be, but Jaci actually weaves the secondary romance throughout each book... but only to a point. And that’s where Jaci’s evilness shines through. Yes, we get the central couple’s HEA, but she leaves both the ongoing adventure storyline AND the secondary couple’s relationship open-ended.

I’ve said before that this series is like watching a modern day Saturday afternoon movie serial, but with the inclusion of the secondary romances, Jaci has insured that we absolutely won’t want to miss the next installment of her Demon Hunters.

Piquant Opines: M.G. Braden, Romance Reader at Heart, Wild on Books, Curled Up with a Good Book, Romance Junkies, Naughty Nikki, RT

Have you read any of these books? Feel free to review or link to a review in the comments. Even if you don't agree!

L&M 2: Taking Work Home by Jules Jones

2008-10-19T16:27:00.000-04:00

Jules Jones - Lord and Master Series

1. Lord and Master
1.5 Lord and Master: Old Age Creeping Over Me (read it FREE on Jules' website!)
2. Lord & Master 2: Taking Work Home
2.5 Lord and Master: Flight of Dreams (read it FREE on Jules' website!)

Category: Peanut M&Ms - mmmm...devour... sigh... then reach for the next one. My daily dose of Insanity-B-Gone. (A-,B+,B)
Flame Height: 7.5" out of 9"

See INDEX for more about this author.

After nearly a year together, Steven and Mark plan on getting married (their engagement happens prior to this book), yet they still live in separate homes and aren’t sure they can live together. And though monogamous, they still use condoms even for oral sex. Since I hadn't read the previous book, and even though the author includes a back story preface, it just didn’t bode well for a lasting relationship between these two men and I couldn’t see how they could have already made the commitment to marry.

Then I caught on to Jules Jones’ gem of a storyline. Steven, who is Mark’s boss and older by a couple of decades, has bipolar disorder. I think we’ve all read stories or watched TV shows (probably on Lifetime) where one partner in an established relationship develops a mental or physical illness.

But Jules explores what it’s like to know going into a relationship that there are problems. We see that, even knowing there will be challenges, Mark and Steven develop their relationship anyhow, with not only the quirks and follies inherent in any new relationship, but also dealing with what, in a way, becomes the third member of their relationship—Steven’s mental disorder.

Steven knows that his disorder means a lot of work for a partner, so much so that none of his previous partners could handle it/him for the long haul. But with Mark, Steven tries to be realistic and honest and to not put a brave face on what he can and can’t handle.

So they’ve been taking baby steps in their relationship to avoid pushing Steven’s emotional envelope. I do wonder why Steven isn’t on any medications to control his mood swings, but I really don’t know all that much about the disorder. Since Steven appears to have a relatively mild form, maybe the meds have too much of a “zombie" effect on him.

Mark has learned just how much work, and what an unequal partnership, loving someone with bipolar disorder can be. He must be careful, often walking on eggshells, not to pressure or push Steven in case he triggers another emotional swing. And when something DOES send Steven into a depressive state, or obsessive anger, or manic elation, Mark finds himself doing whatever is necessary to help Steven gain some control over himself. To be honest, Mark was, at times, TOO understanding. I wanted him to get angry, even if he kept it to himself.

Steven’s illness complicates the already frustrating misconceptions about their relationship. Mark is perceived, at best, as Steven’s mid-life crisis toyboy. At worst, he’s seen as a gold-digger who thinks Steven and his successful company are enticing prizes. Much of L&M2 involves the dynamics of Steven’s family and the introduction of Mark into it as Mr. Right instead of Mr. Right Now.

BTW, although the title suggests otherwise, Lord and Master is NOT a D/s series. It's probably explained in the first book, but my guess is that it came about because Steven often jokingly refers to Mark as his "minion". And possibly it is a veiled reference to the control that Steven must master in order to keep his disorder from mastering him.

While I still question whether Steven and Mark could have made the commitment to marry so soon, I have to give Jules Jones kudos for this story. There are no car chases, no villains, no shoot-em-ups. However, as she ALWAYS manages to do, Jules has breathed life into her unique and memorable characters in this slice-of-life, heartwarming story.

Piquant Opines: Fallen Angel Reviews, Sensual (Ecataromance), Uniquely Pleasurable, Romance Junkies, Mrs. G, Elisa_Rolle

Have you read any of these books? Feel free to review or link to a review in the comments. Even if you don't agree!

From The Jeff Files...

2008-10-14T07:44:00.005-04:00

Yes, it's another of my brother-in-law, Jeff's, endlessly forwarded emails. I thought this one kind of puts this year's political discussions and predictions into perspective, doesn't it?

Comments Made in the Year 1955!

'If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it.'

'I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $20.00.'

'Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long before $2,000.00 will only buy a used one.'

'If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous.

'Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?'

'If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.'

'When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage.'

'Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls.'

'I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either HELL of DAMN in it.'

'I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas..'

'Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the President.'

'I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now.'

'It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet.'

'It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.'

'Marriage doesn't mean a thing any more, those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat.'

'I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.'

'Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress.'

'The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.'

'There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend, it costs nearly $15.00 a night to stay in a hotel.'

'No one can afford to be sick anymore, at $35.00 a day in the hospital it's too rich for my blood.'

Lurve is in the Air

2008-10-13T15:00:00.006-04:00

The always amusing and amazing Lisabea awarded me that thar I Love Your Blog Award "Cuz I like her. Bunches. That girl has grit." Aw shucks, LB, thank 'ee.

UPDATE: The Lurve has found it's way back to me! Thanks also for the awards from the SpongeBob duo of JenB and MB(Leah).

YO, thar be BIG WET FISH-LIP SNOGS waitin' fer all o' ye!

Heh, only someone following links and reading comments on their blogs will have any idea what the SpongeBob comment is all about.

The rules for this award are that you need to:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog

2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs

4) Add links to those blogs on your blog

5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!

So, my awards, in no significant order, go to:

1. Madame Butterfly, aka MB(Leah): because she's personally so damn interesting and she writes the most interesting book reviews. Even when I know a book isn't my "flavor" I often read MB's reviews anyway just because I know she'll still manage to make the book sound interesting.

2. The Reading Spot, aka Kris: What's NOT to like? She's plain and simply one of those really likeable, down to Earth people!

3. Ginger Kid's Den of Iniquity, aka JenB: So young and yet so pervy. It's hard to believe she's fairly new to blogging; her personality shines through everything she writes and I always look forward to reading/ looking at whatever she posts.

4. Lurv à la Mode, aka Kmont (Kendra): Not only does her blog name coordinate with my blog theme (hee), but after reading her always insightful and intelligent posts, she doesn't seem to mind my dropping by and babbling all over her comment threads. Hell, she even humors me by responding!

5. Marta Acosta's VampireWire: Really, one of the most useful sites around. Sure Marta promotes her own books (deservedly so), but she also promotes everyone else's books, reader blogs, TV shows, movies, and let's not forget that with her Gratutitous Video of the Day she single-handedly (hee) proved the existence of The Jonesian Effect(TM).

6. Nose in a Book, aka LisaBea: Even if she hadn't given me the award, she would have been on my list because, hands down, I think she's got the most consistently witty mind in the blogosphere. Her mind just seems to work... different... than the rest of ours. Besides, who else could make us covet a Nose Picker Award.

7. and 7.5. Romance Rookie, aka JillD whom I've recently "discovered" and am just getting to know, but I already like her voice. And ShartyRant for her brand spankin' new blog, A Book-a-holics Thoughts and Obsessions. I'm looking forward to reading more from both of them.

Now, those are by far not my only favorites. I enjoy EVERYONE on my Today's Chocolate Fondue Specials sidebar list (and therefore followed in Google Reader) and think they are definitely worth reading on a regular basis. But some of them, like Dear Author, Smart Bitches, Lust Bites, and DIK (Desert Island Keepers) have really become more than blogs and are communities unto themselves.

Oh, and really, the number one don't-miss blog for me is Laurell K. Hamilton's blog. (Oh HUSH, Wytherin) But... um... I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be passing this meme on.

pssst... If anyone read this post when it was first posted and notices any changes... well... never mind... I confoozled myself and never seem to catch these things until AFTER they're published. Carry on.

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Lurve is in the Air

WINNER Blue Diablo Contest