For my mom

who has no idea what my taste in guys is... so that she stops suggesting men like michael weatherly.

in no particular order (because of formatting issues)

Gary Lightbody- my most longstanding, most favorite of all.

Ryan Reynolds- who should not be married to Scarlett Johanssen

Chris Pine- Thank God for Star Trek, because watching the Princess Diaries 2 to see him is a little embarrassing.

Joshua Jackson- I never watched Dawson's Creek, so I've only recently come to appreciate his greatness.

Cillian Murphy- can sit next to me on a plane any time. (he looks better in movies than he does in still pictures.)

And Gerard Butler- who is just perfect.

So there you go mom. Next time you want to suggest I find a famous guy (since apparently you think actors are in my realm and i can stumble across) to date- use them as your jumping off point.

my sister had my child.

i know it sounds like the title of a maury povich episode, or at least a headline on a real, old-fashioned tabloid, but it's true. my sister had my child.

my sister's second daughter, lily, is the spitting image of me. sometimes it is a little weird. i will find myself flipping through my sister's latest kodak gallery, seeing lily looking just mostly like me and then all of the sudden... wham! a picture that is like looking in a mirror with a 26 year way-back feature.

what's even funnier about this is she got a fair few of my personality traits too. she loves to dress up as dorothy from the wizard of oz. she takes ballet. and as my sister puts it, she's a bit of a drama queen. (of course i don't remember being a drama queen. i remember having an older sister who bossed me around a lot because she thought she knew everything because she was 7 years older.)

anyway, this of course leads me to stand up for lily more than i will stand up for her older sister. my sister doesn't understand what it is like to be the younger child, bossed around by an older sister who thinks she knows everything. i'll always be there to buy her ruby slippers, to point out lily's side of the story, and show her what she'll look like in 26 years.

Jurassic Park 101

the other day we were in the car talking about disaster movies (my favorites) and the end of the world. one of my co-workers said, "we're not killing the earth, just our ability to live on it." and i said, "of course, that's jurassic park 101."

that's the first time i had ever been introduced to the concept that the earth will survive. we can pollute the hell out of it, and we will, and other species will die, and we will destroy the atmosphere and most everything on it, but as drs. grant and malcolm tell us, "life finds a way."

i got in the mood to watch jurassic park and realized that movie came out in '93. i was 16. that was HALF MY LIFE AGO. god i'm old.

anyway, it was a great night. we went to see it opening night, and came out of the movie thinking, "dinosaurs must exist. we just saw them on screen." 16 years later and the special effects aren't as strong as they used to be, but honestly, they're still better than you see in a lot of b-movies.

a note on the book, while i was reading it (i have a very, very active imagination) i was so scared that there were velociraptors downstairs in the laundry room one night that i couldn't go put clothes in the dryer. i had never seen a velociraptor, as this was before home computers and the internet. i just knew they were scary and they were waiting for me and that i would die if i went downstairs to put clothes in the dryer at 11PM at night when all the lights were off.

the great iPod unheard project!

every year since i've owned an iPod (2004), i've done "The Great iPod Unheard Project." i put the play count of everything in my iTunes back to zero, and put it all on a separate list, and then as i listen to everything, i delete what i've listened to off the "unheard" play list.

i've now owned my computer for almost a full year (minus the 7 days the mac geniuses had it.) and out of the 5410 songs (46.9 days - 22.53G) i'm down to 3828 songs (10 days - 15.8 G) being unlistened to.

i think what i'm going to have to do to finish this is start moving my regular stuff off my iphone and start putting only unheard stuff on it.

i try to do this as a way to clean some stuff out, and make sure that everything in there is worth it. obviously it was a bigger deal when i had a slower, crappier computer with less memory. the macbook can handle having the extra stuff in there, but still... why not clean?

weird things you thought when you were little

a drive in was just mentioned on the TV show i'm watching, and it made me think back to the drive in in sarasota, FL where i grew up. for some reason i thought i owned the drive in. i will never have an answer as to why i thought i owned the drive in. every time we drove by it i would think to myself, "i own that." what on earth could have ever happened to make a little girl think she owned a movie theater. one of life's great unanswerable questions.

my halloween costume and my favorite target moment

this year i decided to go as the columbia pictures logo. the picture here isn't great, but i love the costume. i'm wearing it again tonight but i'm going to try to pin the blue sash a little better so it looks more like the logo. i'm also going to remember to hold the torch higher for photos.

in doing my research i found out that the lady's figure in the real logo is based on the shape of the coca-cola contour bottle. how perfect. me and coca cola.

any mention of the shape of the coca cola bottle reminds me of one of my favorite days working as a cashier at target. a guy came through my line and was buying a 20 oz coca cola (in the plastic bottle) and that was it. he said to me, the stupid little target cashier who he was probably trying to impress, "you know i designed the shape of this bottle." i blurted out without even thinking, "no you didn't- earl dean did." he didn't say anything for about 30 seconds, just dumbfounded that his little target cashier knew that and finally said, "okay you're right but i meant the plastic version. how the hell did you know that?" it was actually extremely random that i knew that- i had just gone to a design lecture where the bottle got a nod, and somehow remembered the name. who knew i was going to get use that little factoid to put a pompous guy in his place?

bookquiz - from my sister

Hardback, trade paperback or mass market paperback? always hardcover, if i think the book is something i'm going to read more than once and the store has hardcover. if they don't, trade paperback. honestly, when you have a barnes and noble card, the hardcover is usually $3 more expensive than the paperback. of course, every time i move i swear off hardcovers.

Barnes & Noble or Borders? barnes and noble. my barnes and noble card sadly pays for itself in 3 or 4 months (considering i buy books as presents most of the time too.)

Bookmark or dog-ear? neither? and then i forget where i am and go back and re-read. so then i say, "i should dog ear." but i re-read books so often that i don't know which dog ear belongs to which reading.

Amazon or brick-and-mortar? brick and mortar. i like wandering around discovering things, asking the staff for recommendations, and i don't like paying for shipping or waiting. i'm too much of my mother's child ("instant gratification isn't fast enough") to wait for books to arrive. my dream job is actually working in a book store. helping people find books and sorting things and putting them in order! amazing.

Alphabetize by author, or alphabetize by title, or random? not alphabetized at all. grouped by author, and then certain authors grouped together. funny with the funny. irish with the irish. history with the history, etc.

Keep, throw away, or sell? keep, unless i hated it. i rarely even lend, because i want my books back. plus i dont want other people's germs on my books.

Keep dust jacket or toss it? keep it. usually they're prettier than the cover. i'm still mad that my war and peace dust jacket was ruined. it was beautiful, but it's not like i'm going to buy the book again just for the dust jacket.

Short story or novel? both

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? HARRY POTTER!

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? read until i fall asleep. i wake up a lot in the morning with the light still on and the book on the floor.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”? Either

Buy or borrow? buy- see above about other people's germs on books.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendations, or browse? all of the above. but very rarely do i buy books on book reviews. i tend to think that most of what is reviewed is pretentious. maybe i'm reading the wrong reviews. (take that michael silverblatt of bookworm)

Tidy ending or cliffhanger? i like tidy better, but cliffhangers give you a chance to write your own ending in your head, so really either.

Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading? all the time reader.

Stand-alone or series? stand alone, unless the series is good enough.

Favorite series? depends. when i was little, anne of green gables. now- harry potter.

Favorite children’s book? i don't know that i have one. unless you count finding "don't let the pigeon drive the bus" as a 28 year old a "favorite children's book."

Favorite YA book? single book- the secret garden. series- anne of green gables.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? i'd say girl of the limberlost, but it looks like it was turned in to a TV movie in 1990, so maybe people have heard of it.

Favorite books read last year? impossible to choose.

Favorite books of all time? little women, pride and prejudice, mansfield park (it's my favorite of the austens)

What are you reading right now? still slogging through a short history of nearly everything. it's great, just dense. not exactly a "what happens next???" type book.

What are you reading next? a farewell to arms for book club.

Favorite book to recommend to an 11-year-old? gone with the wind, although i don't know that every 11 year old would get obsessed with atlanta circa 1861+ the way i did. i wonder what other 11 year olds were reading?

Favorite book to re-read? i re-read probably everything i read. i don't know why, but i do. so- favorite of those to re-read, little women, jane eyre, anything by jane austen, wuthering heights.

Do you ever smell books? depends on the book. no.

Do you ever read primary source documents like letters or diaries? not often. if i read stuff like that it's usually semi-fictionalized versions of them. i like my reading edited so that someone's making sure it's actually interesting.