Archive for June, 2009

You may not have noticed, but forever and a day, my blog has been under a sub-directory called “ghost.”  It’s a long long story as to why and I’ve been shaking in my boots on how to fix it without blowing up my blog. 

Today, I braved it!  The site went down for 2 hours, but when it came back up… it worked!

Shocking, I know!

Anyway, now my blog isn’t in this “ghost” file!  There are some links on my books page that will take a bit longer to load up until I fix them all.  Besides that, we’re golden.

However, it occured to me that many of you will have me under an old feed address which derived from the “ghost” directory.  Therefore… I wanted to make sure that you knew my need feed address:

http://www.anovelmenagerie.com/feed/#

or

http://www.anovelmenagerie.com/feed/atom

For my current subscribers, I just wanted to thank you for your continued reading and support.  I apologize for the added work to adjust your readers!

This was the BEST Bachelorette episode that I’ve seen in a LONG LONG time.  I clapped, I screamed, I shouted at the television, and I took a tremendous amount of notes.  This is attributed to my long-standing hate relationship with Wes the lying, cheating, fame seeker.  OKAY.  So, here’s some great gossip.  You just can’t write this  stuff!  

This is the episode of hometown dates.  First up is Reid, The Realtor, with the hometown of Philadelphia, PA.  Basically, this date was a whole lot of boredom with a splash of non-committal tossed in for good measure.  Jillian felt closer to Reid and I almost fell asleep.

The next hometown date was with Michael, The Breakdancer and identical twin, from New York.  His hometown date was in Valencia, CA.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s in the greater Los Angeles area, however inland.  Michael and his twin tried the ole’ switch-a-roo, but it didn’t work.  Jillian saw through it.  The main topic of conversation was Michael’s age.  But, she got along well with the family and Michael fell harder.

The next hometown date was with Kiptyn in Encinitas, CA (greater San Diego area).  His family is well educated, well-bred, and an overall charming group.  They hosted a “hot tub” joke for Hot-Tub-Harris (aka Jillian) as well as a blind taste test of good food and good wine. She passed, of course.  Kiptyn’s mom reminded me of Barbara Walters and his sister looked just like her mom, only brunette.  It was a good date and Kiptyn secured his spot in the finals.

Next is Jesse in Carmel, CA.  It is there that he and his brother, the mountain man, crazy dude manage their vineyards for the Kovac Brothers Winery.  This Hungarian family was delightful and I enjoyed everything except for the brother’s stupid comment about how women take a lot of mens’ money.  She tried to shut him down and I think she did a decent job.

Last, but certainly not least, is WES THE SCUMBAG from Austin, Texas.  Of course, he takes her to meet his first family… his band.  They get PRIME TIME air time on ABC with millions of viewers for their lame-ass song.  Let’s just start with some of his candor about his hopeful fame:

“At stake for me is we have a brand new CD coming out.  I want it to do well.  I want people to hear it.  I want people to like it.  That’s the ultimate goal.  I haven’t given Jillian a CD yet, but she will have one before she leaves Austin.”

He continues on about his band and pending fame…

“This is my life.  This is what I love to do.  This is like my church right here.  You know?  That feeling of getting back up there and strapping my guitar on and cranking up my sounds and I can hear that sound behind me roaring.  You cannot beat that feeling with a bat.  I mean, there’s no drug, no woman, nothing that can get you to feel that way you feel on stage.”

Then, he plays her “her song” (which, by the way, he admitted in an earlier show that he wrote even before he met her on the show).  GAG.

While this hoopla is going on, Jake, the American Airlines pilot, shows up at her hotel in Austin and pays her a visit.  He, of course, calls up Tanner (Well-Endowed-Foot-Fetish-Guy) for confirmation that he’s doing the right thing.

Meanwhile, Wes is giving Jillian a speech that makes me want to throw darts at my tv….

“I’m not a good liar.  So, I mean, if I’m feeling something I might as well just tell you the truth.  I mean, I like you a lot and I’m here for you.  I told you that when we were snow skiing.  And, I’m here for the right reasons.” 

and, then…

“I really want to try to make this work, honestly.”

LIAR!  And, why do reality show people always say “I’m here for the right reasons.”  Like, they’d admit if they were there for the wrong ones?

Circa the hotel.  Jillian’s gushing about Wes… “He’s probably the most incredible guy and talented guy that I’ve ever dated.”   WHAT?  Is she out of her cotton-pickin’ mind?

When Jake knocks at the door and surprises her, he explains to her that he’s not there to get her to take him back.  He explains…

“Had I not come here to tell you this and then watched you at the last rose ceremony make the wrong choice, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.”  And, then… “Wes has a girlfriend.  Her name is Laurel.”    He makes my heart break when he continues…

“I’m so sorry.  I want you to be happy.  I want you to pick the guy that is just going to worship the ground that you walk on and you don’t deserve anything less.  And, Wes isn’t the guy who is going to do that.”

So, Jillian talks to Wes.  He responds just as Jake predicted.  I want to smack Wes silly.  After the discussion, Wes suggests that Jillian invite Jake to the hotel room to discuss it face-to-face.  The cameras then take us to Jake’s room.  Brrring.  She calls.  He heads up to her room.  Viewers get to enjoy American hero theme music.  We all gasp and cry, “Go get him, Jake!”

No such luck.  Jillian is a certifiable idiot for believing anything that Wes the fame monger says.  If she picks him, I swear she’ll deserve everything she gets.  Oh, where’s Ed when we need him?

Jake and Wes face off.  Wes lies.  Jake is devastated that his good-doing falls on deaf ears.  He leaves her room.  He cries.  Oh, Jake… Oh, Jake.  I’m afraid to fly, but I’ll fly away with you.

Now, it is at this point that it appears to me that Wes is actually trying to get out of having Jillian meet his family.  He does it in a round-about way, but it’s more than obvious to me.  But, no, she’s stupid when it comes to Wes.  His family is actually delightful despite the fact that they show up late.  They all back Wes’ story that he’s single and looking for love.  WRONG.  He’s looking for a hit SINGLE!

Just when I am ready to change the channel and boycott The Bachelorette forever… Ed comes back!  I’M HOOTING AND HOLLERING!  Yeah, Baby, Yeah!  Oh, Ed… Ed… Ed…  So, this is what Ed has to say…

“I realized that I made huge mistake.  I got home and could not stop thinking about you from the second that I left.  And, I just, uh… I felt like I need to re-prioritize what I’m doing and I think I need to be here with you.  I think I want another shot.”

-and-

“… I don’t think that there is anybody here that is more compatible with you than me.  I just want a chance to be with you.  I just want to be transparent about everything and I just want another shot.”

My heart is pounding.  Ed… you can come to my door ANY DAY and say that to me! 

So, Ed gets an invite to the rose ceremony because Jillian realizes that she’d be a damn fool if she didn’t.

He tells her, “I won’t let you down again.”

Circa the rose ceremony.  Please please please dump Wes.

Oh, NO!  She doesn’t.

She chooses:

I wasn’t bummed when Jesse left.  However, when Michael left, I was totally sad.  He shares…

“There are just 100,000 small things between me and her that… that I love… that made me fall for the girl.  Oh, I just… I’m not going to get to see her.  Yeah, that is not going to go away for a while.  Oh, man.  I straight up loved that girl, didn’t I?”

 Yeah, and that’s the level of sentiment that we should be hearing from the guys who got roses.  (Hint to Wes:Not how much he loves being a singer!)

Michael is such a gentleman.  He goes on to say that if he had the chance to tell her three things, he’d say to her that she’s beautiful, he is going to miss her, and he wants her to be happy.  Now, that’s a man, folks!  That’s a man!

Everybody agreed that Wes needed to go.

But, no… he’s still there.

Who do you want for your final 3?

I invite everybody to participate in the weekly MEME and write about any movies, television or big screen, that you’ve seen over the past week and write about it.  Please feel free to use the above logo photo in your post and/or link back to the site.  I will post every Sunday Night or Monday Morning on the movie I’ve seen from the past week.  I’m hoping that there are other movie buffs out there who will enjoy the MEME as much as I’m hoping to!  The only small request that I have is that you rate the movie out of 5 bags of popcorn (so, 1 bag out of 5, 2 bags out of 5, and so on). 

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IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON GOOGLE READER OR VIA EMAIL, YOU WON’T SEE THE MOVIE TRAILERS, SO YOU’LL HAVE TO CLICK ON OVER TO THE POST TO SEE THE AWESOME TRAILERS!

He’s Just Not That Into You

Director:  Ken Kwapis

Release Date:  February 6, 2009

Starring:  Justin Long, Drew Barrymore, Ginnifer Goodwin, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Scarlet Johansson, Bradley Cooper, Kris Kristofferson

Type:  Romantic Comedy

Rating:  PG-13

Runtime:  129 Minutes

Women tend to justify men’s actions in the dating/courting phase.

We romanticize things that just aren’t there.  

Waiting for the call from him.  It’s torturous at times.

The games people play… completely unnecessary, but seemingly unavoidable. 

Why does dating have to be sooo hard? 

I read the book that this movie was based on MANY MOONS ago.  I really liked it because it spoke so frankly about the facts of dating.  I passed it onto a girlfriend in a bad relationship.  I never saw the book again, but she did end up dumping him!

Some of my favorite actors are in this movie:  Jennifer Aniston, Ginnifer Goodwin, Drew Barrymore and Scarlett Johansson.  This was my first introduction to Justin Long in a movie and to Kevin Connolly, completely.  I enjoyed the eye candy that is Bradley Cooper… those eyes… OMG those eyes… and Ben Affleck.  I’m typically not a Ben fan, but I enjoyed him in this movie.  He came across with more maturity, hence he appealed to me more. 

I think that the movie was completely predictable and the story-line was therefore boring me to tears.  However, I did enjoy the chemistry of Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long.  Apparently, they dated some time before working together in this movie.  Their story was sweet and I wished that we had more time with these two characters.

Another moving part was the scene between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston when he moves home.  I choked up a bit. 

It’s a good Sunday afternoon rental… or a chick flick to catch in your jammies with a girlfriend with a big bowl o’ popcorn.  But, it is not the best romantic comedy that I’ve seen in a while.   Sorry… just way too predictable.

Oh… KUDOS to Scarlett Johansson for just commanding that camera!  It loves you and you looked gorgeous the entire flick!

Bags O’ Popcorn (Out of 5):

Please add your reviews into Mr. Linky!

I’ve been just plug-plug-pluggin’ away at my school work.  Saturday morning, I had the pleasure of a midterm.  I haven’t had one of those in a while!  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

The twins are trying to adjust to being out of school.  I had so much going on this week that I wasn’t as properly prepared to entertain them this as much as I should have been.  They deserve more from me.  Although, they did get so sunburned at the beach on Father’s Day that they couldn’t move until Tuesday.  We did go on some walks and went to the park, but I’m a bit bummed that we didn’t accomplish more.

There are some pictures from my week and I have some “small” news about minor changes to my blog… check it out!

This Week’s Reads

This week, I read and reviewed: 

In My Mailbox for Review

I received Wife of The Gods by Kewie Quartey, Tour de Force by Elizabeth White, The Depression Cure, Friday Night Lights, The Women’s Room & The Love Children by Marilyn French.  Oh… and, I also received Eat Your Feelings by Heather Whaley and two ChickLit books by Mary Carter.

I got all of my review copies organized by publish date so that I can try to schedule the reviews as soon as possible.  All of the books in my first stack have already been published.  EEK!

Contests 

You CHICKLIT FANS are going to LOVE LOVE LOVE my new contest that starts next week.  OH YES YOU ARE! 

Here’s my super-fabulous-wonderful-amazing-thrilling poster about the contest:

Reading Challenges 

On J. Kaye’s 100+ Reading Challenge…  I’m at 88 books done.  Therefore, my statistical update for this challenge is that I’m 88% completed with 49.44% of the year completed.  This puts me ahead of schedule by 38.6%.  

I need to get my tushie in gear on my Book Awards III and Classics Challenges!  Oh, yes I do!

Lainey Grace Update

Lainey Grace is back in the hospital for her final round of chemotherapy.  From what Lori states on her Caring Bridge Journal entry (Friday), things are going very well.  I think that they should be heading home next week.  Fingers crossed!

For all of you who have kept this family in your prayers, I personally want to thank you, again!  In case you haven’t read Lainey Grace’s story, you can access it by clicking  HERE. 

On TV 

So You Think You Can Dance

I was not as thrilled with the dance routines this week.  I felt that there were a couple of good ones, but nothing that really MOVED me.  I agree with the dancers that were cut this week and wish them well.  I’m wondering how many tribute to Michael Jackson routines they will have next week.

The Bachelorette 

My favorite post of the week, my recap on The Bachelorette, had record-breaking stats this week!  I just love the comments that I get on this post and encourage y’all to leave one if you happen to read Tuesday’s post.  It looks like my readers agree with me that Wes should get kicked off the show next week!  I can only hope!  Until then, here is my wrap-up from this week.

America’s Got Talent

Anyway, the twins are bugging me TO DEATH about David Hasselhoff.  The twins filmed a season of Baywatch, hence the 1001 questions about it.  I was going to write my Friday’s Feature: The Writer’s Block about my David Hasselhoff Harassment, but I got too tied up with school on Friday.  Therefore, I’ll post it next Friday and hopefully bring a bit of a smile to your face!   

At Home 

I went to meet David Ebershoff at a bookstore reading in Pasadena.  I got to meet Florinda and Amy.  I went with Lisa of Books On The Brain.  Her brother also met us there and tagged along.   It was cool.  I purchased more books… NOT GOOD since I have so many to read as it is!  I purchased Speak, Moloka’i and Gilead.   Anyway, I must have gained like 50 pounds because I look so so so chubby-licious in the pictures.  Despite my roundish figure, here’s a picture: 

And, I forgot my book (for the signing) in my car in Orange County.  How absolutely STUPID am I to forget the most important thing that you bring to a book signing?  Ugh.  Anyway, so here’s a picture of David sharing about his book:

And, then we all went for coffee at the bookstore’s internal coffee house.  A famous actress, who for the life of me I cannot come up with her name, was there.  Also, we were joined by “Captain Fantastic” (as donned by Lisa’s brother).  He was quite the character and I couldn’t help but staring at him during his antics.  At one point, he interrupted us to leave us his “business card” for his flying circus, which was really a crazy love note (picture below).  He also mentioned that we can find him locally, until Lisa told him that we weren’t locals.  But, he didn’t care, he was positive that we’d find him anyway!

So, look behind Amy in this picture and you’ll see a picture of him.  He kinda looked like Einstein with red hair.

Lisa’s brother had the best picture… but, he didn’t email it to me to share it!  Shucks!  That guy had me in giggles. 

Well, I already mentioned that school swallowed me up.  In addition to school, I’ve been exercising this week.  After I saw the chubby-bubby bookstore pictures, I said to myself.. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!  And, off I went on nightly walks.  Nicole and I went on a 2+ mile trek around the Bolsa Chica Wetlands on Thursday Night.  Here are some pics that I shot:

There is some remarkable wildlife there.  We saw a sting ray, fish, lizards, and all kinds of cool birds.  I’m going to visit it again this upcoming week.  There is this one bird that does this amazing dive & swoop to collect food.  I plan to video record it and post it for you to see.  I know that I occasionally have readers who aren’t familiar with the wetlands and the cool native birds and wildlife that we have.  Colie and I also spotted a California Brown Pelican… on the endangered species list.  So awesome!

After the wetlands, Colie’s twin decided to stay the night at a friend’s house.  So, Colie and I went out to sushi for a light bite.  I sat next to a guy that I thought was pretty cool.  There was also a couple that I met who were married for 21 years.  I liked them, as well.  There was a party at the restaurant on Saturday night with $1 Saki.  But, I was too afraid to go because Colie said that I was flirting with that nice guy.  So… I’m a big chicken and I’ll never get any dates at this speed!

About my note on the changes to my blog.  I spent some time talking to Lisa about the future of my blog.  I explained to her that I really wanted to make it my goal to maintain an “entertainment” blog.  What I’d like to house are reviews on books, movies, television, and music.  In addition, I want to keep up my Friday Feature: The Writer’s Block.  I really love to creatively write and that’s a post that I really look forward to writing.  So, that would result in my blog looking something like this:

Sunday:  The Sunday Salon (Weekly Freelance Recap Post)

Monday:  Monday’s Movie (Movie Review)

Tuesday: Television Show Review (Typically DWTS or The Bachelor/ette)

Wednesday:  Book Review

Thursday: Music Feature – Song of the Week

Friday: The Writer’s Block

Saturday: 2nd Book Review

I also need to start looking into possible income streams for my blog/writing over the next 6 months or so.  If at all possible, I’d like to generate some type of revenue to assist with my financial situation.  I don’t know if that’s possible or plausible for A Novel Menagerie… but, it’s worth a try. 

As always, my thanks to all of you for reading not only this post, but the others as well.   Your readership means the world to me!  AND, your comments are invaluable to me!

Happy Birthday, I.

Author:       Anne Dayton & May Vanderbilt

Publisher:    Faith Words/Hachette

ISBN:          978-0-446-40756-4

Website:      http://anneandmay.com/

Type:         Fiction:YA/Christian

Pages:        273 Trade Paperback

Release:      April 16, 2009

Purchase:    $9.99 @ Amazon.com (HERE)

The Story

“Christine Lee has one goal for sophomore year: stop her father’s wedding.  Still mourning her recently deceased mom, she’s going to do whatever it takes to get the life-size Barbie her dad calls a fiancée out of their lives.

Meanwhile the Miracle Girls are facing troubles of their own. After a magical summer together, the four friends feel the pressures of real life pulling them apart. Ana’s focused entirely on school, Riley has a new boyfriend and major trouble at home, and Zoe’s fending off an unwanted admirer. The Miracle Girls are falling apart just when Christine needs them the most.”

(Above except is from www.anneandmay.com)

The Review

If you didn’t happen to catch my review of The Miracle Girls, the first book in this wonderful YA Christian series… you may want to check that out first and then read about this AWESOME book!

I have just so much enjoyed reading both The Miracle Girls and Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.  Both are great stories with good morals to them.  This book takes off just where The Miracle Girls leaves off… the beginning of their sophmore year.  However, this one is told from the viewpoint of Christine Lee… the eccentric one of the bunch.  Her mother died in a tragic car accident in which she survived.  Her father falls for another woman very shortly into his grieving period.  Christine doesn’t take well to the fact that Candace (aka “The Bimbo”) is engaged to her father and will be marrying him sooner rather than later.  Christine hasn’t fully dealt with her mother’s death and is nowhere near ready to let The Bimbo into her heart and life.  So, she’s determined to break them up before the impending wedding.

The Bimbo isn’t quite as dumb as she looks.  She is clever and really does try to blend her family with her fiance’s.  Candace has a daughter, Emma, who is in the 7th grade.  Emma really looks up to Christine and is falling in love with being her little sister.  Speaking of which, this is the only part of the book that I couldn’t fully release my imagination to.  I’ll explain why… I’ve got two of those 12 year old 7th graders.  They are much more mature than how Emma was portrayed.  And, it’s not just my 2… I know a lot of those 12-year-old-7th graders.  I just truly feel that Emma’s character behaved more like a 10 year old than a 12 year old.  But… that is the only issue that I had with the book and, again, it’s just because I’m surrounded by them.  Besides that, I really loved the story and felt it was just as strong of a book as The Miracle Girls.

So… guess what’s coming up next?  Miracle Girls #3: A Little Help From My Friends!!!!  Oh, Yes-O-Ree!  I’m excited.

I loved the fact that Christine has to learn to open up about her great hurts, learn about relationships with boys, and find her way to rely on God more in this book.  She’s got real issues that teenagers face and I think that this novel shows that there is a way to navigate through these hardships and trials in life.  Parents are tough when you’re a teenager… you need them and yet they just suck!  Your younger siblings are little pains in your tushie.  And, boys will make those cheeks burn and your head spin.  Despite all of these things, God will deliver you through safely and surround you with friends to protect you.   

Anne and May get my applause, again, on a job well done.  Like the first in the series, this book gets a my rating, genre: Fiction:YA/Christian, a 9 OUT OF 10.  I would NOT HESITATE to share this series with tweens & teens alike.  My twins both read The Miracle Girls in 1 day and loved it.  They can’t wait to read and share this one! 

My heartfelt thanks to Miriam!  I’m addicted to The Miracle Girls!