Mailbox Monday for 2/1/2010

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page

I won Secrets of a Christmas Box by Steven Hornby and the audio book of 9 Dragons by Michael Connelly from Sheila of One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

I received Dream House by Valerie Laken and a ARC of The Creation of Eve by Lynn Cullen for TLC Book Tours.

Ruins of Ambrai by Melanie Rawn (Quick Review)

Synopsis From Back Cover:

A thousand years ago, Mageborns fled prejudice and persecution to colonize the planet Lenfell-pristine, untouched, a perfect refuge for those whose powers were perceived as a threat by people not gifted with magic.  But the greater the magic, the greater the peril-and Lenfell was soon devastated by a war between rival Mageborn factions that polluted land, sea, and air with Wild Magic and unleashed the hideous specters known as the Wraithenbeasts.

Generations after that terrible war, with the land recovered from crippling wounds and the people no longer threatened by genetic damage. Mageborns still practice their craft-but under strict constraints.  Yet so long as the rivalry between the Mage Guardians and the Lords of Malerris continues, the threat of another war is ever-present.  And someone has been planning just such a ward for many long years, the final strike a generations-old bid for total power...

This is going to be a short review, not because I don't like the book.  I actually love this book which is the first in the Exiles Trilogy by Melanie Rawn.  The review will be short because I'm not very good at reviewing Epic Fantasy of which this is a beautifully written example of.  Epic Fantasy has so much going on with world building and history, magical systems, societal structures, and a cast of hundreds that it's hard for me to separate in my head in order to talk about it in a blog format.  I could discuss this book for hours and touch on maybe half of the relevant points I would want to get across.  All I will say is if you like fantasy and enjoy richly developed stories, I would highly urge you to pick this book up and lose yourself in world filled with magic and intrigue.

Sunday Funnies

i

Think about the power of the letter "i".

Not capitalized, merely lowercase, "i" has grown in stature since elementary school days when I signed notes "i love you" and the dot over the "i" was a heart.

Later, it was all about capital I - power, money, status, the Me-Decade, Janet Jackson singing "What Have You Done for Me Lately?"

Now the small "i" rules:
Nintendo Wii - two i's entertain and keep us fit.
And the king of i, the world of i - the Apple i courtesy of Steve Jobs. Absolute genius in the world of technology, communications, and entertainment. I heard him speak back in the 1980s. Working for an electronics/networking company, I attended a conference in Mountain View, CA and was thoroughly impressed with this confident man dressed in black who spoke of the future. Alas, not enough to buy Apple stock and hold on to it. (Duh). But Jobs was memorable. The room was electric and you could feel his excitement, his passion, and the energy of Apple.

iTunes - certainly has transformed the music industry

iPhone - impressive piece of machinery and the apps alone entertain. Forget hanging at the water cooler. I gravitate to a co-worker's desk to see and hear iBurp, iFart, iBubblewrap, and to me the most impressive - iLighter. Truly, you can use the phone at a concert to wave a pseudo-lighter. The flame flickers.

and the latest product and buzz - iPad. Will this transform everything? Who's to say? But reading the old fashioned paper newspaper this morning and perusing the comics, I did think of one fun thing that's eliminated. Remember using Silly Putty as a kid? You spread it out over a favorite comic strip, pulled it up, and voila the picture transferred.

Now that's an app I'd like to see duplicated. iPutty??

Small selection of Day 1 RGV birds

Day 1 and we're exhausted. Here's just a hint of all we saw today:

Great Egret with a too-big fish that he would end up dropping

White Ibis

Reddish Egret

Little Blue Heron

Roseate Spoonbill

And that was just a hint, and just day 1--more soon! Today we did the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center and then the Estero Llano World Birding Center.
TOTALS:
25 lifers
73 species
My lifers-in-one-day total might be beaten! My first trip to Cape May, I got 31 lifers in two days; I'm going to say that this day was my biggest day ever!

Tomorrow, it's the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and the Arroyo Colorado Birding Center. It'll probably be Monday or Tuesday before I get up all the pics and the full list, so stick with me, and wish me luck tomorrow. Still hoping to see Green Jay, Green Kingfisher, Altamira Oriole, and more.

THIS POST WAS UPDATED.
Oh my gosh, we're down here on South Padre Island, and it's FREEZING! And WINDY! But we've made one birding stop so far: the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center, a beautiful facility with a long boardwalk with viewing platforms and both fresh and saltwater marshy areas and mudflats.

We saw 34 species, thanks to our intrepid guide Tim Bradshaw.
Mallard--including a hybrid who was HUGE--Tim said he'd probably been parented by a Mallard and a domestic duck.

Blue-winged Teal
Northern Pintail
Redhead (in rafts of like 150 birds!)
Pied-billed Grebe
Brown Pelican
White Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tri-colored Heron--LIFER!
Reddish Egret--LIFER!
White Ibis--LIFER!
Roseate Spoonbill--LIFER!
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Common Moorhen--LIFER!
American Coot
Black-bellied Plover--LIFER!
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper--LIFER!
Willet--LIFER!
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Sanderling
Western Sandpiper
Long-billed Dowitcher--LIFER!
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Caspian Tern--LIFER!
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Red-winged Blackbird
some kind of pale-colored sparrow--didn't get a good look!

WHEW! Sitting in a coffee shop now, getting ready to leave the Island to go inland where it's warmer and less windy. The sun is out, the beach is beautiful, and my lifelist is growing faster than a little fledgling in the spring!

Pictures coming up tonight!

Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Cover:

Who is the beautiful actress whose trail leads to a perfectly staged murder?  What are a mother and daughter to do when a haunted house becomes their deadly inheritance?  Where better than a costume ball to conceal the identity of a masked killer?  A variety of uncanny crimes calls for a variety of resolve.  In this "hilarious burlesque of detective fiction", (New York Times), two of Agatha Christie's most adventurous sleuths, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, adopt the methods and manners of every major literary detective from Hercule Poirot to Sherlock Holmes to piece together an increasingly complex series of delightfully different-and deadly-misdeeds.

Tommy and Tuppence have always reminded me of Nick and Nora Charles of The Thin Man movie series, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.  Both couples have a wit and style that I find admirable and have a relationship that I am envious of.  Now, Tommy and Tuppence are a little bit more restrained in their manner however which leads to a couple that I enjoy just as much as Nick and Nora but for different reasons.  They play off each other brilliantly and make up for what the other lacks in such a seamless way that I'm not even sure they truly recognize how perfect they are together.

As you could tell from the synopsis, this is a collection of short stories that have two common threads running through them.  In the first story they are approched by an old intelligence services pal and they are quickly roped into running a fake detective agency to ferret out a spy.  For the most part the stories are well written and only one or two fail to make the grade for me.  There were even a couple that I would have loved to have been fleshed out and turned into full novels. 

The other thread was how they would "play act" at being famous literary detectives by trying to solve every case using the methods and sometimes madness of their fictional counterparts.  It was a clever device and it kept a light tone to even the darker stories.  With this collection of stories, Agatha Christie has once again proved to me why she is the biggest selling mystery author of all time.

This qualifies for both the Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge 2010 and the Typically British Reading Challenge 2010 both of which are hosted by Carolyn of Book Chick City.

De humano para vampiro I

  Ninguém nasce vampiro, todos os filhos da noite começaram como humanos e cada um deles teve de ser transformado por um outro membro da espécie.

  Alguns autores aceitam a hipótese dos vampiros poderem ter filho, pessoalmente considero que isso não faz muito sentido. Afinal, são mortos-vivos, os seus corpos não têm os componentes para suster vida. Não obstante, tendo em conta que também não é suposto os mortos andarem por aí a sugar sangue e tudo mais, admitamos que o tema é uma área cinzenta, cabendo a cada autor fazer a sua escolha.

  Em Crónicas Obscuras a questão é muito clara, havendo uma e uma única maneira de se entrar para as hostes dos filhos da noite.

Word Verification Balderdash

For those of you unfamiliar with the greatness that is Balderdash, here is what you do. You write down all the word verifications you come across as you are commenting on other people's blogs. Then you play balderdash with them. Now for those of you who don't know how to play, you take a made up word and come up with an authentic sounding definition of it. Do this for a week and post your best ones on Thursday.

Come back and leave a link to your post and I will add it to the bottom of the post.

Here are mine for this week:

Newpac:  3rd cousin of Tupac who just realeased his first gospel rap album, "God the Smiter".  Newpac grew up living under his famous cousin's shadow and has vowed to make gansta rap that Jesus would be proud of.

Tyroduck:  Form the creators of Howard the Duck comes the next installment in the Ducks Take Over the World series of comic books.  Tyroduck is a wayward mallard who thinks he's really a fierece dinosaur.  He ramapges through the streets of New York not realizing the citizens are laughing at him, not pointing and screaming in fear.  The first comic will hit store shelves on March 2nd.

CrawlWay:  From the Director of "Demon Knight" and the Producers of "Bordellero of Blood"

 comes a brand new horror film that answers the questions of what really lives in the crawl space of your apartment building.  When your neighbors start dissapearing one by one and the only clue is a few drops of blood underneath all the vents how do you protect yourself from being next?

Pluvita:  The latest SciFi novel from Paul Atreyu set on a Pluto that resembles our Earth.  This books answers the questions we have all been asking ourselves.  What would life be like if humans evolved on Pluto instead of Earth?  This story follows the lives of 3 wayward teens set on discovering the secret behind the curtain.  Who is the strange, unseen ruler that is never seen in public.  The only clue they have to start with is a bone and dog tag.  Join them on their voayge of self discovery and you will never look at a mouse the same way again.

Other Players This Week:

Alexia's Books and Such...

The Ladybug Reads

My World

A Buck A Book Challenge

I found this challenge over at The True Book Addict hosted by Michelle and it sounded like a great way to save a few dollars for more books at the end of the year.  So head on over to DelGal's Book Reviews and get signed up.

Here's a great way to reward yourself for reading persistence and save money at the same time. Read as many books as you'd like, there is no minimum, and there is no maximum. BUT, here's the "catch", you MUST physically take a dollar and save it somewhere safe where it won't be spent, every time you complete a book. At the end of the year, your total money saved will be the total amount of books read, ideally the more book read, the more money saved.

Now, once Dec 31 comes, you're must spend this saved money on something fun just for yourself (no paying bills, no buying gifts for someone else!), to begin the next year... Maybe more books for the new year? A nice dinner out to celebrate reading? The possibilities are endless! Finally, once this challenge completes on Dec 31st, please let your blog fans, and fellow challenge participants, know what you decided to spend your money on by posting whatever it may be. If it's $5 or if it's $100, we want to know what you rewarded yourself with for a year of hard yet enjoyable fun reading!


In short - put aside a dollar for each book you read. Post in the comment section your progress if you don't have a blog, or a link to your blog. At the end of the year update us as to what you did with your saved money. That's it!

Favorite Fictional Character --- Richie Rich

I guess I'm still in a cartoon frame of mind, this will probably be the last one for a while, but I couldn't talk about cartoons without talking about the coolest boy I ever saw on Saturday mornings.  I don't know any boy or girl for that matter, that wouldn't have traded place with Richie Rich in a heartbeat.  I can tell you that I would not even have to think about it, even if I did have to wear a bow tie.

This kid had it all; two loving parents, a cool butler named Cadbury, a robot maid named Irona that acted as a body guard and could change into tanks or jet planes, and his own scientist that could make anything Richie could think of.   Of course you can't forget about Dollar, his faithful dog that was his constant companion.  Richie and his friend Gloria would go on fantastic adventures or stay home fighting off crooks with the help of Irona.  He always had a good time doing it and got to play with the coolest gadgets, how I envied him.

I have really never read the comic books so I don't know much other than that there is some connection to Wendy the Witch and Casper the Ghost.  I used to see them all the time when I was young next to the Archie comics but like the Archie stuff I always stuck to the cartoons.  I'm starting to think I spent way to much time watching TV on Saturday morning.  When I was finding the youtube video for this my son was watching what I was doing and we ended up watching a episode and he really enjoyed it, maybe we need cartoons like this one so kids can actually experience something that stimulates their creativeness as opposed to cartoons that just play on gross jokes and card games.

Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite

Synopsis From Backcover:

In the house on Violin Road he found the bodies of his brother, his mother, and the man who killed them both-his father.  From the house on Violin Road, in Missing Mile, North Carolina, Trevor McGee ran for his sanity and his soul, after hisfamous cartoonist father had exploded inexplicably into murder and suicide.  Now Trevor is back.

In the company of a New Orleans computer hacker on the run from the law, Trevor has returned to face the ghosts that still live on Violin Road, to find the demons that drove his father to murder his family-and worse, to spare one of his sons...But as Trevor begins to draw his own cartoon strip, as he loses himself in a haze of lines and art and thoughts of the past, the haunting begins.  Trevor and his lover plunge into a cyber-maze of cartoons, ghosts, and terror that will lead either to understanding-true understanding-or to a blood-raining repetition of the past....

This is a reread for me, since I've read it quite a few times since it was first published in 1993 and I never get tired of it.  The simple terror and horror that this author is able to put across in her prose is simply stunning and it never fails to make an impression on me.  What has always impressed me with the author's style is how simple and elegant her word choice is.  She is a true wordsmith who picks her words carefully and none of them are wasted.  Whether she is describing a young boys abuse by his parents, autopsy reports, or two young men having sex for the first time she does it in a style all her own.

Trevor is a horribly damaged young man who through sheer strength of mind has kept himself alive in the physical sense but he has never really allowed himself to truly live life.  Twenty years after the scared 5 year old was pulled out of the house in a catatonic state he goes back to discover for himself why he was left alive by his father.  He has never understood why his father spared his life when he took a hammer to the rest of the family.  Part of him truly believes his father didn't love him enough becuase if you love someone you want them with you when you leave this existence.

When he meets Zach for the first time he almost kills him but the two quickly realize that they need each other in a way they have never needed anyone else.  They compliment each other in a way they have never experienced or wanted in the past.   By having Zach in his life, when he has never even let someone else touch him, Trevor may have found the only thing that can help him survive what's to come.  Zach finds the one person that can help him truly move past what his parents did to him as a kid.  These two character are what glues this story together.  They are the focal point for all that happens and their relationship is what keeps this from being your everyday haunted house story.

I would highly recomend this book to anyone who loves horror or simple craves a well written, modern haunted house tale.

This will fall under the GLBT Reading Challenge 2010.

Visit Your Own Backyard

Nothing like having an out of town visitor to get the creative juices flowing. Where shall we go? What shall we eat? What's next? And let's eat! Anytime a good friend comes to town, we hit the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Gorgeous building, stellar art collection, and through March 21st a special event - Private Collections of Texas. Van Gogh, a Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Cezanne - you name the artist and it's represented on the walls of the Kimbell along with comments from the Texas collector and sometimes a photo of where their art is placed. One humorous comment, "You know a large picture covers cracks in the wall." Yeah, Waterlilies by Monet is the way to go in decorating.

After wandering the galleries, go eat at Lucille's on Camp Bowie Boulevard.

On a rainy Saturday, the Old Red Museum, in downtown Dallas proved interesting. The courthouse is now renovated and houses an excellent museum of Dallas and North Texas history. Films, displays, and plenty of interactive screens keep you moving and involved. I was amazed by how many newspapers and gazettes were in circulation back in the day.

Cool to see the Pegasus sign, a former beacon of the Dallas night sky. It's now on display in the Old Red Museum. Plenty of stories to learn as you explore your own backyard. In turn, it prompts stories to create or embellish.

Dallas good eats - S&D Oyster on McKinney.

Sessão de divulgação da obra "Crónicas Obscuras - A vingança do lobo"

Próximo Sábado, dia 30 de Janeiro, na Casa da Cultura de São Martinho do Porto (edifício da Junta) haverá nova sessão de divulgação da obra "Crónicas Obscuras - A vingança do lobo".

Mais uma vez tento difundir um livro que não se encontra propriamente na boca do mundo.

Enfim... passos de bebé... Por isso, por favor, divulguem.

Guest Post at Heidenkind's Hideaway

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have a guest post over at Heidenkind's Hideaway which is a terrific blog written by Tasha.  She had dedicated the entire month of January to m/m romance and she asked me to write a guest post from my perspective.  So please go on and over let me know what you think.  Have a great day!

Mailbox Monday for 1/25/2010

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page

Ok, I'm going to be honest with you guys I went a little over board on buying books this week but I came across so many fantastic sales that I couldn't help myself.  Admiting you have a problem is the first step, right?

I got The Italian Slow Cooker by Michelle Scicolone from the publicist for review.

I bought The Sunrise Lands by S.M. Stirling in hardcover from Barnes & Noble for $.22, this was a bargain book plus I got my discount, a coupon, and the remains of a gift card.

Our last Waldenbooks closed this week and I bought Urban Gothic by Brian Keene, Death Mask by Graham Masterton, Street Magic and Demon Bound by Caitlin Kittredege all in paperback and Imager by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. in hardcover for about $25.

I bought Pride of Lions by Morgan Llywelyn, The High House by James Stoddard, and Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels in hardcover from the Friends of The Library Bookstore for $3.

I went to Wal Mart to buy a bookcase and ended up picking some extra stuff up.  I bought A Madness of Angles by Kate Griffin and since Sleeping Beauty was going back in the vault at the end of the month I had to pick that up as well.  Red Dawn was a bargain DVD for $4.

Sunday Funnies