What Should I Read Next?

I found this very simple Web site that asks you to input the last book you just read and the author and it gives you a list of books to read next. They really want people to register and keep updating it with their favorite books to make it more accurate. I didn't do that yet, just tested it out. But I do find it interesting!

Long time coming

It's been a REALLY long time coming but the Cavaliers finally made some big trades and got rid of some of its unbelievably high salaried players for some players that actually back up that salary with some skill in some big blockbuster trades! I'm very excited about it, although I'm still not sure who is going to play point guard. Also, I'm bummed that I don't have cable and cannot watch it get analyzed every hour on SportsCenter.

I'm a winner!

Thanks to the Washington City Paper, I won a free pass to see the new Imax concert movie U2 3D at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History! It's just one pass so I guess they expect me to go alone but it sounds pretty cool. And I love winning things!

National Portrait Gallery

I spent a couple hours today at the National Portrait Gallery. I'd never been there before since it was closed for renovations during my DC internship in 2005 and I just haven't done much museum stuff since I moved here permanently. But with the recent talk about Stephen Colbert's portrait hanging there temporarily, I figured it would be a good time to check it out. I enjoy portraits and really read a lot of the descriptions of the people who were depicted. I only wish that there was more discussion as to why or when the portraits were made.

It's shocking how much attention the Stephen Colbert portrait is getting. As soon as I entered, I heard people talking about it and heading upstairs solely to check it out. And there was a large assembly of people hovering around it, all snapping photographs. I debated about taking a picture of it as well as taking a picture of all the people taking pictures of it but decided not to bother. I think there are enough pictures of it. In fact, there are hundreds of pictures on Flickr from visitors. But I did take a drink out of the drinking fountain below the picture. Also interesting is that after looking at hundreds of portraits in the museum, you can tell how crappy the Stephen Colbert one is.

Boring book club

A few people at work started a book club and chose the first book as A Tale of Two Cities. Now, I like the idea of being in a book club but I CANNOT force myself to read A Tale of Two Cities. At all. The book was chosen about six weeks ago and I've tried, really tried, to read it. But I hate it. And I end up falling asleep nearly every time I try to read it. It's so frigging boring. I feel bad - as the only librarian at work - not getting through it but geez, it's so dull!! I've been trying - unsuccessfully - to get somewhere with it during most of today but ugh, I ended up just taking a bunch of naps. We're supposed to talk about it on Monday and I guess I'm going to have to not participate because I have absolutely nothing to share. However, I'd like to participate so I can have some input into the next book!

What would Sawyer call me?

Awesome! Sawyer from Lost loves nicknames. Whether it's Freckles or Doc or Mr. Miyagi, he never calls his fellow castaways by their first names. And here is your chance to find out what he would call you if you were stranded on the island with the Sawyer Nickname Generator. I got "Sweet Cheeks" and then "Wilbur" for marking the exact same characteristics. But I'd let Sawyer call me whatever he wants! (via)

"Estevez goes 'Public'"

This article announces that Emilio Estevez's next movie will be about a Los Angeles librarian staging an act of civil disobedience and allowing homeless people to stay in the library after the library is inundated with people on the coldest days of the year. Interesting. Always nice to have a movie showing a librarian doing something good, rather than a librarian just angrily shushing people!

Celebrity Sighting

I saw Hillary Clinton today! Her campaign headquarters are next to our office at work so there have been sightings by some of my co-workers... more often there are just secret service sightings. But today one of my co-workers who actually has a window view called me at about 5:15 to tell me that there was a lot of secret service and gawker activity and that she was bound to come out soon so I went to his office and watched and waited. We saw her at about 5:30!! Another one of my coworkers had gone down there to wait and brought her camera so she snapped some pictures! She got really close but unfortunately the pictures were kind of dark. Anyway, it was a pretty exciting way to end the workday! Also kind of ironic since it was the day I decided to send away for an absentee ballot from Ohio, since I'm still registered to vote there. Will I be tempted to vote for Hillary now that I've seen her in person? I'm not sure. I'm still undecided on my vote. Although seeing her is nothing new. I actually saw her in person in 1992 and not out a window when she came to Cleveland to give a speech during Bill's presidential run. I have a picture of her to prove it - maybe I should get it scanned and upload it.

My weekend

I had a pretty decent weekend, all things considered. I spent a lot of it trying to catch up on sleep and just relax, lay low. Did some laundry, watched some movies... I pretty much finished up straightening up the last of the moving crap still in my room, which was driving me crazy with the mess. And socially, I had a couple of fun plans. I went to a Happy Hour at a wine bar I'd always wanted to check out on Thursday night and went crazy at a Mardi Gras party Sat. night. While at the party, I upped my bead count from 3 strands to 11 and I didn't even have to do anything to get them! Except look cute, I guess. I enjoyed the band, That Guy, who only do cover songs, and would totally go see them again. Now the Super Bowl is about ready to start and I swear I have ZERO interest in watching it. Zero. As an avid sports fan, I fear that something is wrong with me. But maybe it's the rebel in me acting out, detesting how everyone and their brother watches the Super Bowl, even if it's the only football game they watch all year.

Completely moved out!

Tonight, with one last carload of stuff, I completely moved out of my old place!! Aww, it's a little sad since I spent about 9 months there but I'm pretty psyched about my new place so I'll get over it. It was kind of a quick decision to move and then get moved - it all happened in less than a month - but I'm so thrilled to stop looking. I'd always known the place I was living was only temporary so I spent a good part of the last nine months scouring apartment listings and roommate situations trying to find a good place. It's such a relief to be done with that, I can't even explain. My new place is bigger, cheaper and feels more like home already. Plus, it only takes me about 8 minutes to get to work in the morning, compared to what often was nearly 40 minutes but was a minimum of about 25 minutes. It's such a huge huge difference already. I'm still getting settled in but I'm well on my way. Anyway, excuse my absence the last couple of weeks. You might start hearing more from me now.

Hilton Head Kite Flying

I took some pictures of my family flying kites at the beach last week when we were in Hilton Head. Here is the link to the pictures in the album.

Hilton Head Kite Flying

Ow!

So I sprained my wrist the other day. I was out of town for a few days on a family vacation to Hilton Head, SC, and transportation back involved car, plane, layover, delay, plane, train, another train, walk to car, drive home... On the walk to the car, I tripped over my suitcase and went sprawling to the floor. I scraped up the right side of my body and apparently landed my left side solely on my wrist. I went to the doctor yesterday and they diagnosed it as a sprain with deep contusions. It really hurts, mostly when I try to use my fingers. The splint they gave me has helped stabilize it but it will probably be at least a week before it starts to feel much better. Could be worse, of course. I don't imagine I'll be writing on here much though because it hurts to type two-handed and I'm pretty impatient about typing one-handed.

Most Literate Cities

I saw a couple of places on the net today discussion of the "most literate" cities in the US. Minneapolis wins. What's interesting is to look at the actual report and see how cities placed in the different categories. For instance, Cleveland ranks #1 in library services, ranks #8 in periodical publishing, #10 in newspaper circulation, #9 in bookstores (so four top ten finishes) but only #67 in education for an overall ranking of #13. That's still a high ranking but it makes me wonder about which of the categories takes precedence. Also, it points out that the people of Cleveland clearly enjoy reading and learning but in order to be "literate," they must advance that into formal education. I'm not so sure I agree.

Christmas movie wrap-up 2007

Here are my final grades for the 2007 made-for-TV holiday movie season... I watched 16 movies between Thanksgiving and Dec. 26th! But that's apparently one less than last year.

A
The Note
Holiday in Handcuffs
The Christmas Shoes

A-
All I Want for Christmas
Lost Holiday: The Jim and Suzanne Shemwell Story
Christmas in Paradise
Snowglobe

B+
All She Wants for Christmas
The Family Holiday

B
Holiday Switch
A Grandpa for Christmas
Silver Bells
Like Father, Like Santa

B-
An Accidental Christmas

C
Christmas Caper
Christmas Child

Pulling up all of my reviews is a lot easier now that I've started labeling my posts. Also, this article from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review tells exactly why people (read: me!) love Christmas movies. Says Robert Thompson, "Christmas is one of those times where innovation is not what you're looking for... A Christmas story has got to tell some kind of tale of redemption, a return to a more spiritual, loving place. Or it's got to talk about a sacrifice made for other people."

The article even offers a fairly accurate "HOLIDAY TV-MOVIE PLOTLINE GENERATOR". Check it out!

Christmas movie review: The Family Holiday

Rating: B+

A cute premise for a movie but ruined by poor casting, A Family Holiday tells the story of the family that Doc Holiday, our main character, must quickly assemble around Christmastime in order to receive his uncle's inheritance. A lifelong con artist, Doc conveniently finds a couple of sweet orphaned kids, a dog and then quickly hires a nanny to serve as their mother and moves them into a rented house just in time for the 'judge' to come approve of his changed lifestyle and reward him the money. Is he in it for the money or for love? Of course, we all know that he's going to fall for the woman and end up wanting the kids but it was just a little too contrived for me. You don't pick up some orphans and adopt them as your own in 3 days. Nor do you hire a nanny, have her work 2 days, lie to her during those two days, and then marry her! My suspension of disbelief is not that great; particularly not when Dave Coulier is in the lead role. Who decided he needed to work again?

Christmas movie review: Snowglobe

Rating: A-

Snowglobe was really cute and had a lot going for it. It tells the story of a young woman, frustrated with her overbearing family who enjoy having lasagna for Christmas dinner and are always trying to set her up on dates, who receives a snowglobe as a present and soon finds herself transported to the idyllic snowglobe world whenever she takes a nap. At first she thinks it's merely a dream. Then she wakes up one morning wearing a glove she got in snowglobe world. THEN, her snowglobe world boyfriend comes finds her in New York City. It's cute and has the basic premise of sometimes what you think you want isn't exactly what you really want. Plus, I'm a big fan of movies that turn inanimate objects into real things. My one very small complaint was that Christina Millian, the actress/pop star playing the lead, broke into a very noticeable (and not that good in my opinion) Brooklyn accent at some very random times.

Home for Christmas

I went back home for about six days for Christmas, but was able to use only two vacation days, which is good since I don't have a lot. Now I'm back in DC. Here is a picture of our family tree on Christmas Day, before the gifts were unwrapped.


While I was home, I slept in, did some laundry, watched some movies, did all of my Christmas shopping and also tagged along while my parents did some of theirs, helped babysit my nephew one day, hung out with my family, wrapped dozens of presents for my mom, and relaxed. It was nice and just long enough to make it tough to come back to DC. Now it's back to work for a few days and then a family vacation in South Carolina! Oh, also, on my flight back in to Baltimore, my pilot's name was Captain Morgan! That's calming. But actually I loved him because he got us there nearly twenty minutes early, allowing me to catch the earlier bus!

Christmas movie review: The Christmas Shoes

Rating: A

A tear-jerker, that's what The Christmas Shoes is. Kimberly Williams plays a volunteer music teacher organizing the Christmas program who becomes ill with a terminal heart problem. Her son desperately wants to buy her a pair of Christmas shoes to wear into heaven and starts saving cans to turn in for a nickel apiece, hoping he can earn enough before she dies. And, she's deteriorating rapidly. Also in the same town, Rob Lowe plays a working-too-hard husband and father who is setting up interviews for his wife so she'll start working again and missing his daughter's chorale concerts (yes, she sings for Kimberly's character). Needless to say, his family is not pleased with him. Did I mention his mother dies too? Yep, this one is not chock full of happy, sweet, wonderful moments. The two stories take place simultaneously with the characters intersecting in magical ways. It's a really sweet story and has a little bit of everything. It first aired on CBS in 2002 and I'm not sure how I've missed it all these years!

Christmas movie review: All She Wants for Christmas

Rating: B+

All She Wants for Christmas, from 2006, tells the story of a business-minded local gal who is trying to save the town's ornament-making company. She needs to cut costs enough to make them sustainable. It's also part love story as she meets someone who is new to town and they start to date. And even though the viewer can see from a mile away who this new guy is, our main character cannot. Overall, it's an okay story with okay acting. No magic, just cute and agreeable.

Christmas movie review: Like Father, Like Santa

Rating: B

Like Father, Like Santa is nearly ten years old yet I'm pretty sure I had never seen it before. It stars Harry Hamlin as Santa's son who has forsaken the North Pole but still does use the naughty and nice list to get ammo on clients he wants to do business with. A nice touch. When his dad (Santa) gets kidnapped by disgruntled employees and Harry's character coincidentally is in the North Pole to get incriminating evidence for his latest business venture, the two men find themselves locked up together and sort of come to terms with their problems. It turns out that Harry resents his dad for putting his job before his family life, something that Harry soon realizes he does also. And of course, everything turns out rosy in the end. While I enjoyed this movie, I might have rated it higher if they hadn't included a half-hour or so of Santa and Harry trying to escape from their captors. Yawn. It went downhill at the end.