Sunday Selecton time again

Some more pics, most are from my trip to AZ in 08, and yes the reddish purple thing is my skin I went tubing but we forgot to bring sunscreen to reapply so I got the worst of worst sunburns on my arms and legs and feet. the others are from the University of Phoenix stadium and the stand out one are balloons from birthdays past that are now on my ceiling above my bed. Almost forgot this meme is brought to you by Kim.

Not Much

I don't have much to say. I have an idea for a post but need to some research first and just haven't had the time lately. But any ways I will be posting it as soon as I can.

Sunday Selections on Saturday

Ok so I did this last week too but did not explain why I posted it on Saturday. Well like I said last week it is a photo meme by Kim and well she live in Australia and it is already Sunday there and when I see the post if I am going to join I have to do it when I see it or I will forget. So anyways here are some pictures from ACL 2009.

Lots of Things

I have so many ideas in my head right now for post so this is going to be a combo post because I don't feel like writing multiple and scheduling and all that fun stuff.

Firstly I am really into Michelle Branch right now. I listen to her way back when I was in like fifth and sixth grade but I have just recently started listening to her again. On that note Addiction part 6 will be about music, as I am always addicted to something music, this band or that band. So yeah been listening to Michelle Branch for the past few days, I think it is helping me with my writing not only for the blog but with the novel too.

A quick work update, B was sick this week so it was a really fun week(see the sarcasm leaking from that sentence). She just had a virus but had snot leaking out her nose nonstop and had the must horrid braking cough, I hope she doesn't get croup I think her parents would freak, but so far so good. Her eye are really puffy too, she looks like hell. She was really clingy the last few days which is not her. But she was a bit better today so hopefully she will be back to normal Monday.

So I watch Hulu and Netflix it is another addiction of mine. I want to know what draws me to show that have been canceled? I mean I like to watch them especially since I can just watch and don't have to wait a week or more for new episodes but sometime I hate how they end or I think they end to early. Like Firefly it only lasted one season, now it did get a movie and there are comic so it is not completely gone but still I wish it could have lasted longer. Then there is Lipstick Jungle, which I will be featuring in a addiction piece. It lasted two seasons but the way it ended I wanted more it was a great show. It had an ok final episode but because it was canceled it fell short. I wish networks would give shows more than a season or two to get viewers, heck I wish networks would advertise all shows better not just the ones they really really like, but all show. We aren't all stupid people who only like to watch 'reality' TV, I hate most 'reality' TV, I watch Real Housewives(only New York and Jersey) because it is hilarious and the Bethany Frankel show because I love her, and then 16 and pregnant and Teen Mom because well I don't know I guess that one is a guilty pleasure. But other then those and I won't watch it. I miss Better Off Ted it was hilarious but it was smart comedy so it got canned, though I do admit that I love Raising Hope but that show is just so outrageous that that is what makes it funny. I don't know I guess it a win lose when I get into canceled shows, I get to watch them non stop but then if I really like them I wish that there could be more.

I think that is all for now. Um I will be posting more this year, not a resolution or anything just want to write more and sometimes it is easier to write here then to work on my novels.

Peace.

Books

I as a writer I love reading. And yes as I've said before writing came way before reading but hey I'm dyslexic so give me a break on that one, I mean would you enjoy reading if it was a hard thing, no you would not. Which is why it took me finding books I really really loved, loved not just liked, to really enjoy reading. That doesn't mean I never read till Twilight, it just means it was harder. And hey my favorite author is John Irving(side note he too is dyslexic)and I found him before Twilight I just only had so much time to read for pleasure in high school and most of that was still an assignment I just got to pick the books, but when I found Twilight there was maybe two weeks left of school my senior year so yeah I was not doing anything at school at all other then what I wanted to/ sitting bored when I had nothing to do, so I could read and read whatever the hell I wanted to. Now I do have to say I liked a lot of the books and plays that we had to read, but again like I said at that point reading still had not become a real big free time thing for me. So when I saw TV series based off of books I had not read I felt the need to read the books that these shows that I enjoyed were based off of.

First was Vampire Dairies, which I really enjoyed the show, it is definitely a show that is not meant for anyone much younger than 14, the themes are not meant for children and it has never had the problem as people can see that. There is blood and people killing other people be that vampires killing humans or humans killing vampire or vampires killing werewolves, there is a lot of killing. Then there is some sex, and this is mostly between the main character which are teens so people know it is not for younger viewer. So after seeing a good portion of the first season I picked up as many of the books that I could, which was all but the last one that the author was finishing/in final stages of publishing. And then I was disappointed. I don't know how this book series got turned into a show,don't get me wrong I love the show and I am glad that that did happen and by the changes the show made it was clear why. I like the show more than the books and that in my opinion is wrong. Adaptations of books into film or TV should not be as good as the book, they doesn't mean they are bad it just means the book is better. I do not feel that way with Vampire Dairies. I think it because it really hard to connect with Elana in the books and not in the show, and with her being the main character I feel you should be able to find some way to connect to her and it was really hard to do that in the book. Plus I know it is fiction and you can do what you want but I think the author took it too far and the show so far has not done that, the so is keeping it more real then the author did in the books. Which I also think fiction needs some connection to reality I mean I find the best fiction is that that you can read and feel like that could happen, I do not get that from Vampire Dairies the books. Plus I am having a hard time finishing the last book, And all that is sad.

Now the next was Pretty Little Liars, this is a complete guilty pleasure for me. I love the show and it took me longer to get the books. Now I only have the first two and have only read the first but I loved it. I would say the show did a good job of giving you the books in film form(I know it is a TV show but that sounded better). I would have to say I like the show and the books equally. They change some things in the show but it works and to be honest when making books into a TV show you have to change some things or else you audience would know what was going to happen every week and that is not a good thing for a TV shows as are trying to last a certain amount of seasons so they need to change things so people who read the books will watch and not be bored, as well as getting the people who have not read the books. So for this one it is a win, TV show and books are both a go, even if it is for a guilty pleasure. Oh and the book is worse when it comes to sex and cursing but the show is on ABC Family.

Then there is Twilight it is in movie form and while the movies aren't bad they are not the books and having read the books as many time as I have I know the things they messed up and some of those things really bug me. Plus there the whole thing with 12 year olds and younger wanting to read the book and see the movies and the media catching on to this and wanting to make the movies age appropriate which Breaking Dawn is no way no how a book a 12 year old should read, I don't even think my parents would let my brother read it right now, which he has no interest anyways but still. Why, well there is sex and yes it is done tastefully as the author Stephenie Myers is Mormon and that is how she wanted to write it but still sex, and the main character dies for a bit before she is turned, add in that that was during a very bloody childbirth and it should be seen why it is not a childrens book. I get it is in the YA section and I read books out of there frequently but I think most of those are still focused for teens the true YA age group because I have read books about suicide and death and murder and all sorts of crazy things that are not for the 12 and under age range. I don't know it just bugs me that people think Twilight was ever meant for a 12 year old when the author has said multiple times she wrote it for herself a 29 year old at the time. But that is life I guess.

It all makes me wonder how my book will be seen. It is about an 18 year old so it falls into YA on that aspect alone but there will be sex and there is curing that is mild now but will get worse and death there will be death, bloody violent death. Well I guess I have to finish it and just wait and see.

Peace.

Sunday Selections

So this is a photo meme by Kim that I am going to try and be consistent with. Now some picture of my beautiful nephew.

Addictions part 5

Okay this one is a guilty pleasure addiction. I am addicted to YA book, it all started in high school when I more fell into the YA category, but I still love them. Mostly the Twilight books. I can sit for four days straight and read all four. Which if you knew me that is a big thing. I am not a fast reader. My dyslexia makes reading hard. The Twilight books were what got me into reading, yes I did not like to read until thee end of my senior year in high school, and now I want to be a writer. No I been writing for fun since I was 10, started with poems and have since moved to prose. But now because of that I am addicted to reading YA novels. I have read most of the Vampire Dairies books but the sad thing about them is that the television show is better than the books. I know it should never be that way but the author made it hard to connect with the characters and the show made it so you could. Plus I have read some out there fantasy but in something like the Vampire Dairies where thing are taking place on earth in current time some of the things that happened in the books just seemed to far out there even for a fantasy book. I am going to read the Pretty Little Liars books next which should be interesting as am watching the show already.

I have a stack of books waiting to be read when I also want to write, there is not enough time to do everything. I think I will be taking books with me to read while B naps her oh so long lovely naps.

That's it for now, more addictions coming soon. This series has no end date in sight.

Peace.

Controversy

Controversy is all around us, everyday we are faced with some sort of controversy. In the US the most recent has been over political retheric after the tragic shooting in Arizona, almost every article you can find about the tragedy has something to do with how the violent political retheric is affecting our country, which in my opinion it really is. I don't talk about politic much here because it is not part of my everyday life, I vote and do my research before doing so but to me that is a personal thing that I don't need to share with the world, however that being said a lot of political things have been popping up around me.

It all started when I read this post by the wonderful Veronica, and it doesn't matter how you feel about the situation there is a type of politics involved and that is business politic and that is what Veronica is against, at least that is how I read into it. And really that is what is going on, some girl, n=doesn't matter what her intention were, went up against some big company and that company with the help of the media is just shooting her down. Now I can't comment too much on this particular situation as I do not know all the details and could care less about the supposed "Sports Stars" as I do not live in Australia, but from what I have read, and yes I looked up articles about it, is that a 16 year old girl had sex with a grown man, said she got pregnant(which at this point no one but that girl herself knows the full truth as it was said she lost the baby) went to the AFL(Australian Football League)got no real help from them, and did the most stupid and probably rash decision of her short 17 years(she was 17 by the time I found this but was 16 when the sex accrued) by posting nude pictures of some of the football players that she had acquired in some fashion. Now to me both sides did wrong. The girl for posting the pics, the players for one having sex with a teenager(I don't care the age of consent laws you as a grown adult should know better than to have sex with a girl that is still in high school) and secondly for posing for the pics in the first place(as they were posed pictures) so really both sides to to deal with the consequences for their actions but from what I can tell from what I've read is that the punishment is being given out in a one-sided manner to the GIRL, a 17 year old girl, who's brain has not fully developed and does not all the time connect that when you do something something else will happen, look in up the brain does not fully develop until 25, and it seemed to me that the players were older than 25, but like I said I don't have all the facts and may have missed something. Because really it's not like she killed the guy or attacked him she may have violated him by posting the pics but really does something that happens probably everyday to non-famous people really require a girl to be broke for the majority of her like just because the guy had "fame", um no.

This parallels somethings happening in the US, sports wise. Two QB's, yes two, have had to deal with their own sexual scandals. The first got a four game suspension, that is four games no pay, for having had a third woman accuse him of rape, yes a very serious act, that in the end was not tolerated by the NFL. Why only a suspension, well he was never charges in any of the cases so really it was more of an ethical stand point from the NFL than anything else they were pretty much telling the guy watch yourself before you really are charge and out of a job. For me because all cases were dropped it seems that the women in the situation got in over their head and than the QB took it too far, again both parties at fault, but had these women felt strongly enough that they were really raped they would have continued with the charges and the likelihood that this guy would still be playing football today would be slim.

The second was not as bad as the other QB was accused of sending inappropriate voice-mails and texts, he was fined $50,000 because he admitted to the voice-mails, but the would not cooperate in the investigation, which to my knowledge never found pics.

The main difference in both cases was in the QB's cases the women were adult, officially over 18 adult is the US, now I'm not sure what is considered an adult in Australia but to me 16 is not it. Though I am fairly sure had any of the women involved with the QB's been under 18 these men would be in a whole lot more trouble and would not be playing football professionally again, but that is the US for you.

Which is something else I have notice from the situation in Australia, different countries act differently in similar situations. I believe this is because of how the US was founded. We were founded by Puritans who were prudes, sex was not talked about ever and there was rule on top of rule to prevent bad behavior. This cause the US to grow into a more prudish country. And yes sex is all over the media now but look t all the controversy that itself causes, just a few weeks ago some families for clean television or what not were complaining that Prime time TV, which was never intended to be viewed by young children( meaning under 6 to probably 13 years of age)is displaying teens(or actor who play teens) as sex figures and making it a laughing matter in some shows cases. One show they mentioned in doing so was the popular Fox show Glee, which I myself enjoy. But the thing with Glee is that it is a satire, which means that they are making fun of/showing high school life not in a realistic way, it is supposed to be over the top. Other shows are just written in that way and really at most high schools kids can walk into the bathroom or even just down the hall and see more sexual activity then what is seen in some of the shows. That being said the US still has a hush hush it's taboo to talk about sex mentality(MTV not included) which makes us, I think, react completely different when sex scandals, even with our Sports Stars come up.

*I know I should go and edit this, I just reread it and found a ton of typos but I really don't feel like doing that so if you have a question about something due to a typo let me know in a comment.*

ok ok

So I gave you so many updates in December because I was tiring to reach a certain number of post and was successful, and it has been days now since I posted. I will not do what I did last year, I am trying to write more which includes the blog and the addiction series is not over part 5 will be here soon, so don't worry I will be posting more frequently this year.

Happy New Year

Welcome 2011!