Category: Books

car, buying, site and comp stuff

Monday, 30 October, 2006 at 9:55 pm

Well I took my car in to the dealership (not the one I bought from) and it was just a faulty seal in the fuel line, something like that, that could have been leaking gasoline. Eep. Cost my parents $300. Mum’s going to try talking to CarMax to make them pay for it because they had to drop the fuel tank over the summer to fix the fuel gauge, and they probably didn’t fix it all up completely which caused this recent problem. Don’t know if they’ll pay though. Hope they do. Got an oil change too, so I also hope there’s no sludge buildup in the engine.

Saturday my brother and I went to Best Buy. He bought Shaun of the Dead, and I bought Pink’s I’m Not Dead album and Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire special edition DVD. I was going to buy Absolute Sandman (Borders and Best Buy are right next to each other) but I remembered I had a 25% off coupon in my e-mail. I bought it the next day, when we went grocery shopping.

Insert rant about Border’s membership suckiness on actually saving me any money. I liked Waldenbooks’ Preferred Reader system, even though it probably would have put them out of business. I don’t know if I spent enough to reach the minimum required to get my holiday savings. *twitch twitch* I wish it were a minimum of $5 savings instead of $10.

Umm … I realized while writing the entry that I bought a $100 book when I bought Absolute Sandman volume one, and that if I doubled that amount I could buy this limited edition of American Gods. (But I think I’ll just buy the Melinda story. Or ask for it for Christmas. *grin*)

Ehm … I haven’t really touched Absolute Sandman yet. I kind of feel like Martin, Bart, and Milhouse when they bought the first issue of Radioactive Man. Don’t touch it! The oils on your fingers will ruin the pages! I already feel that way about (non-mass market paperback) books and try to only touch the outside of pages, how much worse will I be with a $100 book?

Last night I finished the whole process of backing up files onto my desktop so I could install Norton AntiVirus 2007 on my laptop. I don’t want to type up everything again but basically: the install was really slow, I stayed up til almost 12 finishing, and after it installed I didn’t restart I just shut down, so when I started today everything loaded really really slowly. I’m thinking the slowness is because I only have 256 RAM. I wish Daddy could figure out how to add to my RAM. boo.

I guess I didn’t need to backup everything, but I’m glad I did ’cause I was meaning to ever since summer. The reason I was reluctant is that I don’t want to abandon my laptop, I love (in a totally non-materialistic manner) my laptop and don’t want to stop using it just because I got a newer shinier toy. But I think I’ll keep maintaining my site files on my laptop. Even though I prefer to design on my desktop. XD; Also most all my music is on my laptop. I think I’ve turned it into my non-portable, ancient “paper weight” mp3 player. haha. Mickey loaned me his not-so-good but-still-great-nonetheless speakers, so those are connected to my laptop and the cheap Dell speakers are left on my desktop for Starcraft. I’m happy.

fsgirl and more car problems

Thursday, 26 October, 2006 at 11:35 pm

… I need a new layout up here. But I feel guilty when I think about taking this layout down. It’s like the girl I drew there IS flimsysilence. She’s the mascot. I can’t remover her!!

Just had a thought. I’ll stick her image up on the domain info page. Yeah. Good idea.

Anyway.

Um. I walked up three flights of stairs today twice. Why? First time to study. (For some reason I just really don’t like the idea of being someplace where it’s more crowded. Even at my last college, sometimes I didn’t like sitting at the desks because there were so many people around me.) Second time because I finished my midterm a lot sooner than I thought, and I had a lot of free time so I went to read Carrie. (I’m up to the big scary finale! *grin*)

On the way home my check engine light went on. Found out I haven’t had an oil change for 5000 miles. I guess I just forgot over the summer. >_> I remember being at 28000 miles! Why didn’t I remember to change the oil?!?! Grarr!! So I called the nearest Dodge dealership and I have to take my car in tomorrow as early as possible. Hoping I get my car back in time to get to class on Monday! Hoping I get my car back at all… (reference: see “car problems” entry)

Shadows of the game

Wednesday, 25 October, 2006 at 10:34 pm

I was reading Shadow of the Giant, and I really liked one part that I read. ^_^;; The part where … uhhh … possible spoiler ahead … Ender’s “jeesh” got together. I don’t know why. It was just … fun. Like going back to the beginning, back to when the story was good.

(I don’t know why I keep reading the Shadow series. I thought Hegemon was poor, other than the war plotting and logistics and codes and whatnot. And in Giant, I don’t even really care about these characters. I mean, sure, I care about them, but that’s just because I cared about them in Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow; it’s like they’re riding off of someone else’s popularity. I just want to know how the kids from that story end up.)

Absolute Sandman

Friday, 20 October, 2006 at 4:10 pm

*twitchtwitch* Something else I want. Must have. NEED. *snerk* But I don’t have $100, or even the $70 Amazon is selling it for.

I want a first edition though!! I’ve developed a taste for those things, ever since Neil Gaiman pointed out the differences between the first edition and second edition of Anansi Boys. At the time it didn’t matter much to me which one I bought, but since Waldenbooks Borders Express had the first edition, that’s the one I got. I grew very attached to it. When Fragile Things came out I made sure to get a first edition. Now Neil Gaiman has Absolute Sandman out and … and … I just NEED a first edition! ;_; *brat*

(Curse you, Neil! *shakes fist toward the sky*)

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Camp 38

Saturday, 7 October, 2006 at 3:02 pm

I found this book in the library called Camp 38: A Current Model of Northern Europe Before Christianity (something like that) by Jill Von Konen, and since someone(s) had checked out the book I was reading (and am still “reading”), Cat’s Cradle, I picked it up. This was during the spring.

Earlier this week I tried picking it up again to finish it, but I just had to stop reading. Normally I finish books that I start, even if it’s just an okay book. But that book, I really don’t enjoy it. >_> I can’t exactly place my finger on what I don’t like about it.

It’s about, it’s kind of like all those other books that comment on society or government or both by using a different society to compare with. This lady is taken away to some place in the woods where these people have left modern society and gone back to some basic social structure.

I guess what I don’t like about it is how the main character, the lady, keeps comparing this society to the other one, and she keeps insisting these people have it right, they’re superior to modern society and such, and that she’s wrong, no matter what she thinks. In other books I’ve read there’s no such direct commentary, it’s all supposed to be inferred by the reader. When I read Camp 38 I just have this knee-jerk reaction to what the lady is thinking, that she’s stupid and mindless and easily swayed, that I can’t even think for myself about the book’s ideas.

The other characters, too, they keep thinking they’re superior and they wait for the lady to fit in with them. That part’s not that bad, I guess, can’t explain it well, just adds to the annoyance somehow. I just can’t figure out exactly why I don’t like this book. ^_^;;