Self-Inflicted Wounds

On Saturday, I finished reading Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation by Aisha Tyler. Let me start this off by saying I have a bit of a girl crush on this lady. While I may have seen her in some random show (she was Jake's mom on Glee?!), I really became a fan just from her voice (she is Lana in Archer). From there, I found her comedy act, which is hilarious. (As a warning, her act is a bit on the risque side but, in my opinion, that just makes it better.) From there, I found her podcast. And that led me to her books. Yes, she has more than one. But this is the one I chose to read first. Self-Inflicted Wounds is a comedic re-telling of Ms. Tyler's life. Each chapter is a story. Each story is always funny and always has a moral to learn. Generally, the moral is "If you don't even try, you will never succeed." I wish I could name my favorite story but they are all too good to compare. Though I do admit I fully laughed out loud when she broke her arm snowboarding after her husband told her not to. ("Don't tell me what to do!") I also found myself chuckling at her stories of her college a cappella group days. Mostly because, despite the 6 year age difference between us, a cappella groups were still the same when I was in college. My school didn't have an a cappella group though or I probably would have joined.

When I finished the book on Saturday afternoon, I was actually a bit sad that it was over. However, I did recommend the book to my almost-12-year old daughter. Yes, there are a few references to binge drinking and sex but there isn't anything particularly graphic in the book. Some people might think it makes me a bad mother. I think the message of "Work Hard - Try Everything - Don't Give Up Easily" is something that needs to be handed down to the next generation. Kids don't look at their parents and see how hard they have worked to attain what they did. Heck, they can't even look at most celebrities to see the hard work. Here is someplace that she can read about the failures and the successes. Here she can learn that one failed attempt doesn't make you a failure. It just means you get to fix your mistakes and try again.

An Abundance of Katherines

I am trying really hard to read more books. It has been a long time since I sat down and truly read a book. The first book I read was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Since I enjoyed that book so much (seriously, go read it), I decided to give another Green book a try. So I picked up his second book, An Abundance of Katherines. It is the story of Colin, a (somewhat former) child prodigy who has a tendency to date girls named Katherine. He has dated nineteen of them, to be specific. When Katherine XIX dumps him (as all Katherines do), Colin falls into a depression. His not-a-terrorist Muslim friend, Hassan, suggests they take a summer road trip as a change of pace. The duo ends up in Gutshot, Tennessee, thanks to a roadside attraction featuring the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This is where they meet Lindsey Lee Wells, the Archduke's tour guide, a paramedic in training, and overall celebrity in Gutshot. Colin, who is still extremely smart despite his not-a-genius-not-a-prodigy state of being, decides to become a genius by creating the Theorem of Underlying Katherine Probability. This theorem is supposed to predict a future relationship between any two people. Lindsey's mother gives the boys a job for the summer. They need to interview various residents of Gutshot to get an oral history of the town. Even though that sounds like a horribly boring job, the boys find much more than they ever expected.

I will start out saying that I didn't like this book nearly as much as I liked The Fault in Our Stars. That isn't to say this is a terrible book, though. I'm not a big fan of math so a lot of the information revolving around The Theorem went right over my head. While the math does take up quite a bit of space in the book, it isn't everything. The story of Colin finding himself and Hassan figuring out what to do with his life and Lindsey finding out who she is are all very interesting.

Actually, my biggest problem with the book was the footnotes. I read the book on my Kindle. So for every footnote, I would have to page forward to the end of the chapter to read it, then try to page back to where I was. Obviously, this wouldn't be such a huge problem if you were reading a paper version of the book but I'm not sure how many people read paper books anymore. My 11-year old daughter is the only person I know that still prefers paper books to electronic ones.

If you can look past the footnote issue, I'd recommend giving the book a try. It isn't for everyone. My daughter didn't like it as much as I did but she didn't dislike it either. It doesn't read quite as fast as TFiOS and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I liked it and I hope there's something in there for you too.

Sodastream

Over the past few days, 20 inches of snow fell on my little town. As a result, we have been stuck in the house for about two and a half days. Of course, we had to stock up on food, snacks, and drinks. I normally drink quite a bit of Coke. In an attempt to save a little bit of money, my husband and I bought a SodaStream a few months ago. And we love it. For those of you that don't know, SodaStream is a machine that lets you make your own carbonated beverages. We bought the Genesis soda maker, which came with the machine, a carbonator (a CO2 tank), a bottle, and a sample pack of flavors. Once you put the carbonator into the machine, you use the bottle (filled with regular water) to make carbonated water. Then you add in your favorite flavor. I am very fond of their Cola flavor. But SodaStream makes a lot of other flavors: Pink Grapefruit, Kool-Aid Cherry, Dr Pete (the Dr Pepper knock-off), Orange Soda...the list goes on. You can mess around with how much carbonation you add to water and how much flavoring you add to the carbonated water until you find a combination you like. (We prefer 5 "buzzes" of carbonation and a full cap of flavoring for the cola.)

However, you don't NEED to stick to SodaStream's flavors. There are some recipes out there for making your own soda syrup or you can buy them from someplace like Pittsburgh Soda Pop. We haven't tried them out yet but I am really looking forward to buying some new flavors, specifically the black cherry flavor.

I know I should stop drinking soda. But I think this is a 'healthy' alternative to store bought Coke or Pepsi. I love my SodaStream.

HTC EVO 4G LTE

After three years, my Samsung Galaxy cell phone began to fail. It would freeze whenever I'd try to do two things at once. For example, if I was calling someone and I received a text at the same time, the whole phone would freeze and I'd have to remove the battery. Then the screen started to flip out when I opened apps. Check my email - static. So we picked up a new phone for me on Friday. I thought about upgrading to the new Galaxy. My husband has the HTC EVO 4G LTE and, after a bit of research, I realized that the phones were pretty similar. I originally got the Galaxy because it had a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Apparently I am a dying breed and keyboards on smartphones are almost impossible to find. The woman at Sprint did offer me a Motorola that had the keyboard but I had already decided on the HTC.

So far, I'm liking the HTC. Everything seems to move a bit faster than it did on my Galaxy. (I am taking into consideration that my Galaxy was old and I loaded a lot of stuff on it.) My only hesitation with the phone is that it is so thin. But I got a cute purple hard case for it so it doesn't feel as fragile. Hopefully I'll still enjoy this phone a few years down the road.

Pennsylvania Burlesque Festival

On Friday, I attended the Pennsylvania Burlesque Festival with my family. My cousin, Buster Britches, was performing so we all came to support him. I've never seen burlesque in person before. It was quite interesting. A lot of the acts were slow and sexy but a few were hysterically funny. I found that I enjoy the funny ones much more than the slow dances. I think I might try to find some more burlesque performances to check out without my family. I'd like to try to leave the "watching naked girls with my mother" weirdness at home.

Review: Warm Bodies

We actually went to see Warm Bodies on opening weekend. Life has just been too busy to write the review! So here it is:

Warm Bodies is a different type of zombie movie. Instead of being horror or action, it's a romance movie. R (Nicholas Hoult) is a zombie who wants more out of life death. He meets human Julie (Teresa Palmer) while her team is foraging for medicine. Despite his desperate need to eat brains, R saves Julie from the other zombies. Soon Julie notices that R is getting better. Somehow, his love for her has restarted his heartbeat and is turning him back into a human. And it's affecting the other zombies as well!

The previews for Warm Bodies were awesome. We knew right away that we needed to see it. And we weren't disappointed! There is a bit of action in the movie - Julie's dad, played by John Malkovich, is a general and prone to shooting things before looking at them - but don't expect it to be the main plot of the film. If you can still catch it in the theater, I highly recommend it. If not, buy the Blu-Ray or DVD!

Movie review: Looper

My husband and I don't get a lot of time to go see 'grown-up' movies in the theater. Luckily, there is a $2.00 movie theater nearby that has movies that are just about to come out on DVD. This past weekend, we were able to catch Looper.

It has an interesting plot. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a hitman for the mafia. However, he's not a normal hitman. In 2074, the mafia uses time travel to get rid of their "problems." They send the hit 30 years into the past to be killed by hitmen called Loopers. 'Closing the Loop' is when the mafia sends the future version of the Looper back to the younger version to be killed. When Future Joe (Bruce Willis) is sent back to be killed, he decides that he needs to change the future instead.

When we originally decided to see Looper, I had only heard bad reviews. My husband did find some good reviews on the internet though. Both of us didn't think the movie was all that bad. Yes, there are some terribly big plot holes but the journey was still a fun one. That said, I don't think I would watch it again. If you think about it too hard, you are bound to give yourself a headache.

Movie review: Wreck-It Ralph

My family has been looking forward to Wreck-It Ralph for a very long time. We wanted to see it so much that all three of us went to the late show on Saturday night. (Even my 10-year old daughter gets annoyed when kids talk through films.)

Wreck-It Ralph is a different type of video game movie. The main character, Ralph, is the villain in his video game. He destroys buildings a la Rampage while Fix-It Felix Jr, the hero, fixes the building and saves all the apartment dwellers. As such, the NPCs of the game love Felix and hate Ralph. But Ralph is unhappy with this situation. After all, he's a pretty nice guy. (In the game, he only destroys the building because the builders moved the stump where he lived to the local dump in order to build the apartment. This mad Ralph angry so he went all loco on them. To be honest, I don't blame him.) So he leaves his game in order to get a hero medal, which he believes will make the NPCs like him.

We all enjoyed the movie immensely. I thought it was awesome that each character moved the way they would in their video game. The NPCs of Fix-It Felix all do this little hop-walk when they move. These games are not only their jobs but their lives. This is how they live. I also really liked all of the cameos. My husband and I spent a bit of time trying to pick out everyone. I don't want to give away too much of the plot because everyone should go see this. Seriously. Stop reading and go.

As a bonus, I'll give you the theme song for one of the other games in the movie: Sugar Rush

Dragons!

As I've said before, my family enjoys the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. We've actually gone three times this year. It's a record! One of our favorite vendors at the faire is Imaginarium Galleries. They sell dragon puppets called drabbits. (A drabbit is a cross between a dragon and a rabbit.) The smallest drabbit costs about $20. From there, you can find a variety of sizes and prices up to a hand-made staff with a drabbit perched atop for about $7,000. My husband and daughter both bought mid-sized drabbits during our second trip to the faire. My daughter named her drabbit Pinkie Pie.

My husband named his Saurum.

During this past trip, the two of them talked me into buying my own drabbit. I have not named him yet.

Each of these dragons moves their heads up/down and left/right. The more expensive models have an additional cable that allows their wings to move as well. And the best part? Throughout the day, the staff at the store hands out raffle tickets. At the end of the day, they give away a variety of drabbits. (By the way, they aren't all dragons. There are also griffins and owls and many other species.) Even if you can't afford to buy one yourself, please make sure to stop by the shop and take a look at the puppets. Not only are they amazing, but they will also make you smile like a kid again.

Movie review: Pitch Perfect

My husband and I managed to catch an early release of Pitch Perfect, the very hysterical comedy about college acapella groups. Barden University has four acapella groups. However, only two of them are actually good. The Barden Bellas is the all-girl group and The Treble Makers is the all-guy group. The Treble Makers are the Inter-Collegiate Champions, thanks to a vomit-filled performance by Aubrey. When the new school year begins, only two of the Bellas are left to pick up the pieces. Unfortunately, the only girls willing to join them are the oddballs. Among them is Beca. She wants to move to Los Angeles to become a DJ but her father makes her attend college instead. Her musical mash-up skills become crucial to The Bellas.

I have become a big fan of Rebel Wilson. She has quickly become one of my favorite comedic actresses. My husband, meanwhile is a fan of Anna Kendrick. Luckily, both actresses are awesome in this movie. Actually, everyone is awesome in this movie. There isn't a single character that I would get rid of. Adding to the awesomeness is the soundtrack. All of the actors did their own singing and the movie is better as a result. If you don't believe me, just search for Pitch Perfect on YouTube and watch any of the trailers. Then get yourself to a movie theater on Friday, when the movie goes to a wide release. As a warning, there is a running gag involving a large quantity of vomit. (I didn't know this and almost tossed my own cookies.) If you can get past that, you'll love Pitch Perfect.