[  Mood: Distorted ]
[ Currently: Drinking Organic Black Ginger Tea ]
Once again, I find myself reading a relationship book, not because there are any problems in my marriage, but because the authors are funny people.

This book is written by a former writer for Sex In The City (Liz Tuccilio) and a consultant for the same series (Greg Behrendt). Greg’s the guy who also co-wrote It’s Called a Break-Up Because It’s Broken.

The basic message of this book is, Ladies, if he ignores your phone calls, doesn’t want to have sex, can’t make a commitment or for any other reason doesn’t want to be around you, he’s not into you. No amount of you caving, whining, hanging around, looking pathetic or crying is going to change that. He is not going to change. Basically, if a man is into a woman, he will move Heaven and Earth to be with her.

Greg is very blunt about this through out the book. He even has a survey of 25 men at the end of each chapter where he asked them the question that section was examining. Harsh words from the men to back up the tough medicine.

Women need to hear this message, cause we have been trained to believe that we can change men, that we should sit by the phone and wait for him to call, that we should make a billion excuses for men. Basically, that we should settle, cause we aren’t getting any younger, rather that wait for Mr. Right to come along.

Good book – message delivered with humour, which means it tends to stick in your brain better. I may be buying this as a gift for many people this year.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
Pretties is the sequel to a previously reviewed Uglies. It finds Tally after she has had her operation to become a Pretty. She now lives a dilettante life of parties and drinking of which Lyndsay Lohan only dreams.

Into this life intrudes her past, the escape to the Smoke, the fight against the tyranny of the city and Tally’s own actions. Pretty soon, Tally is questioning her new life and trying to make some changes.

Once again, Scott Westerfield has produced a marvelous piece of dystopian writing for teens, with a twist at the end that you don’t see coming but sets up for the next book.

Good stuff.

Over at the entertaining blog Comics Should Be Good, some 700 comic book fans submitted their ten favorite comic book runs. Here are the results, broken into easily digestible five entry chunks. As of this posting, #100-#51 have been announced. It appears they are posting two entries a day.

Some interesting findings so far:

*Two Roger Stern runs (58. Avengers #227-279, 281-288 and 55. Amazing Spider-Man #224-227, 229-252)

*The shockingly meager rankings of League of Extraordinary Gentleman at #64, Kirkman’s Invincible at #76, and Lee and Ditko’s Dr. Strange at #88.



*The fact that Christopher Priest’s Black Panther even made the list (73). It is easily the worst book mentioned so far.

*Preponderance X-books:

90. Chris Claremont and John Romita Jr Uncanny X-Men #175(partial), #176-197, 199-200, 202-203, 206-211

81. Peter Milligan and Mike Allred X-Force #116-129, X-Statix #1-26

74. Chris Claremont and Alan Davis Excalibur #1-24, 42-52, 54-58, 61-67

71 (tie). Chris Claremont and Paul Smith Uncanny X-Men #165-170, 172-175

71 (tie). Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri Uncanny X-Men #218, 220-222, 224-227, 229-230, 232-234, 236, 238-244, 246-247, 249-251, 253-255, 259-261

69. Peter David X-Factor #70-90

66. Chris Claremont Marvel Graphic Novel #4, New Mutants #1-54, Annuals #1-3

I’m definitely curious about the rest of the list.

Top 100 Comic Book Runs was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
In my family, politics was a blood sport. My father and stepmother are very politically active. The news was watched and debated. They were card carrying members of the Conservative Party of Canada at one point, and attended political conventions. I learned a lot about the inner workings of government sitting at the dining room table listening to the two of them.

So I enjoy watching a political horse race. And let me tell you, what is happening in the US, actually is way more exciting than most races up here.

We Canadians like to see ourselves as progressive and liberal. We also like to compare ourselves to the US and say "we are so much more progressive than you!". But in terms of this election, the US has us beat by a mile.

You have a black man and a woman battling it out to see who will lead one party. Oh, sure we’ve had a female Prime Minister, but she was appointed and is a bit of a national joke. And one of them, Barak, actually talks to the voters like grown ups! His response to the "race issue" was so calm and rational, it was refreshing.

And your other party is lead by a guy who spent years in a bamboo cage in Vietnam and has views that can be considered quite left. Although McCain may be courting the religious right from time to time, he seems to represent the Republicans that have grown tired of their nation and party being hijacked by zealots.

Oh sure, their are pockets in the US who are clinging to the old ways, and the candidates are not perfect, but I think Canadian politicians have a lot to learn from this election. Diversity, not division, is a good thing. Ideas, not ideologies, are important.

Bravo my American cousins! Bravo!

[  Mood: Cool ]
[  Currently: Watching Days of Our Lives ]
This novel was adapted into the recent movie with The Incredible Hulk, Jordan 2 Delta and Queen Amidala. I picked it up because the book is always better than the movie.

I don’t know if the movie was any good, but this is a very nice piece of historical fiction. I am normally not a fan of historical fiction cause it plays fast and loose with the facts and I have two history degrees. Frequently, they attribute modern sensibilities to historical figures.

Now, this is still a novel so there are facts that change, but Greogry manages to represent the Tudor period’s attitude regarding the place of women and the literal pimping of daughters to advance a family’s position.

I enjoyed this. I plan to pick up some more of this woman’s work.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Watching Fresh with Anna Olsen ]
So CBC had announced that there would be no nightly showing of the long running British soap opera Coronation Street during the NHL Playoffs. The two and a half hour Sunday Omnibus would still happen, but no Weeknight Corrie.

Now fans were a little stressed about this. Corrie is an an institution here in Canada. It draws numbers similar to Hockey Night in Canada. We are about eight months behind the Brits, so if you are not a spoiler lover, you have to watch out. And we lose it every playoff season and during the Olympics, frequently putting us further behind.

Now CBC has announced that they will be streaming the omnibus online during the week for people who can’t wait until Sunday.

This is amazing news. Again, CBC has seen the technology light and is not afraid to follow it.

[  Mood: Neutral ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
I have made no secret of my enjoyment of the Dresden Files series. I am quivering with excitement over Jim Butcher’s plans to attend Polaris this July. Geeklet will be going to some readings. So it was with joy that I picked up Dead Beat from the library.

Dead Beat finds Harry dealing with necromancers who have converged on Chicago looking for a deadly book. He is also trying to protect Murphy from the Black Court Vampires and has a fallen angel trying to tempt him with more power. The White Council’s war with the Red Court is getting expensive. Harry’s little puppy has gotten much, much, much bigger and may be smarter than Harry. Oh yeah, and Harry gets to ride a zombie dinosaur.

This is a great book. I strongly recommend it as it was a lot of fun.

[  Mood: Shocked ]
[ Currently: Drinking Organic Black Ginger Tea ]
Apparently the French have managed to out do the British and put out the Olympic Torch in Paris. Apparently the police have done it cause they are worried about the protesters. Twice.

Wonder if the Olympic Committee is getting the message yet?

(And Husband Unit and I were talking about this issue on the weekend and we speculated about what might happen after the Olympics, once the world is not watching.)

[  Mood: Shocked ]
So the great Chuck Heston has died. This is a sad time, as Ben-Hur and Ten Commandments were some of my fave movies growing up.

Forget the man’s politics (remember the guy marched with the civil rights movement, yet opposed affirmative action – and don’t get me started on the NRA). This man was in some of the greatest science-fiction/fantasy films of all time. Solient Green, Planet of the Apes, True Lies and, yes, even "seaQuest DSV" – the first season.

But my fave memory of Chuck Heston comes from the documentary Celluloid Closet. Apparently, Gore Vidal was doing some work on the screenplay of Ben-Hur and couldn’t find a reason why Messala, who had been childhood friends with Ben-Hur, would hate him now that he was back. Vidal hatched the idea that as young teens, Messala and Ben-Hur had homosexual dalliance. Now that he was back, he wanted to continue, but Ben-Hur was having none of that.

Vidal went to William Wyler, the director, who thought it was brilliant. "But you can’t tell Chuck!" were his instructions. So Vidal went off to tell Stephen Boyd, who played Messala. "Brilliant!" was his reaction.

So with that knowledge watch the reunion scene between Messala and Ben-Hur (that is near the beginning of this tribute). You will see that Boyd is acting rings around Heston and Heston is clueless.

And let me tell you, Ben-Hur is a completely different movie knowing that there is a homosexual subtext.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Listening to CBC Radio ]
My upbringing was not typical. My dad ended up with four girls, so we were not raised as "girlies" by him. By the age of 12, I had learned how to solder, mix and pour concrete, drive a tractor and a Caterpillar, hang drywall, mow a lawn, move a wheelbarrow and hook up a computer. Let’s be blunt, my dad raised us to be interested in the things he was. I’m pretty sure I was the only five year old girl with a Hot Wheels collection and slot car set.

This continued on into High School, where I joined the tech crew, ran sound boards, set up lights, stage managed and learned how to wire up an electrical cord. I am a mean gaffer tape expert.

So I have always been interested in technology. I even have taught computers at school. (I was supposed to teach Flash animation this spring, but the sick leave thing got in the way.) So this interview with Dean Kamen, best known for inventing the Segway, caught my eye. Especially what he has to say about girls and technology.

And that’s true. It’s why when I run the Flash Animation option, I insist on 50% girls. Girls tend to hang back at the age I work with and the boys are not shy about pushing their way to the front. I also try and find the "tech girls" each year and place the thought in their heads that this could be their career.

Another problem is that in our culture of push button technology, there are whole generations of kids who think that technology is the pushing of a button. They have never taken apart an appliance to see how it works. It’s gotten so bad that some universities have started running courses for first year engineers that have them stripping down appliances and the like so they can see "how things work".

So how do we fix this problem?

Well number one – the education system needs to put more of an emphasis on technology. Up here in Ontario, a lot of the tech courses have gone the way of the do-do until High School.

Number two – we need more female and minority role models for kids. These need to be visible. Sure everyone knows who Bill Gates is, but female and minority computer programmers and engineers need to get out there. Here in Ottawa (a high tech centre) we have WISE who actively encourage girls to go into science and engineering. More of these kind of groups need to be formed.

Number three – kind of fits with Number 2. We need more female teachers for these subjects. Let me tell you, the year I taught the entire Grade 7 & 8 panel computers, was not only a riot for me, but it was also a good thing for the girls who saw a woman out do the little boy hackers. And believe me, I did.

If we did these three things, it would be interesting to see what the results would be.