I spent the weekend at my aunt's house, which was fun, although as usual I'm glad to be back in the city. I got to do some shopping, and my aunt bought me a bag and a new wallet as an early birthday present, which was really nice of her, especially since I have no money right now.

Since I'm bored today, I decided to take a page from argosy's book and upload some songs that I like. So feel free to download them, if you're interested.

So, here are five songs I really didn't like until I was kinda forced to listen to them a whole bunch of times:

1. Blue Rodeo - Hasn't Hit Me Yet (Five Days in July)
   This is my aunt's going to the cottage song, and she plays it many times during the drive up (it's a four-hour trip.) Now even though the song is set in winter it sounds like summer to me.
   
2. Korn - Let's Do This Now (Take a Look in the Mirror)
   I've always hated Korn, but after numerous repetitions this song grew on me.
   
3. Poe - Five-and-a-Half Minute Hallway (Haunted)
   Happens to be the song used in a very good Horatio Hornblower vid, and it's the association with one of my favourite shows that made me like it.
   
4. Vanessa Carlton - White Houses (Harmonium)
   My roommate used to play this over and over, and once I started figuring out the words and singing along, I knew I was doomed to like it.
   
5. Billy Joel - Goodnight Saigon (The Nylon Curtain)
   I don't even remember why I downloaded this, but I eventually grew to like it.
   

Some anagrams of my (RL) name:

• enroll my hyaena
• horny layman eel
• holy enamel yarn
• holly yarn enema
• rename any holly
• hyena near molly
• hear laymen only
• lamely annoy her
• heron lay meanly
• lean royal hymen
• real manly honey

In other news, my apartment still smells like smoke, even though the windows have been open for over 24 hours. Luckily we don't have a lot of fabrics that can't be washed.

So I'm sitting in my room, reading a blog, when I hear my smoke detector go off. As it turns out, I'd put some pasta on to boil and completely forgotten about, so the pasta not only boiled dry but started to smoke. (I didn't smell the smoke, even though it had filled my kitchen, living room, and hallway with a haze of smoke, because my bedroom is at the very other end of the house.)

Anyway, I learned four things about my smoke detector today:

1. It works.
2. It talks ("Danger! Smoke!")
3. It's bilingual. ("Danger! Fumee!")
4. It's also a carbon monoxide detector. ("Danger! Carbon monoxide! Danger! Monoxyde de carbone!")

I used up the last of my Christmas gift cards from Chapters to splurge on books online, since they're cheaper that way than in the store. Nothing cheers me up more than shopping for books; I was able to afford four.

Snow by Orhan Pamuk is a contemporary Turkish novel starring Ka, a middle-aged poet who returns to Turkey after twelve years of political exile in Germany. ( Short summary... )

I've read a lot of good things about Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo trilogy, so I ordered the first book, Palace Walk. Mahfouz won a Nobel Prize for Literature, and judging from what I've read so far, he really deserved it. I'm only nine chapters in, but I'm enjoying it enough to make me glad the book is 500 pages long, and that it's the first in a trilogy.

I didn't realize it, but both Orhan Pamuk and Naguib Mahfouz have won a Nobel Prize for Literature. In fact, Pamuk was the first Turkish person to the Nobel, and Mahfouz was the first Arabic-language writer to do so.

I also bought Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, and I've liked what I've read so far (though that's not much.) ( Short summary... ) He has an interestingly direct narrative voice, which isn't all that unusual in a first-person narrative, but combined with the quality of his writing, it hooked me right away:

( Excerpt of the first few pages... )

The fourth book I ordered was The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet by Michael Pearce. It's the first in a series of mysteries set in pre-war Cairo (pre-WWI, that is.) The protagonist, Captain Gareth Cadwallader Owen, is the Mamur Zapt, or head of the city's Political CID---the Secret Police. ( Summary (pretty much spoiler-free) )

Unrelated to my new purchases is my discovery that vegetarian alternatives to meat are actually very good, as long as you don't try to eat them plain. Substituting veggie ground round for ground beef in home-made spaghetti sauce works perfectly, with no loss of flavour at all. The price is about equal, and it means I don't have to deal with raw meat, which makes me happy. The substitution doesn't work quite as well with chili; it still tastes good, but a little blander than with beef. Eating it with sour cream seems to solve that problem, though.

And, miracle of miracles, a toasted sandwich with cheese, veggie turkey slices, and mustard is amazing (er, only the bread and cheese are toasted, in case that's not clear.) Best sandwich ever. I didn't miss the meat at all, which kinda surprised me; like the rest of my family on my dad's side, I've always been a big meat-eater. The cajun chicken slices were pretty good as well, although I think the flavour was a bit strong---too much competition with the cheese and the mustard.

I've never even seen Dr Who, but this is so cool. Not that I'd be caught dead wearing it, but...Tardigan! Hee!

I'm going to be tutoring  my little sister in math for the rest of the year (and maybe summer school). The good news: I'm actually getting paid for it! $30 a week for 2 hours of tutoring. I love getting paid for something I was going to do for free anyway.

Don't ever use sound-isolating earphones. Because they're evil. The ones I borrowed from my dad after the original ipod ones broke have given me some sort of rash in my ears. Okay, so I made them (much) worse by picking at them. But they're itchy!

I just don't have good luck with ear stuff.

Holidays suck. Because I always forget to go shopping the day before, so I always end up eating gross fast food. Tonight it was a McDonald's Crispy Chicken Meal. Luckily, my cousin and her roommate are here for the weekend, so the company was much better than the food.

And at least I'm going out for brunch tomorrow, to a place called Universal Grill. They make the best brunch in the city. I've been craving their pancakes ever since the last time I was there.

And my best friend is in town for the weekend too, which is great.

Back online after a LONG hiatus. Between a really hard semester at school, a lot of illness in my family, and a bunch of computer problems, I decided it would be better if I just didn't communicate with anyone via the internet for a few months: no facebook, no blog, no email, and no livejournal. It worked out okay in terms of getting more schoolwork done, although I'm not sure that the stress and guilt of all those unanswered messages was really worth it. I also spent no time at all with RL friends, haven't really talked to any of them but my roommate since January, and haven't read anything for pleasure in the last two months. I feel so disconnected from my life.

( Various illnesses... )

All in all, it's been kind of a depressing few months.

However, thing are looking up. It's getting to be spring, my aunt is fine, my step-mom is getting used to being diabetic, and my dad is leaving to work in Venezuela for a week.

( And, also good, I learned that my 14-year-old sister is not having sex... )

( And also, fangirl stuff... )

Just marvelling, once again, at what a strange language English can be. Like how 'to ravel' can actually mean the same thing as 'to unravel'. Or how 'to cleave' actually means two opposite things.

I've been weirdly tired again recently, even to the point of sleeping during the day, which I never do when I'm feeling reasonably healthy and rested. It feels so nice when I first lie down, but after waking up a few times congested and dried out, I remember why I don't take naps: because they suck.

I always suspected it, but now I know: Firefox is the best browser ever. Not only because it's attractive and standards-compliant, but because it has such an impressive collection of extensions to make it better.

I downloaded Adblock Plus yesterday, and it has singlehandedly conquered my biggest internet pet peeve. You know those horrible ads on geocities websites? The ones that pop out in a sidebar on the right of your screen? They're ugly, you have to collapse them on every page, and every time you reload a page, and they never disappear completely. I hate them. Adblock Plus slays them with ease!

On an unrelated note, I am so glad that reading week is coming. I am very ready for a break from studying. And from having to tramp around in the awful weather we've been having. I know I asked for snow, but I would have been happy if it had come without the -15°C (+ windchill) temperatures.

I read Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint last night, and it was very enjoyable. I'm looking forward to checking out the sequels. I was bothered by the way she writes women, though. Only two of the main characters are women: one an irritatingly expert manipulator, the other fairly weak and a bit of a fool. It's not that their characters aren't perfectly well-drawn and plausible, but maybe if all the POV characters weren't men, we'd get a more balanced view of women as a whole. It's not something that stopped me from liking the book a lot, but it's something I've noticed myself becoming highly conscious of in a way I never used to be.

July 21!

Found in a library book: 1 bookmark, with a picture of a horse and telling us that "WISDOM Begins in WONDER", and 1 lime green post-it note reminding someone to "buy extra-strength spray foam!!!"

Has anyone else ever noticed what a funny word "hip-hop" is?

Hip-hop. Hip-hop. Clip-clop. Like a horse.

While reading an extraordinarily frivolous article speculating about the nature of the relationship between Bill Clinton and Belinda Stronach, I was struck by this remark:

Two years ago, the woman Canadians refer to as "Belinda" quit both her job as CEO of the C$10 billion Magna International auto parts empire (created by her father, Frank Stronach) and her then husband - Norwegian speed-skating champion Johann Koss - for politics.

Bill and Belinda's excellent adventure by Eric Reguly

"The woman Canadians refer to as 'Belinda'"?Well, yes, yes we do. Because "Belinda" is her name. Presumably the author is hinting that Canadians often refer to her by her first name only, but a) I've never particularly noticed anyone doing so, and b) even if they did, this is a strange way to call attention to it. I mean, it's not quite the same thing as saying, "the man Americans refer to as 'Dubya'."

I wouldn't usually post so trivial a complaint, but I've been re-reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves and I feel like being nitpicky.

26. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

What can I say about this book, aside from that it is fabulous? I fell in love with Stevens on page 2, and couldn't put the book down until I'd finished it. Everyone should read this.

( Short review... )

Books read: 26/50 (52%)
Pages read: 6,517/15,000 (43%)

X-posted here.

ETA: From now on, to avoid spamming my f-list, I think I'm going to restrict these book reviews only to communities and to my reading blog, rather than posting them here.

25. Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones (Children's Fiction, Fantasy)

( Short review... )

Books read: 25/50
Pages read: 6,272/15,000

X-posted here.

23. The Zucchini Warriors by Gordon Korman (Children's Fiction, Humour)

( Read about it... )

24. Curse of the Narrows by Laura M. Mac Donald (Non-fiction, History)

( Short review... )

Books read: 24/50
Pages read: 5,879/15,000

---

I've been inspired by Curse of the Narrows; does anyone know of any really good non-fiction about urban disasters of the last couple of centuries, like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the 1871 Chicago fire, or the 1919 Boston molasses disaster? No recent disasters, please - reading about historical catastrophes is hard enough.

X-posted here.

22. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (Fiction)

( Summary... )

Around the World in Eighty Days is one of those fantastic adventure stories that don't seem to be written anymore. I didn't expect to enjoy this book nearly as much as I did, but I can see how Jules Verne earned his reputation as an author, and how he came to be the second most-translated author (after Agatha Christie.)Everyone should read this book, just because it's so much fun.

Perhaps later this year I'll try one of his novels in the original French - I could definitely use the practise.

Books read: 22/50
Pages read: 5,400/15,000
World Lit Challenge: 1/50

X-posted here.

20. Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster (Fiction)

Someone recommended this to me, saying that I should read it if I like L.M. Montgomery. Well, I do, so I did, and whoever you are, thank you for introducing me to this book!

Sweet, funny, and charming, like most of L.M. Montgomery's books it's so entertaining that it's hard to believe it was first published almost a century ago. I don't usually like epistolary novels, but Judy Abbott (and Jean Webster!) know how to write entertaining letters. It's classified at children's fiction, but I don't particularly see it that way.

21. Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea by Nancy Atherton (Mystery)

I always enjoy an Aunt Dimity mystery, even though they are much too sentimental for me.

Books read: 21/50
Pages read: 5,156/15,000

Currently reading: Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, to kick off my World Lit Challenge reading.

X-posted here.