Mer De Mots

I noticed that the old GL_icons community was deleted, so I made a new one!

http://community.livejournal.com/g_l_icons

Please join and post your icons!

19) Super In The City by Daphne Uviller

One of my best friends sent this book to me in the mall while she was vacationing in the lovely state of Montana. All she said was "READ THIS NOW". Super In the City is one of those good chick lit books that really make you laugh and want to write down half of what the main character is thinking because all you can think about is "Yes! That's exactly how it feels!" It was a bit more sexual than I would have liked but at least it was more tasteful then other books I've read. Uviller's storytelling reminds me of Meg Cabot's adult books, characters that are easy to relate to, cad like men, that charming asshole women can't help but fawn over and a good mystery to keep you wondering what's happening next.

Books Six through nineteen were mangas of Fullmetal Alchemist. A great comic with amazing characters and great story. Highly recommended.

20. Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire (Hardcover by Roy Moxham.

A very interesting look at the history of Tea and how it came to Europe, and, specifically effected Great Britain, India, China, and the rest of the world. It almost makes you not want to drink tea. The author actually ran a tea plantation in Africa during the 1960s and I would have liked to know how his experience there turned out.

21. iWoz by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith

The autobiography of Steve Wozniak, who designed and invented the Apple 1 and the Apple II computers that started Apple Comptuers. His life is interesting and he goes into all kinds of details about his pranks, phone phreaking, working for HP, starting up Apple, his life in general. A fun and fast read- much recommended for anyone into technology, Apple, or computers.

22. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos

One of the most infamous books of the 1920s but a novel that is still current. It’s about woman, named Lorelei Lee, who travels through life in a breezy way just existing moment to moment. A fun book- it’s rather like reading many blogs the way it talks about what happens. Highly recommended.

23. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

A reread from when I was really small. I admire Dickens’s prose style and the way he makes characters. The characters are much better than the plot, but you can’t fault Dickens for that since this was only his fourth book. The ending is a bit predictable, but it is satisfying.

24. Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough

A great read about the most infamous bank robbers of American History: Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, The Barker Gang, Alvin Karpis and Baby Face Nelson. The book follows all of these infamous folk heroes in the peak of their careers and how the FBI rose to prominence thanks to their exploits. John Dillinger I liked, Alvin Karpis too- I wanted him to get away...the others, not so much. And I didn’t realize how much cross-country travel these folks all did and how many times they came to Reno and were all over Nevada. There’s a story or two in all that.

25. Beggars of Life by Jim Tully

An fascinating autobiography of a neglected writer. Jim Tully was famous before WWII and he wrote novels, biographies, and press releases for Hollywood actors for twenty years. Beggars of Life is the first book of his autobiography that describes his life on the road as a tramp during the 1900s. An exciting and well-written book worth reading.

26. Edgeworks Vol. 3 (The Harlan Ellison Hornbook & Harlan Ellison's Movie) by Harlan Ellison

Really two books in one: the first part are reprints of a column Ellison did in the 1970s for a couple different publications. Great stuff- funny, witty, urbane and perfect. So many great columns to mention- but I thought the series where he talks about his college days at Ohio State to be the best ones.

Harlan Ellison's Movie is the script for a spec movie Harlan was given to write a movie he wanted to, without limitations. It couldn't be made in the 70s and I doubt it could be made now. About a liberal hippie type who inherits a bank and decides to fight the system with the system. Amazing ending.

27. New York Giants: An Informal History of a Great Baseball Club by Frank Graham

I've been a Giants fan since 1988- and I know a lot about them. Graham's book is a great team history and talks about some of the best teams ever in baseball. This book only covers the Giants's history up through 1952, so it doesn't talk about the last Giant victory in the World Series, the move to San Francisco and forward. It does cover the origins of the team, the time of John McGraw from 1902 to 1933 (I'd read a book about McGraw for sure- he sounds like a hell of a guy) and his successors. It's well written and clearly stated and it explains Leo Durocher's quote of "last guys finish last"- he didn't say that exactly, but that's what he meant. Recommended to people who like baseball history or Giants fans.

28. A Day in the Bleachers by Arnold Hano

A piece of New Journalism written ten years before the term. Hano went to the first game of the 1954 World Series of the New York Giants versus the Cleveland Indians and described his entire day, before and during his six hours watching the game in the Polo Grounds's centerfield bleachers. And, he describes Willie Mays's amazing catch against Vic Wertz so well, that it's like you saw it yourself. Amazing writing with many, many quotable passages- it's so good that I'd recommend it to anyone who likes great writing, journalism, history, oral history or baseball.

From roozle:


redheadedmuse and I were brainstorming about how to help a beloved friend who is feeling the pinch financially more than most. Short of a fabulous job, the most helpful thing we thought we could give her was some cash.

So we'd like to help her out in a small way by hosting an on-line bake sale. If you're interested in baking something for this project, fill out the form we've created at
http://bit.ly/TquHf. Next week, we'll post up all the entries on the lj site we created, pastrypleasures.livejournal.com, and auction off the items through the blog. All the items will need to be available to be picked up at 110 Boston Ave. on or before Friday, July 24 at noon.

We're already going to have some delicious stuff by talented bakers, but more would be helpful. Fill out the online form by Friday, July 17 if you want to contribute. Even if you don't bake, you can help: spread the word and help us find people who want to bid on and eat tasty baked goods. Post here or email [roozle] privately if you have questions.

Firefox plugin to display the number of HTML errors in a page in the status bar.

There is a Linux version, but you have to grab it from the maintainer's site.

This should be in all browsers by default.

The daily mail has this dog listed as one of the world's ugliest animals

... "The Komondor
They may be fancy pure breed dogs, but the Komondor needs a comb. The dogs were originally used as sheepdogs and their cord like fur creates a kind of armor against wolf or bear attacks.

Roozle is organizing an online bake sale to help a friend in need. If you live in or around Somerville, love to bake or love to eat baked goods, and want to support a member of our community please visit the original post at roozle.livejournal.com/165303.html

Escape - Carolyn Jessop
Amazon Link
Rating: 4.5
Genre: Nonfiction

Wow. That's really all I have to say about this book, but I'll try to do better than that. This is the story of Carolyn Jessop, a woman who was born into life in the FLDS - a radical shootoff of the Morman church. I of course want to point out that the Mormons have excommunicated these people and as far as I know do not practice any of the horrible things that are described here. I also want to say that I am not anti-polygamy in principle (don't shoot me, please) but the way these people are doing it is clearly not working at all.

This was a really interesting read for me, especially once I figured out that the husband who treated her so badly and that she'd taken her kids and run away from is the same guy who was running the compound down here in Texas that got raided last year for having the underage marriages.

Carolyn's story is heartbreaking, and a truly interesting read. I highly recommend it. I have to admit, it is so difficult to believe that things like this can be going on today! If I didn't know any better, I'd think this was one of those books about a false utopia, a fiction story about a place someone made up ... like "We" or "1984". And yet, it's real. Sometimes truth really -is- stranger than fiction!

We Should Never Meet: Stories - Aimee Phan
Amazon Link
Rating: 3.5
Genre: Historical Fiction

Another really interesting read. It is a grouping of stories told from different points of views, or many different characters of different ages who had something to do with the war in Vietnam, and in particular were impacted by Operation BabyLift - an effort to get many orphans out of Vietnam during the war and to places like the United States where they would (hopefully) be adopted.

The story follows some of the children who came to the USA - one who was in and out of foster homes her whole life and abused, two who had loving families but had different reactions to them, one who became a theif. It also follows a Vietnamese girl turned Catholic nun, a young vietnamese mother who had been raped by an American soldier and dropped her baby off at an orphanage, and an American volunteer in a Vietnamese orphanage... and I think I'm forgetting someone, but you get the idea.

All of their stories are intertwined, and sometimes it isn't until far later when you figure out the relationships. The story was great - I learned a lot about Vietnam and the problems there during the war, and operation BabyLift, and really felt like I could relate to the characters and understand them, even though I have obviously never been in such a situation.

Some of the writing annoyed me a bit, which is why I didn't give the book a 4 rating.

Love and Houses - Marti Leimbach
Amazon Link
Rating: 3
Genre: Drama/Girly-fiction

This book was... meh. I was intrigued by the blurb on the back, telling how the character had noticed that love and houses seem to correspond: when a couple begins searching for a new home because they feel like they need a change, this is usually a sign of the marriage falling apart. Of course, not if they are looking for a home because they have had a new child and need more space, or a child moved out and they need less, or they got a job transfer or something. But they just want a change of house/scenery. She also said "Marry in a bad market, divorce in a good one" -> ie, buy a cheap house for yourselves when you get married, and you can sell it for a lot more when you divorce.

I found the concept interesting. Sadly, I didn't feel like it got that much attention throughout this novel. Sure, she threw in a few things here and there about houses. But most of the references felt like they were very contrived - just put in there because she suddenly realized she hadn't said much about houses and didn't want to change the title.

Instead, the story was mostly the story of the main character, who is 7 months pregnant at the beginning of the novel, and her husband, who runs out on her shortly after the book begins. It's the story of how she reacts, why he did what he did, etc. Her talking to her friends, her friends talking to him... Parts of it were pretty good, and there were a lot of meaningful, quotable lines in the book. But overall... wasn't too exciting. And the ending pissed me off. And it didn't have much to do with houses except the main character liked them and liked to decorate and knew a lot about stuff like chimney cleaning and floor oiling. But nothing about how it corresponds to relationships, except I guess you have to put a lot of effort into both.

Hi there,
I just finished a pair of socks for my step-granddaughter. =) I used Red Heart's Heart& Sole yarn in 'Watercolor Stripe'. The pattern was 'Most Basic Kid's Sock from Ravelry.com .

( Click for picture! )

before


( timelime? )

roozle and redheadedmuse are running an online bake sale to help a friend of ours make her rent payment. If you're interested in contributing baked goods or buying some, go to the original entry.

Just did a photoshoot and my dreads look pretty nice. So here's a few.
Possibly NSFW. Hope the cut works.


( Here )

Right, so you lot have held my hand through this armwarmer fiasco. I thank you. :)

I’ve come down to where I need to make increases for the thumb, but I’m a bit lost as to what the rules are when I’m just making up my own pattern. Is there some sort of (pardon the pun) rule of thumb when it comes to doing this kind of thing? Like increasing until you have X percentage of the whole # of sts?

I went through the tags and came up with this article, and from there this pattern. My arm warmers are 2x2 rib, so it seems perfect to adapt for my own use. Yay! However, I'm back to wondering if there's a general rule of how many sts to set aside for a thumb gusset (not interested in an afterthought thumb, even if it would be a million times easier).

So, er. Thoughts?

I have very new dreads but decided that I wanted to felt some wool on a few various dreads. I did this with just wrapping the wool roving around the dread instead of using the felting needle. I just used very warm, slightly soapy water on the roving fiber. It has stayed for over a week without any issues. Has anyone else tried this method with success? I figured it would be much easier to remove if it starts stinking or rotting.

My husband doesn't appreciate the dreads. He is a fan of the bright colors of the fake dreads. I really do enjoy the colors, well.