It Started with a Journal

I recently uploaded sooooo many books to PBS -- I have like 165 in my list now -- but have only gotten requests for 5 of them so far. Take my books! Please! At this point I should just donate some of them (the ones that have been in the system awhile already and haven't been requested) to the library or Good Will because they're taking up so much space. But I love the idea of being there for someone who might be looking for that ONE book they can't find anywhere, who really, really wants it. (Because I love when I find books I want, like that.)

Here is the list of all the books on my PBS bookshelf. If any of you guys want any of them, let me know, I'll ship to you. I just want a happy home for them. You can choose more than one. Just don't, you know, pick all 165. :)) That'd be a PITA to mail. Leave me a comment with your address and the titles you want, or email me (Gmail, sareaokelani). Or, of course, you can just join PBS and do it that way, if you prefer that for whatever reason.

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For the first time ever, I received an official notice about a sex offender living in the area. O.o That totally creeps me out. Thank goodness I don't have kids.

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I've been on a Julia Quinn kick, which has now been deflated. I read The Lost Duke of Wyndham and was SO DISAPPOINTED with the resolution. Plus, I lost interest in the main characters about halfway through the book. I admit from the outset that I was more interested in the second book of the 'series' (I think there's only the two), but now, knowing the resolution from the first book, I've lost some of that interest too. Ugh, and it seemed so promising. I'll probably go back into my anti-romance novel shell now.

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I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow. Looking forward to that very much.

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I always complain about businesses and what not whenever I feel I've been wronged, so I feel it only fair to give praise where it's due. Thus, I give props to Allstate, where I've had my car/home insurance for the last 3 years or so. Great customer service (at least, when I call my local agent), with great plans at great rates. YMMV, of course, but for example, my car insurance premium with them is very competitive price wise with other places, but with Allstate I have their platinum plan, which means I also get accident forgiveness (if I'm involved in an at-fault accident, it won't affect my premium), a safe driving bonus check every 6 months (5% of my premium), and a deductible that gets lowered every 12 months that's accident free.

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TV Show Meme, Day 23 - Most annoying character: Kennedy, BtVS

I doubt many people will argue with me on this one. Kennedy was such a mistake. I mean, there are characters I love to hate, and then there are characters I just hate. Kennedy fit into the latter category. I don't know if it was the actress or the character. She might have been a little more tolerable if she hadn't been Willow's love interest. It was just TOO SOON after Tara, imho. So that, plus the fact that she was really annoying and abrasive, just made her reviled. Season 7 was having a hard enough time as it was without the introduction of such a universally despised character. (Though on rewatch, I actually like S7 a lot.) Sorry Kennedy, you weren't likeable and also served very little plot purpose.

Ugh. I hate it when I do this. I manage all my bills online, as I imagine many do, and I pay off my credit cards every month. I am not a religious person, but if I were, it would be the religion of paying off my debt every month on time. However, every once in a blue moon some weird thing happens, the planets are aligned in discord, and the payment doesn't get made. And then an astronomical late fee is charged, and my brain just won't let it go. I keep thinking things like, I could have paid for a really nice meal with that! Or, I could have bought this, or this, or this! And instead it's just going to make the credit card company richer! Arrrrghhh. It's on my list of top 5 pet peeves, I'll tell you that.

So I'm trying out GoogleVoice, and I'm digging it so far. It's sort of like having my own personal secretary. One who's kind of bad at transcribing (jade_okelani tried to leave me a voicemail, and the written transcript I got of it was rather garbled), but hey, I'm not paying him anything, so I guess I'll live with it. The best thing though is getting free texts, in that I can SMS someone from the account and it won't count toward my cell phone text plan.

Got my ice cream maker and made ice cream for the first time the other day. Yes, as I predicted, the heat wave is long gone, it's been in the upper 60s lately, and right now it's pouring rain. Perfect ice cream weather. Not. Luckily ice cream is pretty yummy whenever you make it. Posted allll about the experience at my food blog, here. With pictures! ropo mentioned once that she saw a recipe for Pinkberry-style frozen yogurt, did you ever find that again?

Okay, I have another HP text gripe that I'm hoping you guys can help me with. From what I've read/understand, Voldemort decided that Harry was who the prophecy was talking about, and thus went to take him out. Right? Right. My problem with this is ... if you were Lord Voldemort, and there was a prophecy saying some boy was gonna take you out, and there were two possibilities of who exactly that boy is, aren't you going to, I don't know, plan to take them BOTH out? I mean, it's not like he knew he'd only have one shot, that AK would backfire on him, yadda yadda. His plans so should have been, OK, Imma take out this Potter tyke first, then head on over to the Longbottoms and AK me some Neville too. And yet we're in his thoughts (I think in HBP?), and we hear Dumbledore talk about it later with Harry, and not once do either of them mention any possibility that Neville was ever in any danger, because Voldemort had got a bee in his bonnet that the prophecy had to mean Harry. That was sort of Dumbledore's whole point, that that's why it was so kismet or whatever, that Voldemort chose his own fate by choosing Harry, etc. When in fact, isn't it more believable that it's just that he chose to kill Harry first? Is it really realistic to have us believe that had he succeeded in that mission, he would have gone happily on his way and left Neville alone? Or that he hadn't planned to kill them both from the get go? That just makes no sense to me.

In other fandomy news, I'm reading the Buffy "Official" Season 8 comics, and I'm digging them so far, even though it is like, so out of whack, some of it. I'm enjoying myself so much that I've ordered the Angel: After the Fall volumes, and have just finished reading Spike: After the Fall. It was really, really good. Very good Spike voice. And Spike/Illyria? So digging that.

I'm changing the way prizes will be awarded for the DG Feast. ( How and why. )

Thank you muchly for the comments in response to PP3b!! You all rock. It was quite entertaining to see that we're all just a bunch of smut mongers and conspiracy theorists. Heehee. I think the worst offender was probably ropo, who isn't in HP fandom and hasn't even read beyond the first HP book, but clicked on the link to have a gander anyway. I'm also glad to hear that some of your, uh, personal relationships have, uh, benefitted positively from the chapter. An unforeseen result, to be sure, but I'm glad for it nonetheless. I was going to respond to some of your theories (cryptically, of course), but there's only two parts left so you'll know the truth of the matter soon enough. Or will you? :D I will say that some of you are right, and some of you are wrong. And some of you are right and wrong at the same time. :))

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I've been watching my BtVS S7 DVDs. It's still one of the show's weakest seasons by far, but I've found that on rewatch, I wasn't hating it as much as I did when it first aired. I daresay I might even like it. Certainly not as much as I like S5 or S2, but there's some liking going on. I've been thinking about why that is, and what I've liked
about it, and other random things. ( So here is a series of Buffy-related thoughts. )