The Festering Blurb

Which Pride and Prejudice character are you most like? (PICCIES) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Mr Bennett Very cynical and a bit world-weary, you take delight in mocking people. But you do have a kind heart, deep down inside (very deep, really deep, like Jacques Cousteau deep). Mr Bennett 95% Elizabeth Bennet 85% Mr. Darcy 80% Mr. Collins 80% Mr. Wickham 65% Mary Bennett 65% Charlotte Lucas 55% Lydia Bennett 55% Lady Catherine de Bourgh 55% Kitty Bennett 50% Mr Bingley 45% Mrs Bennett 35% Jane Bennett 20% PS: I had that book in a Franklin Mint edition, but I gave it to my best friend's mom, who is a nutter for anything P&P.  The year the Colin Firth version came out, I read the book 3 times that year.  Absolutely could not get enough of the Georgian soap opera.  It was a refreshing change of pace from E. M. Forster's Euro-weenie angst books A Room With A View and Howard's End.

Pride and Prejudice the hypertext novel online

Sheer Unadulterated Stupidity | News | guardian.co.uk Football   <---click on link

"...so earth-shatteringly earth-shattering that it will shatter your earth."

"this creature's going to smash its way inside your head and trample all other thoughts to death - fast, merciless, gory death. Death, we tell you! Death! Resistance is futile, feeble wretches, because this is a brain monster. And it's coming to get you. Yes, you! Death! Brain Monster! AAARGGGHHHH!"

"more of that Beijing business everyone's banging on about;..."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you ever passed a mirror and started as you saw someone familiar -- but it's you.  Have you ever seen someone who resembles you so much that you have to stop yourself from stopping and staring?  Have you ever shaken hands with a new acquaintance and felt you have already known them. Crazy! Reasonless! Where do you separate concrete knowledge from sensory experience?  You look at something or someone and recognize yourself. It's unsettling to say the least.

The quotes above are from THE FIVER.  I took one look at them and thought I was reading my own writing. But I came back down to earth.  Sadly, I did NOT write it. 

But I could have...

I mean, it looks, sounds like stuff I write, especially the "earth-shattering" stuff.  And the "death" bit, as well.  The "Beijing" comment is a rough, unpolished jewel of understatement.  Wonder if Doyle would have used "banging" in a different tone if England were winning stuff.  Just sayin'... 

{{{Sigh}}} Me. Getting published by an English newspaper.  Ha! Yeah, like that would ever happen. Still, it's nice to see my style being vindicated.

BOOKS I BOUGHT AT THE GOODWILL STORE: (.99 cents each!)

• Penguin Classics CANDIDE by Voltaire
• INTRODUCING CULTURAL STUDIES by Sardar and Van Loon
• THE BOOK ON THE BOOKSHELF by Henry Petroski
• Great Illustrated Classics: TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson

BOOKS I BOUGHT FROM AMAZON: (considerably more than .99USD but still marked down a lot)

• ACHERON
• BURN NOTICE: THE FIX
• BLOODY CONFUSED: A CLUELESS AMERICAN SPORTSWRITER SEEKS SOLACE IN ENGLISH FOOTBALL

BOOKS I BOUGHT FROM B. DALTON'S (a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble but without the big, fancy store...Dammit!)

• NAUTI DREAMS by Lora Leigh

I will never be rich.  You can see why.  I have a nasty, money-draining habit.  On the bright side, as a writer, I can rationalize just about anything.  For every  book I bring home, I'm going to get rid of one.  That's my mission for the rest of the year.  Buy one -- throw one out or give it away.  I'd prefer to sell it, of course, but I'd need to buy EBAY FOR DUMMIES and that sort of throws a spanner into my mission plan.

When I first heard that ACHERON was coming out, it was 2006.  I had a major thrombo thinking 2 EFFING YEARS! SON OF A MOTHER!  But since two years is a long time, I calmed down and with traditional Catholic suffering stoicism, I waited and waited and waited.  Now it's here and it's too close to school starting back up.  At this point, I'm so blase about it that I've already decided to put off reading it for about a month.  I wish it had come out in June or July so I could have watched my Euro matches then curled up with Ash's long-ass bio. (I'm swearing a lot, aren't I. {{{sigh}}} )  A really great thing about the book is that it's MASSIVE!

I avoided it for a long time, but I finally caved in to buying NAUTI NIGHTS by Lora Leigh.  The cover was so mouthwatering, time and money were no obstacles...It was pretty good but you know me -- I have a couple of issues.  Overusing the word "soul" and phrases that included that word.  However, I liked it enough to buy the newest (but not the last) book of the series (bloody series! Bloody, bloody, bloody! Oooooh swearing again -- naughty!)...but I digress.  So I got through NIGHTS fairly quickly.  Illegal arms sales -- cool.  Snipers and ex-special forces -- WAY cool!  Love scenes -- not cool.  Hot!  Positively gynecological.  With rather lurid descriptions of body fluids.  If you like that sort of thing, I think you'll find it's the sort of thing you'll like.

BURN NOTICE is going into my anti-boredom kit when I go for meetings next week.  For a week before school starts, we are systematically tortured by being forced to sit for hours and listen to massively dull and dull-witted schlemiels prattle on and on ad nauseum.  At the end of it all, you're catatonic from boredom which leaves no room for being nervous about the first days.  You want the students to come in raising hell just for the relief. 

So my anti-boredom kit includes a notebook, couple of pens, book for reading, iPod shuffle, calendar, and a teacher book -- something like Image Grammar or Breaking the Rules.  Two years ago, I wrote 8 pages of my fanfiction story at a district meeting. People thought I was taking notes on the bollocking prat they brought in to "motivate" us.  Excuse me while I die laughing.  The only thing he motivated us to do was jam sharp spikes into our ears to relieve the pain of his sportscentric yammering...

er...so like...Amazon. Right. Okay. They mark their prices down more than Borders and Barnes & Noble.  On large orders, sometimes they will send you some of it for no extra charge.  In 5 years, I've never had any problems buying from them.  They handle returns efficiently and keep you in the loop.  eBay, who prides itself on customer service screwed me on a $10 order.  PayPal screwed me on the same order.  They didn't do anything to help me get my money back and didn't even communicate with me properly regarding the complaint process.  Needless to say, but I'm saying it anyway, when they tout their ripoff-prevention services, I just give them the "V".  So to make a long story short...the end.

...erm...too short?  Well, n-e-hoo, Amazon has always done right by me so I will continue to send them my hard-earned shekels.  eBraying Ass and PayPutz can just piss off.

[MOST OF THE BOOKS MENTIONED ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE MAJOR BOOK RETAILERS.  I JUST HAPPEN TO PREFER AMAZON.]

I had this completely brilliant idea -- as I often do -- to write about books using haiku.  I was inspired by some printouts I found when I was cleaning out my closet.  They were Blackadder Haiku.  And they were so so so hilarious!  Here's the link to Blackadder Haiku: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/8889/haiku.htm   Caveat: it hasn't been updated since 2002. 

Blackadder is the amazing, and amazingly clever tv show about the family line of Blackadders: Prince Edmund, one of the nephews of Richard III (not having been snuffed out in the tower or else there would be no show), Edmund the Elizabethan, and pet courtier of ER1, Edmund the butler of the sockless Prince Regent (Hugh Laurie), and Edmund, an officer in HM's Army during WW1.  (DVDs available from the usual retailers.)

I haven't done a lot of haiku in my time.  But I've grasped the basics.

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The Pleasure Dome/Sup's Blackadder Page (last update 2002)

Mr. Bean's Greatest Poems

Books by Dave Morice

www.amazon.com :: http://www.half.ebay.com/ :: www.ebay.com  :: www.betabordersstores.com :: http://www.barnesandnoble.com :: http://www.shelfari.com/o1518324450/shelf

 BOOKAHOLIC HAIKU

Up to my eyebrows

With closets overflowing --

books worth two lifetimes!

The inspiration for this style of post comes from Sasha Cagen's book to-do list: FROM buying our milk TO finding a soul mate, WHAT OUR LISTS REVEAL about us.  Cagen has seen the art in listmaking and addresses the seemingly mindless, trivial task from several psychological angles: memory, compulsion, learning, habits, relationships, emotional states, language, and symbolism.  For reals, y'all. The entire human experience is in there.  So you could read a philosophy book and juggle invisible abstract concepts...or you could read this book and be edified by your own discoveries about human nature. 

I like this book because of the description I just finished.  But I also like it because I'm a sucker for interesting graphic art, with which this book is overflowing.