Random Bits and Bytes

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1. I finished Chosen, the third book in the House of Night series. I’d normally give a full review, but writing reviews for stuff none of my readers have read (or at least none of my commenters) isn’t very fun. So I’ll just say that it was another extremely fun read. And I’ll add the following:

2. My enjoyment of the book above was despite the fact that it had one of my least favorite plot devices ever in it. It’s when the main character can’t or doesn’t confide in their friends and keeps secrets because either they don’t want to involve their friends for fear that they’ll get hurt, or they won’t understand. The Harry Potter books did a great job of avoiding this. Harry almost always confided in Ron and Hermione and look how well that turned out! However in Chosen, secrets were kept, and even worse, the friends got really mad when they found out (lying my omission isn’t really lying people!). Drives. Me. Crazy! What are some of your pet peeve plot devices?

3. I’ve done four days of working out in my 30 day program. Today’s a rest day, thank goodness! But it’s going really well so far, despite the fact that they make me do a billion and a half lunges that make me want to saw my legs off.

4. James just left this comment on the other post, but it’s so funny, it’s worth mentioning here. It’s a list of things to do with the crappy resistance band that comes with the game.

5. I picked up the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen DVD last night. I know what you’re thinking. “But Craig, didn’t you hate that movie?” And the answer sadly is yes. I felt my IQ drop at least 20 points while I held it in my hand, but I just couldn’t resist! It’s Transformers! In my defense, I only got the single disc edition and it was super cheap at Target. Also, I remember it being one of the worst movies on the face of the planet. So it has to be better than I remember, right? Sigh. At least I’ll get to fast forward through all the crappy human parts.

6. “I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat. I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat. And then on some dark, cold night I will steal away into your home and punch you in the face.” – Sue Sylvester from Glee

categories RANDOM | Craig | datetime October 23, 2009 8:08 am

43 Comments

  • By David from Brazil, October 23, 2009 @ 9:22 am

    Keep up the good work(out). I think the first couple of months or so is the hardest, but don’t give up. Once you get used to it, it becomes ingrained like a habit, and you miss it when you don’t go. I know, insane right? But I was once just like you, hated gyms and everyone who talked about gyms and everyone who liked to go to gyms. And now i’ve been going to one for 10 years (with varying regularity, I’ll admit). And if you’re already inhumanly attractive now, imagine how otherwordly divinely attractive you can be with a little exercise? Isn’t it worth the effort just to rise that extra notch in the scale of awesomeness? Besides, it’s not like you can ever be as cute as Kari so you have to make up for it. :)

  • By Craig, October 23, 2009 @ 9:28 am

    LOL. Thanks! I actually hang a picture of Kari in front of me to motivate me while I’m working out :-P

  • By dcm, October 23, 2009 @ 9:35 am

    Emma: Ken has convinced me we need to at least be in the same room when the marriage is certified.
    Ken: What can I say? I’m a traditionalist.

    You know what I’m getting tired of? Main characters of novels having been involved in the drowning of children, whether during child or adulthood. I think Map of the World was the only book to handle that remotely effectively, and even it devolved in the end to what sounded like the few paragraphs of background you get on stories like that in tabloids. And then the book I started reading last night, Between the Tides — what’s the prologue about? “Boo hoo, I was young and was supposed to be watching this kid and I couldn’t find him so I said he hid in a hollowed out tree when really he was in the river, waaaaaaa, this makes my life awful forevarrrrrr.”

  • By Melissa, October 23, 2009 @ 9:46 am

    Oh noes! Now I now that Zoey will end up friendless in book 3!
    I am just finishing book 2 and I am liking the concept so far

  • By Craig, October 23, 2009 @ 9:51 am

    EEK! I’m sorry Melissa. I didn’t know anyone else was reading it! :-(

    I edited the entry to make it less spoilery. I’m glad you’re enjoying the series though!

  • By adam(scg), October 23, 2009 @ 9:54 am

    #6 – I laughed so hard when she said that. BEST QUOTE EVAH.

  • By Mel, October 23, 2009 @ 9:57 am

    Sometimes I think it would be fun to have a house with enough room that having a Wii would even be feasible. You, dear Craig, would have to avoid even walking with too much spring in your step for fear of hitting your head on the ceiling. 18th century people were apparently hobbits.

    Do you not just love Jane Lynch? I couldn’t imagine anyone else in that role.

  • By Tam, October 23, 2009 @ 10:28 am

    You do not want to get me and my reader pals started on our hated of the BM. The BIG MISUNDERSTANDING!!! Arrggghhh! Nothing worse than one of the characters reading a piece of an e-mail, assuming that means the other person is doing something awful or hates them or doesn’t love them, so they run off and joing the circus without explaining why and it takes them two weeks (months, years, decades) to finally ask “So did that e-mail mean X?” and the other person goes “Huh, no it was my grocery list” Ohhhh, we’re in love now, sorry, smooch smooch (to quote Vuboq). It just drives us berserk. Open your frigging mouth and ASK, that’s why Mother Nature invented vocal chords. Sigh. I’m getting riled up again.

    A spin-off of the BM which also makes me nuts is when one of them finally does try to explain but they piss around so badly that the other person leaves/hangs up and they never get it done (leading to another two decades of angst and tears before they finally talk). Situation: Guy A thinks Guy B sent his resume to the competitor behind his back. Really Guy B’s friend sent it without his knowledge so Guy B is innocent.

    Guy B: I need to talk to you.
    Guy A: No
    Guy B: Please I just want to explain.
    Guy A: No, go away.
    Guy B: But I can explain, it’s not what you think.
    Guy A: Fuck off
    Guy B: Please just let me talk.
    Guy A: Bye *click*

    Arrggghhh. It could have been solved like this.

    Guy B: I did NOT send my resume, Guy C did without my knowledge. I had no clue.
    Guy A: Oh, well that explains it. Wanna go for a beer?

    See, I just saved the author 100 pages of written angst. You don’t beg to explain, just freaking spit it out and get it over with. They’ll listen, they can’t help it, unless they are deaf then it’s another book altogether. Sigh. So there are my two major pet peeves which will make me want to smack the book into the wall. Thank for you letting me get that out.

    Glee, yes, best line ever. And zoot suits rule.

  • By dcm, October 23, 2009 @ 10:42 am

    ::hearty round of applause for Tam:: Please tell me you’re a creative writing teacher somewhere, so that we can be assured that at least a small cohort of future authors have heard this excellent diatribe.

  • By Craig, October 23, 2009 @ 10:43 am

    LOL Tam! I love that example of yours! That was very similar to what happened in this book. I just wanted to scream “Get it out already!” but she refused to explain herself properly when she got caught. UGH!

    Mel: I’m in a similar boat (house?). There’s this one exercise where I have to extend my arms above my head, but I can’t to it all the way without hitting the ceiling!

  • By Mel, October 23, 2009 @ 11:32 am

    Craig: I blame our ceilings for my never doing yoga at home. And to make it worse, somebody along the way decided it was a good idea to drop the ceilings even further and put in acoustic tiles. Someday we need to remove them, but David’s scared of the dust and mouse shit we’re almost certain to find.

  • By Enrico, October 23, 2009 @ 11:32 am

    2. Killing too many people in a short amount of time. TV shows do this all the time. Ugh. So annoying. It’s become the standard that SOMEONE has to die at some point in a TV series. I also hate the plot device where someone who would never get married to some slob changes her mind/settles, then wears her wedding dress for her true love, who dances with her and makes her realize she’s making a mistake.

    5. WHAT?! So THAT’S what you got at Target when you could have bought the best movie of all time?! Great choice.

    6. That was one of the funniest lines in an overall very funny episode of Glee. I thought Puck’s section with Rachel/his mother (and sister screaming and running from the room LOL!) was really funny too.

  • By jere, October 23, 2009 @ 11:39 am

    Alas, the link to the alternate uses for the resistance band seems to be broken. Now I’ll have to use my imagination.

    I’m thinking of an elaborate S&M mechanism involving strapping down Kari, Josh and Enrico… but that has nothing to do with imagining uses for the resistance band.

  • By The Ryan with the Cupcake, October 23, 2009 @ 12:00 pm

    Tam: I completely agree. The BM just makes me hate the offended character unless there is a very, very good reason why they can’t just go and straighten things out. Even, then, I will hate the character if they angst about it too much.

  • By Craig, October 23, 2009 @ 12:08 pm

    Enrico: LOL! So true. As much as I love Glee, the marrying-the-coach and the fake-pregnancy storylines are just awful and need to go away! Emma should have a hot, perfect fiance that Will would be jealous of! No offense to schlubby gym teachers though.

    Jere: Can I come? Or are THEY the ones who should be asking that?

    I think I fixed the resistance band link but the site is blocked here at work. Could someone tell me if it works now?

  • By Craig, October 23, 2009 @ 12:09 pm

    Ryan: Angst in general makes me angsty.

  • By The Ryan with the Cupcake, October 23, 2009 @ 12:24 pm

    The title keeps reminding me of work. My mind wants to calculate the Shannon information of something.

  • By The Ryan with the Cupcake, October 23, 2009 @ 12:28 pm

    Shirtless Puck puzzle

  • By Tam, October 23, 2009 @ 12:36 pm

    Ryan: Why is that damn towel wrapped so high?

  • By Tam, October 23, 2009 @ 12:37 pm

    It works now Craig. Very funny.

  • By M. Nicodemus, October 23, 2009 @ 1:07 pm

    Tam: Preach it Grrl! I detest the BM plot device, I have been known to stop reading a book if the author pulls that bull$#!+. There are pleanty of good ways to get your characters pissed at eachother without using that contrived crap. Grr…

    Mel: Being vertically challenged has its benefits; I once played tag in an old castle in Germany and the very low doorways were perfect for me to run through while my pursuers often ended up with a concussion :)

  • By Melody, Destroyer of Dreams, October 23, 2009 @ 1:20 pm

    Oh this is fabulous! I work at a publisher in the city so this blog topic is quite exciting.
    1. Pet Peeve plot devices: ok, this first example is more of a general author statement. I’m really done with formula writers. You know the ones. The ones who write the same book over and over and over only they substitute different character names and a slightly different plot-only slight enough to make the back cover copy look different. It is also really hard to argue with Tam as far as the big misunderstanding goes. I do have to say though, that one of things that drives me craziest, is lead character inner dialogue being abused. I do NOT want to read the character converse with themselves about the same things over and over again. It is repetitive, insulting to my intelligence and memory, a sign of ‘filler’ writing, and most of all it makes the character look like an idiot and cheapens the experience.

  • By Craig, October 23, 2009 @ 1:24 pm

    OMG Melody! Where do you work? I worked at Penguin in subrights for 3 years!

  • By Melody, Destroyer of Dreams, October 23, 2009 @ 1:31 pm

    hahaha I work at Kensington Publishing in the production department-also known as the department that gets stepped on by everyone :-P

    Its a smaller publisher, our biggest claims to fame are Lisa Jackson and…of course…Tucker Max-I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Where are you guys located again?

  • By Craig, October 23, 2009 @ 1:43 pm

    Very nice. I definitely used to bug the production department LOTS AND LOTS! But I was always super nice about it :-)

    I’ve never read Tucker Max, but everything I have read about him makes me hate him.

    We were in the West Village. 375 Hudson St.

  • By dcm, October 23, 2009 @ 1:45 pm

    Melody, does Kensington put out any children’s books? I’ve a nifty little manuscript nearing completion and I’d love to make you lots of moolahhhhz.

  • By Melody, Destroyer of Dreams, October 23, 2009 @ 1:55 pm

    dcm-we actually don’t do children’s books anymore. We had a very brief stint with that years ago-but it was phased out quickly.

    We do a lot of paranormal, paranormal romance, true crime, westerns, and we have an erotica line. Mysteries too.

    Craig-yes-Tucker is-uh-something. He’s a vile person-but I’ll be honest-I laughed really hard at his book. It made me wonder if I’m a sick and disgusting person because of it, but than I decided I didn’t care haha. Where do you work now?

  • By Craig, October 23, 2009 @ 2:27 pm

    I work for a construction company now doing contracts. Yay paperwork!

  • By David from Brazil, October 23, 2009 @ 2:31 pm

    Craig in a construction worker’s hat? Oh boy. I need to see that pic. Maybe you could hold up a big hammer to show off your newly sculpted biceps.

  • By David from Brazil, October 23, 2009 @ 2:33 pm

    My string of comments is gonna get me labeled as a horndog. I think I need to blow off some steam. Soon. Yay for boyfriend! Or lovers. Or random sexy strangers. Hmmm… -daydreams-

  • By john, October 23, 2009 @ 2:44 pm

    Ooo, Melody is almost as fun as Josh. Isn’t there another sibling? Are they as fun too?

    David from Brazil is right, once you get used to exercising, you do start to miss it when you don’t get the chance. I know it seems unlikely, but it is totally true. (You’re also right about appearing a bit like a horndog, but really, who here isn’t?)

  • By Melody, Destroyer of Dreams, October 23, 2009 @ 2:54 pm

    John: yes there is another sibling. She tends to be more reserved and not nearly as depraved as Josh and I. the thing is she’s (Cindy) a bit older than we are, and Josh and I were left alone during long stretches of summer. Our boredom forced us to dig into deeper depths of disorder and malady. We had to find some way of killing the overall benality of sitting on a couch for 16 hours a day, so we turned ourselves crazy to better entertain ourselves.

  • By Polt, October 23, 2009 @ 5:42 pm

    jere: “I’m thinking of an elaborate S&M mechanism involving strapping down Kari, Josh and Enrico…” Get outta my head! :)

    Craiggers: “Angst in general makes me angsty.” This statement alone makes me want to go to New York, kidnap you, drive you to Massachusetts, marry you and live happily ever after. Not that didn’t already want to do that, but that statement reinforces it.

    David From Brazil: I feel pretty sure at some point in the past there WAS a photo of Craiggers in a hard hat…although I could be imagining it…or fantasizing about it, who knows?

    HUGS…

  • By Michelle M., October 23, 2009 @ 6:15 pm

    1) Just started Marked, because I’m a good dancing monkey.

    2) I don’t like that Three’s Company misunderstanding baloney either. And Amen, Tam.

    3) Yay! Keep it up!

    4) James is hilarious. That was brilliant.

    5) Haven’t seen it yet.

    6) I think I’ll put that sentiment on this year’s Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Whatever card.

  • By Joe, October 23, 2009 @ 6:52 pm

    Threes Company- a show that ran for 6 seasons ans every episode was based on a misunderstanding!

  • By Mark, October 23, 2009 @ 8:11 pm

    I Love Puntabulous! And there are so many new people lately, that’s cool. And I was able to resist making comments on the BM thing. I think I’m growing up :-)

  • By Mark, October 23, 2009 @ 8:20 pm

    I’m just happy noone has to “Tsst” me anymore!

  • By josh, October 24, 2009 @ 12:42 am

    Mel! Stop stealing mah bloggy friendz! And then get me a fulltime jerb at Kensington…and then a book deal. I’ll be here waiting by the phone for the good new. K, thanx.

  • By Enrico, October 24, 2009 @ 1:44 pm

    Mel: You have an erotica line?! I bet Tam is hoping you pick her name for the gift exchange…

  • By Tam, October 24, 2009 @ 9:47 pm

    Hehe. Ummm. Yeah?

  • By Mel, October 25, 2009 @ 1:36 pm

    Name confusion, I haz it. The small group I’m in for my class this term has a Melanye in it, and one of the other group members insists on calling her Mel. So. Confusing.

  • By Melody, October 27, 2009 @ 11:07 am

    Sorry-to avoid further name distress-we can refer to me as Melody, ruler of the world. Or just Melody. Its up to you guys haha.

    Enrico-yes, we have a an erotica line

    Josh-whatever-we’re letting you decorate with us Thursday, right?! One step at a time haha ;)

  • By Melody, October 27, 2009 @ 11:08 am

    oh-and Tam-keep your fingers crossed-cause if I get your name-the quantity of book smut that will be sent to you will be large and fruitful.

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