November 2007

links for 2007-11-16

Daily Dose /

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Ikea fooled me

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk, Kid Talk, Pet Peeves /

Remember when we went to IKEA last month? Well one of the “children’s rooms” had a kraft paper roll hanging above a workspace. It was cool and I’ve been tempted to buy a paper roll/dispenser for Liz for years. So, we tracked down the silver paper roll that was displayed and grabbed a roll of paper.

I went upstairs yesterday to get it all set up and discovered IKEA had tricked us. The silver roll thingy is too fat for the paper roll. Huh. For a few minutes, Liz and I pondered the possibility of unrolling the paper enough to loosen the very tight center opening – but after rolling out about 20 feet of paper we realized that was not really a good solution.

Any idea what the solution to this problem might be?

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links for 2007-11-15

1 Comment / Daily Dose /

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May Bird and the Ever After

1 Comment / 2007, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I finished up May Bird and the Ever After on the plane yesterday and was glad this was the book I happened to be reading. I think I prefer children’s lit and young adult lit for plane rides. Light and easy but also sort of interesting. That’s what May Bird is. TW found it a little too dark but I thought it was fine and not nearly as dark as a lot of other books for kids. I wonder if the other books in the series are any good… I have to know what happens to May, Somber Kitty and all of these dead folks when they get to the Far North.

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Quirky? Nah, not us.

2 Comments / Family Funk, Holidays, Kid Talk /

I think the quirkiest of our holiday traditions (besides TW’s weird obsession for matching holiday pajamas) is the fact that everything is a tradition. If we’ve done it once, it’s a tradition – according to little Liz.

This, I will admit, drives me a little nuts. But, it’s also quite amusing.

Going to the park by the hospital to take pictures that will be put on t-shirts for her mom for Christmas is a tradition – done once, years ago.

Going to Sears in holiday pajamas for photos is a tradition – done once, years ago.

Thank goodness I’ve done an excellent job of making it clear that last year’s “12 days of Christmas” celebration was a one time deal. It was fun once but I wouldn’t want to do it every year.

How quirky are your family traditions?

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Run

2007, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I hesitated to read Run because Patchett disappointed me so much with Bel Canto, I didn’t want to fall in love with a book only to have it come crashing down at the end…which is what happened with Bel Canto all of those years ago. Loved it, right up until the end and then hated it so much that I wound up hating the book. (I know, I’m one of the very few people who feels that way about Bel Canto. I’m odd, I’m used to that.)

Something else that made me nervous about Run… TW didn’t say one single word about it while reading it or after reading it.

Thank goodness. I wasn’t disappointed by the end. Wasn’t disappointed by any single word of it. Run. Was. Awesome. From the first page to the last page. I loved it.

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Deeply Disappointing Dexter

2 Comments / 2007, Books in Bed, Fiction, Mystery /

There. I said it. Hard as it was. It’s true. Dexter in the Dark was deeply, deeply disappointing. (spoilers ahead…)

I settled into the book with excitement even though TW expressed some concerns regarding the book. She felt some confusion over the story line and characters because it had been so long since we read the second Dexter and because we have watched the Showtime series (which does not follow storyline or character building the way the books do.) I wasn’t worried, I’m better at holding story lines and character development than she is.

Bah. The problem wasn’t with the passage of time or the differences between book and TV, the problem was with this book itself. Why, why, why did we need “It”? Why couldn’t Dexter and his Dark Passenger simply be what they were? Why did we need some “God” from tens of thousands of years ago to step into the picture and “explain” Dexter’s Dark Passenger?

And, the Cody & Astor storyline? Wrong. It just felt wrong. Cody was written fairly well – even with the whole “Meloch” bit. Astor, not so much. It’s like she’s an afterthought. Either she is like Cody & Dexter or she isn’t – she can’t be “half way”.

Also, Doakes. Maybe I’m getting the characters muddled between the TV show and the book but it felt like Dexter was doing a bit too much mocking of the guy. It felt wrong.

The whole book just felt wrong. The curse of the “third book”, as sassymonkey suggested to me in google talk? Or the author feeling confused by the TV show? Or is this the way the author saw Dexter (and the kids and Doakes) all along and I didn’t see it coming? Could we just have a dream sequence start the next book? Dexter dreamed that entire book and none of it really happened? I’d appreciate that.

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