Review: Carpe Demon

Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Nacho Chips with Cheese

Unfortunately, this book did not live up to it's dust jacket - or it's potential.  The concept was amusing and the synopsis drew me in, but the rampant product placement and overall juvenile writing really detracted from the story. The "twist" at the end was so painfully obvious that I found myself actually hoping that it was a red herring. The stay-at-home mom's life might be what television thinks things are like, but having been a stay-at-home mom I can tell you that most of what I saw in these pages was pure drivel. There was also the problem of continuity - the author would tell you that the main character was doing something and then seem to forget about it a few paragraphs later. In one scene Kate (the main character) is rifling through boxes filled with odds-and-ends at what would be break-neck speed if she were doing it in real life and then it's almost as if some pages get lost because she's then leaving the area. What, did she just dump all the boxes out on the floor and leave them that way? No, of course she put them back exactly where they were because a few pages later she's back there and in them again. It's just not believable.

And, honestly, I don't give a rat's red ass that she shops at Wal-mart, buys swiffers (both a wet and dry version!) or has a 7-11 on her corner. But the way the author was shoving these things down our throats you would think that they had some serious plot significance - or that she was being paid by the name-drop. One of the two.

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Review: Santa Olivia

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Twizzlers

The book was okay. I think that starting out on the Kushiel's series has given me really high expectations for this author that just weren't completely satisfied by this book. There were a lot of plot ideas that just seemed to fall flat and things didn't have the kind of tied-in impact that I was hoping for. Also, if you decide to read this book because of the back cover synopsis, don't bother. Whoever wrote that synopsis obviously didn't actually read the book because it is only peripherally relevant to any of the points of the plot. All-in-all, a decent book that I'm glad I own and read, but probably not something to make my favorites list.

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Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Nacho Chips with Cheese

A long and pointless book that had a totally lackluster ending.

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Review: Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love

Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-Crossed Love by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Soft Pretzel

I only knew two of the authors in here. A couple more intrigued me a bit. One fell completely flat. But I think my biggest issue is that almost all the stories had a difficult time being a short story - they either failed to make me feel like it was a complete story or they crammed too much in so that the actual artistry was lost. Or maybe those author's just write like that, I don't know. All-in-all, I'm glad I bought it but at the same time it will never be on a list of my favorite books.

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Review: Sex and Subterfuge

Sex and Subterfuge by Isabel Roman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Hot Dog

This book was so awful that I couldn't even bring myself to finish it. Which is saying something, since I've finished some truly terrible books in my time. The repeated use of made up words like Magicker *twitch* and the completely uninteresting characters coupled with a lack-luster plot and sub-standard romance all added up to me setting this book aside for good.

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On Labels and Identity

With National Coming Out Day just passing, I've been thinking a lot about labels. This is probably helped by the fact that I've read quite a few blogs, status updates and what-have-you that have talked about people's experiences in regards to coming out - and the comments these revelations have inspired.

I'm bisexual. I think that I've always known this, although I didn't actually come out until I was 16. It has now been over a decade since that happened and, while the actual experience of coming out was not a good one, I am very happy to be able to feel like I don't have to hide who I am from the people who are close to me.  This is not to say that everyone I tell handles the information with maturity and respect (although I have found that the percentage of people who take the news poorly has gotten significantly less the older I get), but I no longer fear telling people and am firm in the belief that anyone who would use this as a reason to not be my friend is not a friend I would want anyway.

On Breakups and Betrayals

As any who read this blog will already know, I am very recently divorced. For all the gory details on that particular breakup, you can see this post here. This post is not about that. Well, at least not directly, anyway.

This particular post is about friendships. Throughout my life friendships have always been something that I've struggled with, both to acquire and maintain. It will probably come as quite a shock to anyone who knows me - both in real life and on the internet - that I'm actually pretty shy and get easily freaked out when I'm in a group of people I don't know.  I work to hide this by going overboard and being outgoing and social and gregarious, but it's all an act. Internally I'm usually pretty spazzed that I'm stuck in a place, talking to people I don't know anything about. This might become apparent to people at some point in the friendship, as once I begin to be comfortable with people I let down my guard and instead of being Ultra Social Butterfly Girl I revert to my more mundane personality. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, I just know that this is what happens.

Religion, Politics and Other Topics Not For Polite Company

For any who don't know (but, really, you all should at this point), I enjoy debate.  I like to talk about controversial subjects that most other people shy away from.  I have a lot of opinions on various topics and, in addition to sharing them with others, I like to hear what opinions other people have on these issues.  I think that I kind of take it for granted that 1) everyone else has an opinion on whatever I want to talk about and 2) that everyone I talk to on even a semi-regular basis has the capacity to handle any subject in a mature manner.

This is not always the case, unfortunately.  Occasionally I drastically underestimate the capacity for humans to be snarky and/or generally horrid to other humans of differing opinions.  Yet I still feel, deep down, that somehow if you just talk to each other there has to be a way to come to a place where you can both, if not agree, at least respect each other's opinions enough to not be jerks about it.

Experiments in the Kitchen - Party Food!

It all started last Wednesday at about 4 in the morning. We were standing outside the Waffle House (which is where a group of my friends and I go after dancing at a local club) and one of our friends said "We should have a coloring party tomorrow!"

Some plans for this were bandied about, people offering to bring this or that. At that time of the morning, it sounded like an awesome idea! The next afternoon, however, it was realized that the timing was just too short. Thus the party was postponed until Saturday.

One of my friends, at whose house we were having this shindig, asked me for advice on what to do about food. I helpfully offered some suggestions. I was probably a bit more helpful than was practical. She replied back "So... Chips and salsa?" I smiled and offered to whip somethings together, secretly jumping for joy at an excuse to really cut loose in the kitchen.

A Confession about Craziness

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm at least a little bit insane. I've always tried to feel okay about this by rationalizing it to myself in a multitude of ways.

• Everyone's a little bit crazy - the only people who are truly insane are the one's who say they're sane
• I tend to keep my crazy to myself and not spew it all over everyone, so I'm not impacting others and therefore my crazy is okay
• I warn other people that I'm crazy upfront, and therefore they have no right to be annoyed with me later when it turns out I wasn't lying to them about it
• I can function and therefore my crazy is okay
• My craziness is actually useful in many situations and so does it really count as crazy anymore?

In listing these things out - which is forcing me to think a lot more carefully about myself than I am typically wont to do - I realize that perhaps I might be a bit more crazy than is good for me. However, even this realization is not going to overpower my real and deep fear of being crazy and of psychologists in general enough to have me seek out someone who will give me little pills to help me "cope" so I suppose I shall just settle for writing a blog post about it instead.

Experiment in Blogging - You Can Get Paid For This?

In light of doing the product reviews here on the blog (and because I saw a site that offered this) I thought that perhaps I wouldn't mind discussing products and services. I would especially not mind it if I could get paid for reviewing said products and services. So I'm going to give it a whirl.

Every time I'm writing a sponsored entry, I'll let you know. I do not intend, in anyway, to pander to someone just because they offer me money. I will give a fair and honest review of any product or service that asks me to - even if that means that this experiment ends up failing because I'm too honest and no one wants to pay me for it.
To prove that I actually own this blog, the site which hooks up advertisers and bloggers (PayPerPost.com) has requested that I make a post with the following code phrase: A great euphonious in every box

Well, now that I have done that, let's see what advertisers out there are actually willing to have someone honestly review their product/service!

Experiment in Blogging - Reviews and Life

So, I've decided to do two things here and I felt the need to share them.

The first is that I'm going to shake up the blog a little bit. I find that there are things that I want to blog about that have very little "experiment" to them, so I think that, while I'll still write about the cooking and crafting experiments I do (and whether or not they fail miserably) I'll also have entries about random life occurrences, or random thoughts that I have that I think are interesting and want to share.

The second thing I'm going to do - which you may have extrapolated from the title of this entry - I am going to begin doing reviews. This is not as random as it seems... well, okay, it's pretty random but I wasn't the one who started it! See, one of the metaphysical book publishers that I follow on Twitter (Weiser Books) advertised a bit ago that one of their partners was offering free items to people willing to do blog reviews of them. Naturally, the idea of free stuff in a realm that I'm obviously interested in made me says "Yes, please!" immediately.

Apparently I should have looked a bit closer into who was offering, or what was being offered. I have eagerly awaited the arrival of the items - which I assumed would be of some metaphysical nature - for a couple weeks. Then, on Saturday, I went out to check the mail and there was a package. Yay! I grabbed it, ran into my bedroom and ripped it open. Inside were books! I like books! This was a good sign. Then I started reading the titles. Apparently, the partner publishes romance books. I now have a stack of four lit-porn titles sitting on my nightstand. I started cracking up laughing.

All of the books seem to have a supernatural bent to the, so that's pretty awesome. I have read plenty of lit-porn before, so it's not like it's going to offend me (I mean, come on, I read Anita Blake and Kushiel's and was fine). It was just a bit shocking to be expecting some thing deep and metaphysical and receive... porn. I haven't started them at this point, but I likely will sometime this week. And then I'll post my review of them here!

So, that's the entirety of the changes. I figured that you (all ... *looks* 3 of you!) that follow my blog deserved to know that it's going to get shaken up a bit.

Experiment in the Kitchen - Turkey Chili / Cornbread and Gluten / Strawberry Shortcake

Back to your regularly scheduled blog (yay!). Wait... this blog isn't regular, nor scheduled... hrm. Well, anyway, to the point: back to experimenting! Yay!

As I type to you I am conducting an experiment in my kitchen. It is sizzling away on my stove. This experiment is chili! Wait, that's not the exciting part! The exciting part is that I'm taking my beloved chili recipe and allowing my boyfriend to make a modification to it. Anyone who knows me realizes this is a huge step for me. I mean, I really really don't like to give any kind of control in my life to anyone (can we say OCD much?) (also, shhhh! I'm talking about life not... oh, nevermind) so the very fact that I was willing to try his suggestion is a big step forward for me.

Well, at least a medium step forward since I'm already worried that said experiment is going to fail and the meat isn't even done browning yet. Wait, what's that? Didn't I tell you what the experiment was? Oh, I only said chili. Well then, I shall tell you! I am substituting the regular ground beef for... wait for it... ground turkey! (Queue dramatic music here) What do you mean that's not exciting? Well it is to me, so shhh!

Experiment in Blogging - Being an Adult

I've been doing a lot of thinking about being grown-up lately and what, exactly, that means. This introspection was originally sparked by this very amusing, and accurate, blog post. If you haven't read it yet, go do so, and then you can relate when I say that this woman nailed me to a freaking T. That is my cycle exactly, and the graph at the top is a testament to the level of successfulness that I experience in my daily life.
So, what does it mean to be an adult? Certainly there are upsides, like being able to eat ice cream at any point in the day just because I want a damned ice cream! Or being able to stay up until 3 o'clock in the morning - even if I know I'm going to be paying for it the next day. Being an adult also means having responsibilities that you know you can't really put off or give to someone else, like getting in the rent check on time or going to the grocery store.

Experiment in Life - Divorce and Single Parenting

Apparently it has been nearly a year since I sat down here to write. It isn't that I haven't had anything to write about, goodness knows, but more that I've been dealing with life in general to the point of not even thinking about sitting down. This means that you (whomever is reading this) get a recap blog before I even actually write about what drove me to sit here right now in the first place! Yay! Right? *listens to crickets* Well, anyway, moving on!

Let's jump right in this with the major change in my life: I am no longer married. For any reading who already know the whole story, sorry because you know I'm going to recap it all right here anyway. Just bear with me and go get a cookie or something.

Experiment in the Kitchen - Fudge

Originally, I was going to make a batch of truffles for Con, but as I'm leaving tomorrow morning I opted instead to go ahead and make fudge (which is significantly quicker). The husband has offered for me to take some of the truffles I made for him so we'll see if that's what I end up doing in addition to the fudge.
This batch of fudge I wanted to do something off the wall. I kicked around the idea of making mint fudge again (which would not be baby-poop green like the last batch - an unfortunate color for edibles, regardless of how good they taste - since I now had colorless mint flavoring) or of making cherry but nothing really struck me. Just before I made the batch I thought I might add banana to it - bananas and chocolate go really well together as I know from my truffle endeavors.

So, as I'm heating the butter, sugar and evaporated milk over the stove and I reach up to get the 99 bananas to add flavor to the mix I look up and see the Kahlua bottle. Eureka! I shall make mudslide fudge! I added a generous amount of Kahlua to the pot and proceeded with the directions for making fudge.
The fudge is now in a dish cooling. Both my husband and I have tasted the uncooled chocolate from the spoon and it is tasty, with just a hint of coffee to it. It's not as strong as I could have hoped, but seems to have added a certain depth to the fudge. We'll have to see how it comes out after it has cooled and hardened!

Update: Fudge was taken to con and consumed - everyone who had some said it was very tasty. I think the Kahlua flavor didn't come through quite as strongly as I had wanted it to, but it was still really good. The votes are in: this experiment was a Success!

Experiment in Sewing and in Crafting - KoL Con Costume

This has been an on-going experiment. I was keeping it pretty hush-hush because it's for a contest, but now that the contest is only a couple day away I suppose that it is safe to talk about it - and I'm super excited about it!

What contest is this, do you ask? Why, none other than the KoL Con 6 Costume Contest! I may also wear my gear to the LARP (which is actually what inspired the costume idea in the first place) but as of right now I know for sure that I'll be wearing it to the costume contest. My idea was to do an entire KoL costume from the game. This consists of a hat, a shirt, a two-handed weapon (or a one-handed weapon and an off hand, or 2 one-handed weapons), a pair of pants and three accessories.

Experiment in the Kitchen - Tomato Cream Pasta Sauce

I am a blog failure. I haven't updated in a long time due to working on actually getting settled here in Ohio - not that I haven't been doing quite a few things in the kitchen and in sewing but I just haven't had the time to blog them. Expect a few back posts to follow this one.

Tonight is not so much an experiment as a revision of a previous recipe with a few tweaks. I am making spaghetti in a tomato-cream sauce this evening. The tweaks come in to the sauce and the ingredients I used in it.

Experiment in the Kitchen - Pesto Success!

Post from the past

Pesto, Take Two!

I have once again attempted to make homemade pesto. This time, I managed to find really fresh basil (and the Kroger, go figure). I also had a bit of red wine vinegar to add to it.

I made the pesto in the blender with two of the blister packs of basil, a goodly amount of olive oil, some Parmesan cheese, a splash of red wine vinegar and a clove of diced garlic. I blended it together until it was an even consistency throughout and was liquidy enough to be a sauce. I then poured it over some tortellini and tossed them together.

It was delicious! The pesto was everything I could have hoped. Fresh ingredients was the key, I think, as well as that bit of vinegar to really bring the flavors together in what I think of as pesto. Super tasty and I will be sure to make it again. This was a Success!

Experiment in the Kitchen - Butterscotch Honor Cake

Post from the past!

Today is my husband's birthday. In addition to a handful of practical presents, the girls and I all decided that what he really needed for his birthday was a cake! How could we have a birthday with no cake?!?
Husband had the car today, so that meant that I could only bake with what ingredients I had in the house. Normally this wouldn't be a terribly difficult task - I keep my pantry and cupboards pretty well stocked - but (as I discovered) apparently while moving I had decided to get rid of a couple staples (read: vanilla, baking soda, baking powder) that would make most cakes impossible with the ingredients in the house. We also didn't have any frosting nor any powdered sugar for me to make some. Dilemma!