This is the one where I clean things up.

I spent a good part of the afternoon in front of the computer.  I subscribed to about 10 new blogs and rss feeds, and got rid of a few that I never read.  I also created a more specific categories that will make for a much better Google Reader experience.

And then I took a couple of hours and updated the design of this blog.  See.  If you’re reading in a reader, click through to see what’s new.

This is the one where I give thanks.

At work, I manage a music studio where children have the opportunity to come in and lay down beats or record music.  Earlier this week a set of 10 year old male twins recorded this Thanksgiving rap:

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Cute, right?  I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.

This is the one with a quotation.

This is the one about all things ‘Twilight.’

[books]

For the past month I’ve been consumed with the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.  And that is the primary reason that I haven’t written any book posts; I didn’t want to crowd this blog with Twilight reviews.  But since I’ve wrapped up the series, and since I just watched the movie this past weekend, I decided to write it all in one post.

Before I get to any criticism, I think I should reiterate a point that I’ve made about a half-dozen times: if kids read it, it’s valuable. I remember writing that same thing when I reviewed the Harry Potter series, and when I commented on an article about the futility of Catcher In The Rye.

And if Myer has figured out a way to get young adults (dare I use the term tweens?) to read a few thousand pages, we can’t really criticize the content too much.

And now on to the criticism: A month ago, when I had just wrapped up book #2, I went to lunch with a friend that had already finished the series.

The friend pointed out that there was some really lazy editors working on these books.  And she’s was right.  Stephenie Meyer couldn’t use a semi-colon correctly if her life depended on it.

Much of the dialouge was trite and contrived.

Meyer doesn’t think highly of her audience, and often states and then restates (and sometimes restates and restates and restates) a fact…making the reader feel like he is reading a book written by his mother.  “Don’t forget…she’s clumsy!”

With all of that said, I loved them.  We can’t give Meyer any points for grammar, or punctuation.  But she has certainly come up with a captivating love story between a human and a non-human.

I’m no fan of Vampire Lit (could that be considered a category?!?  Oh god what has this world come to!!), but I was completely entertained by this teeny-bopper take on what is usually a drab genre filled with gaudy gold furniture, powdered wigs, and ascots.

It looks like we are going to be seeing a lot of Bella and Edward in the movie theaters, so if for no other reason, the books serve as a better interpretation of Meyer’s story.  The first movie came off as cheap and quickly thrown together…but as my friend put it, “the movies are every emo kid’s wet dream.”

This is the one for your Monday.

This is the one about gas.

I’ve been twittering numbers each time I fill up my gas tank.  You send them to Fuel Frog, and you get to see cool graphs about how many miles per gallon you are getting, and you can reminisce about the days when gasoline cost almost $4 a gallon.

It’s kind of cool to see that I’m saving money in my new (used) car.  I think i’m getting about 28 mpg…even though the graph below says 26.  There were a few occasions (3) when I didn’t reset my odomoter after filling up…and ended up driving a bit before resetting.  I think the averages will get closer to reality after a few more fillups.

Anyone else using Fuel Frog?

This is the one with a quotation.

This is the one that kind of proves I have a life.

I was looking at the “TRENDS” tab in my RSS reader of choice, Google Reader, the other day…and I noticed a pretty cool trend: I’ve got a life.

The pink bar is how many news stories or blog posts that I read each day.  And you can see that I barely use the internet on Fridays and Saturdays.

So if there was any question before, you can now say with a pretty strong certainty that I do have a social life.

This is the one about my desktop background.

What do you guys have as a desktop background?

I’ve had a cool picture of Barrack Obama…or should I say “President Elect Barrack Obama.”  And I think it’s time for change.

I manage a computer lab at work, and I used to have the kids make desktop pictures…but they soon got tired of that.  Now I draw a picture each day for the backgrounds.  Here are some examples:

So I’m wondering what I should change my laptop and my mac’s background to.

This is the one for your Monday.

As always, here’s a picture of a child flipping the bird to help you through your Monday.