Monthly Archives: September 2008

Long overdue: Recognizing awards I’ve received and updating tabs, sidebar

Posted on September 30, 2008 by unfinishedperson | 5 Comments

I’ve hashed and rehashed, “vised” and revised my views on blog awards and memes so many times that it isn’t funny. However, I think what I have finally decided at least with awards is that I will recognize them on a separate page, mainly to give the credit back to the bloggers who sent them to me. As for tagging/nominating others, though, I won’t be participating in that, because I’ll be honest

it takes too much time choosing bloggers and setting up links for a whole awards post, when I could be spending time catching up on reviews and my other four blogs,
it clutters up my sidebar with look at me, look at me, instead of putting the focus on the books I’m reading, and
I truly believe the blogosphere is overloaded with book bloggers who deserve recognition. That’s why I don’t have a blogroll, but instead have a link to my del.icio.us list of book bloggers and refer you to That Book Addiction’s list of the Book Blogger Appreciation Week participants, some (if not many) which have yet to be added to my list.

Here are the awards I’ve received, mostly within the last month:

Starting with Gautami Tripathy @ Reading Room who presented me with one of these:

Then I received from Margaret @ BooksPlease this one:

and finally just last week from Bethany @ B&B Ex Libris I received this one:

Thank you, all three of you. I appreciate it.

Other administrative news

In addition to the awards sidebar, I’ve added or reconfigured a few others at the top of the blog. Check them out at your convenience, and I’ve cleaned up my sidebar, while also adding what I’m reading now, just finished and what’s in the queue. This week, it’s continuing with my Personal Banned Books Week Challenge. Tonight I finished and read The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. If I can get to the review tonight, I will, but I’ve been reading either the book or on the screen here, so I might be giving myself a break.

A review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone also is still forthcoming, but I would guess that most of you have read that already and I’m not probably not going to tell you a lot more than what you already know. Needless to say, yes, I liked it– and better than the movie. When I do get to the review, though, it won’t be very long.

Tomorrow, I’m reading The Giver by Lois Lowry and on Thursday, Black Boy by Richard Wright.

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Posted in Books, Mind

Tagged Banned Books Week, blog awards, Books

Groups (and a song) featuring continents

Posted on September 30, 2008 by unfinishedperson | 1 Comment

Happened across this video in the midst of my research for last week’s Tuesday Tunes post, so thought I’d throw it into the mix this week, along with other groups and a song featuring continents:

Only Time Will Tell by Asia

The Final Countdown by Europe

Africa by Toto

Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa

And the ultimate Continents Song:

These were off the top of my head. Any others of which you can think? I’m sure there are plenty of classical and jazz pieces that I’m completely overlooking.

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Posted in Mind, Music, Tuesday's tunes

Tagged Africa, Afrika Bambaataa, Asia, Europe, Music

Shiny, happy rural people clinging to religion and guns

Posted on September 30, 2008 by unfinishedrambler | 8 Comments

Most of the time I steer clear of politics on my blogs because I’m sensitive to people’s feelings scared of government reprisals, but the other day something happened in my non-blogging life (as if there is such a thing) that I felt compelled to use as blog fodder.

In my real life, I work part-time as a correspondent for a newspaper reporter. Last Friday, I was asked to cover the ribbon-cutting of the John McCain/Sarah Palin county campaign headquarters. Just because I am a Democrat and believe if McCain/Palin wins, the world will end Jan. 20, 2009 doesn’t mean that I can’t put aside my beliefs for a little money. So I went.

During the event, the chairman of the county campaign, said the following:

We are NOT BITTER rural people clinging to our religion and our guns.

Of course, he was referring to Obama’s infamous speech (paragraph four, last sentence).

But what got to me was a statement that the chairman said not even five minutes later:

I see we have some of our friends from the NRA here. GLAD to see you [emphasis mine] here…

and he waved to them with a big grin. So immediately what I thought was this:

We are SHINY HAPPY rural people clinging to our religion and our guns.

and this image came to mind (after a little searching on Google, of course):

As if that would make it all better, being SHINY HAPPY rural people, clinging to religion and guns– instead of bitter rural people.

At least, when we go out, to a far much better place where there’ll be only (shiny) happy tears, at least we’ll go out with smiles on our faces.
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Visit Humor-Blogs.com where you’ll always go out with a smile on your face with shiny, happy people from across the political spectrum.

Also today I did switch over This Week’s Funny Find on my sidebar. This week, I’ll be highlighting PlainOleMike. I haven’t read a lot yet there, but what I have is, of course, funny– otherwise, why the hey would I feature him?

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Posted in Unfinished rambling

Failing the No-Cry Challenge with only happy tears

Posted on September 30, 2008 by unfinishedrambler | 6 Comments

After Sue of Happy Meals & Happy Hour recently issued a No-Cry Challenge in which she put up a couple of YouTube videos of songs to make her readers cry, my wife “outed” me on Twitter that the following song makes me cry:

So I’ll own up to it here publicly. I just hear the first two lines (actually just half of the first line, who am I kidding?):

When somebody loved me, everything was beautiful
Every hour we spent together, lives within my heart

and here I am:

(It’s true. I become James Van Der Beek. It’s weird.)

All I could think of when I first saw this movie was all the toys I had abandoned as a child, including a teddy bear named Harry that belonged to my father when he was a child and which now I don’t know where he is — waaaahhhh, waaaaaaah, waaaaaah.

Harry looked like this: