Ms. Chickpea

• Mr. Chickpea will be attending a work retreat at the end of this week.  Freedom!!!  I'll have about 2 days to myself.  I can eat whatever I want whenever I want.  I can do whatever I want whenever I want.  I can sleep in the middle of the bed!  Oh, yeah, of course I'll miss him.  I'm kind of wary about sleeping in the house all by myself...hm...maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it.  Oh well...no one reads this anyway!!  Heh.
• We will be taxed to death (and even after death!) if Barack Obama becomes President.  Just remember that when you vote.
• Why is it that some drivers drive so damn slow but when approaching a yellow light, they suddenly are able to step on the freaking gas pedal and gun it through the intersection, leaving me stuck at the red light?????  It ALWAYS happens to me.  WTF???

• Mr. Chickpea will be attending a work retreat at the end of this week.  Freedom!!!  I'll have about 2 days to myself.  I can eat whatever I want whenever I want.  I can do whatever I want whenever I want.  I can sleep in the middle of the bed!  Oh, yeah, of course I'll miss him.  I'm kind of wary about sleeping in the house all by myself...hm...maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it.  Oh well...no one reads this anyway!!  Heh.
• We will be taxed to death (and even after death!) if Barack Obama becomes President.  Just remember that when you vote.
• Why is it that some drivers drive so damn slow but when approaching a yellow light, they suddenly are able to step on the freaking gas pedal and gun it through the intersection, leaving me stuck at the red light?????  It ALWAYS happens to me.  WTF???

Wow...where have I been?  Just been lazy...heh.

I've finished two books since the last update.  I've read Dark of the Moon by John Sanford and Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. 

Dark of the Moon

This was a pretty good spin off from the Lucas Davenport series.  It features a detective that is part of Lucas' group, Virgil Flowers.  This character if a lot like Lucas in that they seem to always get the ladies, etc...heh.  It was a pretty good mystery...kept me guessing.

Odd Thomas

I'ver read a lot of Dean Koontz novels and this one didn't disappoint.  This is the first in the Odd series. I read somewhere...I think on his web site...that this series will be about seven books.  Odd Thomas has a special gift? power? curse? wherein he can see dead people.  They can't talk but they visit him and he helps them with whatever it seems to be they need.  I'll definitely be reading the rest of the books in this series so far. 

I was finally able to re-check out two books from the library that I didn't finish reading the first time around.  I have finished reading I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and am now reading Flesh and Bones by Jefferson Bass. 

I really liked I Am Legend.  I have also since seen the movie version with Will Smith.  The ending of the movie differs from the book but I guess it was okay.  I definitely enjoyed the book more.  It was interesting how the story takes place in the mid-70s so there weren't things like cell phones or the Internet.  And the twist at the end of the story makes more sense than the movie in reference to the title "I Am Legend."

The book also had some short stories included in it.  I was surprised to read a short story called "Prey" only to realize that this story was the basis for a movie I saw on TV when I was a little kid that freaked me the way out!!!  I think next to The Exorcist, this "Prey" movie was second on my list of movies I will never, ever, NEVER watch again EVER.  Just reading the story brought back the visions of terror I had when I saw this movie as a kid.  Hm...I think the movie was called Trilogy of Terror actually...and the "Prey" movie was one of the three parts of terror.  I think the actress was Karen Black...dunno why I even remember all this but, yeah, that movie freakin' freaked me out.  It was about this woman who buys a little African doll that has a chain around it to hold in the "soul of a warrior".  Well, the chain falls off and the little doll comes alive!!  And being a warrior or hunter, it goes after the lady!!!  The special effects back then, late 70's/early 80's (?), weren't that great, but that little doll skittered around crazily and made scary screaming noises.  I watched it while peeking out from behind the sofa with my hands around my ears...hahahaha.  FREAKY.

I got lazy and didn't feel like updating...that's my excuse for not updating in such a long time...heh.  But it's true!  I was LAZY.  Hm...what was the last book I was reading?  Hm...I think it was Helpless by Barbara Gowdry.  I didn't really enjoy reading the book.  I mean, it was about a guy who kidnaps a little girl because he "loves" her.  It made me cringe because I kept expecting to read about molest-y stuff but it never really happens.  The story actually has a happy ending for the little girl.  The story started out slow too and I didn't really get interested until the kidnapping happens.  The only problem I had with the story was with the little girl...she seemed a bit too precocious...but that's just me I guess.

After that, I read Cracked by Dr. Drew Pinsky.  He's the doctor that does Loveline (the radio show and the show when it was on MTV or whatever).  The book is about his job helping addicts through the hospital that he works at.  I thought it was interesting what he says about addiction and how he helps people get through it.  Some recover, some don't.

Cracked: Life on the Edge in a Rehab Clinic

Now, I'm going through some cook books.  One is Tyler Florence's Tyler's Ultimate and  Bittersweet by Alice Medrich.  One, I like Tyler Florence and his Ultimate cooking show on Food Network.  Two, I like chocolate. I found a chocolate tart recipe online that was based on a recipe by Alice Medrich and it was easy and very tasty, so I thought I'd check out the cook book that it came from. 

Tyler's Ultimate: Brilliant Simple Food to Make Any Time

Tyler Florence

Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate

Alice Medrich

Mr. Chickpea has decided to quit WoW...well, he's stopped raiding for the time being.  So, now I gotta get used to having him around for dinner again...heh.  I'm not complaining!  It's good to have dinner together again...chit chat about happenings during the day, etc.  But I had gotten used to reading or working on a Sudoku puzzle while having my dinner...so, yeah, I wonder if he'd mind if I continued to just do that during dinner? Heh.

Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya was a pretty good read.  She describes some childhood incidents dealing with race and culture that sounded familiar to me even though I grew up in an area that had a large Asian population.  There were some emotional parts where even I teared up when reading.  (Yes...I'm not entirely dead inside.)  Oh yeah, the food...it says on the cover "a food memoir"...I've been craving Japanese food after reading the book.  There are some recipes included in the book after some chapters...I definitely will try to make some homemade gyoza according to the Furiya recipe!

I'm now reading Helpless by Barbara Gowdy.  The story is about a man's (pedophile?) obsession with a young girl and what happens when he kidnaps her.

Helpless: A Novel

Barbara Gowdy

The thing about borrowing books from the library is that you are under pressure sometimes to finish reading a book, especially when it suddenly becomes popular because it's a movie, and you can't renew it because someone has a hold request for it.  So, yeah, that's what happened with I Am Legend.  I was in the middle of it when it became due back to the library and I couldn't renew it.  I hate to be interrupted!!  Grrr.  I had to return it...BOOOO!

The next book I've started reading is Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya.  It's a "food memoir" of a Japanese American woman who grew up in the midwest, whose family was the only Asian family around.  The stories of her childhood and family revolve around the food she grew up with.  At the end of some chapters, she includes a recipe of a Japanese dish.  I'm enjoying it so far and can relate to her stories...even if I'm not Japanese.

Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America

Linda Furiya

I just got a new car...well, I've had the new car for a few months now...and I am dumb.  It took me those few months to finally figure out how to open the moon roof!  To be fair (to me!) though, the instructions in the manual are not fully explanatory.  All it said was to press the button.  It didn't say that the pane had to be in a certain position before it would slide open.  So all this time I thought there was something wrong with the moonroof already and it was a new car!  Grrrrr.  Anyway, I fiddled around with it one day and finally figured it out.  Go me...whoo!  Then, the other day, the light that goes on when you open the door wouldn't turn off!  I was pressing buttons, opening and closing the car doors, and turning the car on and off...why won't this stupid light turn off?!  I had to call in Mr. Chickpea to see if he could figure out why the light wouldn't go off.  (You know, he couldn't figure out the moonroof either...heh.)  But, yeah, I was a dummy and didn't realize that you can actually press the light itself to turn it on or off!  Somehow I had accidentally pressed the light and didn't know it...probably happened when I was trying to manuever my work bag getting out of the car.

I had my old car for 14 years before I finally treated myself to a new top of the line fancy-schmancy car with all the bells and whistles.  Now I just have to learn how to use all those bells and whistles...heh. 

I finally finished Entering Hades by John Leake.  I don't know why it took me such a long time to get through the book.  I think it just didn't really interest me that much.  There were a lot of chapters and it was a bit choppy...going back in forth in time and listed lots of dates and names of people to try to keep track of.  It was weird and scary that so many people were willing to believe in the innocence of the killer...allowing him to be released from prison...letting him go on to kill more women.  He was like a mix between Ted Bundy and Charles Manson.

The next book on my reading list is I am Legend by Richard Matheson.  It's the book that the movie is based on.  And did you know there was an earlier movie made based on this book called Omega Man or something like that?  I think it starred Charleton Heston...heh.  Anyway...I wanted to read the book first before seeing the movie...yeah, yeah, I'm one of those people who wait for movies to come out on DVD.  Going to movie theaters just doesn't appeal to me or Mr. Chickpea anymore.  Yeah, we're oldie McOldsters.  Speaking of which...Mr. Chickpea just had a birthday.  I think he's going to have a mid-life crisis soon...heh.

I Am Legend

Richard Matheson