Julia London's Blog, page 69

OOPS. Someone forgot

Guess who forgot it was their turn to blog?  Sorry guys.  Let's turn this into a positive!  Let's talk books:

 

1.  Tell us the last book you read

2. The best book you read in the last six months

3.  The next book on your TBR pile or you are currently reading

 

The last book I read was Still Missing by Chevy Stevens.  It's a thriller and not my cuppa.  However, if you like thrillers, this was a really good one.  A real page turner.

The best book I read in the last six months was Hunger Games, which surprised the heck out of me.  But I couldn't stop turning those pages, and to me, that's the mark of a great book.

I am currently reading Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs.  This book was written in the seventies, but she is so funny.  Great book.  Probably cheap as a download, too, I'd bet.

your turn!

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RANDOM THOUGHTS

Instead of blogging about just one thing today, I decided to toss out my random thoughts about some of the things that are going on in the world and in my neck of the woods (as they say down south).  So here goes.

1) Is the weather crazy where you live? Because it's crazy here in ATL.  Two days ago this storm blew in out of nowhere.  The rain poured down in blinding sheets and the wind howled–it was like a three minute hurricane.  Friends who lived only a few miles away didn't even get any rain.  Folks in my neighborhood lost outdoor umbrellas and outdoor furniture.  It was scary and fierce.

2) Kim Kardashian's wedding registry has been made public.  One of the gazillion things she's asking for is $38,000 worth of silverware.  Is it just me, or does she seem a tiny bit high maintenance?

3) Hugh Hefner's 25 year-old bride-to-be called off their wedding that was supposed to take place only five days from now.  Hugh is 85 (but hey, he only looks 84!).  They met two years ago.  It took her two years to figure out he's 60 years older than her?  I guess her math skills took a hit because he's worth like 60 billion dollars.  Or maybe her math skills her just fine…?

4) Is there anyone on the planet who believes Casey Anthony didn't kill her daughter?  Here's hoping little Caylee gets justice.

5) Christie Brinkley broke off an interview mid-sentence to rush to the aid of a young woman who fainted at the Tony Awards.  Christie is 57, looks 27, is starring on Broadway, and possesses first aid skills.  You go, girl!  I wish she'd bottle whatever it is she's got so we could all get some.  Would you buy it? I know I would!

Looking forward to your comments and reading some thoughts and observations of your own!  Hope your week is going well!

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Remember the Alamo!

It's quite possible a lot of you have seen this, as it's been making the rounds of the blogosphere. But I love it so much I just have to share.

I think I've mentioned here and on other places online how much I hate, hate, hate talking in movies, texting in movies, playing phone games in movies. It even irritates me during the trailers (I LOVE trailers). Alamo Drafthouse is a local theater (that has become a chain), and I'm definitely sympatico with it's philosophy. They have a strict policy against movie texters/talkers–and unlike other theaters, they actually enforce it.

Well, a few weeks ago, the woman against whom it was enforced got a little ticked off (*note, she was warned before being kicked out. Twice, I believe). Afterwards, she left a voice mail. And the folks at Alamo Drafthouse decided to make that into one of their PSAs that show before the film. Good on them! Here's the video (warning, this ain't the censored version):

Ha. I love it.

Alamo Drafthouse has a history of making their own "don't talk/text" PSA's. Here's another one that I love. The story I heard is that Ann Richards (our former governor here in the Magnited State of Texas) loved to go see movies there, and teased the AD guys that she was offended she hadn't been asked to be in one.

Hey. Don't mess with Texas. Or Texas movie goers…..

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Summertime TV

[image error]So it's that time of year again.  The network prime time shows are over. And unlike days of yore, they're not all repeated over the summer.  There is actually—gasp—new programing.  Of course a lot of it isn't exactly top quality TV.  But a lot of it is.  Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order.

In the reality sphere my favorite guilty pleasure.  So You Think You Can Dance (dance…dance…).  Love this show.  Makes me wish I were a heck of a lot skinnier, a couple of decades younger and a WHOLE lot more talented.  I always have fun watching and usually wind up with a lot of new songs for my iTunes.  Plus…Mary Murphy is back.

For drama there are all kinds of choices, but some of my favs:  Long term hits In Plain Sight.  An off the wall drama about a US Marshall and her sometimes insane family.  Great fun on a less intense[image error] level than some of my other favs in the same genre.  Also this is the last season for The Closer.   Last season we left Brenda in the wake of getting a  new boss.  Will be interesting to see how everything plays out this year.

And in the sophomore category we have three great shows.  Covert Affairs about a young woman who has just been recruited into the CIA.  Her shady past with a lover (also CIA) makes for some wishful romance.  And her blind techy cohort is hot, too.  Win, win on all fronts.  Rizzoli and [image error]Isles is too good to miss.  Two women at the top of their game—one a detective and the other a medical examiner.  Based on the Tess Gerritsen books.  Angie Harmon stars.  And finally, my favorite new entry to the summer season last year—Rookie Blue.  A police drama set around a class of rookie cops, it's got a great mix.   Hot guys.  Smart women, and story lines that are nicely interwoven.  Sort of Gray's Anatomy with the men and women in blue.

So there you have it, all kinds of great ways to sit back and enjoy a little TV this summer—and not a rerun in sight (unless you're me and you're[image error] glomming Criminal Minds on ION TV.  Really superb writing on that show.  Great characters.   Seen season 4 and 5 and now starting over at season 1.)

So what are you watching this summer?

 

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Daring

DARING….

As the former medical officer for A-Tac, an elite CIA unit masquerading as faculty at an Ivy League college, Lara Prescott saved many lives. But the memory of the one person she couldn't save has brought her back into harm's way—and into the sights of a formidable adversary . . .

NOWHERE IS SAFE

Lara thought working a world away would heal her. Yet volunteering to treat the sick and injured in revolution-torn central Africa can't stop the shattering memories of losing the man she loved. A night with sexy security officer Rafe Winters seems the perfect temporary escape—until insurgents attack her clinic and Rafe becomes her only way to survive . . .

Rafe knows all too well that this beautiful young doctor is the insurgents' real target: her knowledge of America's espionage system makes her a valuable prize. Helping her flee jeopardizes his hidden agenda—but her unexpected trust in him sparks a desire to protect that he can't ignore. Now as their merciless pursuers close in, Rafe and Lara's only chance for escape will put everything they've sworn to protect—and their newfound love—on the line . . .

 

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She's at it again

Twisting yet another classic with vampires, werewolves, and zombies for a laugh. If you love your classics straight up, you won't love this. But if you like to have fun with the stories you've read and loved in the past, then maybe Grave Expectations is for you.

Bristly, sensitive, and meat-hungry Pip is a robust young whelp, an orphan born under a full moon. Between hunting escaped convicts alongside zombified soldiers, trying not to become one of the hunted himself, and hiding his hairy hands from the supernaturally beautiful and haughty Estella, whose devilish moods keep him chomping at the bit, Pip is sure he will die penniless or a convict like the rest of his commonly uncommon kind.

But then a mysterious benefactor sends him to London for the finest werewolf education money can buy. In the company of other furry young gentleman, Pip tempers his violent transformations and devours the secrets of his dark world. When he discovers that his beloved Estella is a slayer of supernatural creatures, trained by the corpse-like vampire Miss Havisham, Pip's desire for her grows stronger than his midnight hunger for rare fresh beef. But can he risk his hide for a truth that will make Estella his forever– or will she drive one last silver stake through his heart?

Grave Expectations, coming in August 2011, is available for pre-order now.

Oh, and my dose of awesome for the week? Reader created fan art for Jane Slayre! (Thanks to urasei at DeviantArt!)

Extra note: If you're attending the RWA conference in New York, you can meet all the Whine Sisters in one place! We're giving a workshop together, Rise and Whine: a Conversation with the Whine Sisters. Thursday, June 30. 9:45 AM - 10:45 AM. In the Chelsea/Gotham room of NYC's Marriott Marquis. Be there, or miss all the excitement. We really want to meet you!

What is your weekend outlook? Grave, or Great? Any splendid plans for a rip-roaring good time?

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Passages

[image error]I'm afraid I'm going to be a bit of a downer today—or at least start off that way.  Last Sunday we received the news that a good friend of ours had died.  Like many deaths this one was in part a blessing (he'd been quite ill), but none of us expected that this would happen so soon.

When I first met my husband, he introduced me into a circle of friends that would soon become mine as well. The core group, guys my husband has known since high school, are wonderful men who have all been with each other through the years, in both good times and bad.  Having moved all of my life, I'd never had friends like these.  People who knew my past and were still part of my present.  It was an amazing gift.  And I was blessed to be swept into the fold.

And John was always there at the center of everything.  I have so many wonderful memories of he and his wife, Laura, and weekends spent at the ranch, in the hill country or at the lake.  Fourth of July parties, Christmas parties—many evenings just eating and drinking and talking.  Once, when I was working as a lobbyist, John (who was a camera man for a local television station) finagled a way for me to get onto the floor of the House of Representatives with him.  It was so freakin' cool.   He was like that, generous to a fault.

I write this here, to you guys, most of whom didn't know him, because life is too damn short.  And because sometimes, we become so lost in the minutiae, we forget to stop and celebrate all the wonderful things that surround us.   Life is about changes.  Passages, if you will.  And it's important that we take note of them all.  Enjoying each and every second of every single day.  Which, I suppose, is much easier said than done.

And today, I'm on my way to Austin—tomorrow they'll bury my friend.  And as I celebrate his life and remember how lucky I am to have all of you, I also know that the world will be a smaller place without John, and yet, my life was fuller and richer because he was in it.

So what things are you celebrating today?

 

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Tabloid Thursday

Today's post is a collection of New York Post oddities and conundrums and things that make you go: WTF?

First of all, it's going to be HOT in NY Today. Up to 100 in the city (OUCH!), 96 in my neck of the woods (STILL OUCH!) and the weather map of the US looks like Satan is roasting marshmallows east of the Mississippi. We cranked the air up yesterday and I'm dreading today. Somehow we missed the month of June and July and we're now already in August.

Bill Clinton is now hanging with Keith Richards. I don't know if anyone else saw the Keith Richards interview on 60 Minutes after his biography came out, but I was actually impressed (I know, I know). He showed a huge amount of respect for women and frankly, I hope Bill learns something.

BFFs!

The Empire State Building is being UNCOOL to Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. Apparently the Broadway show wants the Empire State Building lit up in Spidey red-blue on opening night. However, the Empire State Building wants the climatic battle scene in the show changed from that Everybody Loves Chrysler Building to the Empire State Building. Spidey, capable of great heroic things, said he was unable to change the set a week before the show. Oh, those superheroes! Always getting their tights up in a wad.

The Tw*t-Twittering Congressman from NY has big news. Not only does his wife have a little weiner bun in the oven, but yes, the money-shot has finally emerged. Andrew Breitbart went on the Opie and Anthony show and showed the DJ's the XXX photo, which he didn't intend to make public. But Opie and Anthony, those pesky prankers took a pic of it with their camera-phone! And then leaked it out all over the Internet!!! Oh, imagine. Breitbart, who obviously has never listened to the Opie and Anthony show cried BOOHOO, and Opie and Anthony just laughed and laughed while their ratings zoomed out the roof and atop the Empire State Building (now colored in a sedate green, green, green, in honor of Robin Hood and the Black Eye Peas and Friends Concert). Sigh. Is everything for sale? Apparently so.

A woman from Indiana was about to divorce her husband and wanted some ammo to use in court. So, she concocted an elaborate ruse (two seconds) by going on the Internet, and creating a fake Facebook account of Teeny-Bopper-Slut, complete with racy photos, and then friended her husband. Slyly she waited, expecting her husband to come on to her alter ego and perhaps pull a Weiner and send incriminating photos. However, she was unprepared when she found out that her husband was PLOTTING TO KILL HER. The husband, in traditional Facebook-confessional-to-absolute-strangers-because-you-know-if-you-cant-trust-the-Teeny-Bopper-Slut-on-Facebook-then-who-can-you-trust, said that he had placed a GPS in his wife's car so that he could track her when he was ready to have 'taken care of'. (Cue Godfather theme). Even more surprisingly (and yes, you didn't know this story could get more surprising, did you?), he asked Teeny-Bopper-Slut if she knew where he could hire a hit man. Oh, you wacky humans!

In a lighter note, chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee has left the Obama administration to return to teaching in Chicago. All but one of the Obama economic team have left, because apparently their job is done.

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Getting Old…er.

Hey! is that Jacquie?

I had dinner with a friend of mine. He had to read the menu to me because I couldn't find my readers.  I told him that I squint all the time, and he nodded and said, "and you get headaches, right?" And I said "Yes!  I do!" He said, "And you see best when you are looking through a pin-hole, right?" And I said "YES!  That is so true!"  He shook his head and said, "How long are you going to put it off?"

I knew what he meant.  I have ignored it and pretended it isn't a growing problem.  My sister has seen me stretch my face out with my hands after squinting all day and said, "you're going to get more lines, you know."  More lines?  Harumph.  But my eyesight is the ONE THING that hasn't gone south on me, the ONE THING that has never given me problems. It seems to me that when it goes, it is Katy-bar-the-door, because everything is going to go.  It will mean nothing works anymore, that I will need fixes here and there for the next fifty years.

Fifteen years ago, I noticed that the paper was always blurry on the bottom.  I mentioned this to someone who said, "No, it's not."  I lifted the thing up to show, and sure enough, it cleared up.  I went to the eye doctor the following week, convinced I had some horrible eye degeneration going on.  He examined my eyes, told me to go to Walgreen's and get some 1.25 readers, and to come back in a few years.  I never went back.

Now, I need readers to  read, but I also need something for distance.  There is a space about two feet from me in which I can see everything clearly.  Beyond that, I have to squint.  In front of that, I have to squint.  And as my pal said, it only gets worse.  He assured me it happens to everyone.  Yes, I know it happens to everyone.  But it doesn't happen to everyone until they are OLD.

I have to end this rant now because I have a headache from squinting at the screen.  What's the last physical hold out on your body?  Are you a glasses person, or contacts?  What's the thing you most dread about getting older?

More signs you are getting old, but I won't go there.

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SPORTS FAN My motto has always been, "if you can't be an ...

SPORTS FAN My motto has always been, "if you can't be an athlete, at least be an athletic supporter" and those are words I live by. I root for my son's college football team, and always pick a Superbowl team to win the big game–based on who I think has the cutest quarterback. Yeah, like you have a more scientific method, LOL!).

I used to be an avid baseball fan, but I've lost a lot of my interest since my favorite player, Andy Pettitte, retired.

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So sad Andy retired!

Still, I'll always be a Yankees fan, and I'll always have my Andy Pettitte baseball card collection to remind me of the glory days when my fave player took the mound. I've been a tennis fan for years and for the last two weeks I've been glued to the French Open, the second of four Grand Slam events of the year. My favorite tennis player is Rafael Nadal, who hails from Majorca, Spain. Here's a pic of Rafael, or Rafa as he is known in tennis circles:

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Rafael Nadal

And just in case you don't quite understand why he's my favorite tennis player, here's another photo:

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Tennis never looked so good!

 Not only is adorable and hawt, hawt, hawt, he's also the #1 ranked tennis player in the world and he just won his 6th French Open title. Along with that he has an Olympic Gold medal, and four more Grand Slam titles, big dimples, soulful brown eyes, a contract to model for Armani jeans, and a jaw-dropping bod. And oh, yeah, he plays a helluva game of tennis, too. All that, and he just turned 25 last week. Happy birthday, Rafa, and thanks for the hours of gawking, er, tennis watching you've given me.

Are you a sports fan? What do you like to participate in or watch? Do you have a favorite athlete? If so, who? If you could be really good at one sport, which one would it be and why? (I'd be a pro tennis player and hang out with Rafa. As for why–hello, did you SEE his photo, LOL??)

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