Ends, Beginnings and Everything in Between!

A lot to talk about this week.  Well, kind of! Lets just get straight to the 8 little bits and pieces 😉

1) End of Fantasia Film Festival 2014

I had a blast at Fantasia Film Festival this year. After 11 movies, I learned a lot about myself and the way I understood movies and just a lot about movies and their purposes in general. If you want to check my reviews, click on the menu and Movies, Festivals, Fantasia 😉

If not, here is the list of the movies and I’ll link it to the reviews I’ve done and update as it goes!

Fantasia Film Festival 2014

Open Windows
I Origins
Cybernatural
The Harvest
Jack et la Mecanique du Coeur
Hal/short: Sonny Boy and Dewdrop Girl
Into the Storm
Dys-/short: I am Monster
The Drownsman/short: Picket
Time Lapse
The Demon Within

I still have 1 movie to review for the festival.  They will be going up soon!

2) Resuming workout

There is nothing to say but that I’ve really taken a LONG break from working out.  I still go out to bike rides and did some jogging in between but I’m ready to get right back into it now.  This week, I got in two 20 minutes yoga sessions and some other activities which I’ll talk about in a little bit later of this post!  Here’s the awesome yoga sessions if you’re interested:

Starting next week, I should resume with the 4 weeks Nike Training Club program (if everything goes as planned), I might just boost up my strength with some random circuits first and start the week after!

3) Catching up with TV!

This week, I finished Season 7 of Psych.  Thanks to Netflix for updating it!

Psych has its up and down moments.  There are some episodes which are a bit meh.  I can’t really blame it since its at season 7 now.  However, compared to season 7, this totally rocked.  I particularly LOVED the season 7 finale. I’m going to try to find Season 8 now since thats the final season and I hate to keep these things hanging.

I also took the time this week to catch up on True Blood.  I like to watch them in bundles of episodes just so some stupid episode endings don’t bother me as much.  I was about 3 episodes behind so I sat down and took care of that. Its the series finale in just a few episodes and honestly, I’m still not quite sure if I like where everything is going.

My goal this little while is to keep up with True Blood and Pretty Little Liars, so next line of business will be to catch up with the last 3 episodes of that. I will be binge watching Season 1 of Arrow right after though 😉

What series have you been watching?

4) (Kind of) Secret Weekend Getaway!

My boyfriend and I went off on a weekend getaway this past weekend.  One of the reasons why I’ve been slightly quiet and well, I didn’t even bother to say anything because since we’re just a few hours up north, I had my cell that worked and its a little escape.  A few of my friends knew about it and our parents but in general, its just a little bit of a breather to recharge.

We did some hiking (a part of resuming my workout) and we did some visiting in Saguenay region in Quebec.  Its about a 5 hours drive or so away and we had a lot of fun.  I’ll be posting about the few places we went in the next week.

As much as we love buying a house together and spending every living moment making it ours, its nice to just get away by ourselves and take a little break.

5) Lovely Surprises in the Garden

Hello raspberries! Thats right! I amped up the bottles for self-watering system in the raspberry plants and when I came back, I had some ripe raspberries waiting for me.  There’s still a good bunch waiting to ripen but so far they are delicious and sweet. My mom was also a sweetheart and dropped by to help me water the plants to keep the soil wet during our very hot weekend.

I have some strawberry, yellow zucchini and tomato harvests happening and coming up.

There are few other things on my agenda for the garden:

• Orange thyme harvesting and drying,
• Figuring out why my basil all died and was so weak when it was alive,
• Looking at the uses of lemongrass and how to harvest it,
• Searching up what to do and how to harvest lemon verbena.

Plus, I have to figure out my front yard and pull out some over abundant plants and by the end of the season, shift some plants around.

Green thumbs anyone?

6) Geeking out!

Mario and Dinobot Yoshi!

While I was on the getaway, I used my ton of overtime and took Friday off.  Much to my surprise, somehow this package arrived that exact day.  Thank goodness, the mailman was great and put it in my mailbox.  Its a tank top that I ordered from For Human Peoples and its the totally awesome crossover of Transformers and Mario.  Excuse me, Dinobot Yoshi! Allow me to geek out just a little bit and tell you that I saw this and I knew that I had to own it!

*ahem* I’ve regained myself a little! Moving along…

7) Finding the Perfect Gluten-Free Article from Popsugar Fitness

Click on the image to get to the article! 🙂

Everyone read this already? So, some of you know that I’ve been trying to go gluten-free.  I’m about 80% there.  I’ve cut out a lot of foods including bread and I make an effort to make and buy lots of gluten-free products.  Its helpful because now it opens up the options I never had when I was just dealing with lactose intolerance.  Except, cutting gluten and lactose is like double hard and I absolutely hate it when people make it harder.

What really gets me all the time with any food intolerance is “just give it a bite, it won’t kill you” or “Its all your head”.

If gluten-free was me doing this just to have fun and lose weight, sure thing but its not.  I truly believe that its going to make my life a lot better and reduce a lot of this recurring discomfort from IBS symptoms.  Just to make things clear, its really hard to go gluten-free.  Almost everything on store shelves has gluten, its really a pain so lets refrain from any comments that will just make it worse.  Because no, its not in my head and no, it won’t kill me but it will put me in a state where I’d like you to kill me.  You know, just to skip the disgusting details….

Rant over but that article made me laugh a little 🙂

8) Home is Where My Cat Is 😉

My Cat Taking up All the Space

My cat is a huge baby and she’s the princess of the house.  She’s making a point that she’s hot and that she deserves the best spot in the house where the wind hits or the A/C.  So here’s her the night before I left for my getaway and not letting me sleep.  And she’s not joking, she’s in full dream mode 😉

By the way, Aeropostale actually has a shirt with “My Home Is Where My Cat Is” . Its true though.  I always miss my little girl (even if she hogs the bed).

BEFORE I SAY THE GOOD NIGHTS…

Here’s a little something to help you go to sleep a la Disney style 😉

Its getting late, so I’m off to bed! 🙂

Hope you all had a great weekend! 

*Late Night* Pinterest Therapy & Life’s Randomness :)

Its pretty fitting to have one of these every 3 months mostly because if you haven’t known, I work in the lovely accounting field and well, every 3 months, I have a huge quarter and life gets immensely and overwhelmingly busy.  With Fantasia Film Festival lingering about at the same time, I’ve been pretty exhausted.  4 more movies to go before it ends and I’m learning how wonderful life in movies are. I’m taking a little time off today from reviews although I have 3 more festival movies to cover in the next few days.

I felt like a little Pinterest therapy is where I always go to when my mind is overloading.

Before we move forward, I didn’t get a chance to put some interesting stuff that happened during the last week..

1) SURPRISE PLANTS!

Sunflower? We didn’t plant that 😉

I think some squirrels were trying to hide away some seeds and didn’t manage to find them because somehow this year, we sprouted some sunflowers in the front yard and one of them actually bloomed into this lovely thing that brightened up my day 🙂

2) SURPRISE VISITOR

Young Fearless (maybe naive) Robin on the deck

This robin doesn’t even have all this orange belly grown in yet, so I’m guessing its pretty young.  Plus, my cat was sitting behind the screen door staring at it.  And without zoom, I was right next to it taking pictures and it didn’t even fly away. So yes, fearless or maybe naive, whichever you choose works but it was hilarious to see my cat get all worked up over it.

Did I tell you that our backyard has a robin’s nest and our front yard has a cardinal’s nest? So lots of visitors 😉

3) FIRST VEGETABLE HARVEST!

Cooked yellow zucchini

If you saw last week’s update, my yellow zucchini was growing at intense speed so this week, after some research to make sure if it was ready to harvest, I did harvest two of them.  My boyfriend seasoned it and here’s what we had for (part of our) dinner. It was delicious 🙂

4) HAVING LAZY TIME WITH MY CAT!

Sunday morning with my cat

Its been a while that I haven’t had to jump out of bed on the weekend mornings and go do something but since I had a Fantasia Festival movie that overlapped with piano, I pushed it to the evening, giving me more time to just stay in bed.  It was needed because I had a few sleepless nights and my body needed to recuperate. There really is nothing more heavenly than sitting around in bed relaxing and doing nothing and just watching my cat. She dreams almost as much as I do so its pretty entertaining 😉

Like I said, short updates so lets move right along to some pins that I found on Pinterest which made me all happy.

First pinning goes to gardening…

5) MY DREAM INDOOR GARDEN

Vertical indoor garden

Now, doesn’t that look cool? Imagine the variety of fresh herbs, right?

And my realistic self comes in and says, its a good idea and looks decent but think about bug infestations…why are there cons to everything, right?

6) ONLY A WRITER…

I’m not really a writer but it makes me think…

Awkward of me to put this? Well, I’m not really a writer but it encourages me to think about the potential of it.  I’ve been having this really great idea for a novel but I just couldn’t figure out how to start it.  I have a lot of the middle part drafted in my head.  You know how I do that? I talk to myself in the shower..well, I pretend to be in the story and I start working it out there with different characters.  It sounds weird but I can’t be the only one who does that, right? Some people brainstorm in their heads and some do it out loud…I just happen to be the latter.

By the way, earlier today, I actually managed to get the beginning down on paper for the story I wanted to write for a while 😉 Its not for publishing or anything so just something I want to do for myself.  Still, I’m pretty happy about it!

7) TV & HOT GUYS!

Pretty Little Liars- Caleb (Tyler Blackburn)

Pretty Little Liars – Ezra (Ian Harding)

Pretty Little Liars- Jason (Drew Van Acker)

True Blood-Eric (Alex Skarsgard)

True Blood – Alcide (Joe Manganiello)

I’ve recently been on track with True Blood and Pretty Little Liars. I don’t usually search up pins on hot actors but I happened to land on one and then it lead to the next one and trust me, I’ll keep going not hat I made a board just for it 😉

So, remember this when you watch Pretty Little Liars, these are not actually teenagers 😛 So I can enjoy them for who they are and that doesn’t stop me from thinking they are hot.  Honestly, I don’t think its possible to have that many hot guys and girls in one city but apparently it happens in fictional places like Rosewood.  Its definitely not limited to those up there.  I just totally love the character of Caleb and his short hair and new look for this season is totally hot. Plus, I’m increasingly liking what they are doing with Ezra’s character and although I find it attractive in pictures and not as much in the show, he’s leaving an impression all the same. My favorite has to be Jason though.  He brings a mysterious vibe to the show whenever he shows up and Drew Van Acker is just ridiculously hot and sexy.

True Blood’s new season hasn’t been all that impressive but I’m still missing the one that just passed by and I just keep thinking they ‘ll just kill everyone off and end the damn thing. Who knows, right? Still, Alex Skarsgard’s Eric look is totally delicious and Alcide is just so manly with those muscles.  I tried to keep it tame with the pictures 😉

Yes, yes, superficial. I get to do that once in a while…

8) DESSERT NACHOS

While I was using the words “delicious” to describe the guys, I started thinking about sweets. There is absolutely NO WAY that I’d do a Pinterest Therapy session without some sweets and this one looks scrumptious. I’m literally drooling and thats a comforting thought and a reminder that I need to get back to baking.

I’m definitely going to try to figure out some gluten free option for making this 😉

BEFORE I GO…

Late night session is getting a bit overboard and its past 2am so I should be trying to get some sleep although stress is stopping me from it.

How about a little song from Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart (review that I posted yesterday HERE)? Its really cute! There’s also an English version and I believe reading that its Samantha Barks that does the girl’s voice. You can find that version on Youtube, if not just ask, I have it in my playlist and I’ll send you the link. But here’s the original French version. Sorry, I couldn’t find english subtitles…

And then a little electronic music song that mellows me out all the time.

Good night my lovelies! I’ll get another review up tomorrow 🙂

May & June Reading Recap!

Its been a while since I’ve done a reading recap and I’ve been way behind with my reading challenge.  I’m hoping that as work slows down, my energy will return and my focus on reading will pick up.  It also helps when I have a captivating book in my hands.  I’m starting to think that as I read more.  I’m becoming a harder audience to please.  Or maybe I just didn’t like the style of the book.  That can happen, right?

Lets get started 🙂

Dead Ever After (Sookie Stackhouse #13) by Charlaine Harris

It took 13 books but Sookie Stackhouse finally came to an end.  The last few books have been a chore to get through with more meaningless parts than actually good stuff.  But, the writing style is always so easy to read that it doesn’t take much effort to go through it quickly.  Dead Ever After is the final book and I guess the question is how does Charlaine Harris wrap this up.  She has to pack Sookie’s dangerous, crazy and romantic life all up. In the foreword or whatnot, she justifies that its how she’s wanted this to end.  Right off, the setup of the novel is different, featuring a mysterious side story which reveals itself in the end, supposedly maybe wanting to give it a little thriller-esque sort of feeling.  Except, its become so predictable that although this last book wasn’t bad, I wasn’t exactly enthused. After having some time to digest it, I really didn’t like the ending at all.  It wasn’t just that it didn’t meet my expectations but it faded out some pretty important characters.

Seeing as True Blood was what got me into this, I’m more curious as to how this last season will go.  Will they change the ending from the novel? Lets just say, if they do keep it the same, I won’t be quite so pleased. I just don’t really see how the series would build itself to that ending.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

I bought this book in hopes of reading it before going to see the movie.  Obviously, that didn’t happen as I planned.  But thats okay, because apparently, the movie was really good and that comes from friends that actually read this and enjoyed it.

I had extremely low expectations when I first started this book. I honestly have no idea why.  Maybe its the worry that all these teenage books (Harry Potter aside) might end up like Twilight.  Still, this one did well.  I made it through the whole book in a rather quick pace.

Divergent has a great premise.  The concept behind the whole story works really well and the characters were developed decently.  At least the main characters were done well.  It might have benefited from having a little more emphasis on some key characters rather than just our main characters Tris and Four.  While there is a lot to like, I can remember the beginning taking me time to adapt to because the writing style seemed so amateur, maybe. It had something I didn’t quite like but I couldn’t really figure out what it was but that only lasts for a few chapters until it picks itself up and carried me straight to the end.

I don’t know how bad the movie can be but when I get a chance to see this, I’m going in with an open mind.  Plus, I’m already planning out when to get the second book and continue with the series.

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

I can’t say for other people who read this but I definitely picked up this one and hesitated and hesitated over an over again because I was not only curious to see how J.K .Rowling would do in the books for an older audience but also I had my doubts.  What eventually made me pick up the courage and read it was that it was unfair that I knew nothing of the plot and I had already judged it.  I’m just that kind of person and I won’t be that kind of person.

For the record, I wanted this book to be good.  It was just so damn long and the pace was so slow.  The story itself touches on morals, integrity and just so many social issues as well all embedded in a little town.  It sets off by one character’s death which allows us to see a bunch of characters and their lives, viewpoints and how there’s a lot of friction and just how self-centred and ugly everyone was.  I spent a good part of it really hating on the characters and in the beginning its a bit confusing because there’s a mountain of names and characters introduced throughout the first few chapters.

I don’t remember this book a lot other than the surprisingly good ending but I do also remember thinking how J.K. Rowling had gotten really sexually explicit in some descriptions.  I didn’t really think she would go there.  I’m not saying its a bad thing but I guess thats what makes her stand out.

I just can’t help but wonder if maybe she just needs more practice as its just her first step into the books for adults or maybe she’s more geared for books for the younger audience?

The Giver (The Giver Quartet #1) by Lois Lowry

When I was in elementary/high school, I know that some classes got to read The Giver.  However, my English teachers never did so I never knew what it was about either.  Now, The Giver is a short novel. Its a bit over hundred pages.  Its also the first I knew that its actually part of a series.  Believe me, you will know also when you reach the end of this book.

The Giver is about a dystopian world which is the opposite of what we have now.  Its in a space of Sameness where everyone has their life planned out for them and in routine.  This world is emotionless and colorless and painless.  Our main character,Jonas has one of the rare jobs which no one had got chosen for since 10 years ago called The Receiver.  His job is to work with The Giver who will pass him memories.  They are the ones who others believe see beyond and carry the burdens and knowledge that others do not have.

The Giver is a great book.  I loved it a lot and I read through it extremely fast because everyone was written well and developed in a good way.  Of course, the book being short also makes certain details blurred over but in general, the events that went on and just the inner struggle of our character is one that is intriguing all on its own.  Its about seeing a world living in ignorance.

From my Goodreads review, I end it asking this question: Can you imagine a life without memories and everything is simply black and white? Simplicity has its pros but it also strips away the desires and wants that are what motivates us everyday. However, remembering more and feeling more also brings on more pain so would you choose to fully experience life or be in a simple and protected world where your choices are made for you?

The movie looks like its going to be good with a decent cast.  Jeff Bridges possibly in a more serious and heavy role.  This one I have to see.  I’m not sure how anyone can ruin this book adaptation and my fingers are crossed that they won’t.

The Wild Beasts of Wuhan (Ava Lee #3) by Ian Hamilton

Jumping into the third book of this Ava Lee series, all the complaints from the second one has pretty much subsided in this one.  Ava Lee is sent on a mission to recuperate money on some fake paintings which takes her around the world to Wuhan, Hong Kong, London and New York.

All in all, this one is quick-paced and fun to read.  Its a definite page-turner and reminds me of the Ava Lee that made me fall in love in the first book.  It carries suspense and less violence but at the same time, she carries intelligence and this time around, we get a good look at her personal thoughts on her relationship and her family.  We dive into her awkward family and I’m pretty sure the next book is going to be head-on involved with a family member.

There really is nothing to complain about in this one because its a satisfying read and I’m hoping the next books will have the same greatness to it 🙂

OVERALL…

As I was writing this up, I realized how many novels are actually series.  Its really amazing how there isn’t really any standalone books anymore.  I mean here’s 80% series.  Of course, there are good and bad but for the most part, Sookie Stackhouse kind of overstayed her welcome whereas Ava Lee is still a work in progress.  I’m only the third book in and there’s probably already a few more if I’m not mistaken. However, that is a series that I think deserves more attention and would make a pretty awesome TV series or movie.

On that note, I can’t wait to see The Giver in theatres and I’m hoping its a wide release, but I’m willing to travel further to see that since I’m so in love with the book. I also just finished another book that will be adapted into a movie soon but I will post about that in the next recap.

I’m on a reading spree and I have a bunch of books lined up with a few independent writers in the mix once my tablet behaves and lets me load my ebooks again.  I’m working on that while I read some physical books 🙂

What movie adaptation are you looking forward to this year? Did you read any of these books? What are your thoughts on it? Any interesting reads that you’d like to share?

Acrostic Name Game

Alex Raphael runs a fantastic blog that you can check out HERE! I haven’t gotten around to do the Alphabet Movie Meme that inspired him to do this little Acrostic Name Game but I had to do this one ASAP.  He’s been an awesome guy who has been dropping  lots of awards that being the ridiculous person I am, I’ve fallen WAY behind on responding.  Seeing as its all those #FF going around, I figured I’d give him a nice shoutout.  He did his on TV shows.  I’m going to do mine on TV and for those that I can’t figure out a show, I chose a movie.  A little mish mash 😉

True Blood

Honorable mention for this would’ve been Top Gear (UK)! I like True Blood a lot. I mean, I binge watched Season 1, suffered through Season 2 and fell in love with Season 3 & 4 then got really weirded out by Season 6.  Thats the general recap  of how I felt about it.  Wait, is there only five seasons now? Anyways, I’m lost but I love it for the vamps and werewolves and sex and nudity.  All that stuff, you know? Eric Northman is hot and Alcide is so handsome.  Not such a huge fan of Sookie but thats okay, it always works out in the end 😉

Robin Hood (2006)

I haven’t completely finished Robin Hood.  I’m about a few episodes away.  I love BBC series a lot and this one was pretty fun to watch. Its not just the guy who played Robin Hood but it also introduced to me the very handsome Richard Armitage 🙂 When I first saw him, he looked like Bradley Cooper but with a bit more charm. Honestly, I became aware of him because of Ruth over at FlixChatter. 

Aristocats

The Aristocats is one of my favorite Disney movies.  Its fun and energetic and it features lots of cats.  Everybody does want to be a cat, I tell you.  At least I wanted to be one after this.  Maybe thats why I meow occassionally…*ahem* maybe I shouldn’t have said that.  I just went to another level of weird.

New Girl

I’m slightly behind with New Girl but I have a mega girl crush on Zoey Deschanel.  I have a developing love for Jake Johnson and the whole supporting cast is hilarious.  I love this sitcom to bits.  I really should catch up with this season 🙂

Quill

One of first movies that touched me.  When you give you animals and their bond with their owners and base it on their life (and death), that just tears me apart.  Quill is amazing, touching and so memorable.

Under the Dome

I cannot wait for Under the Dome to come back this summer.  Last summer, this one really ruled my world.  It has a fabulous actress Rachel Lefevre and as I saw more of her movies, I saw just how awesome she is.  Plus, the guy in this is pretty cool.  The whole story is intense and mysterious.  I haven’t read anything from  Stephen King so I know nothing of this going in. This show is all sorts of amazing!

I‘ll Follow You Down

One of the movies I saw in Montreal’s Fantasia Festival.  I hasn’t been released anywhere else but it has an older Haley Joel Osment, Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell.  Its a sci-fi/time travel mystery.  I was intrigued by it and gave this a chance and it turned out to be surprisingly good.  The concept was very well thought out.  You can check out the review HERE!

Lie to Me

I’m still baffled as to why this show was cancelled because Tim Roth kicks some serious ass as Cal Lightman with his lie detecting skills. There’s a good chemistry between the characters and I love that they add real life snapshots of well-known public figures emphasize their point in the cases that they investigate.  Despite the serious material, they still get in some  humorous moments to loosen the atmosphere.

 

Dollhouse

I only saw this one earlier this year and I ended up buying the two seasons afterwards.  Dollhouse was the first thing that made me acknowledge just how talented Joss Whedon is.  I binge watched this and finished both seasons so fast and I was obsessed with not only Eliza Dushku and Tahmoh Penikett but totally fell in love with Topher played with Fran Kranz.  As much as its about giving people what the clients ask for, it takes a play on the end of the world and the double-edged sword with tampering with God-like technology that manipulates human nature, desires and morals.

Resident Evil

Resident Evil and all its movies are my guilty pleasure.  Its simply a fun and entertaining shoot ’em up zombie flick.  I look forward to the new one coming out this year (I think).  Maybe no one anticipates a lot but for me, Alice is my absolute favorite movie character.  I even disguised as her for Halloween two years ago 🙂

Elementary

I just realized that I have a lot of new series on here.  Anyways, I like Elementary. It came as a surprise to me because I’m not particularly a huge fan of Lucy Liu but I found her really good.  Plus, the whole Sherlock in New York with Watson turning into a woman modernizes this classic.  For me, it works out good 🙂

August Rush

Music has helped me through a whole lot of stuff and August Rush is one of those movies that touched me.  Maybe not a lot of people like it.  I know my boyfriend didn’t.  There’s just something really magical about the whole story and I can relate to it in some ways.  I actually wrote a post about it a good while back and you can check that out HERE.  I just love the music and everything.

Moonlight

Another series that got cancelled after only one season.  I thought it was a really good one also.  One of the better vampire series I’ve seen at least.  It made me fall in love with Alex O’Loughlin also. Its only one season and I actually think its time to revisit it 🙂

Sherlock

Another Sherlock Holmes modernized version! As much as I like Elementary, there is something about Benedict Cumberbatch that really makes this one stand out and I like the guy who plays Watson also. I need to start Season 3!

Whew!! That was actually kind of hard to put together. I originally wanted to use just TV series but figured that after Q turned out to be super hard and I modified it to part TV and movies.  Not too bad, right?

Now that I’ve done it! Go ahead and make one of your own! It can be any list as long as its with your blog name! I shared the link up top on the instructions that Alex gives.  Be sure to check out his awesome blog and join into this fun game. I’d love to see what you come up with!

This blog was supposed to go up on Friday but I guess somewhere in the world, some place is still Friday, right? I have some exciting stuff to announce over the next while.  First one will be probably over this weekend since I didn’t get something for today.  Remember to check back, ok?

On the road to recovery! :)

I don’t know how long I’ve been talking about it but it seems like health is been on a record low this year.

Yesterday, I took a half day off from work for both a dentist appointment and to finally have my eye appointment with the opthamologist to figure out how to fix whatever is on my eyelid.  Good news is that I have no cavities! YAY!

Second bit is also good news which comes in a bit of a painful bad news shell is that the fix for my eyelid bump was a mini operation.  *trembles* That how I felt when the doctor told me that and then had me go outside to pay my $100 fee for it and wait for my turn.  Before this operation, my previous form of surgery was in the form of taking out wisdom teeth 2 times before.  I forced myself to tough it out but I’m telling you, seeing a huge needle going  into your gums is a million times less scary than seeing that same size needle going into your eyelid and then feeling it kind of go numb.  The whole process was just immensely painful even with whatever pain numbing agent that was in the needle. The result: its gone! YAY*2!

Plus, I got to experience a half hour of being like a one-eyed pirate! Something like this:

Bad news was I had to take the rest of the day off because as much as I thought that anesthesia was not working during the process, when it start evacuating from my little incision, it hurt so much! Still, I’m on the right track and on the road to recovery as I’m typing this up between trying to not blink or emote as that causes some pain.

Moving on!

I’ve been taking it easy on watching movies and turned my attention to catching up on TV series.  This week’s mission which I managed to finish up was these two!

True Blood Season 6

True Blood was alright. It wasn’t a bad season but it didn’t rise up way too much.  I don’t know how many of you have seen it but well, I wasn’t too fond of the beginning but sometime in the middle it started getting better and the finale seems to hint at a decent final season (I believe).

Hemlock Grove

On the other hand, Hemlock Grove is really weird. I can’t emphasize how confused I felt during the whole show.  I give you this: it had the most disgusting yet pretty impressive werewolf transformation I’ve ever seen.  This one took a really long time to get to understand the deal with everyone and it seems messed up relationships rule this wonderful town.  I actually think the guy that plays Dr. Pryce to be the most intriguing out of everyone.  Bill Skarsgaard has this funky accent that he seems to need to control when he gets nervous and I wonder if thats deliberate.  For me, it really starts picking up at episode 5 and gets more and more gripping till the end.  I’ll be there for Season 2 🙂

Thinking about today, I wondered if my boyfriend had actually felt that I’d need flowers some point because he bought me a nice pot of calla lilies last weekend as a nice little surprise.

Calla Lilies

Calla Lilies

It was comforting to see them today after coming home from all that. 🙂

I’m going to end on that note and promise you that tonight (in hopes my eye should be in less pain) I’ll be able to think straight and get that movie review done! In the face of all this, I know I can get it done…after all, I managed to do my workout challenge day last night.  Can I do this?

From Tribesports on Pinterest

Movie reviews will resume regularly soon 🙂

Plus, if anything, things will be fully back on track in October.  I have at least 15-20 movies for horror marathon lined up! What do you say? 15 or 20? In insomnia’s face, I say BRING IT ON! 🙂

Happy Thursday everyone! 🙂

Book Review: Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse #10) by Charlaine Harris

About a month ago, I read Sookie Stackhouse #9 Dead and Gone (see review HERE!).  I really wasn’t thinking of reading on this series after that one but I did find this one on special so I figured since I’m only 4 books away from the last one, I might as well tough it out.  Plus, I hate leaving things hanging.  Seeing as True Blood Season 6 starts this Sunday, I felt it appropriate to finish this Book#10 Dead in the Family up.

Dead in the Family is about the healing, conflicts and anger following the last book’s Faery War.  Sookie is now in a relationship with Eric.  Her fairy cousin Claude asks to move in with her as her great-grandfather Niall had decided to close the portal between the two worlds making the events of the last book feel somewhat stupid and useless.  Things get a bit complicated and they revolve mostly around the touchy issues of the two-natured weres and shifters exposing themselves causing Alcide and his pack to have to borrow Sookie’s land to shift.  Its there they smell an unknown fairy on her land.  This causes Sookie to be worried and to seek help.  On the other hand, Eric’s maker suddenly drops by with an unexpected “son” Alexei.  All these events eventually spiral out of control, as you’d expect.

I really don’t know how to summarize these plots anymore.  This one wasn’t boring like the last one.  It was just so scattered and choppy.  It was like 20 people (exaggeration, there’s not that many side stories) wrote a different part and put it together without bothering to add a link in between them and the previous books.  This caused some things that didn’t really mesh with the characters that has been known.  Eric seems to really lose how he usually is, and some parts of it aren’t too logical.  Although, if I was being totally logical, I don’t think I’d read these guilty pleasure reads. Claude does a 180 and turns into this caring relative.  I mean all this is just the beginning.

There were certain segments that was interesting to read unlike the last book.  Even without correlations, it was alright.  Not too boring, mostly because there was so much to follow.  What drops it a bit more is the ending which ended ridiculously fast. It makes everyone else in the story somewhat silly for not have thought of it in the first place.

Overall, an okay read which shows signs of bringing up questions that have to be considered.  We know that the situation will only get worse as always, just depends what path it will go the author will choose.  I’m assuming this book is a bridge to connect to the upcoming events.  I’ll only know later. For now, I’ll be taking a break from reading these since the season starts soon.  It will resume after the season is over(maybe).

Book Review: Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse Series #9) by Charlaine Harris

Yes, these are the series of books that the successful  HBO series True Blood is based on.  However, as much as they started off being similar to the books, by Book 9 many things that have happened are quite different.

Actually, its become something of a tradition to read the following one or two books in the series that I stopped at before the series starts up the summer.  This year was no different.  I only had one more book that I had pre-bought from last year during those buy 3 get 1 free deals at Indigo.  Whats really nice (probably not so much if you read every book in the series) is that they always try to give you some details about how Sookie and whatever person she’s regarding has gotten to whatever stage they are at whether it be friends, family, acquaintances, etc.  Once it makes the reader either want to go back to read it or if not, they won’t be completely lost starting in the middle of nowhere.  BUT, can I ask why anyone would start a series of books from Book#9?

Anyways, lets start wtih a little synopsis of Book#9 in the Sookie Stackhouse series called Dead and Gone!

In the world of True Blood set in Bon Temps, Louisiana, the world has already known that vampires walk the earth among them openly (at night).  However, others don’t have such deep knowledge of them unless you deal with them personally.  Sookie has dealt with vampires and even other supernatural beings in the previous few books.  Right when things seemed to have settled down, the weres (wolves, panthers, etc) decided it was their time to bring themselves out of hiding.  Very soon after, at Sookie’s workplace Merlotte’s has her own sister-in-law Crystal who is a were panther nailed half in transformation.  The werepanthers now want to seek out who is responsible for this and whether it is related to a hate crime.  However, in the scene of all this, Sookie eventually learns that there is a bigger battle brewing in the background with a even more secretive supernaturals, Faes and Fairies and she finds that she is caught up in it more than she’d like to be.

I’m really not one to dislike books.  I mean props to this one for going to Book #9 and still having a whole bunch of readers and surpassing it.  I think a third of this book was interesting enough to make me not fall asleep.  A huge part of it was predictable and Sookie REALLY started annoying me.  The dialogue that she’s given makes me want to slap her.  The parts where I started falling asleep, I eventually started skimming through the words to just grab a general meaning until something didn’t make sense then  I’d backtrack.

Definitely not somewhere you want to start for this series. The first few books in the series set everything at a pretty decent pace and up till this book, its been entertaining. Thats generally all I ask for in these books too.  I’m not asking it to be poetic and profound but just to keep me engaged.  Unfortunately, this one had a hard time with.

Well, I’m not one to quit in the middle of a series, especially one that now has just reached the end.  On to Book#10…right after I get it 😉