What you see here is the result of my current "carting" efforts at work. $65.50 in quarters since February 28th, seventeen days of work in total. I'm really wondering what to do with the quarters. I don't think it will take me that long to fill up the jar--at the very most three or so months. However, assuming I say at this job for a while I could fill it up several times--and I don't have any desire to just keep filling up jars and jars without any end. I might wait until the jar is filled once, and then just save quarters for a month. It certainly would be great to go to a bookstore once a month with my quarters and go crazy buying books! :-) Speaking of book buying, I had fun today.I recieved some money for my birthday, so naturally I decided to spend it on something fun! Tonight I spent several hours in the local Borders bookstore
. Yes, I spent several hours trying to pick out three paperbacks to buy! But if you know me very well or have ever visited a bookstore with me you won't be surprised at all. I'm am definately a biblioholic (by the way that is an excellent book--Mark, get it! and I intend to blog about it soon) and quite unrepentant about the whole matter. Well I settled on a sci-fi novel rather quickly actually. It is apparently a debut novel, and from the back description and the prolgue I was intrigued. Over the course of my time I also read a bit more, and it stayed good--so that book was good to stay, Phobos by Ty Drago. (You might like it Mark, 'tis a mystery as well as sci-fi) A bit later I settled on a fantasy novel by Simon R. Green, a British author. I'd purchased the first part of his Deathstalker series years ago and partially finished them. Then during the last year I checked them all out from the library (including the most recently published which finished up the series) and read them all. They are definately an excellent epic series, if somewhat lighthearted (i.e. not hard "good phsics" sci-fi) and bloodthirsty space opera. Anyway, I knew he had written other books and so I decided to get the first of his Hawk and Fisher series, Swords of Haven. (Don't go for it Mark, pure fantasy, ;-)). Now we come to the good part.I spent a couple more hours pouring over the bookshelves that I'd already spent hours in back on
the first of the month (when I first got my Borders Rewards card--more on that later). I went back and forth around the sci-fi/fantasy section. I didn't want to just buy books that I need to complete a collection, or experiment with just the first book of a fantasy trilogy. Then I realized I was near the mystery section and I tried to remember one of Mark's favourite authors. I knew I'd read her Turing Harper novels, and that Mark was always trying to get me interested in her other books. Finally on the back shelf (the first alphabetically) I stumbled upon the Donna Andrews novels. I was quite excited to discover that each of her books had not only a normal mass market paperback edition, but one priced at $3.99 as well! After reading the first two chapters of We'll Always Have Parrots I was definately hooked. (Mark, do I read Amazon right, you haven't reviewed this book?!) So I picked up that (the first) and the second, Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon.Right now I'm going back to an experiment that I tried last year with Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever and Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. I'm reading a chapter of Phobos, and then one of
We'll Always Have Parrots. I find it increases the tension, and keeps me in two books at once. The experiment did go well the last time, hopefully it will this time as well.I was almost ready to close off this posting when I realized that I do have more information to post! It just snowed early this week! I had Tuesday off from bigg's since I was supposed to help conduct training at the museum for some new staff. I haven't yet been so glad not to be out with the carts! We had several inches of snow Tuesday morning before the sun rose, and it kept drifting down (though not much at once) all throughout the day. The roads were somewhat nasty that morning, but thankfully I didn't have to go anywhere all day! :-) Of course, as always seems to happen after a snowfall I was a bit late the next day, so I didn't appreciate the time needed to scrape snow and ice off my windshield. I can only figure that the snow partially melted and then
refroze right on the windshield--and hadn't warmed back up at all when I went in to work yesterday morning. But I can't really complain, I wasn't late or anything like that.Well I'll leave you with a picture of what the front yard looked like earlier today, :(.
~Matt
PS I'm done posting from Picasa. I finally discovered I can add multiple images directly from Blogger with the same options. It is much easier, and I can save drafts in case anything threatens to go wrong.
6 comments:
You're right. I hated this post. First of all, you failed to tell us about the Border's reward card. Second, you got Donna Andrew's books all wrong. The order of that series is:
Murder with Peacocks
Murder with Puffins
Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingoes
Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon
We'll Always Have Parrots
Owls Well That Ends Well (which I think just came out in paperback)
No Nest for the Wickets (which won't be out until August!)
All but the last one I have reviewed. I haven't reviewed the last one because it isn't out yet.
If you continue to make silly mistakes like this, I shall have to remove your blog from my blogroll.
:)
Well darn it, they must have printed them in reverse order in the inside cover! Grrr... Well I guess I'll be spending my quarters at Borders after all as I'll need to get the rest of the books and read them in order! :-)
Well with the Borders rewards card you get weekly coupons for say 25% off any one book, or other similar offers in your e-mail. I also recived two coupons for my birthday. And if you spend at least fifty dollars in a month you get a day the next month where you save something like 25% on whatever you buy. Also 5% of what you spend goes into a holiday account that either is spendable from November to January or garners you discounts then. Tis a great deal for a free program if you're already going to be buying books!
You did review Parrots? I didn't see it on Amazon, I only saw three reviews. Perhaps they separated this version of the book?
~Matt
Just being practical here: be sure and have those quarters turned into paper or the clerks at the bookstore will cringe when they see you coming with that weighted gait they have grown to hate.
Yeah, thanks Aunt Bee. I was just thinking about that actually before I came and read your comment. If I just spend a few more dollars at Borders before the 31st (and I have a couple coupons I can use as well) I'll have spent my $50 that I need to get my self a 10% day next month. The best part is that I need to go back anyway after realizing that I didn't get the right first two Donna Andrews books anyway.
I realize now that I was misled by an accounting of the awards the "first" bird themed book in the series had garnered and then I didn't see the "Murder with Peacocks" written below--so I assumed that it was talking about the book it was printed on, We'll Always Have Parrots. *sigh* Oh well...;-)
Snow this late is obnoxious. It's nearly April! It's spring, for the love of carp and carrots...
Publishers never print the titles of books in order inside books. Or at least rarely. I never use those as guides.
Of course, with Meg, you can read in most any order. It really doesn't matter.
As to my review of Parrots, they have all but the original hardcover under one title. For my review, you've got to hunt down the hardcover listing (with a gorgeous cover) to see what I had to say.
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