Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

• Barnes & Noble – 15% off the most expensive item in your cart (on top of the membership discount!).
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[Cross-posted at my epinions account.]

As a self-proclaimed shopaholic, I have to praise Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series for its realistic portrayal of the inner clockworks that make up the brain of a born shopper.

The tone of the books is very Bridget-Jones-eque, but Becky Bloomwood is far more entertaining a character than Bridget Jones, and while I won’t spoil anything for you, I will point out that there are certain storyline elements in the Shopaholic series that make it more enjoyable than many books, especially for fans of the “chick-flick” genre. I guess it’s no surprise that people have started calling books in this genre “chick-lit.”

In the first book, Confessions of a Shopaholic, we meet Becky and her debt. Becky is a shopaholic. Becky can find a great bargain, thrives on sales, and understands that three for $10 is so much better than $4 each, no matter what item and regardless of whether or not you actually need three of them. It’s a bargain; what more do you need to know?

The best part of these books is that if you’re a spender, as I am, you’ll recognize the lunacy of the credit card system; one company demands that you pay them back, a second company reminds you that credit card debt is dangerous and you should avoid it, and a third offers you a $3000 line of credit at the local department store. While I don’t have a personal relationship with my banker, it’s entertaining to follow Becky’s amusing efforts to explain to her bankers why she needs a higher overdraft limit.

In the second book, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Becky discovers the joys of New York shopping and the wonder that is foreign currency.

Up to now, everything’s been in pounds sterling, but when you’re shopping in America, it’s like everything’s half off!

I have the same experience when I go to Canada; it doesn’t matter that things are more expensive, because after the conversion it’s like a giant sale!

In the third book, Shopaholic Ties the Knot – well, I don’t think it’s spoiling anything for me to tell you that in the third book, Becky gets married. Married! That means… yes! A wedding! Even better: shopping for the wedding! The following book, Shopaholic & Sister, is a fun story, if a little bit melodramatic. (No spoilers here!) The latest book, Shopaholic & Baby, JUST came out, and I’m looking forward to reading it!

If you read one book, you should read all five; they’re fantastic and each book flows into the next. In the time it takes you to read the five books, you might have spent a dangerous amount of money had you chosen to go shopping at the mall instead. You’ll also raid your refrigerator instead of eating out, since you’ll be so engrossed in the novels that you won’t want to leave your house. So in the long run, buying all five books will save you money, won’t it? What a deal!

[Cross-posted at my epinions account.]

We have friends over fairly often, and the game of Cranium is definitely one of our favorites to bring out. The game is terrific because it relies on teamwork and a variety of creative and intellectual tasks.

This is no “Candy Land“; if you want to win, you’re going to have to use your… cranium, as it were. You can get the basic board rules from the game’s instructions; the more important information you need to know is about the different tasks you could be assigned.

The Basic Stuff

Each space on the Cranium game board is marked with a color, either red, blue, green or yellow. At the four “corners” of the gameboard (actually located in the middle of each side) is a purple “brain.”. Regardless of how many spaces a player is supposed to move, they must stop when they reach each brain, even if their roll would have taken them further. Between each “brain” spot is an inside track and an outside track; the inside track has fewer spaces, so you get to the next brain more quickly. The team that goes first is the team including the player with the next birthday. I’m not kidding; this is in the rules!

At the start of the game, every player is on the initial “brain” spot, and therefore they get to pick their first task. If they are successful in their first task, they get to roll the dice and move to the appropriate color via the inside track, and on their next turn, they will draw a card from the deck of this color. If they do not succeed in their first task, their turn is over. When they do successfully complete a task, they must go along the outside track until they reach the next brain. The inside-outside path resets at each brain, so you can still catch up even if you miss your first challenge.

Once you’ve made your way around the board, you enter the center “brain” – the big brain, if you will, and you must answer, on each of your subsequent turns, a question from each of the four categories. Once you finish the fourth, you move to the middle of the brain, and on your next turn, all of the other teams get to pick a card for you. That’s all of the teams, not each of the teams. They will have to agree on a category. Usually this category is red (Data Head), unless your team includes one of those people who just knows everything about everything. In order to win, your team must successfully complete this last task.

So What Are These Challenges?

The game’s challenges are broken up into four key categories: Word Worm (yellow), Creative Cat (blue), Data Head (red), and Star Performer (green).

Yellow is “Word Worm,” and contains such wacky tasks as:

• Gnilleps: One player from the team must correctly spell a word backwards on your first attempt, and without writing anything down.
• Spellbound: The same as Gnilleps, only you get to spell it the normal way!
• Zelpuz: The team must unscramble words using a very vague clue.
• Lexicon: Multiple choice definitions. Be careful – these aren’t SAT questions. Here, they ARE trying to trick you; watch out for homonyms, because inevitably both words’ definitions will be potential answers
• Blankout: These are the hardest; you must complete a word with letters whited out. You do get a clue, but the clues usually aren’t too helpful.

Green, “Star Performer,” is my favorite; it involves various physical performance skills, including:

• Humdinger: One team member must hum the song on the card, while the other members attempt to guess the song. Generally when we play, we allow the team member to hand over the card to another teammate if she doesn’t know the song; she is forbidden to guess. If no player knows the song, then we allow them to pick another card.
• Cameo: Basically, charades. In theory, you’re not supposed to be allowed to give any indication of how many words or whether your team is on the right track, but we generally just follow the rules of charades instead.
• Copycat: The performing team member must get her teammates to guess which famous person she is imitating by mimicking the person’s speech, actions, characteristics. No names of people or places are permitted, and the team member cannot respond to anything the guessers ask. This challenge can either be really boring or absolutely hilarious, depending on how strictly you adhere to the rules. Given “Elvis Presley,” some people will say something boring like, “I have left the building,” or “Thank you very much.” More creative performances will involve hip thrusting and curled lips. It’s up to the game’s players to decide what they will and will not allow here.

Blue, “Creative Cat,” is my other favorite; it involves artistic tasks such as:

• Cloodle: Basically, Pictionary.
• Sensosketch: Like Cloodle, except that the drawer’s eyes must be shut. This can be extremely entertaining, and I like to hold on to the most brilliant “Cloodle” masterpieces for reminiscing in future games. If you do this, you might want to label it after the turn is over; some of them will be pretty unrecognizable later on!
• Sculptorades: The player has to translate the answer into sculpted form. No gestures/acting/pointing is allowed; this isn’t charades!

Red, “Data Head,” is my least favorite, although some people are freakishly good at this. The tasks include:

• Factoid: Random trivia questions. No list to choose from. These can be ridiculously hard.
• Selectaquest: Trivia, but with multiple choice answers.
• Polygraph: True or false trivia. The logical answer is rarely the actual answer.

Things You Should Know

• Sculptorades: We need to get a jar of Play-Dough; the Hints: Generally in “Star Performer” and “Creative Cat” you will have to rely on hints in order to give you some context as to what the answer might be. However, we find that sometimes

  As you can see, this game can be a lot of fun, and as in other popular board games like “Monopoly” and “LIFE,” you’ll probably find yourself modifying the rules as you go along. This can be the most fun part! After all, by tweaking it, you make it your own. 🙂

[Cross-posted at my epinions account.]

Let me preface this part by saying that I am not a fan of “stupid humor” and crude comedy. If a movie is only funny because it exploits sex and bodily functions, odds are I’m going to spend most of the duration rolling my eyes. When I went to see Borat, though, I laughed so hard I thought I was going to throw up. I saw it with my mom, and both of us laughed hysterically throughout most of the movie (I laughed even harder when I learned that the guy sitting next to my mom in the theater got up and walked out halfway through the film!)

Unlike many of the people I know who went to see this movie, I had absolutely no experience with Borat before stepping into the theater, having never seen his television show, and I really had no idea of what to expect, save for the few brief scenes revealed in the previews.

The basic plot of the story is that Borat comes to the USA to make his documentary, but winds up on a detour to Hollywood to track down his new wife to be, Pamela Anderson, who has yet to be informed of her fate. As Borat makes his way to Los Angeles, he catches Americans across the nation with their proverbial pants down. This isn’t just a stupid spoof flick. The thing that makes this movie so great is that the joke is so clearly on us.

Example #1: It’s clear throughout the movie that Borat is intolerably anti-Semitic – which you already know if you’ve seen the clip on YouTube of him singing in a country western bar, as all of the audience sings along with him, “Throw the Jew down the well!” What you don’t know unless you happen to be fluent in certain other languages (which I’m not), is that when Borat speaks in his native tongue, he’s actually speaking Hebrew, sprinkled with some Polish words for good measure. (I didn’t know this until my Israeli friends pointed it out). I’m sure I don’t have to explain why this is hilarious.

Example #2: I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the young men who picked up Mr. “Borat” are now suing him for making them look like idiots. The lesson that should be taken away from this situation: If you don’t want to be shown on film making ignorant, racist comments, don’t make ignorant, racist comments in front of filming cameras. And that, of course, *is* the punchline to that particular joke – people are willing to show their true colors when they think they are influencing the development of some far away country. They’re a bit shamefaced now that they’ve been “outed” here in America. It is absolutely mind-boggling what people will say when they think they can get away with it. Sascha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” character reveals that no matter how much effort some people make to conceal their bigoted views, those hateful sentiments are still there, brewing right beneath the surface. All it takes to stir them up is a charming but socially inept journalist from Khazakstan.

Even more mind-boggling is how other people in the film are willing to tolerate behavior that is at BEST grossly inappropriate and offensive, and at worst violative of human rights, simply because they are naive enough to believe that this is really how things are in “mah cuuuntry.” The running of the Jews? Keeping handicapped siblings in cages? Capturing wives in burlap sacks? Are Borat’s unwitting co-stars so convinced of western (or American) superiority that they really believe civilization ends at the border and the world runs amok outside of North America? Watch this movie and find out!

Be warned – there are scenes in this movie that you don’t want your children to see. There is nudity. Close up, and not pretty. Freaking hilarious, but really, not an image you want to stick with you. Kids may find it really funny to watch a silly guy in a moustache amble around making fools of people, and you may already hear your grade-school kids doing Borat impressions, but I promise – this is not a movie for young kids.

Want to purchase Borat – Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan? Buy from Amazon.com, or buy from Barnes & Noble.

[Cross-posted at my epinions account]

If you were a teenager in any American high school when the Columbine school shooting took place, you know that times have changed compared to “the good old days” (read: before Columbine). School shootings have become more common, but school security has also risen, as has the level of awareness about the potential for student violence against other students. Schools no longer trust students, and students no longer view school as a safe haven.

This type of tragedy continues to occur. The story is so often the same – a young white boy, tormented for years by “the popular kids,” decides to take control of the situation in the most unimaginable way. Sometimes he shoots himself as well, and sometimes he doesn’t – but regardless, we do not usually gain much deep understanding of the student and what drove him to this extreme. We always have hindsight, but never foresight, and rarely insight.

Jodi Picoult’s newest novel, “Nineteen Minutes,” is a start. It isn’t based on a particular school shooting, and yet you can sense echoes of each of them in this page-turner (or in my case, an absolutely unpausable audiobook). It’s clear from Picoult’s detailed accounts that she did her research; you can feel the ghosts of real young victims as you read about each fictional fallen child. You feel their peers’ and parents’ pain – and yet you find yourself torn between grief for their loss and sympathy for Peter Houghton, the young shooter who has suffered for years at the hands of some of his very victims. If you have ever struggled to understand the reason — not the excuse, mind you, but just the *reason* — some teens feel that they have to resort to violence in this manner, this book will open your eyes.

“Nineteen Minutes” refers to the duration of the shooting. However, the bulk of the book focuses not on the shooting itself, but on the periods before and after. Like many Picoult novels, the novel centers around a court trial, but the bulk of the book, written outside of any chronological order, details both the aftermath and the years, weeks, days and moments leading up to the tragic event.

The book chronicles the young Peter’s development over the years, telling stories from his point of view (from age kindergarten to eighteen). It also shares the thoughts of of other key characters in the novel. That is one of the things I love about Jodi Picoult novels; none of her characters are omniscient, but from sharing each of the actors’ limited perspectives, the reader can develop a more complete sense of the story. You see Peter through the eyes of his few friends, his classmates, his parents, his lawyer, and his victims, and you look back at them through Peter’s eyes. Most importantly, you see Peter as he sees himself.

Jodi Picoult has once again funneled a seemingly black and white situation through the prism of her storytelling genius, and repainted it in shades of grey on a paper canvas (with the usual Picoult-style surprise ending that just might make you drop the book in shock). If you ever wanted to understand how such a young person could feel so helpless and hopeless that he might resort to violence, pick up Picoult’s book. If anything, an understanding of this helplessness may help us to reach these students before they reach their own limit.

Buy Nineteen Minutes at Barnes & Noble [Hardcover; Audio CD] or Amazon.com [Hardcover; Audio CD]

View more Jodi Picoult novels: Read the rest of this entry »

I just started using Winzy, another search engine where you can win random prizes while you search. Winzy is a lot like Blingo, except with a new twist in that some of the prizes are for points, which represent entries into a sweepstakes drawing each month. It’s kind of nifty, and a little bit more exciting than Blingo because you win more often (although the prizes are usually for points!). I did win a $5 Amazon gift certificate on Winzy last night. It may not match up to the $100 Visa Gift Card (and multiple $10 iTunes gift certificates) I’ve won through Blingo, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at (and I have been using Blingo longer…)! Besides, it’s fun – in addition to instant wins, you can also land on little “games” where you can spin a wheel, play “Lucky 7s,” or eliminate suitcases a la “Deal or No Deal.”

One thing I do have to say for Blingo over Winzy (one of several things) is that with Blingo, you get your prize as soon as you claim it, if your prize is a gift card. Winzy apparently sends out the gift card within a month of your winning it – which is kind of silly if they could just email it. I will post again when I receive this first prize!

In the end, I like Blingo better, but Winzy is still a fun site to check out, and you can still win some nifty prizes.

If you sign up for either Blingo or Winzy, please be sure to be logged in when you search, so that I can win along with you! If you refer your own friends, tell them the same – if they win a prize, you win the same prize, as long as they’re logged in! (It only goes one level down; I don’t win if your friends win.)

Welcome to Spring! 20% Off at eBags.com – Offer Ends March 28th, 2007

By the way, see if Raining Jane IS coming to your town:

Schedule below the cut: Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve probably already talked about Raining Jane and how very wonderful they are, but now I have a new reason to yammer on about them! My friend was searching on YouTube and found a series of Raining Jane videos from a Fender show, so now you can see how fantabulous these ladies are, even if they’re not coming to your town!

(However, if they are playing locally, GO SEE THEM. No matter how terrific these videos are, Raining Jane is a thousand times better when they’re standing right in front of you. This is pretty mellow as their performances go, and the sound quality is crystal clear but doesn’t really capture their essence.) 😀

Convinced? Buy Raining Jane’s most recent album, Diamond Lane, on iTunes, at Amazon.com, or even better, through Raining Jane’s website.

Desperate Sails:

More Raining Jane awesomeness behind the cut:

Read the rest of this entry »

I am SO excited to be linking to Things From Another World (TFAW), partially because they have a TON of really awesome merchandise, but at least for now, mainly because they’re a retailer for the new Buffy comic.

I’m very excited about the pending arrival of this new comic. If it could just come five minutes ago, that would be good. Did I mention I’m excited? More Buffy! Buffy Season 8! An eighth season of my FAVORITE show ever! It’s supposed to pick up where the television series left off. Not that this gap hasn’t been filled by a million fanfic writers, but still – this comes from the TOP: Joss Whedon himself (well, in concept anyway).

Through TFAW you can preorder the next few issues, and see the cover art, which is already posted. They also have lots of Buffy memorabilia and other fun stuff, including the DVD box sets of Buffy AND Angel.

Check out more Buffy stuff!

Even if you’re not into Buffy, I hope you’ll take a moment to check out the store and see if they have anything that does interest you. 😀

• Barnes & Noble: 25% off one book
  • Use coupon T3Y9Y9T.
  • It says you can save 25% on one book and one DVD, but I’m not clear as to whether you can use this for both in the same order. Give it a try!
  • Expires March 19, 2007

• 20% Off your purchase through 3/12/07.
  • At checkout, enter code EMDAYLITE.
  • Expires March 12, 2007.

Will post more if I can find any!

• Get 10% Off PLUS Free Delivery on Orders Over $40 at eBags.com
• Get 10% Off plus Free Delivery at eBags.com
  • Use coupon code: EMSPRING.
  • Expires March 11, 2007.
• Save $35 on any purchase of $150 at eBags.com
• Up To 50% OFF JanSport at eBags.com
• $10 off your order with first use of Google Checkout (Exp. 3/31)
• Get 15% Off All Luggage Orders Over $75
  
• 15% Off All eBags branded products at eBags.com
  

• Barnes & Noble – 15% off the most expensive item in your cart (on top of the membership discount!).
  • Use code N8M7Y9V
  • Expires 3/4/2007.
  • Free shipping when your order exceeds $25.

The newest Shopaholic book, Shopaholic & Baby, is finally out!

Sophie Kinsella’s “Shopaholic” series is lots of fun; we listened to the entire series on audiobook, and let me tell you, it’s addictive! If you’re a shopaholic like me, it’s even more entertaining. The last one was a little bit melodramatic, but still fun.

Here’s hoping this is another great one!

I’m totally in love with Watching You: Intriguing Lesbian Short Films. I’m planning to get this on DVD the next time I place an order! I think somehow I missed a few of the shorts the first time I saw it, but that’s all the more reason for me to get it on DVD! Watching You is a collection of lesbian short films from around the world, though they’re mostly in English (there is one from Israel that is in Hebrew – but it’s subtitled and after a while you’ll be so engrossed you won’t even notice that you’re reading). Some of the shorts are really sweet (ha, short and sweet)! I especially like the hilarious Ten Rules, and I hear that it is being adapted into a TV show for LOGO, the LGBT cable network. I’m totally psyched! Now I just need to get cable!

Description from Amazon (with my favorites in bold):

This exciting collection brings together some of the best lesbian shorts from around the world, included on both the VHS & DVD versions of this film:

Here’s another great reason to give Netflix a try: Subscribers can now watch a limited number of movie hours right on their computers. Depending on your subscription plan, you get a selected number of hours each month to watch movies right from the Netflix website! I think it’s related to the dollar amount you pay – so the $9.99 plan gets you 10 hours a month, and the $14.99 plan gets you 15 hours per month – in addition to the DVD rentals.

They don’t have the entire stock of movies available, but there is a HUGE selection, and I have the feeling that they’ll make more films available as the service gets more popular. I believe they’re making the service available to customers gradually, but everybody should have it by June. We’ve already watched a few movies, and it’s SUCH fun! We even upgraded our plan so we can get more viewing hours each month (and more DVDs at a time!).

Did you ever have the urge to watch a certain movie right this minute? Satisfy your movie cravings now!

FINALLY! A sale that inlcudes prints! I’ll be using this one myself! With the discount, you can get prints for about 13 cents apiece.

• Kodak Gallery: Five Day Sale! Get 20% off purchases over $15.
  • Use coupon code “PRESIDENTPRINTS”
  • Expires 2/23/2007

• 20% Off Presidents Day Sale at eBags.com – Ends Monday 02/19!

Just added a TON of new shopping links on the sidebar, so look for coupons for those sites soon! 😀

The Grammys were pretty awesome this year… check out the winners (ha, the Dixie Chicks and a few other people *grin*) at the iTunes store!