Category: Books

Posted on

Japanese Animation

My youngest has gotten into many things that I have absolutely no knowledge or background about. She has been reading and watching numerous Japanese animation books, TV shows, and movies. She has taken the time to show me one of the sites that she goes online for,  she showed me a page concerning Bleach Manga, who is character she has been following lately and I found quite interesting to read.

At least she is reading, it is a real challenge trying to get her to read just about everything. I don’t get it, hubby and I are both avid readers, while neither of our children want to pick up a book, except for the Japanese Animation books that are becoming more popular these days.

I went to the bookstore a few months back to see if they had any of these types of books that she is learning to enjoy, I was surprised at how many that they had. The young lady that was assisting me with locating them and then explaining them for me, told me that I was lucky that she was working the floor at that time because she was the only one in the whole store that read and knew anything about them. She was very friendly and helpful, I was certainly glad that she was working then also because I was way out of my field.

Posted on

Alfred Guitar Tablature Online

We were so tickled to find that they have found a teacher to teach the guitar at my kid’s junior high school. There has been such a demand from students the past couple of years to teach the guitar that their persistence finally paid off and there is no a lot of anxious kids ready to learn. I found a good Alfred Guitar Tablature at musician’s friend online along with various other musical sites that the Internet can now bring to any kid who has Internet access anything that they can dream of in an unlimited variety of options.

I wish that I had taken some type of lessons back when I was a kid. I would love to be able to have what it takes to make music. It’s such a great talent that I admire in anyone that plays any type of instrument.

Posted on

Did you know…

It doesn’t take much to find all types of trivia these days, but I found this information on a print out that they give the customers at the coffee store that I go to once in a while. I don’t drink coffee, but once in a while I’ll treat myself to a nice hot mocha with whipped cream. It’s a nice quiet little place and I love that they have things for their customers to read and contemplate.

Shocking: An electric eel has a current-producing organ that can generate an average charge of 350 volts. The rivers of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru are where you’ll find an eel that produces the greatest shock – from 400 to 650 volts.

Devoted daddy: The male emperor penguin shares incubating duties with the female when she lays her one large egg. Later, the female is away feeding when the egg hatches, so the male feeds the baby by regurgitating a milky substance.

Always the name: A nine-banded armadillo has an unusual claim to fame. It almost always gives birth to quadruplets of the same sex, resulting from the fact one egg usually divides into four parts.

The mile: It was Queen Elizabeth I who decided a statute mile should be 5,280 feet or 1,609 meters. It was based on walking distance established by the Romans, who said 1,000 paces made up a land mile.

Waking early: In 1787, Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, came up with one of the earliest versions of an alarm clock. For the rest of us, it might not have been too attractive. It could only ring at one time – 4a.m.

Taken from Coffee News “News to be enjoyed over coffee”

Posted on

Monk, Reduced To ReRuns

private eye  I have been enjoying for the past few years the show on the USA channel about this poor/blessed man called MONK.  I remember the actor playing a part on the sitcom WINGS which was based in a small airport in Nan Tuckett, what a difference in characters for the actor Tony Shalhoub to play.

I’ve watched the show so much that Hubby has even gotten a soft spot for the obsessive-compulsive detective and now our youngest and some of his friends enjoy watching him when they get a chance.

Come to find out that even both my sisters have been MONK fans and have even read some of the books, which have been passed down to me to read, still waiting on the last one, hint, hint, sis!

If you haven’t seen the show check it out……Even though they stopped filming a few years ago, there are reruns galore of this outrageous hit TV show.

Monk is a detective afraid of the dark, a gumshoe afraid of gum. He has no problem cracking a case – as long as it doesn’t involve heights or germs, and is in close proximity to his apartment. Other than solving his wife’s murder, Monk would like nothing more than to gain back his position on the San Francisco police force, but can he pull himself together and get back to solving crimes full time?

Posted on

Fundraising Is A Fact Of Life

Gone are the days in most cities and towns across America when kids were sent knocking on people’s doors trying to sell folks items for a fundraiser.  Let’s face it, schools, churches, sports and all the other non-profit groups, they all desperately need money and fundraising can be a lucrative way to get it.

Unfortunately in today’s world it isn’t necessarily safe for our children to go around the neighborhoods anymore.  Most fundraisers specifically request that the kids do not go door to door anymore, they tell you to have family, co-workers and close family friends help in supporting the organization.

With having two kids I have done my fair share of fundraising and I certainly will still participate when I can.  It was a lot easier when members of my immediate family were all living pretty close to each other, now a days everyone is spread out all over the darn country so that puts a damper on using them as a resource, for the most part.

I ran across a really cool fundraising program on the Web called Schoolpop.com and I am going to contact our elementary school and see if they would be interested in participating in this non-traditional school fundraiser opportunity.

By using Schoolpop, you can pay down your tuition and any extracurricular activity costs, it can assist in paying back student loans for college and help your school earn monies, all year round by shopping at the several hundred listed of name -brand merchants and service providers whether it be online, in stores, catalogs purchases, even with gift cards or with the Schoolpop Visa credit card.

You can apply for the Schoolpop Visa credit card right on line!  Every purchase that you make for your groceries, gas, clothing, movies, restaurants  – it contributes 1% to the student’s school.

It sounds like Schoolpop may be a way to raise money that would/should be embraced by our school and the families, we shall see when I call them this week.  I’ll also call my sister who has a son in a very nice private school and see if she would be interested in learning a cool and easy way to raise money for private schools along with us in the public school system.

Posted on

A Book Village

book village

At first glance this may look like a few books on a bookshelf. But when you look closer you will see that someone has added doors, windows and signs on the books, making it look more like the main street in a tiny village. Wouldn’t that be cool to find a town that actually made all the buildings look like books? I think that would be a fabulous tourist attraction and it would be great to be promoting reading and books.

Posted on

Instant Access to Information

This morning I realized that we have all accepted and integrated the internet into our daily lives. We use it for all kinds of things and all the information is available to us instantly, at the touch of a few keyboard keys or mouse clicks.

Lately I have been using Wikipedia to research a lot of different subjects. I like the way it has cross references and a bibliography at the end of each article. Although a lot of people have been bashing the site and saying it is full of inaccuracies, that has not been my experience. I love the site and the enormous number of subjects that it covers in depth.

Posted on

I Love My New Nook!

My mom bought my one of the best birthday presents, ever! She got me a Nook reader! It is really awesome!

She gave me a $20 gift card with the Nook, so I went online at Barnes and Noble and immediately found 3 books that I have been wanting to read. It only took a few second to download the books on my my Nook and I was reading the first one last night!

The one weird thing about the Nook is that there is not way to turn it off. That’s right! It is always on. There is a sleep feature if you set it down and walk away for longer than 15-20 minutes. But when you come back it fires right up and is still on the same page where you left off.

The battery life is supposed to be about 2 weeks with normal use. Isn’t that amazing?

Posted on

Reading Should Help Me Relax

For the most part I have enjoyed reading, but since getting married and starting a family there doesn’t leave much time to sit down and read a good book other than the monthly Reader’s Digest that mainly stays in our bathroom.  A short story here and there, a laugh or two, and keeping up with the newest controversies from all over is about all the recreational reading that I get now a days.

I keep hearing from other busy Moms about the Book Clubs that they belong to and how much they enjoy reading books, it is one way that they can relax and help ease the stresses of their busy scheduled days.

Since the kids are getting a bit older and can entertain themselves a bit more easily (I guess so with TVs, DVDs, CD’s, PC’s, Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-Boxes, cell phones, etc.) I have decided that I will start taking some time and start reading some of the many books that we have sitting on our dusty bookshelves.  Of course this reading will take place after my blogging has been finished because I truley enjoy this as well.

So, off to the bookcases I go, I hope the dust bunnies won’t get too upset with me for invading their “Personal Space”.