it's been awhile....

I have been quite lax in my blogging of late. Although I seem to be addicted to reading everybody's elses lately, I haven't actually managed to sit myself down and do any blogging of my own. Hopefully there'll be a few posts in the next few days to talk a bit about what I've been up to and such.

One thing I have been doing a lot of lately is reading.... I just finished reading The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro. I have to be honest, I was a bit disappointed with it. I've heard/read her highly recommended by a few people, so I thought I'd try it... I'll admit, there were several times that I laughed out loud, but I have to say, I'm really not that "into" a bunch of short stories about drinking-induced stupidity. And sometimes, really, there's only so much exaggeration that works. Too much and it's pointless. But the super-short chapters were nice for a quick pick-up-and-read. And the story of her grandpa filling the back seat of her car with free day-old bread from SafeWay was awesome, but only because of the very close resemblance of her grandfather to certain people I know who shall remain unnamed.

I also recently finished Jim Cramer's Mad Money. I must say, he's freaking awesome. The show is great, and the book made me understand much better what goes on in his head, which I learned is a very educational albeit very scary place. But he makes the stock market interesting, fascinating even. Not that I'll be investing anytime soon (he suggests you have $10,000 of disposable investment income before you become a serious investor... um, yeah. not me.), but it's still very interesting to learn about.

A couple other books I've read: Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris - excellent book. Freakonomics - outstanding. I do not necessarily agree with everything Levitt & Dubner put forth as the obvious answer to whichever topic they're writing about, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book and finding new ways to look at the world. And it's so well-written and non-academic, I was hooked from the beginning. And now I have at least 2 new books to add to my list, and another blog to read every day (see Freaky link to the right). I've read some more Evanovich chicklit, never as good as the Stephanie Plum books but still light and easy to read and funny as ever. Confessions of a Shopoholic, Sophie Kinsella - all I can say is, I can't wait for the movie! There's also the latest Jen Lancaster memoir... what can I say, she makes me laugh. And I like her a lot better now that she's not quite as narcissistic as she was back when she was all that in the dot.com world.

Okay. I think that's it for now. It's almost Monday.... I'm going to go now and enjoy the next 12 hours as thoroughly as possible.