Twilight

So I broke down and read the four Stephanie Meyer Twilight books recently. A well-read friend of mine tried to get me to read it a couple of years ago, but I never found the time. After watching the MTV movie awards (which were all about the movie) I caved. Here are some of my thoughts on the books:

Twilight (Book 1): This is the "best" book of the four, I guess. I wish I could say you can just read this one and skip the other three, but it leaves everything so open-ended! Part of the charm of this book seems to be the way that Meyer breaks the rules of writing - not just of writing, but of... I guess you could call it political correctness. Meyer is a Mormon (like my roommates from college) so some of the things that happen in the book that seem unusual are not that unusual to her, but still... a book about a seventeen year old girl who is willing to lose her family and friends and give up everything (even her life - especially her life) to be with her boyfriend she's know for a few months just seems like such a bad idea. What is this teaching young girls today, etc. But, as it turns out - this is a big part of what makes the book hard to put down. Who wants to read a book where the heroine does everything she's supposed to do?

Meyer's writing style is bad. Like her politically incorrect storyline, however, the bad writing and the way she breaks the rules of what you would normally expect to find in such a book, actually makes the book interesting. There is no real plot to the book - it's mostly just people talking, but the talking is the best part. In the last half where some action finally takes place - evil tracker vampires with red eyes and ballet studios - it can't match the excitement of a conversation in a car driving a little too fast on the way home from a shopping trip gone wrong earlier in the book.

New Moon (Book 2): So, will clumsy Bella become a vampire and be with her cool (pun intended) boyfriend forever and ever? This book doesn't really tell you- but it does have werewolves and motorcycles!

Eclipse (Book 3):I don't really remember what happened in this book, it was basically just wrapping up loose ends from the other two and preparing for the final book. Mostly more talking.

Breaking Dawn (Book 4): This one was different from the others. It was the only book of the four where I actually became restless reading and just wanted to get to the end. The best part of the three other books was seeing the whole crazy situation through the human eyes of Bella, but in this book her observations are mostly just annoying. I was also peeved about a sub-plot of sorts that involved sister Alice running away and abandoning everyone, when it was obvious that she didn't really run away and she must have had a good reason, though no one seemed to realize that despite the fact that they have known her for a hundred years and I have only been reading the books for about two weeks.

If you get as far as the third book, you might as well go ahead and read the last one, but you can skip a ton of the island stuff at the beginning and pretty much all of the stuff that happens once the "witnesses" arrive until the end.

Disneyland

So my mom came to visit me last week and we went to Disneyland (and California Adventure). Fortunately we missed the big Lakers parade which happened the day we left (I mean, go Lakers, but that would be a big crowd), but unfortunately the first day we were there was the last day for year-long passes and was so crowded they had to stop letting people in.

My mom is not a big ride person, and she's not as mobile as she once was, so we got her a wheelchair. I've heard that if you have a wheelchair you get into special shorter lines, and for some of the rides this was true! Pirates of The Carribean (I haven't seen it since they added Johnny Depp) had a REALLY short line near the exit for wheelchairs. Haunted Mansion also had a special line, but other rides, like Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters, had only one line we all waited in.

California Adventure was not crowded at all. I'd never been there before. It was mostly 3D interactive movie things. I can't see in 3D (one of my friends said, "You have to use the glasses" - was that a joke??) so that was a bit of a drag. Yeah, I know, I'm weird because I can't see in 3D. Another thing I noticed about CA was that it was based almost entirely on movies I have never seen before like A Bug's Life and Monsters Inc. (and High School Musical 3). If you like those movies, you will probably have fun there.

Downtown Disney is a shopping area located between the two parks. You don't need a ticket to get in there. They have a movie theatre where my mom and I went to see Up, the new Disney/Pixar movie. I'm not normally into those Pixar movies, but my mom really likes them. This one was kind of sad, but the talking dogs were cute. Anyway, because it's an AMC theatre, you can take food in! My mom brought in a burger and I had cheese fries! I learned from a friend of mine who used to work for AMC that they'll let you bring in your own food. It's just cool.

That's my report from Disneyland, and now my vacation is over. It's back to work for me tomorrow.

Kitchen Appliances

I recently acquired three new kitchen appliances. Here's the scoop:

My addiction to caffeine finally won out and I bought a coffee maker. (Living close to Starbucks had prevented this for a while). I don't really have anything to say about the coffee maker yet; I made my first cup this morning and it was OK after I finally figured out where to put the water.

I also got a Magic Bullet. You know, they show the infomercials for it on TV. IT's a blender that makes things one cup at a time. I figured it would be easier to clean than a regular blender. I made a frozen blended coffee beverage this morning with it.

Finally, I bought a flip-over style waffle maker! You know, the kind they have at hotels as part of the free breakfast. I found this pancake/waffle mix at the grocery store that comes in a can like whipped cream - it worked well and there was no mess! It tasted pretty good, too.

So there you have it. I'm on vacation this week and I'm going to Disneyland, so I'll be reporting on that this weekend.

The Sims 3

Sorry about the late post, but I wanted to wait for Tuesday - the release day of The Sims 3.

As a kid, I have fond memories of playing computer games like Sword of the Samurai (which I preferred to my father's favorite - Pirates) and Zak McCracken (here's a tip, get the egg out of the fridge before you leave the house - you can put it in the microwave on the plane to distract the flight attendant) but I don't play many computer games on the ol' macbook today. The only computer game I have been known to play is The Sims. I played the original game, The Sims 2, and now The Sims 3.

The new game is not that different from The Sims 2, but some of the things that made that game annoying are gone. You no longer have to go to the bathroom so often, and you can even earn a reward called the "golden bladder" or something where you don't have to go at all. Now when your Sim children grow up their friends grow up, too, instead of staying little kids. Your Sims can also handle things by themselves if you leave them alone for a while, instead of ending up crying on the floor and peeing their pants, talking to a bag of flour like it's a baby as they did in the old game.

There is one problem, though. It looks like you can only have one family per game. You used to be able to populate your city with all your own characters, but now it seems like you can only have one family of your own who has to interact with the computer generated characters.

UPDATE (6/10/09): I have been playing a family whose oldest child finally grew into an adult - but it seems she can't move out of the house! Poor Kipper must live at home with her parents and little brother forever or get married or ditch the family so I can't play them anymore. Are these really the only options?!

It's pretty fun, though like the other Sims games it gets old kind of quickly.

UPDATE (7/18/09): I figured out how to change the family I'm playing and how to populate the city with all of my own characters - you need to go to "Edit Town" (or whatever) in the menu and then you can add more families or switch the one you are playing. Be careful, though, because it looks like when you switch from one family to another and then back, the first family loses the deeds to any businesses they own or are partners in! That's a drag.