My Dog's Favorite Pasttimes

Every so often I manage to get a video of my dog doing something funny, and I thought I would share some of the classic ones.

In this one Kara thought that eating dandelion fluff was a good idea.

In this one Kara chases leaves.

And in this one Kara actually is having some fun in the snow.

Hope they amused you the way they amuse me. When I bother to take more videos off my phone I'll have some more videos to share!

AMNH Dinosaur Tweetup

Today is a special day so it'll be one of those times I feel it's necessary to have more than one post a day.

I just read a post on Facebook from the American Museum of Natural History about a Dinosaur Tweetup. There's more details here (and a registration page): http://bit.ly/ibXQoA

For those wondering, what is a dinosaur tweetup? Well, the museum says that it's a chance to go to the museum after hours, see the exhibits and meet paleontologists! My inner child is crazy excited. When I was younger (oh, about 10 years ago) I swore I was going to be a paleontologist. I still have shelves of dinosaurs books at home ranging from "Walking with Dinosaurs" to other books specific to certain time periods and the dinosaurs that lived during that time. I had a kit that had a block of hard dirt with a fossil inside and I took it out onto the porch during the summer and would spend hours carefully picking it apart to get to the fossil inside, pretending that I was in some desert somewhere with a team of paleontologists discovering new dinosaur bones. Yes, I was a dork even back then.

Although I may have changed my career choice, I still find dinosaurs fascinating and every so often feel the need to watch my "Walking with Dinosaurs" BBC DVD set. Whenever I go to the American Museum of Natural History my favorite exhibits are and always be the dinosaurs. I practically lived at that museum growing up but whenever I go I still feel like I learn something new and it's always exciting to go. One of my favorite things about now living in the city is that I'm now much closer and it's easier to go to the museum. In fact, I just went there with my friend yesterday, and later this week I'll put up a post with pictures about what we did while we were there.

Anyway, back to the Dinosaur Tweetup... *crosses fingers* Here's hoping my name gets picked to go!

Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum Kid's Day

So this Monday I spent the day with my friend and her friends at the Rebel Legion and 501st at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum! I've never been to the Intrepid museum before but I've wanted to go for quite some time and now that I'm living most of the time here in NYC it had made it's way up my list of things I wanted to do. Fortunately for me, my friend is in the Rebel Legion and was allowed to bring one guest for free to tour the museum and hang out with all the cool people who participated in the event. Yes, it also involved free lunch which is basically a poor college student's favorite thing.

It was a whole ton of fun because we got to take plenty of silly pictures of ourselves, and for the first hour we were there no one had shown up yet, so we got to see a good majority of the museum without fighting around the tourists! I thought it would be cool to put up a few of the cooler pictures we took. If you click on them you can see the full size versions!

Great Baby Names for Nerdy/Dorky Parents

I for one already know I don't plan on having kids but since I have to come up with names for my characters in the stories I write I find myself going to baby name sites in search of unique or cool sounding names for my characters. There are even a couple that if, BIG if, I were to have kids I would think about bestowing upon my offspring. I'm not talking about the super dorks out there that decide to name their kid Boba or Tiberius or Xavier. I'm talking about the names that are actually standard names for kids but also have a dorky reference to them if you're a big enough nerd to notice or the names that are obscure enough to avoid ridicule.

This child already looks tormented

 So, for those parents who actually want their kid to have a social life (something their parents might never have experienced first hand) I thought I'd compile a list of good baby boy and baby girl names that will keep said child from being teased for their entire life.

Baltan Carid

What’s a hut’uun? A coward. Physical coward, moral coward, any kind of scum without the spine to stand their ground or do the right thing. We don’t have a word for hero. Being prepared to die for family and friends, or what you hold dear, is a basic requirement for a Mando, so it’s not worth a separate word. It’s only cowards we had to find a special word for.

- Baltan Carid

Star Wars: Legacy of the Force- Revelation

Karen Traviss

These quotes speak for themselves so I'll keep my commentary to a minimum. This one is one of my favorites, though.

Review: I Am Number Four

I'll try to keep this book review spoiler free, folks. I'm going to dive right into this one, so here we go!

Something To Look Forward To

I thought I'd take the time to go ahead and write up a more 'personal' post of the kind that I alluded to when I talked about my plan for the next few posts.

This one is (as the title suggests) something I'm looking forward to this year. I realize it's supposed to be just one thing, but there are actually a few things going on this year I'm looking forward to.


The first is the end of the Fate of the Jedi series. That's not because I'm not enjoying it, but because I am getting tired of being tortured with one book release at a time only ever few months. It's killed me ever since The New Jedi Order series because those were even more sporadic in their release, and it was painful to sit and wait for the Legacy of the Force books and by now I am so beyond being done with waiting I could punch an Ewok baby in the face. Unlike The New Jedi Order and Legacy of the Force I've been reading the Fate of the Jedi series since the first one came out, so that's made the wait doubly painful. But now the wait is almost over and it definitely tops my list of things I'm looking forward to this year! Just think, by November 22 there won't be any crazy agreements between Jedi and Sith to get along, and maybe Ben will get his crazy hormones in check and stop being dense like his father and realize that getting into Vestara's pants is a bad idea all around. We're at the home stretch with this series and it's been a great read and I can't wait to see how it all turns out!

The other thing I'm looking forward to I know every other Star Wars fan is also looking forward to as well. That's right, you guessed it, the Star Wars Blu-Rays! Shocking, I know. But I've been looking forward to it since this moment:



Yeah, that's right, I slept outside overnight to wait for The Main Event. Anyway, since I was there I knew about it first (along with the other 400 people who were there too) and I've been excited ever since! I've even heard about the programs that Amazon has to trade in old DVDs to get credit for the new Blu-Rays. I think it's a great idea but still not sure I could part with my DVDs. After all, then when I get the Blu-Rays I'll have FIVE copies of the original trilogy instead of just sticking with my current four copies (VHS, packaged DVDs, then individual DVDs that also have the original theatrical versions on the bonus disc). Though, if I don't start saving up sooner and faster, I might just have to do just that. Especially since I don't even own a Blu-Ray player yet.

I think I'd have to kick myself if I neglected to mention this. Who ISN'T excited for the new ride?? The original one was corny as hell but it was a classic ride and always my favorite thing to do in MGM (yes, I refuse to call it Hollywood Studios or whatever it's called now). The mega tall AT-AT out front and the speeder bike that is the perfect picture opportunity just make everything perfect. If it's at all possible I'd love to make it to Star Wars weekends in Disney, especially since it's right around my birthday. But that takes even more saving up than the Blu-Rays! I think I'm going to have to settle for a marathon with my new Blu-Ray player and discs.

And since these are floating around on YouTube anyway I figure it's cool to put my own video up in case anyone doubts I was actually at Celebration V. Enjoy!