The Best and Worst of May 2015

Okay, wow.  May just flew by in the blink of an eye.  Partly because I was so anxious for my New York trip and partly because work has been insanely busy now that all the tourists have started coming up to the lake.  Obviously my trip to New York was my absolute highlight and I had an amazing time there but May has overall been pretty good.  I’m almost sad that it’s over because now I really don’t have anything to look forward to until I start the process of moving to the city in mid-August.  That will be a relief.

Stats-wise May was pretty good as well.  I received a total of 6,367 views with 4,132 of those being unique views.  That’s higher than average in part because my post about a certain author got serious Facebook and Twitter attention at least twice when he attacked yet another editor.  It’s not surprising and I’m glad my post is getting the word out there that publishing houses need to avoid this guy.  I hope that in some way I’ve prevented someone else going through the same thing.

So what were the most popular posts this May?

1.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal

2.  The Day an Author Suggested I Kill Myself

3.  How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour

4.  The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome

5.  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

There’s absolutely nothing new here except for the order.  My author attack post hasn’t been #2 probably since the month I actually published it.  And that’s because of the aforementioned Twitter and Facebook discoveries by random people.  I don’t have Facebook so I wasn’t able to snoop but we did have a good discussion on Twitter about how to deal with this sort of thing.  It was sort of heartening to reaffirm that most people in the online book industry don’t have to go through crazy rants and suicide suggestions.

Okay, so what were the worst posts this month?

1.  The Redheaded Stepchild by Kelly I. Hitchcock

2.  Sondok: Princess of the Moon and Stars by Sheri Holman

3.  The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

4.  Cleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran

5.  A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

Wow, I think these are all new and for the first time a George R. R. Martin book has featured on the ‘worst’ list.  That’s really, really surprising when you consider the fact that the TV show is going on right now.  I guess I didn’t mention sex and nudity enough in my review like I did in my rebuttal post in the ‘best’ list!

That was my May.  How was yours?

My New York Trip Day #9: The Journey Home

Since I counted the first day of my New York trip as the one where I left home, I think it’s only fair to count the day’s journey back home as well.  It was certainly an interesting one.

My flight to Toronto was scheduled at 6:05am at La Guardia airport.  First, the cab driver didn’t know what ‘WestJet’ was or which terminal the airline was out of so we spent a ridiculous amount of time looking for it because he wouldn’t accept that it wasn’t in Terminal B.  (For the record, it’s located out of Terminal D because they’ve partnered with Delta.)  Once there, I looked around and saw a lot of people sitting around with no WestJet employees in sight.  Westjet’s service is generally seen as superior to Air Canada (who are comically terrible) but man, I really was not happy with the service.  No employees were there so I went to the desk to check the little sign which said that employees are there from 3:00am until 12:00am or something.  It was 3:00am by the time I got there because for international flights you have to check your baggage in 90 minutes ahead of time.  Fast forward half an hour later and three employees finally show up, taking their sweet time getting organized, with absolutely no sense of urgency.

That pretty much sums up the rest of my experience at La Guardia airport.

After the late employees finally decided they would graciously allow us to check our baggage, I went to where everyone was supposed to go through security only to find out…security doesn’t ‘open’ until 4:30am!  Isn’t that just great?  At an international airport (an INTERNATIONAL airport), things are not done on a 24 hour schedule.  La Guardia is officially worse than most gas stations and convenience stores, which are open 24/7 in most major cities.  Of course the TSA was there at 4:00am but didn’t start with passengers until exactly 4:30am.  Not a minute early because that would require ambition.  They were the usual amount of rude and decided to pat down a woman whose clothes were so tight that she definitely wasn’t hiding anything they couldn’t detect on the full body scanner that everyone was forced to go through.  It was very hard not to roll my eyes but I didn’t exactly want to get extra special attention from the creepy lady doing the pat downs so I resisted the urge.

Also, why does nothing open at La Guardia until 5:00am?  This is an international airport, is it not?  Even Edmonton International Airport, a relatively small airport, is much better at keeping at least some food kiosks open than La Guardia.  In New York City.  I just cannot comprehend why an airport this large is not open on a 24/7 schedule.

So once I finally, finally landed in Edmonton I was faced with the ridiculous parking fees (which were definitely higher than what was posted).  When I finally got out I was faced with the four hour drive home, which was a cakewalk compared to dealing with the perpetually rude staff at both La Guardia and Pearson airports.

Needless to say, I am not impressed with WestJet.  The sad thing is?  Air Canada is worse.  Canadians have pretty much no choice when they fly anywhere and the two main companies have a stranglehold on the market.  I think it’s time for some more competition in the market.  Or at least another airline that attempts to treat its paying customers like human beings.

Lazy Sundays: Hardhome (Game of Thrones Episode 5.08)

I can’t believe we only have two more episodes left in the season, but ‘Hardhome’ was definitely a doozy this week.  Let’s get into it!

1.  Ooh, Sansa!  I think we’re going to see her snap and take care of Ramsay personally at some point.  She stole that corkscrew from the construction and I think at this point she’s willing to use it, especially after Theon/Reek’s confession that he really didn’t kill her brothers.

2.  Gah, poor Ser Jorah once again.  Tyrion was totally right in a logical way (especially when you consider his greyscale) but his eyes when Daenerys told him to leave again were heartbreaking.

3.  Sam and Gilly are so cute together.  I think their relationship will end badly for both of them but I’m just enjoying it now.

4.  Cersei is being set up to confess; we’re seeing her at an entirely new low.  I think the season’s finale, Mother’s Mercy will have her carry out the High Sparrow’s special punishment.

5.  Okay, I absolutely loved the battle at Hardhome.  It was a well shot scene, not too terribly corny with the wildling council and the action was amazing.  I loved seeing Night’s King stare at Jon Snow and just raise his hands, adding the dead wildlings to his army at the very end.  It was incredibly chilling and the whole scene was just perfect.  It definitely makes up for the really horrible Sand Snake fight scene.

So what did you guys think about this Sunday’s episode?

My New York Trip Day #8: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver!

Carrie's New York Pictures 194So on my last full day in New York I decided to see if I could get into a live taping of John Oliver’s show, Last Week Tonight.  I mean, why not?  I didn’t get tickets because they’re almost impossible to get even if you apply the second they open but I heard there was a standby line.  So although they really don’t start putting people through security until 5:30 I showed up at 3:30 and chatted with people in the standby line until the awesome lady who manages tickets came out and took our names.  Then, when the surprise monsoon started we all waited in Starbucks down the block until she texted us to come.  So I got in and one of the ladies told us there was one seat left.  Since the other people in line were couples who didn’t want to be separated I volunteered for it and she led me to the stage.  And there I found out that it was a front row seat, not more than 15 feet away from the desk!  It was amazing and John Oliver’s long form FIFA piece was a thing of beauty (even more so in person).

But other than that, on my last day I went to the Museum of Natural History and saw a few exhibits, most notably the dinosaur one above.  I obviously didn’t get to see all of it because I was only there for a few hours and that place is massive, but a little taste of it was great.  I walked to the museum through Central Park and saw Belvedere Castle and the obelisk that stands there so I counted it as a great day.  Despite the absolute monsoon later on in the day, I barely got rained on and I think my last day was one of the best there.

Seeing John Oliver live was definitely one of the highlights of my trip, though.  It was amazing!

My New York Trip Day #7: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Again)

DSCN2080Today I decided to go back to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and see everything I didn’t see the first day that I still wanted to see.  Which was mainly (of course) the Egyptian exhibit.

The Egyptian exhibit, for those of you that hven’t been there, is massive.  It’s truly enormous and the thing is that there’s so much stuff packed into it.  In the Roman and Greek exhibits at least most stuff is spread out but in the Egyptian one there’s stuff crammed into every single corner.  There are study galleries everywhere and even the main exhibits have so many things in them.  Everywhere you look, there are commemorative scarabs, beads, combs, cosmetic boxes and every sort of little trinket you could imagine. Continue reading →