Spring Cleaning

One of the things I’ve struggled with since I was little is cleaning.  I admit it: at home I’m a natural slob.  So yesterday and today when I sensed a cleaning urge coming on I dropped everything and started my spring cleaning.  It’s not often that I feel like cleaning so I figured I better do it before my place starts to look like a hoarder moved in.  So I haven’t exactly had much time to read, therefore there was no review on Monday.  However, I’m hoping to finish things up later today and get back on my usual posting schedule.

At work we’ve been doing spring cleaning of a sort as well, mainly re-doing all of the tags in the store to reflect new prices and manufacturers.  It’s a pain in the butt yet it definitely needs to be done before the tourist inundation starts around the end of May.

So I’ve been cleaning both at work and at home.  Do you guys do spring cleaning of a sort?  Are you naturally a slob like me?  How has your day been going?

Lazy Sundays: High Sparrow (Game of Thrones Episode 5.03)

Hmm, this week we have some more interesting changes so here are my thoughts on the episode in no particular order:

1.  Sansa, run!  Run away from Ramsay Bolton because he’s Joffrey 2.0, the new and improved version.

2.  Good on Jon Snow for not backing down even when Lord Janos started blubbering.  He’s certainly changed from when he first met Ygritte.

3.  Hmm, I wonder how old Tommen is in the show now?  Apparently old enough to have marital relations with Margarey.

4.  Cersei really doesn’t seem happy about her son’s marriage and his not-so-subtle attempt to get her away from King’s Landing.  I know she’ll definitely regret unleashing the Faith Militant later.

5.  Poor Ser Jorah, poor Tyrion.  Now there’s an odd couple for a road trip that’s obviously doomed to fail.

So what did you guys think of the massive change from the books (re: Sansa’s impending marriage)?  Does Littlefinger really not know what Ramsey Bolton is or is he trying to trick the Boltons and then stab them in the back?  He seems to at least care somewhat what happens to Sansa so either he’s naive (which is completely out of character) or he’s playing the long game.  What do you guys think?

Discussion: Do You Listen to Audiobooks?

I’ve never really listened to Audiobooks personally but I’ve loved listening to podcasts for about 5 years or so now.  So when I got a chance to download a free audiobook thanks to Marc Secchia (who gifted me a copy of his book Aranya that I reviewed previously) I took it.  I’ve listened to about two hours out of fourteen so far and am actually quite impressed with the narrator.  She has a very pleasant deep voice and enough of an accent to emphasize the exotic nature of the story but not so much of an accent that I actually have to use all of my powers of concentration to make out what she’s saying.  In short, I think this was the perfect one to start with and you can check it out on Audible as well.

Will I make a habit of listening to audiobooks?  Certainly not.  I enjoy listening to Aranya because it’s a book I’ve read at least three times and thoroughly enjoyed but I don’t think I could concentrate enough for that long of a period of time to get all the nuances of a book I’ve never read.  It’s just not something that interests me.

But I want to hear your thoughts on this!  Do you listen to audiobooks?  If so, why?  If not, why?  What is one of the best audiobooks you’ve ever listened to?  Why?  Do you like it when narrators go full out with character accents or do you prefer a more calm reading of the text?

Have you Been to BookCon?

One of my awesome readers mentioned that they couldn’t go to Book Expo America but were absolutely going to BookCon, which starts the day after BEA.  I sort of knew this beforehand but never really gave any thought to it.  But now I am.

However, I want to ask a few questions first in addition to doing some serious Googling:

1.  Have you ever been to BookCon?

2.  If so, did you consider it a worthwhile experience?

3.  If not, are you going to BookCon this year?  Why?

If any of you are going to BookCon and it sounds worthwhile I might just consider heading there on Sunday to check things out.  Please, if you have experience at BookCon or are a first-timer there like I might be, drop me a line via email, my contact page or these comments!  I’m very interested in learning more.

More Book Expo America Preparation

Business Card

So this week I got two main things regarding BEA accomplished:

1.  This isn’t a very good picture but I think it conveys the idea well enough: I now have business cards!  Thanks to VistaPrint as well as Diantha Jones’ awesome logo she designed for me, I now look like I know what I’m doing when I encounter other bloggers, publishers, authors and editors at the book expo.  I ordered these on a Sunday night and they came Wednesday afternoon in the post, which is amazing for Canada Post.  (Canada Post kinda sucks at getting parcels places on time and intact.)  I got 500 business cards for $24.31, which includes shipping.  The actual price for the cards was $9.99 so even though the shipping was more expensive, I still can’t really complain.

2.  I ordered American money at the local Credit Union and was shocked to see that the government has actually decided to add some colour to the bills.  They aren’t all just that same shade of green!  You Americans may laugh at other countries’ “monopoly money” but at least we can tell what bills we have in our wallets without checking each one.  And now you can too!  This actually kind of shocked me and another thing I found odd when I was counting the bills was that newly printed American money smells like sweaty socks.  I don’t know why but it just does.  And I also learned that I prefer sweaty socks to the sickeningly sweet maple syrup smell Canadian bills give off that makes me want to barf.  Yes, the new plastic Canadian money smells really, really bad to me.

So what do you guys think of the business card?