I didn’t get tagged for this, but I’m doing it anyway; five, non-blog sites I visit daily:

1. At first I didn’t get it, but I’ve become obsessed (or is it possessed?) with LOL Cats. Sure, some of them just aren’t funny, and it’s absolute murder to read the comments, but the funny ones? Ohmigosh are they funny!

see more crazy cat pics

2. Postcrossing helps feed my urge to see the world, without having to go any farther than my mailbox. I’m up 109 110 postcards from around the world. It’s also a relatively cheap hobby.

3. I know, I know, who needs to register for yet another social networking site? But Livemocha is a little different. It’s entirely geared towards language instruction. You can take courses that are similar to Rosetta Stone, and converse with native speakers of the language you’re learning. I’m still hoping that they add Irish language instruction to their list of available languages, though.

4. I like to cook, right? Actually, it’s more accurate to say that I like good food. Sometimes I just throw stuff together, and sometimes I try what others have just thrown together. That’s why I spend way too much time on All Recipes. I also found the BEST Colcannon recipe on All Recipes. Wanna try it?

Colcannon
INGREDIENTS
  * 2 1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cubed
  * 4 slices bacon (I like to add a bit more)
  * 1/2 small head cabbage, chopped
  * 1 large onion, chopped
  * 1/2 cup milk
  * salt and pepper to taste
  * 1/4 cup butter, melted

DIRECTIONS
*Place potatoes in a saucepan with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender.
*Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, reserving drippings, crumble and set aside. In the reserved drippings, sauté the cabbage and onion until soft and translucent. Putting a lid on the pan helps the vegetables cook faster.
*Drain the cooked potatoes, mash with milk and season with salt and pepper. Fold in the bacon, cabbage, and onions, then transfer the mixture to a large serving bowl. Make a well in the center, and pour in the melted butter. Serve immediately.

5. Even though I haven’t updated my reading list in a long while, I do still read, and I’m cheap, so I peruse the listed books on Paperback Swap. I really wish I hadn’t wasted a credit on Flowers for Algernon, but hey, I can re-list it, and send it to someone else!

So there it is. Five places where I enjoy wasting time. No, I’m not going to tag anyone, but I’d love to know what five, non-blog sites you visit frequently.

Just messin’ around… I don’t think this is great, by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s something about it that I like.

I’ve got killer heart burn again.

I picked up one of the most horrid, trashy books at the recommendation of a bookstore clerk: Bedlam, Bath and Beyond. I can’t put it down.

Every time I get angry at Lost and vow to never watch it again, they drag me back in.

I hope to never give Hewlett Packard another dime again.

I’m sooo ready for spring!

Remember how I said that my new USB drink chiller/warmer is the suck? The cooling part doesn’t work very well, but the warmer warms, and it means it.

When it comes to the presidential election, my only wish is that Huckabee goes down in flames.

And that’s all I got…

Have a great weekend!!!

So, I haven’t put up a significant post in a while, some would say ever, and I really haven’t posted any photos in a while.

I’m currently trudging through a pile of magazines that seems endless. Maybe I should seek help for my magazine addiction. I’m about two chapters into The Golden Compass, and I’m finding that I really like it, but then another magazine says, “No, read ME!”

Christmas was alright, and I slept through New Years. New Years has just never been that exciting to me. Dan and I each received a ten dollar gift card to Borders, which I used online to get Wordpress for Dummies and DragonArt. I am sorely unimpressed with DHL’s delivery service. I ordered both books separately (which is a whole ‘nother story), and the first book arrived about 10 days late, while the second book came two days before the first one was due to arrive. Why one book needed to go from Arizona to Ohio to Utah to Montana, while the other only went from Arizona to Montana, I’ll never know.

I had the distinct pleasure of restoring our computer to factory settings. The sfc /scannow command yielded a lovely corrupt file it couldn’t repair which was causing software to stop running. I tried every possible fix I could find online, which included a system restore to a point saved on December 29. That was a mistake which caused I-don’t-know-how-many registry errors. If I try to look on the bright side, it’s almost like getting a new computer all over again. Wait, there’s all that advertising to remove, Windows Vista security to turn off, patches to install, yada yada. There is no bright side. None at’all.

Ah well, it’s done now. And I always have cats to entertain me.

Well, the votes pertaining to this post are in.

The tally is:
The Golden Compass - five votes
The Secret of Houdini - three votes
and
One write in vote of for East of the Mountain.

I’m going to stick to the votes, so after I finish How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, I will start The Golden Compass. Thanks for the help! After reading a few pages I think I’m really going to like this book.

Do you ever get so backlogged in your reading that you just don’t know where to start? My to-be-read pile hasn’t gotten so large that I’m just overwhelmed. Can you help me decide which one to read first? I’ve narrowed my list down to several books, they are:

1. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

2. The Secret of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero by William Kalush and Larry Sloman

3. The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke

4. Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue

5. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet

OR

6. The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

So, which one?

50 Books: A Meme of One’s Own

Five most recent books you’ve bought for yourself:
1. Montana Trivia by Janet Spencer
2. Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs by John Lydon
3. 2006 Federal Aviation Regulations Aeronautical Information Manual (FAR/AIM)
4. Faking It by Jennifer Crusie
5. Accidents in North American Mountaineering 2002 by Jed Williamson & Nancy Hansen (editors)
Bonus: The Intellectual Devotional by David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim (I put this in because I bought it yesterday, after I had already typed everything out).

Five books you’ve most recently given other people:
I’m cheating here because these are the most recent books we’ve sent out via Paper Back Swap
1. Darkness, Tell Us by Richard Laymon
2. Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
3. The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red by Ellen Rimbauer
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Five most recent books you’ve loaned other people, and their status:
Ummm… I haven’t lent any out.

Last five kids’ books you bought:
The Harry Potter series are the only children’s books I’ve purchased, the answer would be books 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2.

Last five books you looked at on Amazon/Chapters/Powell’s/etc.:
That would actually be the five books under ‘the books I’ve recently given to someone’. But, anyway. I usually look at books on Quality Paperback Books
But, they are:
1. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
2. Where are they Buried, How did they Die? by Tod Benoit
3. Five People who Died During Sex by Karl Shawn
4. Cell by Stephen King
5. The Desk Encyclopedia of World History by Elizabeth Martin

Top five books on your “to read” pile:
1. Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs by John Lydon
2. Othello by William Shakespeare
3. Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
4. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer-Bradley
5. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Bottom five books on your “to read” pile:
1. 2006 Federal Aviation Regulations Aeronautical Information Manual (FAR/AIM)
2. Middlesex: A Novel by Jefferey Eugenides
3. The Time of the Dark by Barbara Hambly
4. Quiet as a Nun by Antonia Fraser
5. Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood

This weekend is the AAUW Used Book Sale at the Kalispell Center Mall. The pricing structure is simple, a dollar an inch, and on Sunday it will be a dollar a bag (I’m fairly certain it’s a dollar, but it may be five). In many cases a perfectly good book is less than a dollar. This particular pile of books is roughly 26 inches tall. That’s right, 26 bucks. Galileo’s Daughter originally retailed for 27 dollars, and the retail of the entire stack is 180.09. Not a bad haul, I say.

Speaking of saving money on books, I’ve never properly pimped PaperBackSwap.com. It’s pricing structure is simple as well. You send someone a book that you no longer want and they do want, and then you can request a book that you would like to have from someone else. All you pay is shipping which is usually around $1.57. So, rather than taking all of your old paperbacks to the used bookstore while hoping you get something for them, you can just list them on PaperBackSwap.

There are disadvantages, though. If you’re getting rid of your books to get them out of the way, this site probably isn’t for you. You must keep them around. There are also some books that people just don’t want, but you can always remove them from your list of offered books and get rid of them the old fashioned way.

You’re also not limited to paperbacks. You can list hardbacks and audiobooks as well, but you should keep shipping costs in mind. We’ve requested books only to find when we received them that they’re the more expensive hardbacks. We’ve also sent off a few hardback books. You can also often find books that you haven’t found anywhere else. I didn’t want to order Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and couldn’t find it in any stores, but it was on PaperBackSwap.

Oy, that sounded like one of those horrid pay per post thingys. I’d rather think of this as a recommendation to check out the site, not an advertisement.