Just Believe Me

I have wanted to blog about this for a little while because I am utterly astounded by it BUT I was afraid that by blogging about it you might just become curious and then go against my wishes soooooo please please please PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE just believe me when I tell you...

DO NOT READ THE VAMPIRE DIARIES

DO NOT READ THE VAMPIRE DIARIES

DO NOT READ THE VAMPIRE DIARIES

These are horrible books. Really, really horrible books that were made into a pretty awesome TV show. By all means, watch the TV version but I cannot, for the life of me, see how someone was inspired by the utter crap that is the books. By the end, I was barely reading the dialog (because it made my eyes vomit), mostly I was just skimming for plot.

Problem 1: There are four "books" in this series.
Except there aren't four books, there are two books. The first three books are all one story that it seems like someone thought was too long so they threw darts at the book to determine where they would cut it to make three books (and probably more money). See books in a series should each have their own beginning, middle, and end. While you carry characters, major plots and themes throughout the series each book has to be its own story! You can't stop in the middle of a scene and call that a "cliff-hanger" it doesn't work like that. Besides, if you really wanted a cliff-hanger you should have ended Book 2 about a chapter later, right after newly-turned vampire Elena says she loves Damon. That ruse is only maintained for like 3 chapters in book 2, so basically its ONLY purpose is to be cliff-hangery but since you correct it so fast there is nothing cliff-hangery about it!

Problem 2: Have you met a teenager before?
17 year old girls do not wear ribbons in their hair. 17 year old girls who are the queen of their school do not spend an entire paragraph choosing what color ribbon to wear in their hair on the first day of school. 17 year old girls do not refer to themselves as the queen of their school and they don't talk about their friends as their royal court. They really don't take blood oaths to help the queen get the new hot boy in school to be her boyfriend.

They don't say things like, "You snubbed me in public multiple times!" snubbed? really? or "I don't know if I'm close to him. He puts up walls that no one can break down." That one was attributed to a 17 year old football star. Sorry folks, teenagers (and most adults) are not this self-aware.

Problem 3: The fourth book is stupid, and by far the best one.
The main character DIES at the end of the third book. DIES!!!! So you have her come back in visions to her psychic best friend? No. If you want to write four books don't kill off your main character in book three. This is like basic writing 101. Why? because it makes it seem like you only wanted to write three books but people didn't like that Elena died so as an afterthought you wrote a fourth book. It is stupid. God, the only thing that could make it worse would be if you somehow brought her back to life at the end of the book, oh wait... you did.

Yeah, I gave away the endings and I did it without warning you. Why? Because I don't want you to read these books. Now you know they are terrible AND you know the ending so there is absolutely no reason for you to read them. Ever.

These are our Children

So Simon and Mozzie are sitting on the couch together like brothers who love each other so I decide to take a picture.



Zoe was standing right next to me so I tell her to get up in the shot. Amazingly she instantly complies!!! But then she just does this...



Sigh.

Although, you gotta love the look on Simon's face with this going on next to him.

It's 2011 Y'All!

I do have resolutions but I'm not going to tell you what they are. Telling you what they are would mean admitting I have faults and I think we all know I'm not great at that...maybe that should be a resolution? Plus this way when I don't keep them I won't have to tell you that too.

Mostly I just hope that 2011 ends with me having a job since (if all goes according to plan) I will be ending the year with a college degree. So, a job. I should be able to handle that. Right?

I do plan on keeping track of the books I read this year (this should be easy with my brand new kindle!!). I know most of you don't care but I actually really enjoy reading the book lists that others write up (I'm look at you Holly!) because I'm always looking for something to read. Mine should be an interesting mix of the classics - because they are free - and stuff with vampires with some young adult (probably with vampires) thrown in.

I also plan on winning at least one thing from pioneer woman this year. I think this will be the hardest one to keep.

I also plan to cook more this year. I think I was starting to do a little better in 2009 and fell off the wagon a bit in 2010. So watch out Kailey! I'll be bringing meat into the house because I can't live off of fish alone. I took pictures of some recipes in books last time we were at half price books (yes, even at half price I'm not buying the whole book for two recipes) so maybe I'll start with those.

After reading back through this post I think I might also want to look into limiting the number of parenthetical comments I make on my own blog.

Ok just one real one. Kailey I'm going to get through all 9 weeks of couch to 5k so feel free to give me a dirty look if I object to going to the gym.