Hello world. The past few days have started to feel like Fall. The a/c has been off, I’ve switched to wearing long pants and I’m looking forward to cooking with butternut squash! (its one of my fall favs) I have been working a lot and I have been keeping myself busy with other fun things.

In July made my Mother-in-law a custom bag. She loved it so much, she asked for another one. I went to work and decided this would be sort of a ‘guinea pig’ bag. I played with the dimensions a bit and changed the placement of the handles. I even successfully made a recessed zipper! I’d been having trying to perfect it for quite a while. I love how this bag came out! I made a pattern of this design and I’m going to start rolling some more out (because Christmas is right around the corner)

In other crafting news, I was switching around stuff in our kitchen. We got our mail organizer, cork board and now a magnet board (because our fridge is not magnetic!) However I took away our dry erase board because I wasn’t sure where to put it. After posting my Dry Erase wall calendar… I had a crazy idea: What if I cut out a shape and stuck it on the fridge? I used my trusty silhouette machine and cut out this fancy little number. So far so good.

I’ve been in a bit of a reading funk lately. I have my Game of Thrones audio book to keep me going while I’m in the Craft Dungeon, however I also need something to read read. I tried a few different books and stopped in the first chapter. Nothing was really capturing my attention. Then I came across this book called Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. It sounded like an ok premiss. Two very different kids meet on the bus and their relationship slowly builds into something more. I didn’t expect to like this as much as I do! I’m all about my Sci-fi fantasy and shy away from realistic fiction. The narrative jumps between Eleanor and Park and you get to see how they fall in love from both perspectives. It also takes place in 1986 so its littered with references to the Smiths and even Doctor Who!

Speaking of romance, this past week marked 3 years married to this guy! I had to work the actual night of our anniversary, but he took me out for bbq lunch and he gave me flowers, he knows the quickest way to my heart. On Saturday we went out for a super nice dinner at the Riverhead Project. We normally don't do such swanky restaurants because I'm super cheapo. However, this is the only time I demand high end swank! This place was really nice and very modern. It is a converted bank and the vault is available to be rented out for private parities (that's pretty awesome). It didn't feel like a typical Long Island restaurant. We had fried olives, scallops and duck. My tastebuds were in heaven! Afterwards we walked over to the aquarium to say hi to our seal friends. They are seriously my dog but sea dwelling.

I'm gearing up for another craft night tomorrow. This time around we are making mason jar lanterns! It should be another fun time. If you are a local Long Islander, come on down! We start at 7:00!

Till next time.... 

May the odds be ever in your favor

The Hunger Games movie finally came out and I feel that I wouldn't be a proper nerd craft librarian if I didn't comment on it.

http://geektyrant.com/news/2012/3/30/the-hunger-
games-fun-series-of-propaganda-posters.html

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the movie or books, the Hunger Games was the first part of a trilogy of Young Adult novels by Suzanne Collins. The story centers on Katniss Everdeen who does her best to survive in a dystopian country of Panem ruled by the Capital. Every year a boy and a girl are chosen from one of twelve districts to complete to the death, all of which is broadcast all over the country. Essentially its like Running Man with teenagers.

It seems like more than ever Hollywood has been scooping up books for big screen adaptations and this always gets readers a little scared because they can screw it up very badly! (For examples see the Grinch, Alice in Wonderland, the Golden Compass etc. we can go on and on ). I was really nervous going into the Hunger Games because I loved the books and they were amazing. I was also really curious to see how they were going to do certain things. Luckily for me and the other Hunger Game fans, Suzanne Collins actually wrote the screen play. The Hunger Games movie was good, that's not to say it was completely perfect, but I am here to pick out what I loved about it and what I wasn't too crazy about.

The movie over-all was a great cinematic experience. The film captured the same tone of the books, that feeling of despair and sadness from living in the world in which the districts of Panem are enslaved and live in proverty to support the Capital. Film also captured the setting quite well. I had always pictured District 12 and the Seam to be an industrial waste land and was not disappointed when the film took a slightly different take when the film's District 12 resembled 1930s Appalachia with quaint little houses and it being a mining town.I loved how this drastically contrasted with the lush futuristic Capital complete with cyber punk looking citizens. I was pleased with how the books honored these aspects but I also enjoyed how the film portrayed the game makers. While reading the books I had a hard time visualizing the behind the scenes of the arena and loved that the film took us there.

Casting was another score. All of the major characters were cast perfectly from Katniss, Cinna, Haymitch, Peeta. My personal favorite was Stanley Tucci as Cesear Flickerman.However I do I have one big gripe with this movie and it involved the casting! The character Gale is a minor character in the first of the trilogy but he becomes part of the love triangle and all that jazz. From how he was described in the book and how district 12 is portrayed this movie really expect me to believe that Liam Helmsworth is Gale? During the reaping if Katniss looks like a hill-billy farm girl, why the hell does Gale look like a Gap model?! Just makes me more Team Peeta all the way.

The movie has been out for a while and just like the books, it has stirred up some controversy. A lot of people are saying it is an American-ized Battle Royale (which is a great movie by the way) I can see how it is with the obvious kids fighting to the death part. However a big basis of the book series is on the spectacle the government makes the games out to be. Which thanks to Katniss, then spurs revolution. So to those people saying it ripped off something else...you can make the argument that everybody has ripped off everybody.. get over it! This next bit of controversy I read on Jezebel. Apparently some fans of the books are racists pieces of garbage.

http://jezebel.com/5897416/bad-news-hunger-games-amandla-stenberg-
knows-about-the-racist-tweets

I am shocked by this! I mean our President is black for crying out loud! I don't want to end on a bad note so to cut the tension here is a funny poster from Geek Tyrant.

If you want to see some more Hunger Games themed funnies check out this post from Michele at Short Girl, Long Island.

Fat Vampire: a fat disappointment

Vampires of course are the latest trend in teen culture, (although it has appeared to die down a little). In a world with beautiful vampires with their their good looks and young love that is intact and lasts forever. BUT, what happens to the not so charming,nerdy awkward guy becomes a vamp ?  The answer can be found in Doug Lee, in Adam Rex's Fat Vampire. As if teenage years aren't awkward enough imagine being stuck as a perpetual adolescent. To make matters worse for Doug, he has to struggle to find blood (he ends up settling for cows). Meanwhile unbeknown to Doug he is being hunted by a reality show, Vampire Hunters. What is Doug to do? Can he survive life as a vamp?
I was very excited to read this for several reasons. I am not a fan of the vampire trend, so a book a mocking vampires, awesome! Then the twist of further mocking Twlight beauties by making the main protagonist an ugly nerdy vampire, I was so there and was ready to laugh! Also the cover, (in Teen Lit, covers sell books) further demonstrated the quirk and humor of the book. So where did Fat Vampire go wrong?
The first few chapters of the book were entertaining. When we first meet Doug, he is already a vampire and the only person that knows is his best friend Jay. Doug's vampire-ism doesn't stop them from going to comic-con where they rob a blood donation bus. In another incident Doug tries to get blood from a panda at the San Diego zoo, when the zoo keepers notice him in the pen, he freaks and accidentally transforms himself into bat. I was under the impression that the rest of the story would be filled with silly hi-jinks as Doug struggles with
new vampire lifestyle, instead the rest of the story well took a weird turn. Just about all of the silly incidents occurred in the first several chapters. A dual narrative is introduced from the point of view of Sejal, a foreign-exchange student from India. She is hoping to reinvent herself because she has 'the google' (a self diagnosed addiction to the internet). The two narratives to meet and catch up, but I really don't know why. At first it seems she is going to be Doug's Bollywood Bella to his awkward chubby Edward, but their relationship fizzles out before it even starts.
Another issue in Fat Vampire was the character development. In the case of Doug, the main character, there was none! Doug is the main character and we know nothing about his home life and his family. In youth literature thats usually an important aspect of the character, it shows the reader what makes the main character tick and makes him a bit more relatable. Doug was not at all, he was a jerk! At one point, out of no where Doug becames a super cool mack daddy vampire and gets a girl friend.. the only reason, to use her, so he can suck her blood while they make out. I hated Doug, I felt more of a connection to the secondary characters, like Jay, Sejal and the theater kids she hangs out with.  
The biggest upset for me was the end.. ::SPOILER ALERT:: 3/4 of the way through the book a plot actually emerges! Doug is told his vampire-ness can be reversed if he kills the head vampire. So he goes out on a hunt and it turns out its his mentor Stephen. So they meet up one night and I expect an epic battle, but the Vampire Hunter guys kill Stephen with steak through the heart. As for Doug he gets hit with a steak as well, Segal is next to him and it seem he might survive. There are several possible outcomes that could occur, and they are all included in the last two pages, with the last option being, Doug dies.
Really? That's how you end the story? That is horrible and makes me feel like I wasted my time reading the stupid book. I wanted to love this book I really did, but that ending drove me over the edge. That is just lazy writing! Bottom line, Fat Vampire was just as horrible as the books it was parodying. As far as vampire books go, it sucked.