April 18, 2009 • randomness •

Saturday Review 4/18 – This week around the blogiverse

Bulletin Board – Announcements, with a side of self-promotion this week!

**** You still have a few days – until Wednesday, April 22 – to enter my giveaway for Pam Allyn’s What to Read When: The Books and Stories to Read with Your Child–and All the Best Times to Read Them. This book’s all about making reading with our kids a better experience. So while you’re doing that, why not keep a record of your time reading together and join this year’s RIF (Reading is Fundamental) Read With Kids Challenge? This organization has set a goal of collectively logging 5 million minutes of reading with kids between April 1 and June 30. Sign up, join in, and you could win some great prizes in addition to the rewards of spending time reading with your children!

**** A few awards have recently come my way, and have been added to the shelf:

The Premio Dardos, from Nicole at Linus’s Blanket ~

premio-dardos-award


Premio Dardos means “Darts Prize” in Spanish. It is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing.


The Splash Award, from Avisannchild at She Reads and Reads ~

This award is bestowed on blogs that “allure, amuse, bewitch, impress or inspire.” It was given in specific recognition of this post.

The Zombie Chicken Award, from Becky of Becky’s Book Reviews ~

The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken – excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all…

This blog has been awarded – and shared – the Premio Dardos award in the past; thank you for honoring it this time, Nicole!

As for the Splash Award, I would like to thank Avisannchild and extend it to the many blogs I read every day that meet the criteria – check my blogrolls for just a few examples!

I will not risk the wrath of the Zombie Chickens by not passing on their award, but I’ll do that in a follow-up post. Thanks, Becky! This is the only blog award which I have ever truly coveted.

Dispatches from Across the Blogiverse

Those first few months may feel like forever, but they’re just a blip on your timeline (as usual, it’s hard to sum up one of Julie’s posts in a single line…just go read it!)

Then again, some blips on the timeline are made in permanent marker – Kathy remembers Virginia Tech

Why example is such an important factor in leadership, and why sometimes the “obvious” isn’t

How to raise a geek (for parents to whom it does NOT come naturally, unlike my husband and me)

Relax – judging other people’s beliefs really is not your responsibility

One grand plan to save the world (because as much as you might want to sometimes, you can’t run away from it)

An approach to recycling you might not have considered

A Hollywood perspective on Twitter

Puppy-training tips (the Obama family just might need these soon too!), because you can’t be sure you can always count on your dog!

Customer of the week, via Not Always Right:

Bookstore | Virginia, USA
Customer: “I’m looking for a book on Ronald Reagan.”
Me: “OK, well, that would be right here in the American history section.”
Customer: “It’s a particular book, one with transcripts of all his speeches. I’ve seen it here before.”
(I spend at least 15 minutes exhaustively searching the shelves to find the book, with no luck.)
Me: “It seems we don’t have it. If you’d like, I can write it down and call you if we get another copy in.”
Customer: “That’s impossible. You always had it right here.”
Me: “I’m sorry, someone must have bought it.”
Customer: *exasperated* “I know. I’m the one who bought it.”

Quote of the week, from Wednesday night’s episode of Lost:

”That was Luke’s attitude, too. In ‘Empire’, when he found out Vader was his father, instead of putting away his light saber and talking about it, he overreacted and got his hand cut off. I mean, they worked it out eventually. But at what cost? The Death Star was destroyed, Boba Fett got eaten by the Sarlacc, and everyone got The Ewoks. It all could have been avoided if they had just, you know, communicated. Because let’s face it: Ewoks suck, dude.” — Hurley

(And once again, Hurley represents for the nerd contingent! Hurley rocks, y’all.)

Bookmarks: Reading-related reading

Reassurance of the week: 12 grammar “errors” that really aren’t (thanks to @PaulaatAME for Tweeting that link!)

A few tips for authors making “the pitch” to book bloggers

Discussion of the week: Is there an “in-crowd” – and therefore, an “out crowd” – within the book-blogging community? And does it ever remind you of high school ? (As an aside – when people say something “reminds them of high school,” doesn’t it usually seem like they don’t mean “in a good way”?) Book bloggers have turned introspective this week…(and just by way of warning, I have a feeling that my turn may be coming in the next week or so)

Lamenting being a “slow reader” – I know how that feels! (Book bloggers are some pretty fast company!) I suspect many of us know how this feels, too: books to move!

Books that caught my eye this week:
First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life, by Eve Brown-Waite

Enjoy your weekend!

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8 comments

  2. Fun post this week 🙂 Thanks for including a link to my puppy training post…I hope it will help a few people in those early weeks of puppy ownership (there is a reason God makes them so cute when they are little!!!)

    Have a great weekend!

  3. You know, while I was watching Lost I was wondering where the title of the episode came from. I was waiting for something to do with Star Wars and finally Hurley mentioned the screenplay. That’s a good idea. Not as good as taking a copy of every winner in sports ever, but still a good idea. 🙂

    Thanks for posting the 12 grammar errors. Now I don’t feel so bad. 🙂

  5. Kathy (Bermudaonion)> – Thank you! I was late in acknowledging a couple of them, so I wanted to get caught up.

    Wendy – I’ve trained a puppy myself, and I thought your trips were great. And you’re entirely right about why they’re so cute at that stage :-)!

    Mike – Nice way to sneak Back to the Future II in there :-). And yes, preventing the Ewoks is a good idea. (Preventing Jar Jar Binks would be a public service.)

    The grammar post made me feel a lot better too.

    Daisy – You’re welcome. I collect the links as a I come across them during the week, so this is really not as much work as it looks like it is :-).

  7. Thanks for the hat tip!

    The other day, my fiance read “Books to Move.” The first song on the radio the next time he got in his truck was “Bust a Move.” Since then I think we’ve heard it four times!

  8. Jeanne – You’re welcome :-). I’m glad to have discovered your blog too!

    Jessica – Keep coming up with those parodies, and I’ll most likely be linking them here – they crack me up :-).