Last year I made a million pies. This year I’m all about the breads.
Apple Breakfast Bread
Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread
Banana Cranberry Bread
Blueberry Orange Bread
Spiced Banana Bread
Strawberry Pineapple Bread
Pear Bread
Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Bread
Zucchini Pineapple Bread
I guess these breads are more like cakes but boy are they good. Easy to bring camping or visiting too.
I’ve really been enjoying HBO’s new True Blood series. I wasn’t sure I would from the initial previews but I’ve liked Anna Paquin in other movies and I love Louisiana so I decided to check it out any way. I told my mom about it after seeing it since she likes vampire books and movies, and it turns out she already has the complete series of books by Charlaine Harris that the show is based on and says they’re great, really funny. Now I’m a big proponent of always reading the book before seeing the movie (or tv show) but at this point I’m already into the show. Apparently it’s following the plot of the first book fairly well so I don’t want to ruin what’s happening next in it by reading the book. But I always read the books first! They’re usually the better story. It’s a dilemma. I think maybe I’ll watch the first season, then read all the books. I’m sure the show will start to deviate more and more from the books as it goes on so it won’t matter much any more.
I really like the opening credits too. The song is “Bad Things” by Jace Everett:
On second thought, I probably will just borrow the books from my mom now. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
I recently saw Iron Jawed Angels and I can’t say enough good about it. Fantastic movie and I’ll be buying a copy for my younger sisters. I won’t bother describing it, just go watch it.
Inez Milholland, 1913
“I said she was prepared to starve to death in order to further her cause.”
“Okay, I’m not a doc but that sure sounds unhealthy to me.”
“‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ Patrick Henry, an American hero.”
“Apples and oranges.”
“In oranges and women, courage is often mistaken for insanity.”
Well I did my first long(er than a weekend) bike trip – five days but only a little over a thousand miles. I ended up spending more time visiting family and friends than I did riding. I went out to central PA then up to central NY before coming back home to NJ. Only about 600 of those miles were actually getting me from place to place though and the rest was recreational riding in some very beautiful areas. South Jersey is just so flat, I’m easily impressed by anything resembling a hill. Give me an honest to God mountain and I’m ecstatic. I still love the Jersey farm roads, but there aren’t as many of them as there used to be, and riding past brand new cookie cutter mansions where there used to be peach orchards just pisses me off. Any way, on to the pictures!
Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About – I obviously missed the boat on this one since the writer’s had four books published since the website but it’s hilarious. Seriously laugh out loud funny. Lord knows I enjoy arguing about the most ridiculous things. Case in point: On a phone call with my brother tonight, I was trying to convince him to give me a hat from his ladder company to wear when I need to cover my helmet hair. He says baseball caps look stupid on girls and since we have an attractive family, he won’t help me shame the family name by providing me with a hat to look stupid in. Oh, and also it will make all my babies ugly. Because the hat-wearing seeps into your genes obviously. And the argument went on into other ridiculous directions, amid equally ridiculous arguments about other ridiculous things. To be continued at dinner tomorrow. I will get that hat.
Well I went back and redid the original bookpile to include the missing title. The additional book, Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction, I got a few years ago at a used bookshop in West Philly. I had lost my mind as usual when walking into a bookstore and, conveniently forgetting I was broke, filled my arms with books. I managed to snap out of it before going up to pay and was trying to decide what to put back when I leaned against a shelf and a book fell out on my head. It was that one. I had to laugh. And I had to buy it.
Since that bookpile is more random books that I felt like putting together than what they asked for though, I also did another one with titles that I feel describe LT itself, its users, employees, or features.
Now I need to reshelve all the books that are strewn all over my apartment from this.
I’m still just as obsessed with LibraryThing as when I discovered it two years ago. If you haven’t checked out the site before, you really should, because it’s fantastic. I get so much pleasure out of cataloging and tagging and talking about my books, I really should be a librarian. They recently hit 30 million books cataloged so are having a bookpile contest to celebrate. I’ve never entered before but decided to go for it this time. What I came up with is below. All the entries can be seen on flickr.
Books in the pile, top to bottom:
The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker
To Hell and Back
The Iliad
Rory O’More
A Death on Crooked Lake
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
Breaking the Limit
The American Quilt
The Complete Walker IV
Little Big Man
Whores and Thieves of the Worst Kind
At Home with Books
The Tender Bar
Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass
Everything is Miscellaneous
Trinity
Ye Yaille Chere
One book which I meant to put in the pile but completely forgot about until just now is Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction. Damn. Might be worth a redo just for that title. (Yes, I am that anal. Let’s call it “pays attention to detail.”)
Italian motorcycle police in the 1950s:
That is some display.
This guy is my hero.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
I’m currently reading American Borders by Carla King. The woman rides around the borders of the United States on a Ural (cool looking Russian sidecar motorcycle). I can’t get enough of books like this and it makes me want to quit my job and ride around the country for a few months. Of course, not being independently wealthy, I can’t do that. What I can do is save up my vacation time (accrued, annoying) and try for a 2 week trip next summer. Or maybe I could swing a 4 week trip with some unpaid time off in there. Either way, I’m really not good at accruing vacation days because I tend to use them one or two at a time on long weekend trips. With a specific big trip to work towards, it might be a little easier though. Hopefully.