Delusions of Grandeur

Hello flist! Lots to cover today but first things first:

Happy birthday kipani_mariko!

I suck so much for not doing this yesterday but I had my reasons, namely being very out of it for most of yesterday and not realizing it was the 21st until very late. Tai's summer usually involves walking around barely realizing what time of day or date it is and plenty of junk food. I am so fat now. I'VE GAINED FIVE POUNDS *SOBS*

Anyway whining and excuses aside. You are a wonderful friend <3 and the last two years knowing you have been great, well not great in general but the time spent speaking to you itself was great! yes and I hope you have a really great year!
Ok ok that was the worst birthday blog post ever. -_- Hopefully my gift will make it up to you though, it should arrive by the next week or so. :D (with a colorful sappy card! yay!)

Tv: I have been watching alot of stuff lately! YAY. Mainly though I've recently gotten into Gossip Girl. Yes Gossip Girl. DEAL WITH IT.
Ahh it is such a great trainwreck show, with crazy drama and bitchy ladies and hot...everybody really. What I love most about gossip girl though? NONE of the female characters annoy me! NOT EVEN ONE! and The fandom isnt full of woman hating pyschos and slashers! (like almost every other fandom on the internet. But best part is there is FEMME SLASH. WAH IT EXISTS. It also has the best couple to ever exist on tv ever. Chuck & Blair. ( My glee tis a gleeful thing! )

Also Gossip Girl makes me really want to watch Skins. Which I have been meaning to watch for the last YEAR AND A HALF and still havent gotten around to it. FAIL
Speaking of BBC shows I want to see. North & South! I so need to see this! It looks awesome and sounds like a period drama with a bit of a romance plot which is my fave combination in a bbc drama! They do period dramas so so well.
In fact I was really looking forward to checking out their newest period drama Desperate Romantics. I was like "Ohhh a drama about the pre-raphaelite painters? Sounds interesting!" So then I go read up on the Pre-raphaelite painters, in one of my big art history books. So I can better appreciate the drama...BIG MISTAKE. ( Allow me a moment of ranting if you will ) That being said the New Romantics were totally the rock stars of their time in a way and so I do get why the BBC would make a show about them and I dont discourage anyone from seeing it. But then I would never discourage people from learning about history in any way. Perhaps more people will become interested in art history because of this show!

True Blood ep5: Alot of people hated this episode because it was slow moving and repetitive. all of this is true. however I did not hate it. Why? Because of this scene:

PURE EPIC. I suddenly wish the whole show was now about vampire viking erik and his pretty vampire buddy Godric and their travails through ancient Scandinavia.

Leverage: BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER BABY. Oh how did I manage so long without this show? ;_; I love how the shit has been switched up on Nate. Because after pretty much looking down on his team all of last season for being criminals (despite WORKING for him and using their shady expertise to help people the entire time) they have now latched unto him and own his apartment and they will never ever ever leave. plus Sophie moved on and got a new man! SUCK IT NATE. I also died laughing when I found out his apartment was placed OVER A BAR which is hilarious only if you know he's a recovering alcoholic. I swear that man is a masochist or in Eliot's words "Very Catholic". Also the Parker/Hardison moment <3
I am so looking forward to tonight's episode and YES I DID NOT FORGET THIS TIME ABOUT IT.

I really want to do an OTPs ranking lately. Mostly so I can have an excuse to gush about chuck/blair some more but really it sounds like a fun idea. I wanna do one for my platonic OTPs too actually...
Well that's all! You know you love me~XOXO (yes that is a gg reference. *dodges rocks*)

Ahhh Anne Stuart, she of the romance thrillers/romantic suspense books. I wouldnt call her a favorite author or even a very good author (though not a bad one either) But she is undoubtedly a guilty pleasure of mine. Her novels are basically CRACK and you shouldnt be doing it and you know it's not good for you & gonna eat away your brain tissue but YOU CANT STOP. I always go through her novels faster than anyone elses. Dunno what that says about me...no wait of course I do. I have a love of dysfunctional couples and love/hate relationships, something stuart is much more likely to explore than most romance novel authors. Bleh at fluffy romances, bleh I say!

Ice Storm = B+
Of the Stuart novels I've read so far I think I've liked this one most. It's part of Stuart's Ice series which focuses on the lives of various operatives to some shady spy organization called "The Council", this is the fourth novel in the series. ( Get into bed, I can always kill you in the morning ) All in all, Ice storm is a decent read and less dark than Sins and far less irritating than Midnight but still unabashedly unromantic and twisted enough to fulfill anyone's kink for fascination with suffering or an antagonistic couple. and by anyone I do mean me. mmmmm hate!sex.


Ritual Sins = B-
I feel like I shouldnt have liked this story, but I did, quite a bit actually. It was completely fucked up, the power dynamics were skewed, some of the plot developments were right out of a B horror movie or a lifetime tv movie and the hero was an obligatory unapologetic psychotic jackass. but I still had such a blast reading it. It's one of those stories you read where you just turn off your brain and enjoy the very trashy ride.
( Luke, part cult leader, part con man, all pyscho meets Rachel a Very Angry Woman ) Basically Ritual Sins is what it is, a creepy thriller with lots of sexual tension and then actual sex, the plot isnt very intelligent and you probably wont be surprised by most of the twists and turns but it manages to keep from being completely predictable. I managed to finish it in a day or so, a fun fast read. Well fun if your idea of fun is stalkers, murders, cults, conspiracies, evil old ladies, homicidal dwarves and sex in the back of a creepy hearse during a violent thunderstorm. Hey man, I dont knock YOUR interests.


A Rose at Midnight = C-
There is so much that went wrong with this story for me that I'm not even sure I know where to start. It's not even that as a book it was really bad, because it wasnt. Although it was miles away from good. "Midnight" started out with such a fabulously dark and interesting premise, the heroine starts out trying to poison the hero who she blames for the horrible demise of her family. So the heroine who is *gasp* french and had the misfortune to be living in france during the time of the revolution, has to watch helplessly as her aristocratic family is sent to the guillotine. Fucked up right? You bet! So of course I was intrigued. ( Here's where it all goes to shit aka I bitch alot in this review )
Vitriol aside, I will keep reading anne stuart and try to stick to some of her later novels, especially her contemporaries, cause so far those havent been too bad. I will however avoid her historicals like plague for now on. Also I cracked up when the word "cash" was used in this book because uh...I dont think they used that term for money in 19th century England. :x

In un book related news I went to the mall and got myself a dress to wear at my sister's graduation (that my mother insisted I attend, and before anyone gives me the evil eye for being a bad sis and not wanting to attend my lil sister's graduation, let me just say that she doesnt want to go either. We are both hostages! Our mother is forcing us to dress up and converse with stuffy old arab ladies! WILL THE HORRORS NEVER CEASE?) I will take pics of said dress once I actually manage to locate my camera.