Five for Friday cover love

Today over at the Paper Hangover they doing a Five for Friday and it's the top five covers you are lusting over.


My top five favorite covers:

No cover sums up the entire story as much as this one.  You clearly understand the characters, the conflict and it looks simply amazing.  

I'm SUPER excite about the sequel which is coming out in June.

I rarely ever pick up a book because of the cover but as soon as I saw this one, I wanted to read it. I've ranted and raved about this book before...

Look at how awkward Hank looks! It's perfect. 


This one is my favorite though, it's chilling. 

This one, I've never seen before, I don't know anything about it but MAN is it pretty. 

So what you can tell is I like black covers and covers with people on it. 

What covers are you loving at the moment?

HOCO Thursdays-follow up

A few weeks ago I spoke about my roads... and since then more work has been done and yep, they are even more jacked up.

It's bad.

At this point I'm getting a little worried about any type of long term damage it's going to do to my car. But in the interest of full disclosure I don't know a lot about cars either.

But I was told that Howard County IS backlogged on street paving and when the fiscal budget passes that they will be working that backlog.  But of course there is no guarantee that OUR street will be fixed.

Here's the thing, why should they?  With our backyards as a possible CSX depot why should Howard County spend a bunch of money on streets where the property value will tank?

Well, one reason is to assure the people of Hardwood park and of Elkidge that the local government has our backs, that they are willing to live up the the promises they made.  Watch the video to see.



Ok if you don't know what I'm talking about CSX wants to build a new intermodal facility in Maryland.  And honestly I'm cool with that.  it will solve a TON of problems and rails are WAY more efficient that trucks.


There are four site and long story short, the one in my backyard is PERFECT for CSX.  


For me it means more traffic, MORE trains, more noise pollution decrease property values.



Translation... I've got to move and quick, or at least by 2015. 

Now in all fairness a final decision has not been made.  And CSX has done three public workshops to help share information and easy the mind of the people.  I went to one on 4-21  and it was informative.  


I talked to many different MDOT employees and they were knowledgeable and reassuring.  Although I did point out that the cite was in a flight path that seemed to throw them off a little.


The results of the survey was posted online you can see here.  I was SHOCKED at the LACK of comment cards filled out.  There was at least 30 people there and only 7 people filled out cards. 


FAIL-- Howard County.  BIG FAIL.

I'll be keeping my eye on this.  I am by no means an expert but I'll keep you in the loop.   You can go to the the Patch for more information.  That's where I got all my news.


I will also say all the flowering trees are killing my allergies so I'm a little grumpy.
 hocoblogs@@@

Road Trip Wednesday-If my WIP was a soundtrack

YA Highway asks:
If your WIP(s) or favorite book(s) were a song, which song would they be?


So the book I'm currently querying is about music and the music industry and possibly the best song that represents that is Entertainment by Rise Against.

All we are is entertainment
Caught up in our own derangement
Tell us what to say and what to do
All we are are pretty faces
Picture perfect bottled rage
Packaged synthesized versions of you

We've all made petty fortunes but we can't afford a life
Confined to pull-out quotes and hotel rooms
They all scream California and its toppling empire
But can't you see the end is coming soon

Come on come on the new sensation
Guarantees then obligations
Spotlights follow every single move
Basking here on ten foot stages
Pouty lips and oh so jaded
All as if we have something to prove

Despite these petty fortunes we still can't afford a life
Confined to pull-out quotes and hotel rooms
They all scream California and its toppling empire
But can't you see the end is here

And if we cared at all
about this unknown plight
then we'd do something more
to finally make this right

Is this only entertainment
Pull the curtains, places please
We've learned to sing and dance and cry on cue
But this is more than entertainment
In a world so sick with pain
This is the only thing that's real or true

We've all made petty fortunes but we can't afford a life
Confined to pull-out quotes and hotel rooms
They all scream bloody murder over graves already dug
But can't you see the end

This is my ALL time FAVORITE song about the music industry.  So if your WIP was a song, which one would it be?

Blog Break- dolphins and surfing

I"m going to to take a break from blogging....  I don't have any more stupid toys--- well I do, but I still need a break.
So for the next few days I'm going to load up my blog with picture I've taken from my vacation. 

Surfing and Dolphin--- I wasn't the one surfing and I didn't get great pictures of dolphins.  

Jousting Peeps- Wizards VS Vampires

In case you were concerned that Easter is now over and there's won't be any more jousting peeps... FEAR NOT.

So Holly posed this question,  which is better, Wizards or Vampires.

This is a tough call, wizards have Harry, Gandoff and those chicks from Charmed.  Vampires have Edward, the bazillions of vamps in True Blood, Damon from Vampire diaries and Angel and Spike.

To the battle arena.

I got bored and started to poke around with them.

No clear winner... yep this battle is TOO important for a tie.


New rules--- first peep to cross the line into the other peeps turf WINS.

To the battle arena AGAIN

WINNER!  Vampires win.  

Yep, I'd rather lust over some sexy vampire than Harry any day.  It makes me feel less prevy.

Holly did not like this out come.

Sorry.

Five for Friday- MORE MORE MORE

My good friends over at the Paper Hangover is doing Five for Friday and asking the question, What are five things you wish to see more of in fiction?

1) Boys who aren't there as a love interest.  I hung out with LOTS of boys back in high school. That's where my humor for fart jokes really started to shine.  But not one of them did I think, yep, I want to suck face with THAT guy.  Probably because they told a lot of fart jokes.   Anyway, not every guy in a girl should be a love interest.  How boring.  Boy are more than good hair, good at opening jars and have junk you don't have.  Please stop making them all the same.


2) NICE TEACHERS who LOVE THEIR JOB.  This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine.  Every teacher is a either a jerk or wise beyond their years.  SO NOT TRUE.  I rarely dish out good advice that's the exact thing a kid needs to hear at the moment but I also LOVE my job.


3) Smart female protags who value their lives and aren't willing to risk others just to get that cute boy to talk to them.   Bella and that chick from hush hush, I'm looking in your direction.


4) More nerd jokes.  Where's the jokes about dark matter people?  How is it I can read an entire book and not see a SINGLE joke about Kate, Jack and Sawyer?  Hmmm. 


5) Parents who are alive and have a healthy and normal relationship with their children.  Yep.  In 10 years I've taught I've only had 3 students lose a parent in the year I've taught them and a grand total of 15 students lose a parent prior to that.  I've taught 1500 students.  That is 1% of the population.  Writers stop killing off moms and dads-- just because you want your characters to have a problem and to run around without parents yelling at them.  

Why I WANT an assissant to read my query and MS

This is a follow up post from yesterday's post.  I want an assistant reading my query and my manuscript because I imagine he or she would FIGHT for me. 

This is the scenario I have in my head, keep in mind, I have never met an assistant or know how his or her report is with the agent.  This is purely for my amusement:

Agent is sitting at her giant cherry desk with the skyline view of New York behind her.  She appears to be working, but is playing Angry Birds on her i-Pad.    Helpful Assistant comes in.  (for my sake only from this point one Helpful Assistant will be known as HA)

HA approaches slowly,  "did you get a chance to read that book No System At All?
Agent looks up from her game, blinks confused and clicks on the file on her desktop, "Oh yeah." Agent shrugs, "I think I'm going to pass on it.  I don't know.  I feel sort of meh about it.

HA yells in outage, "Meh? How could you possibly be meh about it?"

Agent shrugs, "I couldn't relate to Colin. I don't buy the smart guy who's socially stupid."

HA, "Come on! It's genius,  It starts off with a dick joke, then launches into a super heartwarming scene and ends it with another dick joke."

Agent eyes up Angry Birds, "dick jokes aren't hard."

HA giggles.  Giggles morph into uncontrollable laughter.  HA laughs so hard no noise escapes.

Agent rolls her eyes, "dick jokes aren't hard to write.  Whatever I'm still going to pass on it."

HA stops laugh and is instantly serious. "No you can't.  You have to make her an offer."

"No I don't think I will."

"I will lick everything in your office if you don't make her an offer." HA hangs her tongue for proof.

"Stop that, what are you doing?"

HA leans in to the computer. "make her an offer."

"No."

Like an eagle dive on to a trout HA licks the computer screen.  "Your keyboard will be next."

"This really seems more like a punishment for you than me  Besides if someone from HR came in, you'll  be stuck in another twelve hour sexual harassment seminar. "

 HA pause "I'll beat that level of Angry Birds if you make her an offer."

The agent says and returns to flinging a pissed off bird at an  jolly pig and hands over the i-Pad.  "You know what I really loved, the YA novel about the girl who's life is in danger and she has to pick between the nice boy next door and the sexy dangerous bad boy."

HA frowns "You're kidding, right?  Do you know what that book is missing...dick jokes."

Agent smiles, "I think I know what to do."

Dear Erinn,
We are pleased to offer you representation if you make a small editorial changes.  Colin needs to be called Colleen and she needs to fall in love with the a bad boy with a heart of gold and the super cute nice boy next door. Maybe someone could be trying to kill her, just a suggestion.  Also if you could make Colleen a vampire that would be great.

-Looking forward to working with you
SUPER AGENT.

Dear Super Agent,
I am thrilled that you have offered me representation   I love the editorial notes.  I have no problem at all turning Colin into a girl named Colleen who is also a vampire who is trying to figure out what to do with her life after she's rejected from Juilliard and is tossed up between two possible love interests.  Oh yeah and someone is trying to kill her.  Yes that's all great. But I'm afraid if I do that, I'll lose every penis quip in my story. I have TOO much artistic integrity to do that. 
I'm going to have to pass on your offer.

-Erinn.

Agent reads the email and shrugs.  "Hey HA, do you know why these birds are so damn angry?"
"Probably because the pigs couldn't tell a good dick joke."


No disrespect was intended to ANYONE who works in the publishing industry.  No pigs or birds were harmed in this blog.

Assistants= awesome

So if you don't know by now I'm in the query process...  which means I check query tracker CONSTANTLY to see if someone posted a comment about the agents on my query list.

Recently I saw a comment about someone getting rejected by the agent's assistant and I thought, "really? You sound kinda pissed about that."

Then I got mad.  I got pissed at whoever would be pissed that an assistant would read their query and pass on it.

I just spent the last half hour commenting on queries for the query blogfest I had to stop because I was getting bored--- not that the queries were badly written or anything but there was just SO many of them.  And I had to write something about all of them.  My brain was DONE after a half hour.  I can't IMAGINE what it's like to do this all day, every day. 

Nope.

Thank God for assistants, seriously.  

Agents are outrageously busy-- don't let the fact they they seem to tweet or blog a lot fool you.  If your getting frustrated with the lag time between your query and your response--- GO WRITE ANOTHER BOOK. 

The publishing industry has given you the gift of time.  Enjoy it.

More so, don't get all snippy because you were rejected by an assistant.  There's a million blogs about how many queries an agent gets and how many of them the agent signs as a client.  You want an assistant to read your query.  They know exactly what an agent wants.

Let's face it-- if you've done your research on an agent, it means you've read their bio on the agency web page, maybe you read an interview, if you're really an overachiever you've been following them on twitter and reading the last month of blog posts, looking for something to connect your book to the agent's wish list.

The agent wants a fresh voice- and you think, "well my character has some snappy dialogue-- that's a fresh voice."

Look an assistant spends at least 8 hours a day with the agent... it's safe to assume he or she knows the agent pretty well.  FAR better than a cyber stalker does --- and let's face it we all cyber stalk a little bit.
A rejection from the assistant should have the same weight as the rejection from the agent.

And if you get rejected-- frown for a minute-- shake it off and move on.  WRITE ANOTHER BOOK.

Have I been bummed at every rejection I've gotten?--- yep.  a few minutes later I'm done.  (Poor Holly gets the brunt of my woes is me moments but by the time I see my family I'm good again)

Have I been rejected by assistants? YEP-  Did it hurt? No more so than an agent.

If you're going to be bitter about it- find a new hobby or GO WRITE ANOTHER BOOK.

More so a request for a partial or a full should also have the same weight.  Do a happy dance.

Assistants are people too, they work in the same publishing industry as the agents, they drink the same chai lattes and their comments are JUST AS VALUABLE. 

A few months ago I received editorial comments from an agent and her assistant... both sets of comments were  AWESOME and when I resubmitted I hoped that the assistant will get to read it and see how much of her critique and comments I took when I revised.

Assistants= awesome.

Don't be a douche and think otherwise.

I will be getting off this soap box now. 

I'm off to grade and WRITE ANOTHER BOOK.

You know why? Because I love writing and no matter how many times I get a form rejection or WHO sends its.

Query Blogfest

Today is the Query Blogfest, how very exciting.    So this is my query:

Colin McCaffrey has his life all mapped out. Overachiever extraordinaire, he spends every spare moment training for his Juilliard audition because the last thing he wants is to end up a directionless slacker like his brother, Bryce.  

Bryce has his life mapped out too -- hitch a ride on his little brother’s coattails.  As long as Colin succeeds, there’s no reason for Bryce to face reality.  Responsibility sucks.

When the brothers form a band with their friends, Bryce gets a taste of success, and Colin gets distracted from his practicing. As their popularity grows, Colin’s past comes back to haunt him.  See, Colin and Bryce have a secret pact -- protect those who need protecting, and punish the bullies for their douchey behavior. Now his “victims” want to pound his spinal chord into dust.

Then Colin gets rejected from Julliard, and he’s forced to face something he never thought he’d have to -- deciding what he really wants from life.  His choices are going to college, or taking the band to the next level.  

And for the first time ever, Bryce will have to work to help make his brother’s dream a reality.  Turns out, the music industry is loaded with bullies and Bryce knows just what to do.

Told in alternating points of view between Colin and Bryce, NO SYSTEM AT ALL is a 65,000 word Young Adult contemporary fiction, much like SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD and THE MOCKINGBIRDS.   

I have been teaching middle school English for ten years. I work with teenagers on a daily basis and have a firm understanding of their humor, dramas and fears.

I look forward to hearing from you and thank you for your time,




Thanks for you feedback everyone. 


Be sure to check out the other entries here:

Jousting Peeps- traditional or self publishing

Lynn Colt asked about the future of publishing:  Which is better: self-publishing vs. traditional! Battle of the yr in the pub world; would like to see how it turns out w/ peeps!==she asked via twitter-- I assure you Lynn knows how to spell the world year. :-)

Yes the debate is of the year--- of the debate of the last few years.... TO THE BATTLE ARENA.
Purple is for traditional publishing, and green is for self publishing.  (Yes the color choices were very intentional.  Purple= royalty, tradition.. green= new and environmentally friendly )

Green takes an early lead.

But Purple starts to blow up and show it's muscle.

But what's this?  A tie?  Green looks like it's winning but it never breaks the barrier.

This topic is TOO important for a tie... TIME FOR ROUND 2.

Evenly matched

Battle arena

Look at Purple BLOW UP.

Now it's an even match

This time I left them in 45 seconds and they caught on fire.   But still NO winner.

Two rounds and both were a tie.

Looks like the future of publishing will NOT be determined by marshmallow and sugar.  Nope the future of publishing will be determined how all revolutions are.. by the consumers. 

Reactions?  Questions for next week?  Let me know in the comments.

Contest pimping 3 - Dear Editor

So there's this awesome website called http://deareditor.com/  You submit questions and an editor answers them.

Awesome right?

Even better:   To celebrate the fact that the editor officially finished the book about writing YA literature... The editor is " giving away a free Substantive Edit* of one fiction manuscript. Yes, this one is open to young adult fiction AND fiction for grown-ups"

WHAT!!!!

Yep, it's open to MG YA and Adult books.  


It must be 80K and completed.

It's an awesome contest.  


Go go now and check it out!!!




Yes I know I missed Friday's post--- sorry I'm lame. 

HOCO Thursdays- the Library

So did you know there's this place were you can borrow books FOR FREE?  It's like Amazon but you don't have to pay for it and the book isn't gathering dust in your basement.

Did you also know there are people who work at these magical places who know EVERYTHING?  Yep, everything.  

It's call ed a library and it's the most awesome place on the planet.

I have the pleasure of living two minutes away from my library and it's amazing.  My daughter BEGS to go.

They have a children play and book area that rivals Barnes and Noble, which is saying something because B&N is there to make money and the library is FREE.

Did you know the Librarians will come to your school and TEACH for you.  Yep.  Every library has it's only set of schools it supports and the Teen coordinator will come to your school and talk to your kids about cool books.  Every time the Teen Coordinator from the Savage Branch comes to my classroom, my To Read Pile gets insanely long.

If you are a Hoco parent, email your child's teacher and ask if he or she knew about this program.

Oh and have you seen the WEBSITE.  OH it's wonderful. Do you need something to do with your child?  There's like a trillion different programs going on at once.   Are you looking for a new book to read?  BAM recommendations. Hey what new books did they order?  POOF you can search it and request them.

EEK from looking at this list I found a new to me  Simone Elkeles book.  SWOON.

I could do a blog post every Thursday for MONTHS about the website alone. 

Yep.  Hoco has the best libraries around.

Every time I walk in, I'm grateful I live here.  With the shocking number of library that are losing their funding and closing it makes me ache about the future of America.

Thank you, Howard County Libraries... thank you.

Imaginary Friends

My daughter is three and she has a million imaginary friends.  Every TV show she watches, every movie she sees, every book she reads, about 30 seconds later, she has a new friend.

In fact as I'm writing this, I can hear her talking to her friends now.

But recently, after watching Peter Pan, she looked at me and said, "I want to play with Peter Pan for real."

Don't we all.

Well, we do as a kid.  Neverland is literally a magically place, fairies, pirates, mermaids all sorts of cool things.  You can fly, you're life is never really in danger, just child-like peril where you never think of the consequences of your adventures.

Yep, as I kid I ached for my imaginary friends to be real.  She-ra, Thundercat, Voltron, why couldn't I be that cool.  They seemed so real to me, why did I have to go school with kids who didn't have magical powers?

Then came the feel that I was special too.  I had to be.  That's what EVERY cartoon told me.  That's what my mom told me.

Growing up I looked at my 5th place ribbons and thought, well someone has to come in 5th place. 

In my adult years  more harsh reality hit and I thought, "just because you work hard at something doesn't mean you're good at it." 

Wow... Peter Pan was right, growing up sucks.  It's so negative. 

Screw this, I'm off to help my daughter fight Captain Hook, that guy keeps stealing my puffy hats and leather boots.

(Ok fine--- I dress more like Smee)

But Smee is WAY more comfortable.

BTW-- Does anyone know why all the old Disney movies were set in England in the 1900-1930's?

Stupid Toy Tuesday- Color Wonder Glitter Paper

I love Crayola.  Talk about a creative, parent friendly company.  Everything is washable, everything is safe and it's all fun. (But I hear the crayon maker is pretty lame)

I am a HUGE fan of the Color Wonder paper and markers.  Hubby is a little stain phobic and thanks to color wonder my daughter can color without any fear of mess.

My daughter has an obscene amount of color wonder stuff.  Paints, finger paints, markers of every color and like a billion color books.

But ONE is a huge fail... and she has three color books of GLITTER princess paper.

You know little girls like? Princess and glitter.   SOUNDS LIKE A FOOL PROOF TOY.

The picture  doesn't turn out as pretty as you would have liked.  It's all stripy. 

But the glitter get the markers and then you have to wipe the glitter off of the marker and now your fingers glittery and you hand looks like it hangs out a strip club.

Of course it does come to my attention that I could just wipe off the marker with a paper towel or something... but, um, yeah I didn't do that.  And besides, I needed to hold the paper with my hand....

(Confession- this stupid toy is stupid because Me, a 32 year old with her masters degree is too stupid to play with it.)

Jousting Peeps- Revise

Alicia and Pam asked should I work on revising my contemporary or my urban fantasy?

Yes Alicia and Pam are two different people with two different with two different projects, do you know what that means?

TWO BATTLES!!!

Alicia, you get to go first. 

 Pink is for contemporary and purple is for fantasy.

Into the Battle ARENA

Purple puffs up first but pink is making a good showing.

WHAT?  Let's look at a different angle.

Pink's weapon is out further but did not break the marshmellow barrier, same with purple.

It is a tie--- sorry Alicia, you have to make the choice yourself.

PAM: You're up next 

 Pink is for contemporary and green is for fantasy.

We could be shaping up for a tie

 Green is looking good.

 But it looks like PINK has pierced the skin. The WINNER is PINK--- go work on that contemporary.

Next week the peeps determine the fate of the publishing industry-- Traditional Verses Self Publishing.

Don't forget to sign up for our QUERY blogfest... April 19

Five for Friday

My good friends at the Paper Hangover are starting a new segment called five for Friday and this week they are asking the question:

What are Five things I wish I knew before I started writing...

1) Writing doesn’t have to be a completely isolating experience. Some of my best friends I meant online.  Meeting them in real life isn’t creepy at all, unless they want to kill you and harvest your organs.  But that’s only happened, like once to me, besides I didn’t need that liver and now I’m a pound lighter.

2) Forming letters into words- easy.  Forming words into sentences, hard.  Forming sentences other people want to read- outrageously hard. Forming sentences other people want to read with out extra words- IMPOSSIBLE.

3) The Internet is a bigger distracter than real life.

4)  As much as you love your book, no one else REALLY wants to hear about it.  They might ask you “so what’s your book about?” but they will only care when you have a hardcover to hand to them--- If they look really bored its a sign you need to work on your elevator pitch.

5) Writing a book is hard, and when you think your done, you’re NOT.  You go through crazy mood swings where you think one moment this is the greatest book ever written and the next it’s the worst dreck that has ever appeared on a computer screen.  (And you’ve spend years reading fanfiction)   You might NEVER hit the point where you are completely satisfied with your work, but  eventually the desire to show someone else out weighs your ego.

HOCO Thursdays- When the blogging world and the real world collide

Do you know where I went last night?  To a party.  ON A SCHOOL NIGHT.   I know, I couldn't believe it either.

So I live in Howard County and I'm a blogger which qualifies me for Hoco Blogs.  And once a month they have a blogger party.  This is what I learned at this party.

1) Ian is a real person.  Remember a few weeks ago when I posted about my road and then I wrote about it here:   Yep. I meant the County executive's chief of staff, in person.  And he's awesome.  And I'm NOT just saying that because there's a very good likelihood he's reading this blog.  He was down to Earth and talked honestly about local government.  

2) I met TJ. A few days ago, an email appeared in my inbox, and you might not know this about me but I'm a little OCD about checking my inbox.  Anyway he found my blog and asked if he could quote me in an article for The Patch about blogging.   He, too, is awesome. You can read the article here.

3) Elizabeth she is the editor for The Patch in Elkridge.  In a work...awesome.   Are you detecting a trend here?

4) Blogger in Howard County come in all shapes, ages, ethnic background.  As soon as I walked in to the Stain Glass Pub, i felt like I instantly belonged.   Every blogger I spoke with genuinely cared about connecting with other bloggers and sharing their interests IRL (in real life- for those of you who aren't down with the tech speak)

5)Jessie Newburn ROCKS at throwing parties.  She runs the hocoblogs.com website and organized the par-tay.  She came around talked with everyone-- she very cool tech guru who is reaching out to the communities of Howard County and trying to bring us all together.  Oh and something magical will happen if I do the hocoblogs@@@ in my blog post.  go to hocoblogs.com to see what it was.

6) Blogging, like writing, always felt like a solo thing I did.  It wasn't until Mo suggested I join hocoblogs that I ever considered writing about my home town.

7)The food at The Stain Glass Pub was amazing (you thought I was going to say awesome, did you?)

8) People like free drinks... they really really like them.  Our waitress seemed shocked when I ordered a sprite, I think I was the only adult drinking a soda.  Didn't everyone else know it was school night?  To go along with that, our waitress was nothing sure of amazingly awesome.

9) I was stressed about writing this post because I have a shameful confession.

10) I'm a sticker slut.   (Although some of them my daughter put on me)

I had a sticker that said #geek but I'm pretty sure with my shirt it was a little redundant.

Query Blogfest

My dear friends, Alicia Holly, Pam, Quita, are hosting another blogfest and guess what, this one is pretty awesome.

So if you're reading this blog, chances are you're a writer and one of the most important thing for a writer is to have a great query letter.

This is the QUERY BLOGFEST  it's going to be  April 19 (right about the time everyone doing the A-Z blogfest should be hitting the letter Q.)  Wow, it's like we planned it like that.

So what do you have to do?

You can sign up at the bottom of this post. Once the day comes, there are only two rules: post your query letter and visit at least 5 other bloggers and critique their queries.

This isn't for the faint of heart. The only way we can get better is if we get feedback.  Alicia has some great links over on blog here.

Stupid Toy Tuesday- spinning projectiles of doom

This weekend we went to the circus as a family.  It was full of the circus goodness, I had come to expect, animals, clowns, people with no spines or fear doing things that will be most likely tried at home and end in a trip to the hospital.

But what I knew, as SOON as my hubby emailed me about the tickets, we would be coming home with this overpriced piece of crap that lights up.  I was right.

BEHOLD!!! It's a pink holder, and it spins around and it has little dohicky that light up.  Oh and it's hard to see but there is a white tiger at the top.

Yep.

Drumroll for the cost...$22.
The people behind us make this offer to their child, "you can buy the light up thing or you can go to college, which ever one you want." 
It's a good offer and tells you alot about the kid.

But of course that's not all, she got cotton candy that came with a stupid hat for $10 and a program for $20.  PLUS another $10 for food.

Grumble.

But here's the thing, my daughter has smacked herself in the face so many times, she flinches when she plays with it.

Yep. Nothing says fun like pulling a piece of plastic out of your eye and becoming traumatized by lights.
Ringing Bros, I'll be sending you the therapy bill for that one.