Monday, July 25, 2011

Music Monday- The Airborne Toxic Event

So if you've been reading this blog for a while, you know one of my favorite bands is The Airborne Toxic Event.  I flew out up to Boston to see them play for free.  My husband and I were listing the top 20 events in our lives and seeing them live was on my list.

Anyway they have a not so new CD and EVERYONE should check it out.  The new CD is All At Once.   It's a perfect follow up album because it's still sounds like TATE but is still different enough to be new.

The first single from the album is Changing.




What I love about this, is Changing isn't even remotely the best song on the album.

Numb is pretty good too.



But my favorite is Strange Girl-- although this video doesn't do it justice




Ok, now that you've heard a few of their songs, go out an buy the album, and while you're getting that pick up All I've Ever Wanted, it's the live album with TONS of new songs and just very cool stuff.

If you like good music, then your ears will thank you.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Sign fail

Sometimes life requires a little planning.  Not much, but a little.  Like say you were going to open a restaruant.  You need to know what you want to serve, otherwise there's a bunch of hungry people sitting in a room staring at you.  And that will get awkward FAST.

This weekend I went to a place that clearly didn't put much thought into it's sign.
If you can't read it, it says Maho, Pizza, Pasta, Steak and Seafood.

Then next to the door there was this sign:
Um, yeah.

Please insert your own witty comment here.  Because I'm lost for words.

That being said, the food was pretty good.  Really it was.   But the pizza, yeah, not so much.

But of course, I didn't really need to tell you that, now did I?



Monday, July 18, 2011

Music Monday

So I will be posting my new favorite bands and other fun music stuff.

Biffy Clyro--
Ok step one, watch this video




Amazing right?

Now Go to youtube and watch the Warner Brother's HD video.   (they disabled the embedding feature)

Look at EVERY girl in the crowd.  They all want to have eye sex with the lead singer.



Can you blame them?  Really?

They've been around since 1995 and they're pretty big in England.  I'm pulling this right off their website:

Their first three albums – ‘Blackened Sky’, ‘The Vertigo Of Bliss’ and ‘Infinity Land’ – arrived in a barrage of creativity, a record released every year and relentless touring building up a small but devoted army of followers. Team Biffy’s ranks grew exponentially when ‘Puzzle’ came along and stunned listeners with its achingly personal, rich and complex take on rock anthems, and Simon, James and Ben found themselves playing Wembley Stadium with Muse, headlining the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury and gigging with The Rolling Stones. U2 even supported them at a special Little Noise session at London’s Union Chapel, although the highlight for the band came when they headlined in front of a hometown crowd at Glasgow’s SECC.

“That’s where I saw Metallica in 1991,” says Simon. “We played there last December, in that same room. It’s amazing how things work out.”

Amazing, but perhaps not surprising when you hear their new album ‘Only Revolutions’. It is, quite simply, a monster of rock. After the overwhelming sadness of ‘Puzzle’, which was written in the aftermath of Simon’s mother passing away, ‘Only Revolutions’ has a sense of joy and determination, from the military thump of feet that heralds in opener ‘The Captain’ before it slips into an explosion of mammoth riffage, fizzing pop vocals and euphoric horns, through the agony and ecstasy questioning of the acoustic ‘God And Satan’, the sexy, sleazy ‘Born On A Horse’, the hauntingly romantic yet roaringly, soaringly powerful ‘Many Of Horror’ to the dark and visceral nastiness of ‘Shock Shock’. And, of course, the already familiar skewed cinematic rock of the massive top 10 singles ‘Mountains’ and ‘That Golden Rule’, which fans have already clutched firmly to their collective bosom like old friends



Go out and BUY Only Revolutions... it's amazing.  It's the PERFECT writing music.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

how timon screwed up my morning.

Do you know who this is?


Of course you do, it's Timon and he's my daughter's best friend.  She talks to him, invites him over and even asked him to bake cookies with us.

He's my daughter's imaginary friend. 

Timon is also a pain in the ass. 

He's constantly coming to the front door, which makes my daughter scream, "Timon's here." This creates a chain reaction of the dog barking and the me having to leave my computer to open the front door for him. My daughter is not allowed to open the front door, it resulted in a long time out for her.  I then have to yell at the dog to be quiet while my daughter leads her invisble friend into the kitchen.

A few days ago Timon made me an hour late for the day.

Why?

Because he kept forgetting the ingredents to the pretend cookies my daughter and I were making.

Seriously.

Every time my daughter and I would sit down to make our pretend cookies, I would ask, "where the bowl?"
My daughter would say, "Timon has it."
Me: "well we can't make the cookies without a bowl."
 Then I would try to use a different pretend bowl.
Daughter:  No Mom, Timon has the bowl we need.  We have to hide from him and yell "We got you!" when he comes in.

me: um, ok.
Daughter and I hid.

She randomly jumps out and yells, "we got you." And I follow behind her.

Me: Did Timon bring the bowl?"

Daughter: yes.

Me: great let's crack the eggs.

Daughter: we can't Timon has the eggs.

Me:  Timon can we crack the eggs.

Daughter: He forgot them.

This continued for an hour.

So I was late because of Timon's inability to plan head and get the  ingredients for pretend and invisable cookies.

You know what really ticked me off, Timon didn't even EAT any of the cookies.  He was "saving it for later"

I really miss Max.  Max was my daughter's pretend boyfriend.  He was Goofy's son from Goof Troop.


The irony is when I was her age, Goofy was my imaginary friend.



Monday, July 11, 2011

Dear Blogger:

You suck.

Seriously.

Stop changing all the layouts.  Just stop it.  It's too white.  The labels and schedule calendar thingy is too hard to find and use.  You would think it would be easier BUT NO!  Who the hell starts a calendar on MONDAY?  WHO?  Crazy people that's who.

I've been debated for the last few weeks if I should quit blogging over teh summer or ever all together and your new layout isn't making the choice any easier.

You should not be allowed to change the layout of a website without warning the users.  I'm not saying posting some sort of vague message on your blog.  NO I want a man to show up at my house, offer me cookies and show me the new layout ahead of time.  And if I don't like it, I can punch him in the nads.

Yep, that's how I want to roll. 

If you can't give me a personal messenger, then at least give me the option to switching back to the old format.


Twitter gave me a heads up, and twitter's the cool kid.  Don't YOU want to be like the cool kid?

That's all for now.

-Erinn

Friday, July 08, 2011

Five for Friday- Resources

1) On Writing by Stephen King-- Part autobiography part writer's craft book. All awesome

2) Adventures in Children's Publishing- this blog does an amazing wrap up of all the great articles of the week.  Go check it out.

3) Bookshelf Muse- I recently found this and it's been SUPER helpful in revisions.

4) Writing The Breakout Novel Workbook-  I just bought it because Holly recommened it so much.

5) WRITER FRIENDS- you are the best and strongest resources I have.  Without you guys, I'd be nothing. 

Thursday, July 07, 2011

You might be a douche

Do you see this? 

We are living in one of the worst economic breakdowns.  People are out of work for up to three years.  And you choose to spend your money on a trike?  Seriously?

It's a trike.

My three year old has one. 

Say it with me, IT'S A TRIKE.

Ok stop and go to the website and if watching the video doesn't make you feel like you've hit your mid age crisis I don't know what will.  These things cost between $17,000 and $21,000.

Is it as cool as a motorcycle?  NO.  Do you know why? BECAUSE IT'S A TRIKE!!!!!!!

If you look at this and think, yep I need one in my life, then I'm going to break it to you, you're a douche.

People are not laughing with you.


Ok- so whenever I come up with blog topics I think them out ahead of time.  And as I was driving around to my friend's house, I came up with this one.  In my head, and maybe aloud, I was screaming, "what a douche!"  Then I look in my rear view mirror and I see one of these trikes, but in white, right behind me.


The dude riding it was wearing a white polo shirt.


'Nuff said.




Don't forget to enter my Brendan Halpin Contest. 

And please let me know what I can do to make this blog the very best it can be?



Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Revisions

I recently finished another revision of one of my books.  I will say that MANY people have read it, something like fifteen.  (Ok I don't know for sure but it's a lot)

I've read this book at least 30 times.

You know what I caught this time around.

1) All my minor character who I just needed a name for are named Mike

2) My character swallows... a lot.  More than an average person swallows.

3) My main character can not read facial expressions... so yeah he might be autistic... or I'm a lazy writer. 

4) Every draft I feel like it's stronger than the last and I feel like "this time, I got it."

I've said that, more times then I'm willing to count.

Why is it no one caught this?  Why didn't anyone tell me?

Also when I read it I found it to be extremely dialogue heavy.  I had a writer moment where I thought I should go back and fill in every line a dialogue with a length description. You know what not a single person has ever complained about it. EVER.

Fix the stuff you know you can fix and if no one else points it out, take a breath and let it go. 

Monday, July 04, 2011

Happy 4th of July

Today is the 4th of July, Americas spend the day sitting back, drink coffee (not tea) and watching things exploded.  We eat cow, pig and sometime corn and complain about the heat.
It's all very American.

I'll keep this blog post short.

I feel like my blog isn't being used to it's full potential .  I've tried lots of different things, peeps, reviews, critiques and I'm not sure what I can do to make it better.

So I'm asking you...
WHAT DO YOU WANT?  What would make you leave a comment?

Do you want industry stuff?  Like news on agents or agencies?

More book reviews?

Stuff on writer's craft?

Funny polls?  Like who would win in a battle Sharks or a tiger?

Do you want reviews on music or movies? (of course that would mean I would have to watch a movie from time to time)

Let me know because I want this blog to be the best it can be.




Contest ENDS  FRIDAY.

Signed Copy of Notes from the Blender,

Jenna & Jonah's Fauxmance

The Half-life of Planets

PLUS a weekend of Awesome tote bag!

WHAT?!?! Seriously? Yep three books and a bag! Click here to enter