Night Mare

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Mike McDonald

nightmare Night Mare

I’m having a nightmare, or really, I’m about to start reading Night Mare, the 6th installment in the Xanth series by Piers Anthony.

This next book begins with a character that was in the previous book, Ogre, Ogre.  Mare Imbrium along with 2 other night mares rode the trio out of the Void and took her payment of a half soul.  Here is the synopsis from the back of the book.

“The Nextwave of barbarian warriors was invading Xanth from the north, ravaging and destroying as they advanced. But Mare Imbrium had her own problems. Ever since she had gained the half soul, the night mare had begun to mishandle her job of delivering bad dreams. Now the Night Stallion dismissed her, exiling her to the day world with a message for King Trent: “Beware the Horseman!” She had no idea of what that meant. But that was the way with prophetic warnings, nobody could understand them until it was too late. Then she met the Horseman. And she discovered that one who would ride a night mare was a master of bit and spur, and not a man to surrender her. For the night mare, it began to be all a horrible nightmare!”

When I read the previous Xanth books, I read them little by little over time, some days I only read 1 chapter per day and other days I skipped reading.  I was into the books but not that much apparently because they made me sleepy.  But when I read Ogre, Ogre I was able to commit myself to reading more than 1 chapter per day.  In fact, I read the first chapter maybe in February then gave up until recently when I read the entire book in 3 days.

If I can read the entire book in 3 days then I have a feeling that maybe I can read half of the next book today and the other half tomorrow.

I only have 4 more Xanth novels in my queue, although there are 32 available for sale, I don’t own any of them so they are not all in my book queue.  I do plan on buying more but for now I have other books to read.

If you have not read the Xanth novels you are missing out on some great adventures.

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Repair Pal

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Mike McDonald

If you are like me you are not very smart when it comes to vehicles. I wouldn’t know where the best place to go is when I need a repair done on my car but there is this website called RepairPal.com. What you do is you go to that link and you select your car make and click get estimate. You have to tell them the make, model, year, miles, service type and zip code and they will actually give you an estimate of what it might cost and they will show you a map of all the repair places near you that you can take it to. There will also be a suggestion of an auto repair place above the map.

You also have the choice of just finding a repair shop in a certain area. Take Los Angeles Auto Repair for example.  They have a huge list of all the car repair places in Los Angeles as well as cities around like Inglewood, Culver City and Bellflower to name a few.  They list the repair shops name, phone number, address, comments and even star ratings so you can see if it’s worth your time and money to take it there.

A similar thing for looking at your car model.  Take the 2001 Ford Explorer for example.  You see a picture of that car with all these owner reviews with stars.  Below that are 49 other reviews from Ford Explorer owners.  Of course each person has a different year that they are reviewing but it should give you an idea of what that person is going through with their car.

They even have an encyclopedia of all the things you might want to know about a particular car part.  If you look up head gasket replacement you can see what that is and what it does for your car.  They tell you how to remove the head gasket so you can do it yourself.  If you are like me you don’t even want to think about doing it yourself lol.

This website is very informative and I highly recommend it.

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Does Reading Cause Body Odor?

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Mike McDonald

This morning I woke up, had breakfast, got in the shower then went about my day.  I got on the computer, read email, did some work then had some free time to read the rest of my book “Ogre, Ogre”.  That was the bulk of my activity.

When I went to watch some TV, I noticed some odd odor.  I smelled my armpit and it was awful.  I wouldn’t normally talk about my body odor but in this case it was unusual and unexpected and I didn’t know why it was happening so I did some research on why.

Apparently body odor is not caused by sweat alone.  Everyone has these bacteria that live in certain body parts like the scalp, feet, groin and underarms.  According to this site “The odor is mainly caused when the bacteria, growing on skin decomposes the sweat.”  Well, I didn’t sweat and as I stated I had just taken a shower and used Degree deodorant which normally blocks any and all odors.

Here is a quote:

“While the eccrine glands are found all over the body, the apocrine glands are found in high concentration in the underarms and groins as well as in the glands. These apocrine glands are mainly stimulated by the worries, fear and tension. It is the secretion from apocrine gland which is generally decomposed by the bacteria and consequently it results in unpleasant body odor. There are several anaerobic bacteria like micrococci and corynebacteria that decompose the odorless sweat to produce an unpleasant odor.”

You know that the saying “you learn something new every day” still rings true.  I did not know that “worries, fear and tension” would ever be the reason I have underarm odor.  I always thought that came from sweating.

But what was causing me to worry?  The only thing I can think of is that this book was causing me to have more emotions than normal.  Meaning I was so enthralled in the book that it was causing worries, fear and tension.  I was fearful when Smash the Ogre was fighting the other ogres and when he was fighting the demon and that was also causing some tension.  I don’t necessarily think I had fear because I know that every book ends happily ever after so I knew they would be fine.

You know now that I think about it, when I was reading all 7 Harry Potter books, at the end of the day I wreaked to high heaven and had to take showers when I finished reading.  I never even thought about why.  Now I know.

Maybe if I continue reading I’m going to have to buy some more Degree in bulk.  Maybe they might come out with a Degree for readers instead of just Degree for Sports.

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Goodbye Bicycle

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Mike McDonald

Well so much for exercise.  I went to the grocery store and as soon as I got on the bike to come home something felt a little strange with the chain.  I rode in front of the store from where I locked my bike at and tried to fiddle with the pedals to find out why the chain was giving me trouble but I couldn’t figure it out.

So I was fine to ride to the street I turn right on but then it started acting a little strange, the wheel didn’t feel right, it was wobbling.  I got off the bike in the middle of the street and had to walk it over to the sidewalk.  At first I thought the townie basket was coming off and was pushing against the wheel so I took the heavy groceries out.  That wasn’t it.

I still didn’t see it because the sun was almost finished going down so it was too dark to see, but then I saw it.  The bolt that goes all the way through the wheel was sticking out too far on the left.  The 2 nuts on the ride side were gone, I don’t even know what happened to those.  So since there was no long bolt to hold on to the frame on the right side the wheel couldn’t keep me balanced since it was only holding on the left side.

I had to walk the rest of the way home carrying 1 heavy grocery bag on my left hand and 1 light but still annoying grocery bag on my right hand while both hands held onto the handlebars.  The entire time I was walking the back wheel was rubbing against the brakes and making this awful noise which I can’t explain how it sounded.  Well, it sounded like some deep voiced animal either dying or giving birth.

I have 2 missing bolts and no idea where they are and no money until next week to be able to do anything about it.  It’s not going to be expensive, well, I don’t think it will be.  I mean it’s just a matter of screwing the bolt centered again and buying 2 nuts right?  Maybe?  I’m sure the nuts aren’t too expensive at Home Depot or maybe the bike store has them cheap.  Or who knows, maybe I have to bring the back wheel to the bike store and have them fix it and charge me $20 for it.

I wonder how this happened.  Last weekend when I rode the bike on my 22 mile trip I tightened everything.  In fact I did a full maintenance job on the entire bicycle to get it ready to ride with no issues.  How in the heck could that bolt screw itself all the way to the left?  It doesn’t make any sense at all.

Whatever, it doesn’t matter.  I’ll get it fixed and everything with be fine… blah blah blah.

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No Zombie Book For Me

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Mike McDonald

living dead novel 300x300 No Zombie Book For Me

On June 30th I got an email from GetGlue saying I won a book for being the guru of the book Zombies for Zombies.  Well the book that I won “The Living Dead” by George Romero is apparently not really happening.

I haven’t really been that focused on getting it on a certain day or week because I know when you win things it could take a month or longer.  But since it has been over 3 weeks I thought maybe it might come soon.  I waited for the mail like a little pup but once again, no book.

I decided to go onto Amazon and get more information about the book, maybe read some reviews.  What I see is confusing because it says that this book is available for pre-order and that it has not been released yet. Hmmm, ok well I go down and see in the product details that it was released on July 1st 2010.  Well that’s odd.  So I scroll all the way down for the discussion section for this book and find out that in the post at the very top that this book is not even real.  It was actually someone who responded to the post titled “Exciting!“.

Someone on July 13th said there was an interview on YouTube of him saying it’s not real and another person on the 24th said they would like the link to that.  I searched and found it.  I had to watch the first part of the interview then watch the second part of the interview to see and it was the very last question all the way at the end of the interview.

The question was asked at 6:09 and he responded at 6:25 that you can’t listen to what you read on IMDB, he responds about amazon at 6:51 saying you can’t believe any of the “shit” you read on amazon.

Seriously?  I really don’t believe this.  The Q&A session he did in this video was posted on YouTube on May 12 2010 by a woman who clearly sounded annoyed by the video game and novel questions and she clearly had her nose so far up George Romero’s ass, it was any wonder you could hear her chuckling at the questions being asked.

Anyway, I am a bit disappointed that the one thing I did win from GetGlue might never arrive, it was fun to think that it would though.  I guess I can stop waiting for it to come in the mail now.

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Moving Boxes

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Mike McDonald

U Pack Moving is a website that helps make moving much easier.  They sell single moving boxes and moving bundles.  You could buy 1 small box for $1.95 or you could buy a bundle of 25 and save $10.

As a person who moved for a living I know how expensive boxes can get every time you moved, especially if you moved around a lot.  So it’s nice to see a company offering boxes so cheap.  They sell small, medium and large U-Pack boxes, Wardrobe boxes, Dish pack boxes and storage file boxes all at low prices.

They are in Arkansas but they have a shipping map which shows a map of the United States and all areas are color coded to let you know how long it would take to reach you.  I saw that it would take 3 days to reach me on the map but I typed in my zip code anyway and it confirmed that it would take 3 days.

They don’t just offer boxes though, they also sell bubble wrap, furniture pads, rope etc.  All the things that you need for moving they sell.  They will also move you.  You can get a free moving quote.  You just gotta pack it all yourself then they come and get you and your boxes and bring you to your new home.

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My Day in Xanth

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Mike McDonald

xanth ogre My Day in Xanth

I spent the day with an ogre and his 7 female companions.

That sounded silly but it’s true.  I sat in my desk chair the entire day reading Ogre, Ogre by Piers Anthony which is the 5th book in the Xanth series.

Earlier this year I committed to starting this book but only read 1 chapter and stopped.  A couple of days ago I finally picked it back up and started reading it again.  I only read 2 chapters then yesterday 3 chapters but today I really got into it and read 5 chapters.  The only reason I stopped reading it was because I had shows on tonight.

What I have left to read of the rest of the book is actually the same amount that I read today.  Actually it’s only 4 chapters but the amount of pages is the same.  I am so tempted to read another chapter tonight but I want to save the rest for tomorrow.

I love the Xanth books because they draw me into the adventure and I don’t want to leave.  I can picture everything that is happening as I’m reading and I can imagine what it would look like if it were a CGI movie.  Although it would be a very long movie but it would be well worth the watch if it were made.

In this story, the Ogre named Smash goes on a trip with a Nymph and despite the fact that being an ogre he eats women (although he grew up vegetarian as his father Crunch was), he has made a promise to safely guide her through the very dangerous land of Xanth to help her find what she is looking for.  Along they way he helps 6 other women.

Yesterday as I was reading he was collecting the women and today chapter by chapter most of the women found their mates and the end of their adventures. The point that I’m at he still has 3 more women although I have a feeling one of those women has found her mate and the end of her adventure since she has found the male of her species.

Tomorrow when I finish this book I can finally check another book off my queue then add “Night Mare” which is the 6th Xanth novel.

Reading isn’t as exciting to everyone and who blogs about reading a book but I find it an accomplishment since I have Dyslexia, LD and ADD.  I also find that reading helps me with my writing.  It broadens my vocabulary and helps teach me good grammar, if that makes any sense.

You can see my aNobii profile which shows the books I have read and have yet to read but I will get to eventually.  I want to finish all the physical books before I get to the eBooks then I have a reason to buy a Nook.

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