Get Your Geek On!

Today is Geek Pride Day, so naturally, I'm getting my geek on! Geek is defined as either an unfashionable or socially inept person (yawn), or a person with an eccentric devotion to a particular interest (a.k.a. me). Only problem is, there are so many types of geeky interests! 
There are Superhero geeks, Trekkies, Star Wars geeks, Harry Potter geeks, Whovians and more! How can a girl decide which geek side to get on when she loves more than one!

Today, I choose to honor my inner reader geek. I love reading. Give me a book for a present and I'll love it. But this wasn't always the case. I used to hate reading, and I mean HATE reading. I dreaded everything about it. I was never in a high English class, I was a slow reader (still am), and I dreaded reading out loud (still do actually). 

Until this one person came along who has given me the gift of loving to read. That person is my 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Vlasis. 

I remember that one time early in the school year, she assigned us to read a book of our choosing and write something up or do something assignment like that. We went on a 'field trip' to the school's library. I wandered about aimlessly, not liking anything, as everything was a book. Then I found the Stephen King section and something about one of his books called to me. I'm not sure if I just liked the name of the book, the color choices or what, but I ended up checking that book out. For the first time ever, I couldn't put the book down! Something that was a new concept to me. I loved reading that book and now love reading lots of books.

Thank you Mrs. Vlasis for showing me how great a gift reading is. Today, I get my geek on for you. 

Live Long and 42 On!

Books

It is probably no surprise to any of you (especially when you notice the background I have picked out) that I like books. Actually, that's a lie. I LOVE books. It wasn't always this way though. When I was in elementary school and even middle school I hated to read. I had a speech problem and reading in class was a pain. In high school one of our assignments was a book report on any book in the library. I like horror and mystery so I thought I'd give Stephen King a try as I heard he wrote some dark stuff. The book was The Eyes of the Dragon. 

It was brilliant. I couldn't put it down. It was the first book that I actually enjoyed reading. I started reading other works by him, such as Cell, Christine, Under the Dome and (my personal favorite so far) IT. While I love how he develops his characters and their interactions between them and throws them into the action then explains it, I knew that he will only write a limited number of books. So last year I started branching out. I've read The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and some various short stories by the one and only H.P. Lovecraft. I now have over 70 books (still need to read quite a few actually) but I can't wait to get to them all. To step inside the world. To meet the characters, some of which will become my friends and a little piece of me. 
With all of these books on my shelf waiting to be read, you would think that I would not go out to buy more books. Well that is where you are wrong. Yesterday I went to a store called Half Price Books where you can buy a book for roughly half of what it would be new. I told my boyfriend (Mason) that I was going and that I was going to limit myself to 6 books (I tend to get carried away at times ~ I'm the one typically sitting on the floor in the middle of an isle with a stack of books by my side as I forgot to get a basket reading random pages from the book currently in my hand). Well 6 books was too many for him so he made me a deal. If I only bought 4 books, then next time we were together he would buy me one.
At the store, I instantly went to the horror section and found Stephen King's On Writing which I grabbed off the shelf as I was looking for that one for a while. Then I found his Danse Macabre. I read the back cover and it sounded like a good gross-out book. That made two so far. Now going back to the above, I am trying to branch out on who I read, so I found Glen Duncan's Death of an Ordinary Man (the author of I, Lucifer which I am currently reading and is hilarious) and Pete Hamill's Forever.

So I stuck to my promise and only bought those 4 books (for $20 ~ AWESOME!) then made plans to go over to Mason's house last night where I met his parents and sister. After slight awkward hellos, and nice to meet yous, we escaped and took a walk to a Half Price Books about 2 miles from his house (that would be very dangerous for me because I would visit weekly). We made our way to the horror section and was looking at books when one called to me, The Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson which is now all mine (Thanks Mason!). 

Long story short, I love books and love this new deal. 

The Smart Ass

Two weeks or so ago I posted my opinion on smart asses and how a  thesaurus is never a good idea, I remain true to my earlier opinion, here's why. Today Mike (the other CJSA Officer) and myself had two of the interviews, having had one yesterday. I get there about 20 minutes before the scheduled interview time just in case the guy is really early and it was a good thing I actually got up on time because Mike still hadn't shown at 9 when the interview was so I proceeded to do it by myself. The guy (smart ass) showed up a few minutes early which is always a good thing and we made that awkward small talk and he seemed like a decent guy. He didn't use any 'big' words and still seemed smart. I asked him the questions and that got us talking like any good interview well. It just goes to show that "Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule." (Stephen King)
If we based the job solely on his application, we would not have picked him, but since he was a 'normal' human during the interview, he got the spot.

Books vs. Movies

You ever find yourself reading a book that you've already seen the movie of and thinking to yourself 'This would have been so much better if they added this instead of cutting it out. Now I understand the character/scene better.' Well that is normally what happens to me. 
One night, hanging out with friends, we decided to watch Stephen King's IT. Before I got to finish the movie, it was time for me to go home (i.e. parents were at the door as I was too young to drive) and never finished the movie. I read IT and with the first page I was hocked. It was so descriptive and gruesome that I couldn't put the book down and just kept reading (remember this isn't a short story, it is over 1,000 pages). While I was reading IT, I remembered back to the movie night with friends and Tim Curry giving us his creep smile as the clown who liked to float, everything floats. After reading the book (which managed to spoke me) I watched the whole movie and thought it was crap. The acting was good and the cast just the same, but the story line was nothing compared to the book. The book spooked me for a week or so and I was expecting the movie to have me just as 'scared' for at least a week. By the end of the movie, I was disappointed. I love Stephen King books because of his 'what if' attitude regarding the supernatural. 
Currently I am reading Stephen King's Secret Window, Secret Garden. I have seen the movie and thought it was brilliant with the writer going crazy, coming up with this mysterious person and doing terrible things while he thought he was asleep (including killing his own cat, burning down his ex-wife's house and eventually murdering his wife) and in the end we find out that it was the writer all along (kind of like Fight Club, but instead of fighting, they are writing). I have just come to the part where we (the audience as well as the main character (Mort)) find the cat with a screwdriver nailing it to the garbage lid. My only hope for this book is that it is as brilliantly written as it was portrayed in the movie. 
As a final thought, I do normally try to read the books before seeing the movies as I find my imagination is a lot more twisted and dark than what is normally portrayed on film.