The Tales of Missus P.

Ode to my Xbox

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

I know I should write something about writing for Blogathon 2012 since it is for writers. I have to keep myself on task when I work throughout the day. A lot of people say that the internet and especially Twitter will keep them from getting back to work. They’re great things, yes, but I have my phone so I can play with that pretty much anytime. What gets me side-tracked is the silly Xbox 360.

I’ve loved playing games when I was a kid with my Nintendo. I never had older siblings to show me how to play any of these games and my friends certainly weren’t interested. (Some of the girls I was friends with as adults even thought playing video games was stupid – can you imagine?) So now that I’ve traded in the little Playstation 2 that I bought myself when I first started teaching full-time (those kids and their tales of fun inspired me to do it), for the glorious set up of PS3, Wii and Xbox that we have now.

I was always a fan of GTA (I’ve even seen Rockstar North with my own eyes!) and The Sims when left to my own devices so those were the games I went to first. But I finally tried the first-person game (odd – I like first person POV for books but originally only liked 3rd person POV for video games) and now I’m hooked on Skyrim. Well, I was until I made myself stop playing the stupid thing each day. Even in the evening I stopped bothering and opted for reading just so I wouldn’t get caught up in wanting to play for hours on end during any available time I had. It’s helped a lot and even made me lose interest which is an extremely good thing.

I love video games but my playing them isn’t really contributing to the world in a positive way (well, when I help someone play it I am.) So less Xbox, more typing and reading. That’s my writing advice for today. It works for me.

Posted in All About Me, Books, Gaming, Review, Technology, Writing | Tagged advice, Bethesda, Blogathon, blogging, devices, EA Games, Elder Scrolls, friends, Grand Theft Auto, GTA, kids, Nintendo, North, person, Playstation, reading, Rockstar, Rockstar North, Sims, Skyrim, tales, The Sims, twitter, writing, Xbox, Xbox 360 | 2 Comments

Books I like to read

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

As much as I love my Kindle Fire, I’ve been getting more and more books from the library lately. This, of course, is a good thing because not only do I save money, help circulation numbers for my local library system but I discover books that I’ve heard of but wouldn’t necessarily seek out. So after returning some classic books that I’ve been trying to read for my book reviews, I thought about the kinds of books I generally read.

Personally, I love the real life stories but I also like those that also have a touch of the supernatural. I only like books written in first person point of view too. It’s just my own taste that some may not understand but I feel disconnected from a situation if someone involved isn’t giving me the details.

Books like The Secret Circle that I reviewed recently aren’t as interesting as it would have been with Cassie telling me the story. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a cute book that I still have to finish. The overly-fantastical world and the third person point of view makes me feel like a stranger rather than a participating figure in the story.

I have been trying to break out of my reading norm and reading books that aren’t my usual choice. This is why I have Harry Potter on my list as well as Clockwork Angel and Fallen. I admit, however, the books in my to-read stack now are all first person: A Moveable Feast, The Truth About Forever, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Switched.

Technorati Tags: L. J. Smith,J. K. Rowling,Cassandra Clare,Lauren Kate,Ernest Hemingway,Sarah Dessen,Harper Lee,Amanda Hocking,Kindle,Fire,library,circulation,numbers,system,life,person,situation,Secret,Circle,Cassie,Harry,Potter,Philosopher,world,stranger,Clockwork,Angel,Moveable,Feast,Truth,About,Kill,Mockingbird

Posted in All About Me, Books, Library, Review, School, Writing | Tagged about, Amanda Hocking, Angel, Cassandra Clare, Cassie, Circle, circulation, Clockwork, Ernest Hemingway, Feast, Fire, Harper Lee, Harry, J. K. Rowling, Kill, Kindle, L. J. Smith, Lauren Kate, library, life, Mockingbird, Moveable, numbers, person, Philosopher, Potter, Sarah Dessen, Secret, situation, stranger, system, Truth, world | 5 Comments

Painting in May

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

Well, it’s May 1st and the A-Z list of movies is done. The sun’s come back this month and it’s time to get back to the norm. Blogathon 2012 has started as well but I will try not to post too many links to my Facebook timeline (a lot of people probably aren’t fussed with links.)

We have been planning some renovating on the flat. When Steve bought the place, it was left with some questionable wall coloration. There’s yellow wood chip wallpaper in the computer room, red paint in the bedroom (the kind that reminds me of Big’s room in Sex and the City — “It’s like sleeping in Communist China.”) and the bland, off-white walls in the living room. Steve had fixed up the kitchen before I moved in and we painted over the salmon colour hallway with a tasteful mocha. Now we have to tackle the rest of the rooms.

After deliberating with catalogues, online sources and shelves of wallpaper in the store that we spent 45 minutes looking over, we decided that it was too much of a pain. All the accessories and messing about with wallpaper hanging, cutting, aligning, rolling, brushing… Paint will be much easier. We still have to get the shelves and the wood chip paint down. The computer room is going to be a study for the great minds of the Pick family!

For some reason I choose green whenever I get into home decorating. I had a green couch in my old apartment and now we have green paint for the bedroom. I guess the natural, earthiness of it will be a fresh welcome to the rusty red colour that’s been there for years. For the living room, a teal or blue. For the study? No idea. Maybe a nice purple (I doubt Steve will be able to work in a room covered in a cotton candy pink hue.)

I’ll make sure to document some before and after photos of our transformed flat. We heard the music students upstairs move out so the place is nice and quiet for the time being. Less going on at Mary Kay’s too so all of these changes make it feel even more homey.

Technorati Tags: house,flat,decorating,home,life,Sex and the City,coloration,wood,computer,room,paint,China,walls,hallway,rooms,accessories,apartment,cotton,music,photos,students,wallpaper,bedroom

Posted in All About Me, Writing | Tagged accessories, apartment, bedroom, China, coloration, computer, cotton, decorating, flat, hallway, home, house, life, music, paint, photos, room, rooms, Sex and the City, students, wallpaper, walls, wood | Leave a comment

Z is for Zoolander

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

Zoolander: Unlike some of my other choices, the only Z I could think of was actually one I would have picked anyway, had there been a bunch of other Zs. This is one of my favourite comedies because Ben Stiller does such a fine job of making fun of the ridiculous fashion and model industry. Plus, he and Owen Wilson as perfect male fashion models is as funny as Will Ferrell being a fashion designer who wants to eliminate the Prime Minister of Malaysia. (How does he get Derek Zoolander to do such a task? By brainwashing him to the tune of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax,” of course!) So, yes, it’s ridiculous and Derek is so stupid and funny that you can’t help but love the idiotic things he says. Besides, wouldn’t you at least want to see a “walk-off” judged by David Bowie? And “The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too” is just hilarious, especially the part with the little model of the school that confuses Derek. “What is this a school for ants?” I even remember referencing this movie when I first started working at the library and seeing how tough it was just on my hands to put all the DVDs back in order. It reminded me of Derek saying he’d gotten The Black Lung like his family of coal miners and his dad said, “Derek, you’ve been down there one day. Talk to me in thirty years.” See, the message is universal!

From this post I also learned two things about the film: First, Brett Easton Ellis claimed this was stolen from his book Glamorama, which I only read the very beginning, otherwise I would have caught that too. and secondly, there’s going to be a Zoolander 2! Hooray!

So watch it, it’s funny.

Derek Zoolander: Well I guess it all started the first time I went through the second grade. I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking “wow, you’re ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career.”
Matilda: Do what for a career?
Derek Zoolander: Be professionally good looking.

Yay! I made it to the end of Culture Month. Hope you enjoyed the tour as much as I did. Thanks for reading my A-Z April Blog Challenge of movie reviews. I appreciate all the comments and new followers. I’m following back so I can keep up with everyone who’s been painstakingly working on their lists for next year as well, I’m sure.

Technorati Tags: Ben Stiller,Owen Wilson,Will Ferrell,David Bowie,Christine Taylor,Milla Jovovich,David Duchovny,Jon Voight,90s,Frankie Goes to Hollywood,Brett Easton Ellis,blogging,blog,writing,atozchallenge,a-z

Posted in All About Me, Books, Library, Movies, Music, Review, Television, Writing | Tagged 90s, a-z, atozchallenge, Ben Stiller, blog, blogging, Brett Easton Ellis, Christine Taylor, David Bowie, David Duchovny, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Jon Voight, Milla Jovovich, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, writing | 1 Comment

Y is for Young Guns

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

Young Guns: was first a movie before it was a band. Now, I remember these movies fondly as a kid because it starred every hip, male actor (Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Christian Slater was in the sequel as well). Emilio Estevez played a pretty funny, charming Billy the Kid. This is why I think a young audience maybe could appreciate this because they would know Sutherland and Sheen, plus the movie isn’t played a lot anymore on cable and, more than likely, the historical reference to William H. Bonny got lost somewhere between 1990 and now. The thing I remember the most about the second movie was the Bon Jovi song which was so “cool” back then. (Jon Bon Jovi as an actor now is fine, but the music, sorry, no. Time to move on.) I always liked western movies to a degree because I’m from the hills of Ohio so it’s pretty much a prerequisite for us there. I just found out that John Locke was in this too – crazy!

Alex McSween: I’m not leaving my house.
William H. Bonney: Alex, if you stay they’re gonna kill you. And then I’m gonna have to to go around and kill all the guys who killed you. That’s a lot of killing.