Panels Comic Book Coffee Bar, Oceanside

Last stop of our North County Coffee Crawl...

was within walking distance from the bakery...

This place is new, as in just opened in August new...

Books read in 2012

This is not a list taken from the NY Times or Oprah's favorites or whatever. I didn't really read too many books last year and some that I read were an utter waste of my time. I hope not to repeat that mistake again this year

First let's clarify that when I say "books", I also include comic books and graphic novels.

Like these two....

Books Read in 2011

I wish I could give you an impressive long list of all the books I read last year (as in read all the words on the pages), but that would be pretty damn short. Like super short.

Instead, here's a smattering of stuff I read, stuff I'm trying to finish and books that I haven't started YET. Nothing high brow here...

Books read in 2010

Hey, since it's 2011, I've been seeing other blogger's posts about their highlights of 2010, whether it was places visited, books read, recipes learned, etc...

Here's a list of the books I've read. And by books, I mean mostly graphic novels and books with pictures! Ha ha.

Please note that my choice of books does not reflect what's on the NY Times Best Seller List or whatever the fk Oprah is reading. I don't subscribe to her cult thank you very much.

Comic Anthologies/Graphic Novels
Cool Jerk Vol 1 - Hodabeast by Paul Horn. Here is the cover in all of it's glory. But it's what inside that counts. Plus, my copy is signed (book cover shown taken from yahoo images)!

Cool Jerk Vol 2 - Chickadoowa by Paul Horn
Cool Jerk Vol 3 - Bimboozled by Paul Horn
Doc Splatter Ominous Omnibus by Paul Horn (These fkg kick ass and make great bathroom reading!)
(you may check out these fine titles by Mr. Horn at the CoolJerk Shop here!)
Chew Vol 1 - Taster's Choice by John Layman with art by Rob Guillory (Saw this rec from Darlene earlier last year. Now my husband is hooked! This is about Tony Chu, a detective who gets pyschic impressions from whatever he eats; this talent comes in handy in a gruesome way when he solves crimes)

Chew Vol 2 - International Flavor by John Layman (even better than the first one!)
Skim by Mariko Tamaki (Picked this up at Floating World in Portland in Spring 2009 but only recently read it - an interesting read about culture, loss and sexual identiy)
Lola - A Ghost Story by J. Torres (very cool since it has Filipino cultural info in here plus I liked the artwork)


Actual Books
I know I am an adult but it doesn't mean I have to read pretentious and boring adult books. I make no effort to read "intellectual" shit. Plus my other excuse is I have a 10 year old kid!  Bert and I like to read what she's reading most of the time. Some of these books were pretty good too (and funny)! Bert's already read all of the Olympian series.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Book 1 of the Olympian Series) by Rick Riordan (This was the 1st book I read in 2010 - frantically trying to finish it before watching the movie, which ended up sucking hairy goat ballz. You may also recall that TC went as one of the main characters from this book, Annabeth Chase, for Halloween last year.)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - A Novel in Cartoons (book 1) by Jeff Kinney (There's about 5 of these but I've only read the first and the 4th one. So funny! The main character's older brother is in a metal band called "Loded Diper", shades of Bill and Ted's "Wylde Stallyns"!)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Dog Days (book 4)  by Jeff Kinney (the pictures kill me!)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The White House Doctor - My Patients Were Presidents by Connie Mariano (There is a San Diego connection here - Dr. Mariano, a 2nd generation Filipina American and the daughter of a Filipino Navy steward,hails from IB and was the highest ranked Filipino in the Navy, retiring as a Rear Admiral. She served as the physician for Presidents Bush Senior and Clinton. )

Medium Raw - A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People That Cook by Anthony Bourdain (Bourdain is a god. That is all.)

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Okay, this was probably the only big mainstream book I read)
Letters to My Father - Growing Up Filipina and American by Helen Madamba Mossman (an interesting but sad memoir by a woman who grew up scorning her ethnic heritage)
Neon Angel - A Memoir of a Runaway by Cherie Currie and Tony O'Neill (the book that served as the basis for last year's biopic/film about Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, "The Runaways" by Floria Sigismondi)
Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant (I read this because it's going to be an arthouse film movie starring RPattz as a journalist and ruthless society climber in late 1880's Paris! The film also stars Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci and that old bag Kristen Scott Thomas as the women he sleeps with to rise to the top of French society. RPattz as Manwhore. Yes, that sounds very good to me. The photo below is NOT the book cover but a shot of RPattz in period clothing while shooting on location in Budapest. Only THE RPattz can manage to make high waisted trousers hot looking!)

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - (Ditto! Except it will be RPattz as veterinarian Jacob Jankowski sexing up a married circus performer, played by Reese Witherspoon, at the circus during the Depression.)

I am looking forward to this movie! RPattz in period clothing = combustible panties.

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris - (The latest book in the books that the HBO Series "True Blood" is based. I like my trashy Southern Gothic vampire books! Sookie!)

Kinda like books but not:
Joan Jett by Todd Oldham (mostly pictures and a few essays, so not really "heavy reading")
Creative Cursing - A Mix 'n Match Profanity Generator by Sarah Royal and Jilian Panarese (It's a side by side flip book where you can create your own curse words. Example: Granny Fondler, Asshole Tease, Prick Waffle, etc....the variations are endless! Makes a great gift too! I speak from experience. I only give the very best gifts.)

Filipinos in San Diego by Judy Patacsil, Felix Tuyay and Rudy Guevarra (mostly photos with one main essay)
Filipinos in Carson and the South Bay by Florante Ibanez and Rose Ibanez (same thing - pictorial essay book)
500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late and the Very Best Places to Eat Them by Jane and Michael Stern
(I've used this book several times during our travels - Chocolate Espresso Twinkie in Berkely, the wierd "Fish House", and for Bert, searching for Chili at Big State Drug in Irving, TX)

Books I Still Need to Read or Want to Read and Finish:
Kill Your Friends: A Novel (P.S.) by John Niven (This is a title that will guarantee that NO ONE will bother you while sitting in the doctor's office or airport terminal.)
Hetalia Axis Powers Vol. 1 by Hidekazu Himaruya (Another rec from Darlene that I am slogging through. Being new to "manga" style reading, I'm still confused about the order in which to read the panels. I feel like such a 'tard!)
The Time Travelers - Book 1 of the Gideon Trilogy by Linda Buckley-Archer (Bought these awhile back and have yet to start them)
The Time Thief - Book 2 of the Gideon Trilogy by Linda Buckley-Archer
The Time Quake - Book 3 of the Gideon Trilogy by Linda Buckley-Archer
Cruddy by Lynda Barry (Filipina American comic artist, "Ernie Pook's Comeek" and contemporary of the Simpsons' Matt Groening)
Cosmopolis by Don De Lillo (I am waiting for this to arrive actually. This is being made into a movie....Colin Farrell dropped out of the role and it was picked up by....yes, RPattz. Ha ha, getting Colin Farrell's sloppy seconds, eh.  Set during the dot com bust of 2000, he will play a billionaire financial whiz who will undergo a series of fantastically wierd events all in the course of a day. It is considered a modern day retelling of James Joyce's "Ulysses", which of course I have never read so I have no idea what that means but James Joyce is some sort of intellectual benchmark that I don't get.)

Things that amuse me

[I'm actually posting this on Monday, July 21st]
Since I've been living a hermetic existence for the past week or so (until my immune sysem recovers), I've had the pleasure of internet surfing many different blogs, reading books/graphic novels here and there and watching music videos I haven't seen in a long time.

There's a funny new blog - Cake Wrecks - you should see it. It's a site devoted to cakes that people actually paid for, but the cakes are either unintentionally humorous, mispelled, look awful, etc. For example, there is a cake intended for a baby shower and it's a baby in a bassinet. Very creepy. But funny. In a bad way. Shudder.

Current book reading -The Sandman Companion by Hy Bender. Thanks Superman. Now I can fully understand all of the references Neil Gaiman stuck in the Sandman compilations that I breezed through in the early 90's. It's an excellent book by the way. The author interviews Gaiman and goes through each story line blow by blow, reference by reference (and there are MANY!)

I also have a stockpile of DVD's to watch plus some burned Korean and Japanese movies/soap operas given to me by N's husband L when they visited last month. I am also excited because the first season of Spaced (a British sitcom that starred the magnificent Simon Pegg, star of such films as "Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz"and the more recent,"Run Fat Boy Run", the latter which I haven't watched but plan to once it comes out on DVD. L told me it sort of sucked because it was directed by David Schwimmer - ugh, yes, Ross from "Friends", but I still want to watch it because I really like Simon Pegg, as an actor, not as a hot piece of meat okay) is coming out on DVD. It was already out before, but only for Region 2, since it was a British import. We don't have one of the all region DVD players, although I'm told that they're rather cheap now. America plays Region 1 DVD's only. By the way, that was a long ass parenthetical statement.

I also broke out with my DVD compilations of videos, such as Queen - Greatest Video Hits Volume 1 as well as Volume 2. Volume 1 is better actually since it's earlier Queen. The only video we can't let TC watch is "Bicycle Race" because it has nekkid women riding bikes in it. Yowzah! We also watched my Journey Greatest Hits 1978- 1997
DVD last night. Check out Steve Perry in the "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' video" (see below)

Can you say Sprayed on Pants? And Oh My Gosh! Love Steve Perry's hair!!!! I am serious about that! His hair should be shellacked and mounted on a dummy head and displayed on a pedestal as a stellar example of how 70's rocker dude hair should be. Pre-Mullet days too. Neal Schon also rocked a cool whiteman's Afro in this video. Journey was one of the bands I would never admit to liking back in the late 70's and early 80's. But now, after several decades, I admit they wrote some pretty good stuff. Well, at least up the the mid-80's when they started to suck. TC's favorite video is "Separate Ways" because it's so cheesy. Beavis and Butthead also made fun of that video.

Another video compilation that I've been watching on an off is Duran Duran - Greatest - the DVD . The only thing I don't like is that it's hard to navigate through the menu to get to the extras. I also have to be careful with this video because I cannot let TC watch certain ones, like "Girls on Film (uncensored)" and "The Chauffeur ". "Girls on Film" (directed by Godley and Creme, of 10cc fame) had nekkid women in bikinis slide on on whipped creamed poles in a boxing ring. They also wrestle each other in whipped cream and you could see their boobs. I know some guys are thinking, "Hey, what's wrong with that?" Ha ha. There are a whole lot of fetishes going on in that video and I don't think my kid should see this. There's also the notorious video for "The Chauffeur", which has a woman dancing around without her top. For you trivia hounds, that skinny blond chick is Perry Lister, better known as Billy Idol's girlfriend in the 80's.

There is also an audio book that Ronin let me borrow called "Lies My Teacher Told Me" which I've been enjoying. The author totally goes into the miseducation, basically of American youth. Kind of like Howard Zinn's, "A People's History of the United States " in which events in American History are ignored, distorted, marginalized, excised and whitewashed so that America can feel good about what they did when they colonized countries like the Philippines, enslaved blacks from Africa and so on. I haven't finished listening to "Lies..." yet, but there were some interesting tidbits of information in there. Wish I could remember them right now, though!

I'm still laying low for the time being. It's like being under self-imposed house arrest. I'm hanging in there. I was bummed last week because I wasn't able to accompany TC on her first day of school. She is now in 3rd grade! I'll have to meet the teacher once my immune system recovers. TC really likes her class and of course, her teacher.

My hair is kind of growing back. But the hairs are very baby fine (if that's a word). It will be awhile before it looks like how I had it back in May. Perhaps it'll take a year or more. I'm not sure. But either way, I am glad to just be here. Period.

Movie Contest

Due to my Cliff Clavenesque skills in the pompous spewing of all things trivial and pop culture , I have won a movie contest from my friend's blog. Cool and nifty! Thanks C!

The funny thing is, I've never seen any of these movies in its entirety. I just have a propensity to memorize movie titles, years/dates, actors/actresses, etc. The genre of the movies are also not my cup of tea. I'm not into weepy, tear jerkers or chick flicks.

Other than this pleasant surprise as well as turning another year older last week, my life has been filled with a lot of surprises lately as well. Some pleasant and some not so pleasant.

For other news, courtesy of Superman, I am currently reading Starman, a recent incarnation of a Golden Age comic hero. I read the first graphic novel compilation, Sins of the Father (Issues 0-5) in a little over an hour. I am currently on the second book, Night and Day and will finish that shortly after signing off this blog post. So far, I like the story line. The art work is okay. I have a lot of reading to catch up to, such as the Palomar - The Hearbreak Soup Stories compilation by Los Bros Hernandez of Love and Rockets fame (Fantagraphics Books), the series Concrete and Neil Gaiman's The Sandman - Endless Nights compilation.

More on the Sandman here.

Newest favorite movies:

Shaun of the Dead (funny as hell!)

Hot Fuzz (even better than Shaun of the Dead)

The History Boys (which has a great soundtrack by the way!)

Would like to see:

Run Fat Boy Run and

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Gotta go and finish reading the 2nd book of Starman!