Obligatory Dog Photos

Well, not exactly obligatory. But I can't seem to make up my mind about what I want to post today. Besides I'll be returning the modem soon so maybe I'd just type a draft on the books I plan to write about and hopefully by next week my ISP will run properly. Keeping my fingers crossed, that is.

You guys already met my dog in my previous posts, right? Here she is again showing her fine form:



If you look closely though you'd notice she doesn't have most of her front teeth. Hahaha! And it's not like there are false teeth for dogs and all. But she can still give anyone a mean bite. She's the alpha dog so territory is everything to her. She's also at least ten years old, that's a good seventy in dog years already.

And here's another shot with the lab:



What is it with dog breath?

Whew, the first month of the year is almost over! Oh well, have a nice weekend to all of you book bloggers out there!

Not Quite Back

I haven't posted in thirty-two days. Not exactly a record judging by my archives. Still, considering that I somehow wrote more entries last year than the two previous years before last combined, the absence can be daunting. On my end I know that I have a lot of posts to catch up on - both on my finished piles as well as the now hundreds of posts from book blogging friends I missed reading the past month. To think I'm not entirely back. Really? Yes, really.

But first, where have I been? Not online, obviously. I spent some time home for the holidays and ended up extending my stay to oversee the repairs being done in the house. That's the simple part actually. The difficult part is managing my way past boxes of packed stuff to reach my room and then making do with the handful of stuff saved for everyday use. Add to that the constant noise - hammering, sawing, welding - name it, the sounds of a contractor's heaven! The more difficult part was when everything was done as the packed boxes now had to be unpacked, the floor swept and polished to perfection and hopefully restore the house to its former housey self. Hahaha.

I'm boring you now.

So I got back to find out that my ISP somehow decided to upgrade its system. Ergo, I haven't been able to log back as soon as I reached the metro. Four days and counting. Yesterday I called the service number only to be greeted by a message apologizing for the inconvenience. When I finally got hold of a customer service representative no time frame was given for the resumption of internet service. Sigh. So much for finally having unlimited broadband.

I'm still boring you.

Now I'm using my bro's mobile 3G modem. He wants it back by tomorrow. Hence this post. This is more like Granny Weatherwax leaving a card on top of her body with the words I ATEN'T DEAD.

I ain't. Hopefully I'll post as soon as the internet service normalize. For now let's hope that I can borrow the modem every so often.

For the time being I hope you guys had a wonderful start to the new year, whether Gregorian or Chinese. According to the Chinese calendar this year is the year of the Earth Ox. I was born in the year of the Ox (Water Ox to those following the calendar religiously). Just a bit of a trivia there.

And one of the perks of having to unpack boxes of old, old stuff wrapped in plastic after the termite infestation is having to come to terms with my younger self who couldn't spell "Mommy" and "Daddy" properly:



Whew. That was also a time when I was really a good girl and used to send my parents cards for every occasion, some even handmade no matter how crudely drawn or lettered.

I hope I'm not boring you.

I have two books I haven't posted about last year - King Rat by China Mieville and The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint. Three if you consider the ninth Fables installment but again, I've yet to find the eighth volume (and not that I had time to search lately).

And these are the stuff I finished reading so far:

1. Midnighters: The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld
2. A Soldier's Embrace by Nadine Gordimer (Short Story)
3. Guys Write for Guys Read Edited by Jon Scieszka
4. Black Maria by Diana Wynne Jones
5. The Moon Spinners by Mary Stewart
6. The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy
7. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)
8. Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)
9. The Death of Superman by Dan Jurgens, et al. (reread)
10. Funeral for a Friend [World Without A Superman] by Dan Jurgens, et al. (reread)

Feel free to ask me any questions about them and I'll see if I can include them in my posts. Assuming of course that my internet service will resume soon and I actually get to post about them. Hahaha!