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I’m a big reader, and a book fan in general.  So while I don’t normally do any of these type of challenges, this is one I think I can get behind.  I don’t know that I’ll be able to handle it 30 days consecutively, but I’ll at least try to post 30 different entries about these prompts over the next month or two…

Day 01 – Best book you read last year
Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times
Day 03 – Your favorite series
Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 05 – A book that makes you happy
Day 06 – A book that makes you sad
Day 07 – Most underrated book
Day 08 – Most overrated book
Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 10 – Favorite classic book
Day 11 – A book you hated
Day 12 – A book you used to love but don’t anymore
Day 13 – Your favorite writer
Day 14 – Favorite book of your favorite writer
Day 15 – Favorite male character
Day 16 – Favorite female character
Day 17 – Favorite quote from your favorite book
Day 18 – A book that disappointed you
Day 19 – Favorite book turned into a movie
Day 20 – Favorite romance book
Day 21 – Favorite book from your childhood
Day 22 – Favorite book you own
Day 23 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
Day 25 – A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 – A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 – The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 – Favorite title
Day 29 – A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 – Your favorite book of all time

I’ve written about yogurt container designs before.  I’m not an expert, or even a yogurt aficionado, but I do tend to pack one in my lunch most days, so I’ve had my share of experience with different packages.

This is one of the silliest designs for a yogurt container I’ve seen yet.

Yes, it’s a cute idea to have a separate “mixer” compartment, but it completely fails the usability test.

Scooping the strawberry topping (or honey, in the case of the other one I bought) is difficult due to the narrowness of that section of the container.  If you’re not extremely careful, some will spill over the sides and onto your table.  I could see them scoring the divider between the two sections so you could fold the smaller over and let it spill into the larger one, but the manufacturer didn’t do this and my attempts to do so made even more of a mess.

The whole container is only about 1.5” tall, so it’s more like trying to spoon yogurt off a plate, rather than out of a cup.

These design flaws, along with the consistency of the too-watery yogurt, firmly entrench this brand on my “Products Not To Buy Ever Again” list.

-Ross, who shall probably now be forever thought of as ‘That Yogurt Dork’ by the rest of the internet

I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It by Adam Selzer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Even though a 30-year old male is not the target audience for this satire of the vampire/paranormal romance novels that seem to be spontaneously appearing on the shelves of bookstores everywhere, I found I did enjoy this novel for what it was – a light, humorous take on the subject matter that is sure to be engaging for teens and genre-fans who can take a little good-natured ribbing.

Eighteen year-old Algonquin “Alley/Ali/Gonk” Rhodes is the self-proclaimed Ice Queen of the “Vicious Circle” – a clique of close-knit friends who not only run the school newspaper (blog), but somehow are allowed to turn the escapades of their classmates into gossip-rag fodder for mass publication. One of their favorite topics of ridicule is the excessive efforts teenage girls at the school make to try to nab a vampire boyfriend; in Alley’s school, dating the undead appears to be the epitome of cool.

Alley acts above all of that, clinging to her reputation and her independence like a badge. But when reviewing a band at a local venue for her paper’s music column, she falls head-over-heels in love with Doug, who, she belatedly realizes, is not really a really-cute goth boy, but rather a zombie hipster who shares her eclectic taste in music.

Selzer’s world is intriguing – vampires, werewolves, and zombies do exist, and they live (mostly) peacefully alongside humanity. Of course, there was that whole issue with Mega Mart raising and enslaving zombies for a cheap workforce, but now that the lawsuit has been settled and all those zombies are free to live their lives coexist, people have pretty much accepted the “post-humans”, and aside from all the vapid teenage girls wanting to date (and eventually become) “post-humans”, things are pretty normal.

I had a little bit of trouble believing in the character of Alley – here’s a bright young teenager with the scathing wit of a college junior who appears to be able to psychoanalyze her own motives in staying single, yet it takes her a couple of dates (and 60-something pages) to discover that Doug is a zombie. She explains this incongruity near the end of the novel, but by then I’d already written it off as something just to get past and treat the novel as a fluffy, witty (but not sparkly) book that will surely be snapped up by teenagers anxious for a novel take on both teenage romances and the paranormal. This isn’t a book I’ll be hanging on to myself, but if you know someone 13-18 in your life, they’ll probably enjoy giving it a read.

Note: I received this book as part of a contest giveaway.

View all of my reviews on Goodreads

The Eight Cranes Perfect Steeper
Perfect Steeper (Glass or Polycarbonate Model) – $29.99
Perfect Steeper Gift Set (Steeper with 3 tea samples) – $39.99

Serious tea lovers will tell you there’s no substitute for brewing with loose teas. But although loose teas will brew up into a more flavorful, less bitter cuppa, they require extra equipment (usually some combination of teapots, infusers, strainers, and mugs) that would make it difficult (if not impossible) to carry around everything you need for a good-quality tea on the go.

The Eight Cranes Perfect Steeper is an innovative product hoping to change the mindset that loose teas cannot be brewed while on the go. The Perfect Steeper does a good job living up to its name – providing a compact, drip-free, and most of all, convenient means to brew loose tea on the go – all that’s needed is access to hot water.

(continue reading…)