i love solitaire

I read this on the imdb.com WEEN news:

Meester Born In Jail

2 September 2008 6:29 PM, PDT | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester was born in jail, according to scandalous new U.S. reports.

The actress' mother was serving a federal prison sentence in Texas when she gave birth, and although baby Leighton was born in a halfway house, her mum returned to prison after her daughter turned three months.

According to America's Star magazine, Meester was raised by a relative while her mother completed time for her role in an illegal drug enterprise.

The publication also claims Meester's grandfather, father and aunt were jailed for drug dealing.

Meester's publicist was unavailable for comment when WENN went to press.

Very scandalous, but not so Blair Waldorf style. Maybe in a parallel universe where Blair was actually really white trash. HA.

Anyway, I watched the season 2 premiere of Gossip Girl, and I have to say I was a little shocked about the newest references to the actual novelizations. For those of you who have read the books, and have not yet seen the episode, it's very interesting. Let's just say something very 'royal' happens for Blair.

Overall, I very much enjoyed the episode.

It's very late, and I was hoping to wake up early, but I don't think I'm going to want to....

I reluctantly began reading the 'Jacob POV' in Breaking Dawn, the final book in the Twilight Saga. I'm not a big Jacob fan, but his interactions with his tribe and the vampires, it's very emotional, I guess. His hate for the vampires, because he's a werewolf, and they're made to destroy vampires. However, Bella Swan is very attached to both Jacob and Edward, the vampire Bella's in love with. And a lot of things are going wrong and there are attacks about to happen. It's all so ... suspenceful.

I will soon post an opinion post on Snuff, since I have recently finished that book. Which reminds me I need to go to the library.

p&l
rachel

things fall apart

My computer charger, my car and my phone are all damaged in one way or another.

Very tragic, this whole situation is.

I can only drive my car short, very short distances. So, I'm pretty much only driving to and from school, mostly.

I have my computer charger jacked up with some duct tape. It's rather ghetto, I might say.

I'm about to watch the Grindhouse movies. I don't know which one is coming first: Planet Terror or Death Proof. Personally, Planet Terror is my favorite of the two.

I just watched Fried Green Tomatoes. So great that movie is.

I haven't really posted anything in a long time. The best news I have thus far is that I finally got into school. I'm gonna get the Pell Grant. I have a very interesting school schedule.

I had my first day of classes today. I got up at 8am and left at 9 for the campus, my class, Biology w/ lab, starts at 9:30. Not only did I not find a parking spot until 9:40am, but I didn't find the actual building until 10:00. So, I went to the library and read Snuff until my next class, World Civilization I, at 12:00. What's weird is that the class lets out at 12:53. Exactly.

C'est bizzare.

Tomorrow, I have World Civilization II at 11:00am - 12:20pm. Another good thing is that I get to use the same book for both World Civ classes. Woohoo! I still don't have a Biology book though.

I'm getting kinda hungry, but I don't want to get up again. However, my drink is almost empty.

The coming attractions when Grindhouse is shown together are hilarious. Machete.

I've been watching Stephen King's The Stand on SurfTheChannel.com. I'm almost done with it, but it's been very good. I want to read the book now.

Right on. Planet Terror is coming on first.

I've been coming up with a time line of my own vampire novelization. I started thinking of it when I was watching Interview with the Vampire.

Rose McGowan is hot in a pin-up girl kind of way. I love this movie though. Zombie movies are pretty good. I do enjoy the directing talents of Robert Rodriguez, and acting talent of Freddy Rodriguez, no relation. Saiid from Lost is in this movie, too. British accent, very interesting. Although his character, Abby, is about to castrate this guy and put his balls in a jar-whatnot.

Bruce Willis. His death in this movie is very gross.

The jar of balls just broke on the concrete, spilling gonads all over.

Saiid just set off the gas of whatever it is that causes people to go crazy and kill people and tear their faces off.

p&l
rachel

so many things to say....

  

Currently, I'm watching the first four episodes of The O.C. I absolutely love this show.

I never really liked the Pilot when I first saw it, but I just watched it for the second time today and it was great. I don't know why I didn't like it before. 

I also picked up the book Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, today. I haven't finished the first chapter yet, but I will report on if it's worthy of being read.

Also, this evening I saw The Incredible Hulk. I absolutely love Edward Norton. He is one of my most favorite actors of all time. Especially his performance in Fight Club. That movie rocks almost as much as the book by Chuck Palahniuk. Which reminds me that I almost bought Snuff today, but it was more expensive than the paper-back version of Twilight. I talked my mom into buying it for me. :)

As for the Hulk movie, it was quite an epic vision of beauty. Tim Roth was fun as a crazy, power hungry military man. The romance between Liv Tyler and Edward Norton was very believable. If their on-screen chemistry would match their off screen chemistry, I'm sure they'd make a very nice couple. Except that Liv Tyler's married. 

I may have to see it again, because when I saw it, I was sitting on the first row in the theatre. I had to look to the left and the right to see the whole screen. It was a tad bit difficult, and now my neck hurts on top of it all.

I've been reading this fan-written book called James Potter and the Hall of Elder's Crossing. I forget the man's name who wrote it, and I'm too lazy to open the file on my computer that I have of this book, complete with drawn pictures at the beginning of the chapters and a table of contents. The book is 405 pages as well. I found it online and there was a .pdf file that you can download to read. Of course, you need the newest version of Adobe Acrobat. 

I have a headache. I think it's because of my sinus. Great.

p&l

rachel

Guys and dolls

Here is a picture taken from Chuck Palahniuk's basement. I got this picture from The Cult website. 

This is his dog, I believe his name is Imp. And his friends are what I think are Snuff promotional gifts for the tour.

Anyway, this was a very interesting picture, I thought I would share it with the lot of you.

p&l

rachel

Oral Biographies

As I've said many times before, I'm reading Rant by Chuck Palahniuk and I just can't get over how good it is. 

It's an oral biography of this guy who did absolutely insane things and got away with them. However, he ends his life on television in a fiery blaze. He was also responsible for spreading a silent urban plague of rabies through his saliva. He actually does get pretty frisky with many ladies, as I've read thus far.

Speaking of thus far, I'm not even halfway done with this book yet, and so much shit has happened that I'm slightly afraid but anxiously awaiting to find out what happened to Buster "Rant" Casey towards the end of his existence. These characters are crazy, and I still don't know what the suns and moons next to the people's names are supposed to represent. I think it might have something to do with the "eclipse" period of the rabies virus that Rant spreads through his various hook-ups with women, I'm assuming.

Weird stuff. Oh, and I can't wait for his next book, Snuff, to hit the shelves, which is set to be May 20, 2008. WOO!

Attn: L :He's going to be in Atlanta over the summer, in June I think, and I REALLY REALLY want to go and see if I can get something autographed, hint hint (road trip?). Talk to him. I don't know. Snuff does sound like another mind-fuck-Palahniuk kind of story. Every novel produced by Palahniuk is just something of beauty. Even though some of the stories are quite vulgar and ugly, he makes them interesting with his intense way of telling his audience exactly how to do certain things that normal people would never dare to "try-at-home." To this day, I can't choose a favorite novel written by him. 

Next year, he'll be coming out with yet another gripping novel. This one, called Pygmy, has apparently already been written, or at least a first draft. Posted from the forums on chuckpalahniuk.net

Palahniuk says:

"I've just finished the first draft of a novel called "Pygmy," a dark comedy about terrorism and racism. The lead character is a 13-year-old foreign exchange student sent to live with a suburban, white, middle-class family. Oh, and they're Christians. The visit is for six months, and he's one of a dozen similar kids, all shipped to America to live with typical families.

The secret truth is that Pygmy is a terrorist, trained since infancy in martial arts, chemistry and radical hatred of the United States. He has six months to build a prize-winning project for the National Science Fair. If he succeeds, he and his project will go to Washington, D.C. for the finals competition -- where the project will explode, killing millions.

So far, Gerry Howard says it's the best book I've done. Fingers crossed for luck."

So I'm pretty much very excited about this one. It's going to be pretty amazing. But it's not like he doesn't do anything that sucks. 

To get onto the topic of oral biographies, I think it takes a lot of talent to actually make it work. I think if I tried to write an oral biography of someone right now, I think it would turn out really shitty. I need to start writing again. Writing things other than my wannabe GossipGirl/It Girl novel-project-thing. I didn't like how it was coming, so now I have to think of something new. Something more original. 

I just need to broaden my horizons, considering I've only been reading the Gossip Girl books and It Girl books recently. You write what you know, right? So I guess that it's also about what you've been reading too. I mean, writers read, don't they? Reading was what got me into writing in the first place, so shouldn't that also have an affect on a writer's style? Which is why I picked up Rant and some Hemingway books from the library. I think I need to do some more shopping on the library's internet database, or card catalog. 

I need suggestions for new reads. It makes me sad that I may be losing my intelligence every time I read a Gossip Girl or It Girl book. It kind of drives me crazy. Thinking I might fall into that mindset. 

There are other influences that could affect my mindset as well. For example, watching Veronica Mars makes me want to be kind of like her. Watching Grey's Anatomy makes me want to work at a hospital, even though I'm slightly afraid of them. Watching Lost makes me wish I were on the mystifying island too. And Heroes makes me wish I had a special ability like flying or cellular regeneration. Would I be evil- like Kristen Bell's character? Or would I be good like little Claire, the cheerleader. Ugh, television makes me crazy, maybe. 

p&l (for now, who knows how many more posts I'll post just this evening)

rachel