Some background: last year, I “discovered” the Philly Live Arts/Fringe festival. I volunteered as an usher at some Live Arts performances (and thus got to see them for free) and bought tickets for some of the Fringe shows (which were really cheap: I think the most I paid for any one Fringe show was like, $8).
After a super positive experience last year, I’m really looking forward to this years festival. What I like about the live arts/fringe festival is that I get to support local artists (plus artists from elsewhere) put on theatre in both traditional and non-traditional settings. Last year, for example, there was a show that was done in an old swimming pool that had been abandoned. The shows are mostly fairly low budget, but that’s fine by me. I’ll probably volunteer again this year, hopefully with an old friend from high school. I still have to look through the show listings to decide what I want to see…I know I definitely want to see Stew and the Negro Problem with Heidi Rodewald, mostly because of how much I enjoyed Passing Strange.
This is one of the things I’m going to miss when I leave the Philadelphia area. I’m sure during the actual event, there will be a lot of tweeting going on.
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(via Snuzzy.com)
I love Bulldogs and thought that in honor of the weekend, I’d post a picture of a Bulldog here. Hope you’re doing something fun this weekend.
Random Posts:
I meant to post this earlier, but clearly I fail. The Francophile in me wants to wish you a happy Bastille Day….OK, and I’m also part French. I hope you had a great day and that you the geek in you managed to do something cool.
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OK, so I don’t always pay attention to book reviews before I read the book itself. However, in cases in which I don’t already know much about the book or author in question, I like to read some reviews to sort of gauge whether I’d like the book or not. Those rating things (like 3 out of 5 stars or whatever) don’t tend to be as helpful to me because I find that the reasoning behind a particular rating can very widely; the reviewer and I might not base our ratings on the same criteria. It’s the actual meat of the review that’s most helpful to me, the discussion of what the reviewer liked and disliked about the book, etc. I mean, I may disagree with the reviewer about the strength and weaknesses of the book, but if the reviewer says something like “I hated this book because there was a sex scene in it!”, I can pretty much figure out whether the reviewer and I will have the same feelings about the book. So it annoys me to no end when I head over to Goodreads and see people have rated a book but haven’t included their thoughts on the book. I sort of have a hard time taking said people seriously. Yes, I realize I haven’t posted reviews for all the books I’ve rated on Goodreads either, so call me a hypocrite if you want.
I guess the same complaint can be said for people on other book related social networking sites and some book bloggers. But, I personally tend to spend more time looking up reviews on Goodreads than elsewhere so that’s where I’ve noticed it the most.
So I hereby plead with those of you who rate books on various websites: please include something indicating what you thought the strengths and weaknesses of the book were. It doesn’t have to be very detailed and you don’t have to spend that much time on it. But I’ll thank you for it.
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One of my problems seems to be that I’m not using my time for any practical or useful thing. I’d consider myself to be doing something useful if I were, say, reading a book. I enjoy reading, but I seem to lack the focus lately to actually sit down and read a book. I know some people read several books a week; I often find myself wishing I could do that because people who are well-read tend to strike me as being really smart (which isn’t to say that other people are stupid; also, just because someone seems smart doesn’t mean they actually are). But then I wonder if they’re really able to enjoy the books they read if they’re speeding through them so fast.
I spend way too much time on the computer, playing Facebook games like Farmville or Cafe World. I find these games addicting, but I don’t think they’re a particularly good use of time. I managed to “master” level three of cupcakes on Farmville, just in time for them to disappear. Here’s the proof:
I wish I could spend less time on the computer and more time on things that actually matter.
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Sue. 20-something. Unemployed bum. Philadelphian.Plans on attending graduate school and hopes to be a librarian. Likes 
