MInithon post the second

And the Minithon has come to a close. At least for me because I am bad at timezones and we made reservations for dinner before this thing was going to end. Whoops. So I'm doing a slightly mini-er version of the minithon, which is right in the spirt.

There was a mini amount of reading done. I have 80-ish pages left in The Passage and I gave up on Fool because there is WAY too much going on in To Be OR Not To Be. In one ending Ophelia decided to fight terrorists using a glider suit laced with knives that she designed. Straight out Shakespeare's subtext.

I ate my mini-bagels and mini-quiches and then more mini-bagels in the form of mini pizza bagels so really, minithon a success! I also watched some Portlandia which is really Tom's fault. But it's a bunch of sketches, which are like mini episodes, so it was nice of him to keep with the theme.

Hope everyone's minithon was a success! Thanks again, Tika. A great time as always

Are you ready to MINITHON???

It is once again time for a minithon, the perfect readalong for those of us with commitment/attention span problems who can't handle a full on readathon. (Also for those who CAN full on readathon and just want to play along because we're the best.) Thank Tika for once again hosting this internet shindig AND for getting up early for it.

Time for the eatings and readings

For once I actually managed to plan ahead for this minithon, meaning I remembered it was happening a full day before and thus was able to go to the store and get a couple mini food items. LIKE MINI-BAGELS!!

I also made myself a cappuccino because I have an addiction. But also cappuccino = espresso (mini amount of coffee. Compared to drip anyway) and milk (in my case, skim milk, which is really/probably just water with a mini amount of actual milk in it).

I also picked up some mini-quiches because they seem like the PERFECT minithon food and also delicious. I'm also going to consume a not-so-mini amount of these sweet potato and cinnamon crackers. These are smaller than some other crackers I have in the house so, yeah, that counts.

I considered picking up a mini ham & cheese sandwich (that's what it was labeled) but it was like $4 and no, I will come up with ridiculous excuses for the food I eat instead of paying that for a tiny pre-made sandwich.

Oh right, books.

I'm currently finishing up The Passage by Justin Cronin and while that is very much NOT a mini book, it does take place in a post-apocalypse land where the human population is teeny tiny so MINI.

I also have on hand To Be OR Not To Be by Ryan North which is a choose-your-own-adventure Hamlet story, which makes it really a BUNCH of little stories. BAM!

Last up, I have an audiobook of Fool by Christopher Moore. Last minithon I realized how great audiobooks are for thoning (I can read AND tweet all at once) so I wanted to make sure I grabbed one of those. Plus all books are boxed up, so I'm working with a limited supply. The main character of Fool is called Pocket cos he's so tiny so THERE YOU GO. Though I did notice that I screwed up when I was loading the audiobook into iTunes and it appears some of the tracks didn't copy over properly. Which would be an easy fix if I knew which box the discs were packed in. Whoops.

Here we go!

Time To Minithon!

Once again it is time to take part in a mini readathon hosted by the lovely Tika at Reading the Bricks!

For those of us with too much to do/far too lazy to read for 24 hours, we have the minithon which is yes, about reading but MOSTLY about snacks and excuses for why our choices count as mini (the more ridiculous the better).

I was planning on getting things figured out/making up excuses this morning because of course I did no planning ahead of time. But then that didn't quite work out.

See, this week commuting has been super annoying, and it came to a head yesterday morning. I was heading towards the subway when I saw the people in front of me start to run. So I start to run because shit, the train is here. But there were too many people moving WAY too slowly and by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, the doors closed. As I was cursing that, the strap to my laptop bag broke. WEeeeeee.

You, sir, are an asshole

Tom and I spent this morning looking for a laptop bag and FUN FACT, apparently no one uses these anymore? Or at least those that do either like A) really ugly bags or B) super expensive (and still ugly and not super practical) bags. So this morning was a bust both in bag acquiring and 'thon planning. So let's see what I can manage now.

For snacks, I haven't really made it that far. I still have leftover Halloween candy* and those are tinier than full size candy bars, so probably that. I'm thinking of making some sweet potato chips which are much smaller than whole sweet potatoes so, mini. I also made myself an espresso which is in a teeny cup. MOAR MINI. Other food...I'll come up with something.

Mmm caffeine

I have my reading nook made up with the most COZY BLANKET EVER. I also have the new coffee table which I still love (cos fancy TV tray) despite the fact that it tried to hobble me. I realize none of that is mini BUT I have a couple mini-dinosaur mascots so, mini.

As for reading (oh yeah. THAT) I'm thinking I'm going to finish listening to the audiobook Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs which is about a bunch of things you can do to be the HEALTHIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD and some of that is to lose weight and thus become smaller, so.

Then there's What The Dinosaurs Did Last Night by Refe and Susan Tuma and it's children's book and children are little people.

Then lastly I'll probably keep making my way through The Collector by John Fowles, which is about a crazy person that kidnaps this girl and keeps her in a little room. Again little. I am so good that this.

TIME TO MINITHON!


UPDATE: Minithon is completed.
I managed to finish Drop Dead Healthy and I think audiobooks are the way to go for these 'thons cos then I can be on Twitter and whatnot WHILE STILL reading.

I also finished What The Dinosaurs Did Last Night but given that book is 90% pictures (more if you don't count the intro in the beginning, but you should probably read that intro) perhaps not that impressive. BUT STILL, 2 books down! I'll have a post about that book soon, along with the collection of pictures I took with the caffeine guards.

I read a bit more of The Collector and might do some more later but for now I'm done.

Snacks were had. Some snacks. Some candy, some cake, some sweet potato chips (the kitchen still smells like fried), some eggs (little pre-chickens), and plenty of caffeine. Tom has come home so now it's time to figure out dinner (MOAR FOOD) and I guess stop laying on the couch for awhile.

Thank you again Tika for hosting this minithon. As usual, lots of fun and there was even some reading done!

*BTW for those of you who won soap I AM SO SORRY I haven't sent it out yet. I have no excuse other than I'm stupidly lazy. BUT you'll be getting a bunch of Halloween candy as well. And if I take that much longer to make it to the post office, prob some more treats. I'm sorry.

Mini Readathon

It's Mini-Readathon Time!

Last year around this time Tika decided to host a readathon that wasn't quite as intimidating as that 24 hour readathon that some people (me) just don't have the attention span for. Thus was born the mini-readathon where we'll read/tweet for 8 hours and eat lots of snacks. And the theme is mini, but the more you can stretch that definition to fit what you are going to eat/read, the better.

Let's see what I have

Books
I have three titles right now that may or may not be changed as the day goes on/I think of other mini excuses.

In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson - mini because I'm juuuust about done with it.
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa - mini because it's only 180 pages
Different Seasons by Stephen King - mini because they're short stories.

Food
I was going to start with eggs (little chicken fetuses) but then I decided to make something both Boyfriend+ and I could enjoy, so I'm going with silver dollar (TINY) pancakes. Except he's not down yet so I don't have completed pancakes to show you. But the batter is in that blue bowl behind the books so I'm on my way.

I'll share my other snacks throughout the day/as I figure out what they'll be. Because I am terrible at planning but I'm pretty good at bullshitting so I should be able to come up with some more mini foods.

MINITHON UPDATE 1:

Here we are, about half way through this mini-readathon. How's everyone's reading/eating going?

I finished 1 book, except that book is the Sunburned Country one and I only had about 50 pages left. STILL COUNTS. Plus I've been reading it since before the holidays which is silly that it's taken me so long. I love Bryson. I love the book. The holidays just made me reading lazy. Hence why this readalong has come at such a great time.

I have been eating though, because priorities. First up, here are those pancakes in their finished form.

We also had some blueberry jam with them that my mom made. It counts towards this cos it's in a tiny mason jar. I put another mason jar with OJ in the picture for comparison.

THEN I also found a couple snacks. I was scrounging through our pantry and realized we bought a Costco sized thing of Welch's fruit snacks. While Costco is definitely not mini-sized, the bags themselves are. PLUS these are really snacks for children, a.k.a. mini-people, so COUNTS

Then I wanted some chocolate and we have this espresso bean dark chocolate bar, which is delicious. The chocolate breaks off into small pieces so mini. PLUS the profits from this candy bar go towards saving endangered animals. Which are endangered cos there are only a tiny amount of them left. BOOM, MINI AGAIN

I was about to start King's Different Seasons but then my mom called and we were discussing wedding centerpieces. It was still sort of bookish since I'm trying to figure a way to insert books/literary couples into the table numbers.

I hope everyone is eating lots of delicious mini things. Oh, and also reading. See you on Twitter!

Thoning update the second and final:
I'm about at the end of my minithon time. A friend's birthday celebration is this evening so Boyfriend+ and I will be heading out to celebrate and play some drinking bingo. I'm going to do a bit more reading now so I will still be following along on Twitter till the end.

I managed roughly another 50 pages in Different Seasons (starting with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption) and then got distracted by internet things. Like Alice live tweeting episodes of 19 Kids and Counting.

I did manage to eat more mini snacks! Or snack rather. I made a small plate of nachos. And since I'm at the bottom of the bag, pretty much all of the tortilla chips were tiny. AND shredded cheese is pretty much just really tiny slices of cheese SO THERE.

Tika, thank you for hosting this minithon which as been super fun, even if I have to cut out a bit early.

Mini-Readathon Time

How are you spending your Saturday? Is it joining in a mini-readathon? Cos it should be.

Because this is a mini-readathon it's only 8 hours AND there is a mini-theme. Which in my case is going to be try to figure out any possible reason (no matter how convoluted) that the book I'm reading or the snack I'm eating count as mini. Because I couldn't be bothered* to actually pick up mini-foods, even though we spent so much time coming up with good options.

There's a check-in around hour 4 and then a wrap-up post and I'll probably post updates whenever I need a break from reading/more snacks. FIRST UP

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
Clementines, which are kinda like tiny oranges

I'm actually prepared with this post because I woke up around 9:50 thinking the readalong started at 10. I figured screw it, I'll start late and then realized no one else had posts up. At which point I actually double checked the time and realized I had an hour. See, sometimes my inability to pay attention to details (like the clock) works in my advantage.

UPDATE: Bryson is still guiding me around England, but I decided I needed more food. So snack number 2, mini-grilled cheeses

What's that? You say it's just a normal size grilled cheese but cut down to smaller pieces and served on toothpicks? Quiet you.

ANOTHER UPDATE: While I am enjoying Bryson's trip around England, I need something else. I considered switching to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (mini because written for children, aka mini-people) because all the cool kids are doing it, but I think I'm going to go with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged] by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. I've read/watched this enough that I sort of have it memorized (and I've destroyed my original paperback and VHS copy in the process) so this should be a quick one. I also need more food so this time it's apples and peanut butter, which is mini because it is a snack generally enjoyed by children, which we've already decided are mini-people.

MORE UPDATES: Just finished The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged] so that with the Bryson I've thus far read puts me at 287 pages read. Woo! I'm going back to Bryson but before that MORE SNACKS

I forgot that I just happened to have mini Toblerones sitting around. How convenient. And I decided it's time for a cocktail and I just happened to have a tiny bottle of Maker's hanging around.

WRAP UP: I'm in the same place I was after the last update. I had good intentions to get more reading done but I decided to just see what's going on on TV. And VH1 is doing a countdown of top songs of the 2000s which I JUST WATCHED but apparently I can't look away. So I got another 4 pages read. Oh well.

Total pages read: 291
Books read: 
1/2 of Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged] by the Reduced Shakespeare Company
Snacks consumed: 
Clementines
Tiny grilled cheeses
Apples & PB
Mini Toblerone
Whiskey & cola made with a teeny bottle of Maker's

Good times, everyone. Good times.

*This is only kind of true. Another part of the "couldn't be bothered" is due to the fact that we have 1 car between Boyfriend+ and I, and he usually has it. Cos it's his and all. So if I want to pick up food I need to a) do it when I'm in NYC and drag it back to LI with me b) get the car from Boyfriend+ when he's home from work c) go with Boyfriend+. C is pretty much the only one that happens, since he works often and I hate driving. We haven't had time to go grocery shopping but DON'T WORRY. I will come up with foods.