While watching some DVRed Ninja Warrior episodes this evening, a fabulous invention was brought to my attention - Mop Shoe!

If you aren't familiar with either, let me introduce you to both:

First, Ninja Warrior. G4 happened to be on one day at The Red Hot while Frinklin, Cassioposa, Kevin, and I were eating dinner. While the original Japanese show features men, Women of Ninja Warrior is far more entertaining for my money. The women's courses tend to focus more on agility and less on strength.

And, who doesn't need Mop Shoe?

Posted by: Ensie at 05:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 102 words, total size 1 kb.

How come Seattle has Ellen Forney doing their public art and we get...this when it comes to art?

WTF?

Posted by: Ensie at 12:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.

Seriously Nordstrom. Stop sending me stuff like this! I only have so much will power!

Posted by: Ensie at 10:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 23 words, total size 1 kb.

Frinkling brought a really great interview with Alison Bechdel to my attention. She discusses her bestselling work Fun Home, the experiences following that publication, as well as the upcoming graphic novel she is working on.

Posted by: Ensie at 09:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 41 words, total size 1 kb.

I found an interesting article in Seattle Business Montly this week on a new company called Paperspine.com. Paperspine is the startup brainchild of Microsoft employee Dustin Hubbard. The company is modeled after Netflix, but instead of sending you movies when you subscribe, Paperspine sends you books.

Subscriptions start at $9.99 for 2 books/month and top out at $25 for 5 books/month. I think they are charging about $5 a month too much per package, but that didn't stop me from subscribing to check it out. I didn't read all to carefully through the FAQ, and received a surprise when I started browsing - Paperspine only carries paperback books at this time (although the article I read mentioned audio books?), which severely limits the inventory they carry, but likely keeps their costs down significantly. Frinklin and I immediately added 10 books to our queue and should have our top three selections in 3 - 5 days.

Paperspine's website has some limitations right now. The categories have some odd definitions, and are kind of hard to search. What is "Contemporary Fiction" and how are the titles listed within? How do I find the Chick Lit, which is definitely different from Romance? Where are the Graphic Novels? The site failed a major test by not carrying Time's Book of the Year for 2007 (and one of my favorite authors), Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.

I should stress that Paperspine is currently in Beta, and that Hubbard has recently added a "Lipstick Blogger" to write about women's books. He also has plans to add a purchase option for people who love their rented books too much to send them back. If you can't find a book on the site that you want to borrow, Paperspine will order it for you. The site is actively requesting feedback at this time, so things should improve.

I'm hoping this will limit my book purchasing addiction while allowing for plenty of reading of backlist titles I've been meaning to catch up on. I love the Tacoma Public Library, but find that I'm great at racking up fees and getting my card suspended. This may be the perfect solution.

Posted by: Ensie at 09:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 361 words, total size 3 kb.