Sunday Salon 3-30-2014: What's What In the Post-Birthday World

What I’m reading

• in print / on screen

I still have two days left of Birthday Weekend, and two blog-tour posts due up the week, so I’ll be reading and writing for both of those today and tomorrow, and then preparing for my spot on the tour for Going Over. It’s nice not to have much of anything else in the works for a couple of days, to be honest, especially since April looks to be pretty busy. I also need to get going on May reading for Shelf Awareness–I’m down to just one review a month for them until my “real” work slows back down–and if there’s time for it, I’ll read some more Fic.

• on audio

Since I’m in the middle of a few days off from work, I’m also having a few days off from my audiobook, but even so, I should finish the (unabridged edition of) A Short History of Nearly Everything this week. I’m really glad I decided to listen to this one right after the abridged version–science can be so entertaining in the right setting.


What I’m watching

We already have tickets for Captain America: The Winter Soldier next weekend, which is no surprise at all if you know my husband.


What I’m writing/blogging

I had a short to-do list for this weekend’s Spring Bloggiesta (which runs through tonight), and spent Friday afternoon working on that:

• Updated my Review Archive spreadsheet
• Combed the archives for possible Throwback Thursday posts, and set up a spreadsheet to schedule them (picked 35 posts, assigned possible dates to some, and won’t consider others this year unless prompted by related events!)
• Evaluated my blog design and made some minor changes (sidebar items, colors, and links)–I was a little dismayed that this involved actually changing to a new version of my template, but I like the brighter new look–and if you’re getting this post in your feed reader or email, click on over to the blog and see it for yourself!

What caught my eye this week

The first place on the Internet that sucked hours from my life was Television Without Pity, and I’ve always loved it for that. Although I haven’t regularly read the site for a while, I’ve followed members of its original team as they’ve brought its sensibility to new online homes, and I’ve continued to appreciate the way it’s informed my pop-culture worldview for over a decade. News broke last Thursday that TWoP will be shut down this week:

"For me, the April 4 end of TWoP isn’t just the loss of another time-sucking, iPhone-accessible fix of entertainment. It’s a sign that the times are shifting away from the kind of writing that informed who I am (as a journalist) today…the site’s archives will be saved ‘in the digital ether,’ but publicly inaccessible–its content virtually disposed in a last gasp of bitter irony (or perhaps I should call it cosmic snark?). TWoP blazed."

–“Television Without Pity: A personal EWlogy”, at Popwatch

What Else is New?

I’m composing this post in the Byword app on my big birthday gift to myself, an iPad Mini, which I am very pleased with so far! It’s smaller and lighter than my iPad 2, but equally capable of everything I want to do on a tablet, including writing and photo-editing.

Panel tickets for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will be available next Sunday morning at 9 AM, so I need to make some time to comb the schedule this week…and get the guest room ready for Kim’s visit! I’ve been in touch with a few area book bloggers about meeting up with us during the Festival, but if I missed you, give me a holler!

Gratuitous Photo of the Week

A drive to Santa Barbara, a meeting with a friendly Golden Retriever (as of there's any other kind) ,and a stop at Chaucer's--Paul made my birthday just what I wanted! (And yes, I did already read Fangirl, but Rainbow Rowell is coming to LATFoB and I can't ask her to sign an Audible download!)

Happy Sunday! What's up with you?