Book clubs

I belong to a message board for Moms of babies born in November of 2006. They are starting a book club which should be fun. Years ago, a couple friends and I decided to start a book club of our own but all I really remember is drinking Cosmopolitans and watching Ally McBeal so I guess that doesn't count. Anyhow, I'm pushing for the online club to include classics (like "To Kill a Mockingbird" which I just read myself for the first time 2 years ago - why on earth wasn't I required to read it in high school??) and non-fiction (I suggested "Freakonomics" which is an awesome read). The moderator put up a poll and I'm happy that several people have voted for each of my suggestions. It looks like some sort of chick-lit is winning though. I have nothing against chick-lit, I've enjoyed several books in that genre, but I think the discussions would be more interesting if we went with some meatier choices. On my own, I plan to read "Moby Dick" in 2008 and I might try to read "War and Peace" - I've started it at least twice... once when I was a pretentious 6th grader. I'm hoping the new George RR Martin book will FINALLY be out - if so, forget the book club and everything else, I'm reading that!

UPDATE - they chose two selections for December: "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd and "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. I read "The Lovely Bones" back in 2005 and I don't think I want to read it again so I will probably pick up the other one at the library (after I finish all my cryptozoology books that is!).

Gaming

Nice 10 sided earrings. I wonder if that means more females are gaming? I seems like it still unusual for women to game. I game about once a month right now - we have a small group (4 regulars and the GM who happens to be my husband) but one of the other gamers is a woman from work. When we played online games more often than not it seemed female avatars were actually played by men. I always had a female avatar - other players truly are more likely to just give you things in game (gold, armor, weapons...) and they seem to expect less. The one time I played a male avatar it seemed other players were much more annoyed when I made a mistake - mistakes they wouldn't even comment on if my female avatar made! My husband usually plays female avatars too for some reason.

Bob!

Guinea pigs are such fun pets! We bought Bob back at the beginning of September. It took a couple of days to find a pet shop that even had guinea pigs in stock - there must have been quite a run on guinea pigs that week. Anyhow, he was the most docile and calm of the guinea pigs that were available. He is still a little shy of us but he is sweet. We have really studied up on guinea pigs to try and be the best owners - I had another guinea pig years ago and now I feel so guilty because I don't think I cared for her properly. For one thing she had an aquarium for a cage which is a no-no and I don't recall ever giving her timothy hay to eat. We are very conscientious about giving Bob his hay and his fresh fruits and veggies. He loves orange wedges and apple slices but he wouldn't even eat the kiwi. Next week I'm going to introduce bananas. He likes hiding in his pigloo and his oatmeal box and he has a couple toy balls to push around. It's so cute to watch him popcorn when he gets excited to see us!

Ligers and tigrons ... oh boy!

Ligers! I've been learning about ligers this week - father is a lion, mother is a tiger. Apparently, male lions have genes for large growth but a mother lion has genes that inhibit them. With a tiger mother, the genes are not inhibited and ligers get HUGE! Crazy huge! 10 -12 feet long, weighing up to 1000 pounds! Ligers seem to only exist in captivity since lions and tigers don't naturally co-exist in the same habitat. Also, because of their large size, they might not fare well in the wild since they would tire easily while chasing prey and require massive amounts of meat.

I had only heard of ligers from watching "Napoleon Dynamite" years ago. Last weekend I read an article about how a local pet lion had escaped his cage and was chasing cars at rush hour. I was surprised to learn that in Ohio it is completely legal to have pet lions and that lion cubs can be purchased for as little as $1000 (which is less than the price of some purebred puppies!). The local lion owner had bought 2 cubs when he suffered from a bout of depression years back. Hmmm many people just take meds.... Anyhow, researching lions led to reading about ligers. (btw - the picture is of Hercules the liger who seems to be something of an internet sensation)