[Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" Series]

I just pre-ordered it from Amazon!  September 1st never seemed so far away.

[Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" Series]

It will be interesting to re-read it as an adult, knowing what I know now about Rose's contributions.  The tone is completely different, in an almost unsettling way.

 

After suffering through Rose's "contribution" in the Fourth of July chapter in LTOTP--the one where Laura reflects on how God is America's king and how Americans are all free and independent, I'm looking forward to the change in tone.  That chapter was almost unreadable.

[Little House Series and Pioneer Girl Readalong]

I wonder how many times Pa looked around at his thin, shivering family and thought "I don't know why, but I feel I ought to be earning something..."

 

Obviously not often enough, because Laura had to work in town sewing at the age of fourteen to help send Mary to school.

 

After reading how good life was for the Ingalls family in Wisconsin, it makes Pa look even more stupid for leaving just because "it was too crowded".  They had everything they needed there and were already "living like kings".  Why you would think of leaving when you have three children under the age of eight is completely beyond me. 

[Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" Series]

Sounds great to me!  I'm just starting LTOTP right now but I read the earlier ones pretty recently so I can definitely snark with everyone else!

[Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" Series]

Did she make that sound when Foster made a bunch of noise and the antelope ran away?

 

Absolutely.  Honestly, they should have called DeSmet "Idiotville" with the way most of the town acted in that book.  The Ingalls fit right in there.

 

The books paint this idyllic picture of the family, but if you look at their lives on the whole and bigger picture, it is depressing. The moving bothered me as a kid because as others said, they had it better in the earlier books.

 

What drove me crazy about Pa moving from the Big Woods is that he didn't do it for any other reason than his feeling that the woods were getting "too crowded".  Yeah, dude, just take your wife and your three girls who were under the age of seven and go wandering around to Kansas to a place where you heard that the government would probably let people settle in at some point in time.  It's lucky they didn't die of malaria or anything else while there.

[Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" Series]

Maybe there should be a sound component to the books; like a bell tolling everytime Pa says " I've never been beholden to any man and I never will be!"

 

My wife and I are reading The Long Winter aloud right now and every time Ma or someone says "Now the train will come in" after one of the monster blizzards, my wife always makes the sad trombone noise and we both just laugh.

 

It's amazing to me realizing how clueless both Ma and Pa were--when you're a kid, you just never realize that they constantly make mistake after mistake.  It really was a miracle that the kids survived to adulthood.  I mean, they lost Grace on the Big Slough because they were planting trees outside THEIR ONE ROOM SHANTY!  How can you lose a kid when all you are doing is planting trees?

[Testifying: Best litigant quotes.]

Yay! Today was the Defendant who took out a Whatever Loan.  Did we ever figure out if that was an actual thing?  Do banks advertise this???

 

Apparently it is a thing but it is mostly done by credit unions.  You can borrow up to 1000 dollars and do whatever you want with it.  Sounds like it's made for all those brilliant JJ defendants who need more money for their cell phones and bail,

[Food Network Star Alums]

Just saw Penny Davidi on our local news (KTLA).  Apparently she's now the executive chef at Lisa Vanderpump's new "club" Pump.  They had some samples of the food and it really didn't look very good but both Lisa and Penny were preening.  It was a scary famewhore moment for sure.

[Is It Worth Holding Out Hope For Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?]

I'm not sure if there is hope only because the major plot point that changed up everything (and made the show more watchable) didn't come from the writers or showrunners, but was imposed on them from outside writers.  The people involved with the show itself really didn't come up with anything remotely interesting for most of the season and it looks like that's what we're going to get for season 2 based on the fact that the finale closed out with yet more Coulson mystery and more Skye parent drama. Since those were the two storylines that really dragged down this past season, I don't know if I should get too excited about the upcoming one.  If they resolve those stories relatively quickly and move on to something else, there might be some hope but everyone involved in this show really seems to love Skye and Coulson to the point of ignoring everyone else which is dull after a while.  I want more May and Fitzsimmons and even Triplett over more Coulson and Skye.  (I'd love to see more evil Ward as well but I'm afraid the writers are going to do a "true love reforms Ward" story and I would have to kill my TV after that nonsense).  

[S01.E18: Providence]

Maybe they want us to watch it and utterly enjoy it (or else we're not real fans) and then once it's over not think or talk about it again until the next one comes on?

 

I really think that's what they want us to do because the more we think or talk about the show, the more we see the plot holes and bad writing.  If everyone just sat and blindly watched, it would be the best show ever and no one would complain.