Friday Fill-Ins #140

Friday Fill-Ins is a weekly meme hosted by Friday Fill-Ins

And...here we go!

1. I feel annoyed that I never get weekends off.

2.Watching scary movies while eating popcorn is always fun.

3. Right now, I can hear these things: the lunch I'm taking to work cooking on the stove.

4. Summer is almost over and I'm glad the weather is finally cooling down.

5. The last time I went on a date was when Abraham Lincoln was president.

6. Working everyday this Labor day weekend.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to coming home and getting caught up on my blog, tomorrow my plans include wishing I was at the lake and Sunday, I want to spend time with my son!

The Agatha Christie Challenge --- Poirot Investigates

This has been probably the quickest read out of the 4 books so far. This was a collection of 14 short stories that revolved around separate cases investigated by Hercule Poirot. From what I was able to discern they take place between The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Murder on the Links. I'm assuming this because Colonel Hastings relates all the stories and since he appears to still be single this was the only conclusion I could come to. Now I'm sure either Becke or Dulcinea could set me straight on this if I'm wrong (as I'm sure they will if I am).

Now for the most part I found most of the stories to be engaging and well thought out. Though they are shorted in length they didn't, with few exceptions, jump to conclusions that weren't supported by the clues discussed in the stories.

If I were to pick one or two favorites from the stories I would have to go with "The Tragedy at Mardson Manor", "The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge", and "The Veiled Lady". I felt all three of these stories showed off Poirot's reasoning skills and Christie's style of writing. They are not, by far, the only good stories in this collection for I found all but two to be wonderfully thought out and executed.

The only two I did not care too much for were "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb" and "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat". The first I found to be a bit cliched but it could be that I'm just not a fan of "Egyptian Curse" stories. The second I found the jump in logic that Poirot made to be a little bit to far to carry me along.

Now whether I liked all the stories or not I absolutely loved the names for all of them. They were all brilliant and reminded me of the CBS Mystery Radio programs I would listen to as a kid. Now I'm not old enough to have listened to those when they first came out but somehow my grandparents had a whole bunch on tape and I would listen to them all the time. The titles alone were enough to get me interested in them.

I found this to be a better read than my last foray into Agatha Christie land and I will probably be revisiting my favorites often.

Synopsis Off The Back Cover:

What do a movie star, an archaeologist, a French maid, a prime minister, a wealthy dowager, and an Italian count have in common? Half of them have fallen victim to a terrible crime. the others have fallen under suspicion. leave the deductions to Hercule Poirot. From a posh resort in Brighton to a cursed pharaoh's tomb in Egypt, Agatha Christie plunges Poirot into the most intriguing cases of his colorful career. With fourteen stories, fourteen crimes, and twice as many suspects, this delightful Christie collection firmly established the brilliant Belgian sleuth's reputation and standing in the canon of classic detective fiction.

Word Verification Balderdash

Word Verification Balderdash is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through A World Of Books.

Here is what you do. You write down all the word verifications you come across as you are posting comments on other peoples blogs. You then play Balderdash with them. Now for those of you who don't know how to play, you take a made up word and come up with a authentic sounding definition for it. Do this for a week and then post your best ones every Thursday.

Here are mine for this week.

Puccalop: Small, water dwelling nature spirit from northern Ireland renowned for pulling unwary swimmers around by their big toes for at least 22 minutes. They are also overly fond of blackberries and can be bribed to carry passengers across large bodies of water by offering said blackberries.

Hyscent: Hippie term from the 1960s and 1970s that referred to scents, odors that would cause an LSD flashback.

Wergra: Related to werewolves and weretigres the Wergra is a shape-shifting giraffe. Only on nights of the quarter moon will the poor victim of this affliction turn into the vicious Wergra, half man/half giraffe.

Subrip: Small tract of land between the Saharan Dessert and Sub Sahara Africa. Know for it's unusual wildlife it has become the home of the few Wergras known to exist.

Crubb: Large circular crib designed to hold several chubby babies at one time. They can range in size from as small as a Volvo to as large as a Hummer.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Scarecrow and Mrs. King

Once again I'm cheating a little bit and picking two characters at the same time. There is no way you can separate the two though. Scarecrow and Mrs. King are a team and teams stick together even in blog posts.

Now for those of you who don't know who they are and I'm assuming most of you don't, Scarecrow and Mrs. King were the funnest espionage agents in the late 1980s.

Scarecrow and Mrs. King was the name of a TV show that was on from 1983 to 1987 and I devoured every single episode of it. Back then I watched it for the action. Later on in life, when I caught it in reruns, I watched it because of the two main characters. Their chemistry together was a sight to behold.

Scarecrow was the code name for Lee Stetson, played by the very boyish but suave Bruce Boxleitner. In the pilot episode he is trying to escape a passenger train with a package and ends up handing it off to Amanda King, played by the beautiful Kate Jackson. Amanda is a simple divorced housewife and mother of two children who happened to be in the "right" place at the right time. He convinces her to take the package and deliver it to an "add" agency. When she arrives there she is quickly brought into a world of cold war espionage that mainly centered around Soviet agents.

At first Amanda is simply a civilian helper who from time to time assists Lee in assignments, but as she gets more involved she becomes a full fledged agent and Lee's equal.

Now the chemistry between the two is apparent to everyone but maybe themselves but by the end up the show they are happily married but nobody knows about it. Not the agency and not her family, they are introduced to him as Amanda's boyfriend. The love and affection they felt for each other never got in the way of the mission and in my opinion helped them out of some tight spots.

I loved this show and miss it dearly. It had everything a good TV show in the 80s needed. Action, danger, humour, and above all else two characters that could draw you into their lives and make you care about them. I wish there were more shows like this on today.

Proximade Award

I got this wonderful award from two great bloggers and even better friends. Deb at Bookmagic and Michelle at The Book Addict. These bloggers and their blogs are highlights to my day and I wish them all the best.

Being a recipient of this award affirms that this blog invests and believes in the Proximity - nearness in space, time and relationships. This blog receives this great award as a further way to reiterate that it is exceedingly charming, and aims to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!

I would like to pass this on to the following blogs.

Sheila of One Persons Journey Through a World of Books

Kristen of Bookworming in the 21st Century

Jen of Devourer of Books

Jamie at Revenge of the Book Nerds!

Please, Please, Please visit and follow these great blogs.

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Here is how it works.
Grab the book you are currently reading (anything at all)
Open the book to any random page.
Share 2 "teaser" sentences from anywhere on the page.
Please Make Sure They Are Not Spoilers!
(Don't Give Too Much Away) Just enough to pique our interest.
List the book and author so other participants can get their hand on it if they choose to read it as well.

For This Week:

For a second, I just sat there, nearly convulsing with fear, my screams little more than rasps. Then that hand wrapped around my leg, cold bone biting in, scraps of ragged cloth brushing my bare skin.

From: The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong

Winner of The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales

I want to thank everyone who signed up for my first giveaway ever. Thank you so much and I promise this was the first of many to come.

Now onto the winner. Drum roll Please.....A Big Congrats for!

Kristen

The winner will have 48 hours to email me the shipping information or a new winner will be picked.