Please stop the madness......

I have been on twitter again today and I must bring my opinions over here and let myself rant a bit more. One of my fave authors , Shiloh Walker, has a great blog about this subject and I will try and get the link in here when I am done.

http://shilohwalker.wordpress.com/ Check out blog on the cost of Piracy

The subject of course is the stealing of pdf's off the net. The sites pop up at an astounding rate and are sooooo very tempting to grab ahold of a new release or older book that you have been looking for but please stop taking monies away from these talented ladies and gentlemen. They have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into these characters and they should be compensated for their time. Would you volunteer to work 8 months free time at your full time job? Why should they?
I personally am a book addict.... my compulsion is print books... I love the print books, the opportunity to hold a book in hand that someday I may have the chance to get autographed by the author that wrote it is the ultimate for me. I just started collecting auto books this past winter and have a whole shelf dedicated to the auto books... LOL I now tell people like Dakota Cassidy that I can only own auto copies of their books now...
I am not rich, in fact my family is low on the totem and we live paycheck to paycheck. With my 4 sons sports and feeding the brood I can squeeze in a new book or two only by buying sale or discounted books (walmart or zellers are the only two around me... I have no discount book sellers near like sum lucky peeps). I buy used.... a pile of used. My sons tell me I am killing a zaboomafoo everytime I buy a book. Zaboomafoo is a fictional lemur character that joins the Kratt brothers on PBS kids program.....

http://pbskids.org/zoboo/

I have people give me books, some I do not read or have time to read, I pick up books at the second hand store uptown that has been selling them for a quarter all summer, or I stop at other second hand stores or sales to bulk up my titles.... then I have a dealer in used books that I trade... for every 3 I give him he lets me pick 2.... doesn't matter if I give him 3 he will sell at $3 a piece or not I can choose any book, hardcover, large print pb or trade....yesterday I traded 9 books, pb's nothing fancy and I had bought none of them. I got 2 new magna's, (I am just trying them out), a cool Wicca large pb text book, the new Jackie Frank book, and a Janet Chapman highlander book and a Cynster Steph Laurens book... not bad.... So why are you people, OK not any of my followers, but people in general stealing and posting property that does not belong to you on the net? There are other options.... I came home with 9 other books yesterday besides my trades......... I spent $6.... that is IT! It can be done... I am in Canada and cannot participate with a lot of the trading sites on the net but please do something along these lines if you can't afford it. Volunteer to review for some site, another opportunity I am very grateful for, but remember that electronic books are not allowed to be given away or sold whatsoever. If you want to let someone sit at your computer or borrow your ereader go ahead but that is the ONLY way you are not breaking the law..... I know very well the temptation... please don't give in.... OK now end of the rant..... LOL

My week has been really busy, the kids were one of only a couple of counties in Ontario that had to go back to school last week. I was a kind mom and took them out Friday to the beach after aquiring some new protective equipment for hockey and football for my middle two. It had been the best weather week of the summer here and it was a great day although the fog was a bit much coming in off the lake at 2 in the afternoon. So hockey tryouts are done for my HockeyStar, he made the first list of carded players so will be playing for the AAA Lambton Junior Sting this year (the Sting is the junior A team that last years first draft from the NHL, Steven Stamkos, played for). The coaches are a former NHLer and a former top scorer in the OHL so hopefully they will be able to give the boys the guidance they need at this critical stage. We have a busy exhibition sched this week which includes 4 games and I hope no other surprises.
Then my other middle son, RugbyGuy, has an exhibition football game at Western University this week against a major London school. Hopefully he will get to play a lot. He missed last season due to a broken, or shall I say shattered, collarbone he got during rugby play in the summer so now he has lost his starter position but is included in several plays that they plan on running alot.
As for me..... I am dealing with the pain of my shoulder now that physio and massage have been cut off from workmans comp. I have been trying to get ahold of the new person in charge but no one ever answers the phone there and if I leave a message they always call back when I am elsewhere...... I was looking into going back to school but I guess that is only if you were on unemployment within the last 3 years. Since I haven't been on UI in I don't know how long I don't think I qualify.... I am going to go in and see but between work and the sports shuffle this week it will be another week anyway.
What else..... I know there was more I wanted to blog about but..... Oh yeah.... contest and thongs and visitor..... where to start.... I am going to be having a contest.... I wanted to find someone who would cheaply, OK free, help me tweek up my blog then have a contest for a few books. I have won a couple that I already have and want to give them away.... they are not here yet so I will have to wait.

THONGS THONGS THONGS

LOL Dakota Cassidy was one of the people I made a sample thong of their bookcovers and sent them. I want to sell these to help pay for things I need like food, books and gas to get to hockey and football.... anyway I have invested money into buying the supplies to make them. Dakota vlogged about them in her latest vlog

http://www.dakotacassidy.net/

She muses why the hockeyvampiress name.... well I love hockey and my nocturnal sleep patterns make my kids say I am a vampire.... sooooooo ..... I do want to say thank you very much to her for making my day by talking about them during her 9:59 that she has to vlog each week.

So If you would like to buy a custom made book thong I can do it..... I can do any pic that is yours to use. If you are an author and want a bunch to use as promos or for your own collection please email me or leave comment. If you want a thong done with your cats pic, grandkids, car, anything can be done. Price depends on how many you want done. Just one.... $6 including WW shipping, more will be less..... I am up to making deals.... LOL Just let me know

Finishing off today I wanted to tell everyone about my squeeee moment this week. A while back I mentioned to Colleen Gleason, who lives in Michigan, it would be very cool if she could come to my little town and do a book signing. We never get anyone in the Sarnia area, except local book authors that do heritage books etc, so to have someone come here would be verra nice. She told be to get ahold of the librarian and give her the contact info and they would see..... well Tues I got a call from Liz, the librarian, to say that it was a done deal. Thanks to me Colleen Gleason would be making an appearance Oct 15 from 6 to 8 at the library for a reading and signing. This was way too awesome and I told Colleen this immediately on twitter to which she replied.... I am looking forward to meeting you too..... :) So now instead of taking RugbyGuy to see the opening night of Where the Wild Things Are at the theatre, for his birthday, I am seeing Colleen instead. LOL Why a 17 yr old would want to spend his birthday with his mom watching a childrens book come to life still amazes me but he says I can take him again on the weekend.... plus buy him his tattoo... LOL Anyway I will be spending the night listening to an amazing author with her latest book. I had to ask Liz who exactly was coming that night, Colleen, Colette or Joss...... LOL I just added to her work load by giving her Colleens other pen names..... BTW Colette's books are amazing!!!! LOL

Ok better go now I was supposed to be writing a review... LOL back to work and I hope everyone has a safe and happy Labour Day....

Week of Woe is Me

Hey peeps.... I hope your week has gone better than mine.... Sitting here right now with ice back on my shoulder in what is probably going to be a lifer problem according to the doc. So what to do when job I have been at for 4 years that lets me have time off for every hockey game is cutting hours, put a pay freeze on (which I earned the highest avail 4%) so I don't get my raise and I feel like crap everytime I am there cause I am either of pain killers while at work or when I get home. Now my comp claim is pretty much over, no more physio, no more massages.... and the pain still there after 8 months.
So what else is new in the life of the hockeyvamp.... well been musing over several things this past while and need to re evaluate some stuff.... good thing I won a reading by Tarot by Arwen last week on twitter... hoping to pick some good questions to ask her.
Books books books...... my addiction.... hubs asked me last night if I really needed this many books which is prob over 1500 now... and honestly I said yes... no questions but yes...... I am finally diving into the box o books for reviews, have I said I loved my reviewing job.... BBB is great....~~~~~!! And I managed to sneak in one other new release before I got some perplexing news.
And finally..... hockey hockey hockey..... HockeyStar started hockey camp last week. This young man rarely says anything bad about his coaches or assistants that help them.... Last week at hockey camp another former NHL player from the Detroit Red Wings stepped on the ice to help with the camp....... this guy was in my opinion an idiot.... he was rude to the kids, kept on giving them slaps upside the head and prompted his kid and his friend to start a fight with another former NHLer's kid on the ice. My son had to step in when his friend went to his knees to stop himself from hitting back and the other kid Bertuzzied him in the back of the head.... he just grabbed him and gave him a shove back and I was so proud. When he got off the ice the guys were both signing autographs for the kids.... I asked him if he wanted one, his comment was no I have Todd's and the other guy was an ***hole and his kid was a fricken idiot..... Not usually words that come out of his mouth except when fighting his own brothers I was amazed but secretly I thought the same thing. Of course I told him to watch the language but if the shoe fits.... Maybe this is another reason to add to the I hate on the RedWings tourbus I ride on... LOL
Although I must say that Todd, the other former RedWing is a great guy, who when I was in grade 4 I had a crush on since he was my playday leader when he was in grade eight. But I will never tell him that... LOL So hockey tryouts are now in full swing after a messed up weekend finding the coach that was assigned fired, dismissed or whatever they did to him. Now new coaches, another former NHLer (not RedWings I think) but if he does make the cut I have to find money by next week to allow him to play. This is different from the last time he played for this team and I am not prepared with that kinda cash.... any ideas....$$ I thought of selling some books but unless I do a buy it now not gonna get the cash asap plus they hold it for so long before releasing it back to my account..... anyway......
The last thing I am going to say is Yeah Back to School next Monday!!!! My HockeyStar gets the teacher he wants.... LOL get this... he was almost a RedWing but blew his knee out during tryouts.... LOL I am surrounded by the Red and White.... and the Camper Boy gets a new to us teacher so we will see how that works out. RugbyGuy is getting ready for football.... he will be a senior this year, last year I guess he was too but he sat out all but 5 min of the final game with a broken collarbone injury which still includes a 3 inch titanium plate and 8 big honking screws to hold it together.

Well off for now...... oooops forgot to tell you.... I am gearing up for a little contest to get my blog rolling. I will be back later in Sept with the details but you need to follow now and bring friends to follow to get bonus points before you start. Please leave comments and follow me on twitter too... thanks Shell

Dancin on the Bed

Yep that was the site this afternoon when I finally got my first box of print books for review.... on the same day that I submitted my 100th review... so whooot whooot I am over the hump and ready to attack them at full force. Now not only am I listening to a cd version of a favorite authors newest book release which is surprisingly really great.... although I do get distracted.... but since I spent the bucks and bought the hard cover of this one last week too I can check on it if I miss something. As this is my first attempt at a cd version I hope I can do it justice.

Now the turmoil I have been going through this week has dulled to a calm. I cannot forsee the problem ever going away without a major facelift but for now I am OK..... not good but OK>Those of you who follow on twitter know that I have been having a few bad days at home here. Speaking of twitter, tweet deck has become my compulsion..... the friends I have met on twitter are really great and I appreciate getting followed back. A convo I had there this week included the lack of people following you back. If you take the time to follow and they comunicate with you on a regular basis it would be really nice to have been followed back. I understand those that do not autofollow but when you spend night after night in convo with a person it makes you feel bad when you have to ask for them to follow you so you can send them a DM. I just hope that those that I do follow do not ever take that against me and block me.... Please do not block me..... I get upset and cry and make a mess of my mascara..... LOL

Now I am going to sign off for the night.... listen to some more BMR and decide what I am going to do tomorrow while waiting for HockeyStar at hockeycamp. I have a full day to waste.... of course I will be reading but not sure at what to read.... take the laptop where the battery dies after an hour or two or take the manuscript that I have to review or maybe one of the arcs..... LOL yep thank you BBB for letting me get my fix of fantastic books by reviewing for you...... talk later.... as always please leave comments, send a friend and follow.... :)

HI HO HI HO Its off to TO I GO

Hi everyone.... this will probably not entail all the details of my recent excursion the the GTA but here is a glimpse of my mini vacay....
Sunday morning I hopped in the SUV and headed out of town..... unfortunately I had a couple of sidetracks and ended up an hour after I wanted to leave I was on my way.... The weather was gorgeous, sunroof open and all the windows down I flew down the 402 and 401 to Toronto to stay at my sister in laws. Getting on the phone Sunday night from there arrangements were made for a few get togethers that promised to be great. Then off to Walmart cause I forgot the basics, BO, mascara, nail polish. Settling down for the night we watched an amazing lightning show that I was told was the biggest in decades in the GTA.... on the 15th floor the view was fantastic and watching the purple streaks that were somehow horizontal then orange the next then even a pinky colour showed us the awesomeness of Gods gifts and powers. This kinda distracted me from the fact that HBO wasn't a channel available in the condo satelite package so I missed True Blood ( NOTE I watched it last night and whew.... is Eric getting sexier every episode or what?)
Monday morning I bright and early I headed down the 404 to Newmarket to get my hair done by the person who was most like a sister to me growing up... We have kinda kept in contact but just passing comments once in a blue moon and it had been about 18 or so years since we had seen each other........ We had a great chat and I left 3 hours later with some very disheartening revelations and purple foils in my hair.... not the crappy stuff that I had before just on the back this is full streaks of dark fusia/purple throughout... I love it!!!!! And I vow that I will stand by my friend, blood or not, to help in any way I can and that we will contact each other some how at least once a week.... I love this resolution and this is one I plan on keeping.
So now back to Tdot and a quick sandwich then I had to get ready for my big tweetup..... the reason I drove 4 hours.... To go to the booksigning in Oshawa, another hour drive in rush hour traffic, to meet and greet Sherrilyn Kenyon!! Yep that and to meet some other friends that I have met online.... Karen Dales, who gratiously drove us from Toronto to Oshawa, author of Angel of Death: Book One the Chosen.... if you haven't read it yet... please do so and check out my review over at Bitten By Books....Then I was to meet Oshawa's own Leah Braemel, who has two very sexy ebooks out right now, Personal Protection and Private Property, the first which will be out in print by Samhain publishing in March. While there before we even got to the signing Leah stumbled across another Samhain writer Anara Belle whom had comments about the abundance of Twilight promotional items sold at the Chapters store.
We were just glad it came to pass because of the storm I already told you about Sherrilyn's flight had been cancelled but she and her cohorts managed to get into town that morning as to not dissapoint any fans.....
When it came time to have the big signing commence we were treated to an added surprise of Dianna Love making the trek to the north with Sherrilyn and acting as MC for the night. Sherrilyn was sooooooooooooooooooo funny and entertaining and Dianna was her perfect compliment. I can see why they write so well together. Their humor was evident in every response from Sherry and Dianna's sometimes sarcastic remarks made the evening speed along. I even got to ask a couple questions in the Q & A session.... Her thoughts on the Twitter fiasco and whether she ever thought of coming out with a line of Tabby Lingerie? To the first I cannot repeat.... LOL and to the second it seems that if she veered to the designing of lingerie then we would not get to have her concentrate on the writing...... general thoughts of the crowd were hire a designer and keep writing. In no time we were in the line to have our books signed.... at that time, after the store had closed, they said no more than 3 items. As I had 5 things I wanted to get signed I was able to hand one off to Karen and asked Sherrilyn if she could do an extra..... not only did it get done but Dianna came over and wrote on one full side of the PB leaving just a small space on the facing side for Sherrilyn. I also had given her two book thongs. No I didn't give her the one that caused Ash to bite me... the dots are still on my hand BTW. One of Bad Moon Rising and the other of Bitten By Books..... She loved them and told me that she loves Bitten By Books and that just made my night.... :) I also got an Ash magna pin because I was one of the people who came the farthest .... one couple were from Edmonton, but they had been in Montreal for something else and decided to take a drive.... about the same as me, another was from the east coast but she had been there visiting and just decided to come so again meh not as dedicated as moi.... lol Oh yeah I also met Angela Patel another twitter friend.... she walked by and I spoke out hey Angela.... I was glad I was right and it was her.... she made Karens night too by purchasing a copy of her book.... I know she will enjoy it....
After a long day and so much excitement it was time to head home the next morning.... As I tossed all my stuff in the SUV my brother in law and I found a ticket on my car..... In all the excitement the day before I had forgotten to throw my permit back on the dash and in the dark they didn't see it sitting there on the seat...Hoping it is taken care of my BIL was going in to the office to take care of it...
While everything was back on track to head home I managed to make arrangements to have one last tweetup on the way home. JK Coi took time from her busy day to come and meet me for a beverage at the local Chapters nearest her. I was a bit early and managed to find 9 more books before she got there... LOL Then even though it had been her birthday last week I got the pressie when I got another really awesome autographed book to add to the AW (Autograph Wall). We had a nice time talking about things and plan on meeting up again hopefully soon if hockey goes the way we would like this year.
So I guess I better get on with my night... it has been really busy since I returned and next week I will be sitting in a vehicle reading while my son has hockey school. Talk later, and please drop me a comment and send over a friend to follow.... let me know what is going on with your life and what you think of when you have a chance to meet someone that you admire and are a fangurl or guy with. Thanks for viewing.... :)

Sorry I forgot

Last night while in the twitter world I found out about the destruction of the Louisville Kentucky Free Library by flooding. The entire lower level of the structure was flooded including several mobile libraries in the basement parking lot. There are several efforts going to help in the replacement of the books lost but Shiloh Walker is heading up one that I wanted to pass along to you. As I am in Canada the shipping of books is cost prohibitive to me and right now I have nothing monitary that I can donate. But I would like to help by getting the word out there. Shiloh and here friend have gratiously donated their time in accepting any donations of new or like new books to be held until the library can accept them. Anyone who can help please go to this link and let them know what you can do to help. Anything would be gratiously accepted. Thanks on behalf of all the people involved in the restocking of the bookshelves in the LKFL.

ttp://shilohwalker.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/book-drive-to-help-louisville-free-public-library/

Lucky in some unlucky in others......

Hey everyone.... sorry it has been a while but I have compressed a lot in the last month. Half of my family, hubs and 2 youngest,Camper Boy and Hockey Star took off camping for 2 weeks. I never go anymore... why do you ask? Well last time I went 5 years ago... we were up near Sault St Marie Ontario and went into town for the day... we got back and were told that the wardens had gone through our stuff and had set a trap up in the next site... for what??? Full grown male black bear...Needless to say I didn't sleep at all for the next 4 days that we were there.... the next summer I backed out do to work and have been doing so ever since...me and wild animals do not mix.... Unless we are talking shifters and then bring them on!!! But that is another story... To get back to the camping thing. This year they again went to upper Ontario, Elliott Lake. They use tents now, no hydro and usually where they pick no cell reception. And guess what ... they call to tell me they went to a yardsale... IN TOWN and a large black bear decided to check out the goodies too while they were there..... Nope.... no "Camping" for me anytime soon... LOL
So while they were gone Aeropostle Boy and Zamboni Man were the only two home. Man it was soooo cool to have quiet for 2 weeks.... AB was never home and ZM was working quite a bit. So what did I do since I didn't work on updating the blog....

I read.... submitted 30 reviews this month and personal reads of many of the books sitting and staring at me.... Thank you Angie Fox, the Biker Chicks are wonderful, Colette Gale... the tale of Maid Marion has never been so stimulating, Rachel Vincent.... wow I still get tears in my eyes when I look at the Prey book sitting on the shelf and JRWard... I never thought I would feel anything for the Reverend but once again you proved me wrong.... I cannot think of who else fit in there right now but needless to say it kept me quite busy all month.

And now today I had another adventure.... I have begun tweeking my former business of making italian bracelet links, since the fad is pretty much done, and am now making custom book thongs for my author friends. I started out withBitten By Books as a fundraiser (they are on ebay now--go buy one) and a test few of authors that I had won a book or contest from them recently and sent a few out. I am hoping that maybe someone would like to purchase some for giveaways or personal use to make a bit to supplement my book fetish. Anyway, to make these I have a tedious job of gluing then enamelling the charms and to hold them down flat I pin them down. Well today I fell while getting out of my bedroom. Put my hand down very hard and came up with two pins and an Acheron bead imbedded in my hand. The marks are still there.... I am gonna tell everyone they are fang marks... LOL Anyway after trip to emerg tonight I now found out that I did not imbed it into a vein as I thought, it took 10 min to stop bleeding, I punctured the tendon. So now left shoulder still hurting, they now think it is like tendonitus plus degenerative disease and left hand has bruised and punctured tendon. Nice..... so now when I go to get Sherrilyn Kenyon to sign my book next week I have a story to give her along with the book thong. Good thing about it is the drugs are good and I can take both the shoulder meds and hand meds at same time.... lol

So what else is new? Not a lot... my life is books and my hurting myself is about all there is.... Hockey tryouts for HS start next week plus he has hockey school so I will be sitting in a parking lot reading then... for my wants list I am getting really antsy about getting my hands on the next Shiloh Walker Hunters book. This series is one of my faves and I highly recommend it to anyone.... Hunters Edge is my fave so far but from the excerpts that I have been reading on Twitter Hunters Need will be amazing too.... I will keep you updated but alas it is not releasing till December.... but keep up the buzz and keep it on your radar. I am also anxciously awaiting my copy of Demon Inside by Stacia Kane.... can't wait to dig in there too... It will keep me busy for a day or two while I count off the days till I can get my Hunter fix... LOL

Anyway I better sign off.....please leave a comment... I would love to hear what you think... and send some friends to follow.... thanks for your time....

Shell the Hockeyvampiress

Twitpic - Share photos on Twitter

Twitpic - Share photos on Twitter

OK must say that if this works.... this pic redone is of one of my fave Andrew McCarthy movies of which I am a huge fangurl of....