Once again I'm writing a Monday Morning Madness post on a Monday night, even though I had planned on posting this morning. I was busy this morning writing two review posts and I became slightly ill this afternoon when my allergies/sinuses kicked in, which probably occurred due to the extremely hot weather outside.

Speaking of weather, there has been way too much rain this year. Unlike last year, my vegetable garden hasn't done very good . The tomatoes and the jalapenos haven't done very well, but the green pepper plants are growing. The zucchini plants have blown up, becoming a little too wild for my likening. Little one inch zucchinis would grown, but then they would just go to mush, so today I decided to pull up the zucchini plants and guess what I found the middle of them. One huge zucchini!

Despite feeling ill tonight, I did get my P90X3 workout finished. Actually, my body is extremely sore. On top of my daily workouts, I've mowed the yard five times in the last two weeks because of the rain. Plus, a few week ago, I had put in a new flooring in my bedroom, which is located in the basement. Rain water had gotten into the basement and I had to pull up the carpet. I had two extra boxes of tile, so I decided to put them down in the living room/desk area/family room and see what they would look like. Well, it looked a lot better than the old aluminum flooring, so I had to wait over a week for 12 more boxes of tile to arrive on my doorsteps, which I received last Friday afternoon. I didn't waste any time as I continued with the flooring that night. I finished the entire room on Sunday afternoon. Putting the tile down was the easy part, but moving the desk, entertainment center, chairs and bookshelves was the hardest. Anyway, that's the reason why I'm so sore.


You would think with everything I've been doing that I would be able to sleep, but no as I've been wide awake. With nothing else to do, I've been watching early morning television and besides from watching a few shows on the Disney Channel and those realty shows on  HGTV, there's nothing on but infomercials.

Yes, once again, I'm a little late with this post! I've been busy for most the day and this post just kinda slipped my mind. I started out this morning with my first workout in the Insanity Max 30 program (yes, I'm actually trying this). No, I didn't pay full price (which is way over $100), but instead I purchased it on eBay at less than half the price. I was worried that I would have problems with my knees or get a few blood clots or something, but I made it through the workout just fine. Actually I maxed out at 7:01, which I've heard is good for a first-timer.

Later, I read the second book in the Journey of the Heart series (A Heart's Obsession) by Colleen Coble, which I'll be posting my review on here around the 10th. Then the rest of the day, I was just busy with other things. However, I did have time to watch the first episode of A.D. The Bible Continues on On Demand, but I wasn't too impressed with it.

Did anyone watch the return of Outlander? While I did like the episode, I think Starz could of toned down the sex scene. I was planning on reading the book before the last half of the season started, but I was too busy last week with spring cleaning, so I'm only about half way through it. Maybe I can finish it this month!

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Here in the Missouri, the weather was pretty nice. The grass is now green once again, so if it doesn't unexpectedly snow again, I'll probably be mowing the yard sometime in April. Despite the warm weather, I'm going to wait a few weeks before I do any planting in the vegetable garden; just in case the temperatures does drop again.


If you follow my blog regularly, then you would know that I have anxiety issues. Well, I had to fight those issues to create my first video review last week for the ABX DVD. While I had no problems filming myself attempting to the do the workout for a highlight reel, it took me forever to record the actual review for it.


I've already started some spring cleaning this month by boxing up some Christian books that I no longer wanted to keep. My intention was to drop them off at Salvation Army, but I ended up giving them to an elderly lady who was thrilled to have the books. I already have another box full of books for her. I have two other boxes filled with non-Christian books that I plan on donating to Salvation Army, but it will have to wait until I finish going through all my books, which includes two closets.


Speaking of books, I'm taking a slight break from reviewing books, so I can do some personal reading. I squeezed in some time Saturday afternoon to read the first two chapters in Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I hope to finish reading the novel, which is around 850 pages, before the television series returns on April 4th!

Yeah, I'm a little late with this post today as I've been under the weather with a cold. It snowed several inches over the weekend. I barely noticed that it had snowed until this morning as I spent the majority of my weekend sleeping, well, not the whole time, but I was covered in a blanket to fight off the cold chills. For some weird reason, I was in the mood to watch the Alien movies, so I dragged out Alien vs. Predator Requiem, which is the low-point in both franchises. The film was poorly directed and most of the scenes are just too dark to see. I turned off the lights and watched the movie in the dark, but it was no use as I still couldn't see the fight scenes.

Coincidentally, I found Alien Resurrection on Starz last night and I ended up watching the entire movie. Yes, it isn't the greatest film, but it is still fun to watch. Since I slept most the day, I wasn't ready to go to bed just yet, so I dragged out my old VHS copy of the original Alien (Yep, I still own a VCR) and stayed up to 1:30 AM watching it.  Another strange coincidence is there has been a Predator marathon on SyFy tonight. I'm probably in the mood for these movies after I read online about the new Alien movie in the works from director Neill Blomkamp.


Looks like it is taking a bit longer for me to finish this post as I had hopped on over to YouTube and watched a few music videos. I guess you could say that listening to music brings out my creativity. Now, I don't play any Fender Jazz bass guitars or any music instruments for the matter, but I do enjoy listening to a variety of different music as it relaxes me.

I'm sick and tired of this cold winter weather. No joking, I'm literally sick with a head cold! I can't wait for spring to finally show up, though I dread having allergies. With me being under the weather, the weekend was an absolute bore. However, I did get caught up on a few DVDs that I needed to watch. I have two of the reviews written and posted already. Hopefully, I can get the third review published later today.

Has anybody seen Dumb and Dumber To? I purchased the DVD (it was cheaper than the Blu-ray) and watched it last Thursday. I watched the original 1994 film repeatedly during my teenage years and I'm one of the few that actually liked the 2003 prequel Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. Despite reading many bad reviews, I was eagerly looking forward to the sequel. Let me just say that the Farrelly brothers tried a bit too hard, resulting in a half-way funny & uneven comedy. Don't get me wrong, Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels did a good job reprising their roles and I thought Rachel Melvin was adorable as Penny, but the plot and the jokes could have been better written.

Another Jim Carrey film that I did enjoy was 2004's Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events, which is based on the same children book series by Daniel Handler. The movie was based on the first three books of the series and I thought it was a pretty good movie. Too bad the rest of the books were never adapted. It was announced back in November that Netflix is going to produce a series based on the books. This is great news, but I don't have a subscription to Netflix and I don't plan on ever getting

It looks like February is going to be a cold one, though the snow is almost completely melted away here. The weekend for me was utterly boring, though I did watch a couple of movies. Despite reading several bad reviews I went head and bought the DVD of Hector and the Search for Happiness starring Simon Pegg. I actually liked the film for the most part. Saturday night I watched Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise on HBO. It was really weird movie; not the greatest in the world, but watchable. Then of course I watched the return of The Walking Dead and the debut of Better Call Saul, which the latter was a lot better than I expected and I'm looking forward to watching episode two tonight.

My shoulder and back has been killing me for the past week, so I took a few days off from exercising. Now, I'm back at it as I restarted the TapouT XT workout program last night and I'm really sore this morning. I'll exercise later tonight in between Castle and the second airing of Better Call Saul. It seems that I have more energy at night anyway and I sleep better right after a workout.

I wasn't planning on writing a Monday morning post today, but then I noticed this would be my 50th post, so here I am writing this. I'm glad to say that I finally adjusted my workouts schedule as I exercised before10 AM instead of after 10 PM. I would've done my workout earlier, but I slept in for some odd reason this morning.

My weekend mostly consisted of me attempting to get caught up on reviews, which I'm sadly still behind on. It probably doesn't help that I signed up to review some more products. Actually, I believe I'll be receiving more packages in the mail today. By the way my local post office delivered another package yesterday, which was a Sunday. I was aware they were delivering on Sundays around the holidays, but I thought that had ended a few weeks ago. I guess I was wrong.

Whenever I need a light break from reviewing stuff, I hop on over to YouTube and watch music videos. This is where I stumbled upon the rock band Halestorm and took a liking to their music. On Saturday, I looked for their CDs at my local Walmart, but their music section is so small it is just ridiculous. However, while I was walking down an aisle I glanced over at the $5 CD bin and lo and behold, right there on top of the stack was a Halestorm album. I automatically grabbed it and search through the bin for their other album, but that was the only Halestorm CD in the bin.

I still had a $50 gift card leftover from Christmas which I was planning on buying the Games of Thrones Season 4 DVD next month, so I ended up using it to order Halestorm: The Strange Case Of... for $5.99. I also pre-ordered the new V.C. Andrews book that comes out this week and of course I pre-ordered the Games of Thrones Season 4 DVD.

Well, it looks like for once I'm finally going to get this post published in the actual morning. I'm a little worn out from my new workout routines last week. I have been exercising late at night with the intention to move it into the early mornings, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I probably wait until tonight to do today's workout. There are days when I don't even want to exercise, but I somehow find a way to force myself. The good news is that I have lost 4 pounds since January 1st!

I did something I wasn't ever planning on doing - I shaved off my beard. I grew my beard around 14 or 15 years ago with the intention of never shaving it as my skin has a habit of breaking out when I shave. I can't explain it - I guess I just wanted to try something new, so I shaved it off. I have to admit that I do look a bit younger without my beard. Last week, I charged up my two old electric razors and used them, but they don't give a close shave. Today, I used a throwaway razor, which I didn't care for too much. However, I ordered a new electric razor on Friday, which I hope to receive sometime this week.

I plan on doing some personal reading this year; you know the books that I don't have to review on here. I went ahead and read 10 pages in Shakespeare's Champion by Charlaine Harris, one of the books I picked up at the thrift store over the weekend. Yeah, I know that 10 pages isn't a whole lot, but I only had about five minutes of free time to read yesterday. I do hope to read the entire book this week.

I hope everyone has recovered from the Christmas mayhem. I'm definitely ready to put the holidays behind me and start preparing for 2015!

Now before I get to my 2015 plans, I would like to list (well, brag) all the Christmas Gifts I received this year.

I'll start first with the books - Private India: City On Fire by James Patterson & Ashwin Sanghi, Dangerous Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl, Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead, Prince Lestat by Anne Rice, Killing Patton by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard and Revival by Stephen King. I also received all of the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon - Outlander, Dragonfly In Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo In The Bone, and  Written in My Heart's Own Blood.

The DVDs include The Expendables 3, Operation Petticoat, Penny Dreadful: The Complete First Season, True Blood: The Complete Seventh Season, The Vampire Diaries: The Complete Fifth Season, The White Queen, Arrow: The Complete Second Season, The Strain: The Complete First Season, 9, World War Z and I, Frankenstein. The Blu-rays include Godzilla and X-Men: Days Of Future Past!

These last few days have been dreadful. It isn't even fall yet and I have already gotten strep throat, which I'm just now starting to recover from it. Of course being sick didn't stop me from writing several reviews over the weekend. Actually, I didn't have much a choice, as I needed to get those reviews written and posted before Tuesday. I still have several reviews that I did to get written in the next few days. Yes, blogging can be stressful at times, but it can also be a bit a fun too.

I did have time over the weekend to makes some homemade ice cream, which tasted cold on my sore throat. My grandmother had bought one of those self-freezing ice cream makers a few weeks ago, but after she bought it she noticed the freezing container wouldn't fit into her freezer, so she give it to me, which I made her a batch of ice cream for her birthday last week

Actually, I know my way around kitchen, as some of my blog readers already know. Just last week I made pizzas from scratch (one hamburger and barbeque chicken). The pizzas were personal pan sizes. I don't have pans that small, so I used cake pans instead. One of these days I need to purchase actually pizza pans at a Pizza Shop Supplies.

If you missed my post on Friday, my cat, Fred, passed away. He became sick on Tuesday and I took him to the vet on Wednesday, which he was diagnosed with kidney failure. The vet had him for 48 hours, but in the end there was nothing the vet could do to save him.

Insomnia set in last week due to the whole ordeal and I finally crashed on Saturday, falling asleep in late afternoon. I was more or less numb for most of Sunday and my shoulder was hurting from digging Fred's grave Friday afternoon.

Today, I awoke bright and early and exercised, which is something I have been lacking lately. I watched the movie Rage starring Nicolas Cage, which I'll be writing a review for in the next couple of days. I was basically just wasting time until the FedEx guy showed up, so I could sign for a delivery. I went outside for five minutes to pick some tomatoes and jalapenos from the small garden in the back yard. I wasn't gone five minutes, but it was long enough for the FedEx to leave a "You Weren't Home" sign on my front door. The funny thing is when I was walking back from from the garden towards the deck, I saw the FedEx truck drive by. You would think that he would have seen me and turned around, but I guess he didn't.

It may look like a nice summer morning, but it is dreadful outside. The humidity is so bad, that I can barely breathe, so setting on the deck and drinking a cup of coffee is out of the question. Instead I'm typing this post, halfway watching Too Close For Comfort on Antenna TV and listening to an Evanescence album, so I'm multitasking.

My original intent was to exercise the first thing this morning (which is something I have been lacking and my body is feeling it), but it seems I can't get anything done without a load of coffee in my system. Plus, I have several review posts that I want to get written up and then I want to finish reading a book, so I can write a review for it tomorrow.

I finally broke down and ordered the upcoming blu-ray release of Halloween: The Complete Collection. I've been wanting to replace my DVDs with Blu-rays and this seems to be the cheapiest route. Plus, I want to see the official Halloween 6 Producers Cut! Yes, the price is a little steep, but I have some money put back for it. My birthday is in early September and the Blu-ray set comes out in late September, so I'm buying a late birthday present for myself.

You have probably been wondering where my Monday Morning Madness posts have been for the past few weeks. The truth is that I had to shove those posts aside, so I can work on some freelance writing assignments for the past two weeks. I needed the extra cash and signed up for the projects, which almost turned out to be a bigger project than I could handle. After limiting myself to only a few hours a sleep at night, I would drag myself out of bed around 3:30 AM, brew some coffee and begin typing vigorously for four to five hours. Freelance writing is only a side-job, a way to make a few extra dollars, so I have other demanding things to do during the day. If I didn't finish my writings in the morning, then I would finish it later during the day before my daily 7 PM deadline. Due to the project's workload was increased for the second week, I had to work on tomorrow's projects the night before, which limited my time to work on reviews for this blog. 

No, you're not mistaken, today is not Monday, it is Tuesday; meaning this post is a day late, well actually, it is two months late, as my last Monday rambling was on March 25th. My intentions was to write this post yesterday, but since it was Memorial Day, I didn't have time to work on any new posts.

I did found some time to watch the Axel: The Biggest Little Hero DVD which I received an advanced copy of the computer-animated movie. Look for my review of the movie on June 3rd. And of course I watched the made-for-Lifetime Petals on the Wind, which is loosely based on the second half of the novel of the same name by V.C. Andrews. Though the acting was better than the first film, Flowers in the Attic, the sequel felt rushed and jumped around from scene to scene. If you have never read the book and did watch the movie last night, you were probably confused. The good news is that If There Be Thorns and Seeds of Yesterday will be made into movies, set to air in 2015.

I still haven't watched the Flowers on the Attic DVD that came out back in April, though I did watch it when it originally aired on television in January. I guess I keep procrastinating DVDs that I own, including Game of Thrones: Season Three, American Gothic: The Complete Series (I have had it for over two years), and the complete series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, which I have owned for several years.

I'm barely awake, as I'm patiently waiting for my coffee to finish brewing, while my bed fittings are being washed in the washing machine, so it is a typical Monday morning. I fully agree with Garfield when he said, "I Hate Mondays."

It seems nothing was on television over the weekend except of the overblown coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. For me there is less actually news and more wild conspiracies. At least The Walking Dead was new last night, though the season finale is next week. That leaves only Games of Thrones on Sundays, which starts up again next month. Luckily, I did receive the Beetlejuice: Seasons Two & Three DVD Saturday, but I only got around to watching one episode.

How was everybody's weekend? My weekend was decent, though the weather was a little wacky. A few days of ago it was in the 70s and then there was snow on the ground yesterday morning. I wish Mother Nature would just make up her mind whether winter is over or spring is beginning.

Over the weekend, I finally watched all eight episodes of HBO's True Detectives on On Demand. I enjoyed the limited-series and maybe I'll watch the second season next year; depending on who is starring in it.

Some of my blog readers may remember my old weekly "Great Finds" post which I would list (or more like brag) the books I bought at a thrift store. I have cut back on buying books from thrift stores, mostly because I have way too many books, but occasionally I'll pick up an interesting title, which I don't normally mention on my blog. However, I did pick up a few titles over the weekend that I wanted to share with everyone.

I thought I would go ahead and get this post written while I'm currently awake. I have strep throat and have spent most of today sleeping, but since I'm currently awake and feeling halfway decent, I thought I would write this post while I'm watching/listening to Comic Book Men. As long as I continue to feel better, I will try to get my workout in before midnight. I know I shouldn't be exercising when I'm sick, but I'm going to anyway.

While catching the first few minutes of Talking Dead, I finally realized the Oscars were on tonight. I don't even know who were nominate. To me, all the actors and actresses look a little too perfect, like they all received a Botox in South Jersey or liposuction in Philadelphia. If there was an actual good movie nominated, maybe I would watch the Oscars.

After my workout tonight, I'm going to brew some coffee, as I'm going to need an extra boost to finish some reviews that need to be posted tomorrow. Plus, while I'm writing I'll be watching/listening to The Venture Bros. Season Five, as I need to review it.

My original intentions was to write and publish this post yesterday, but I was slightly under the weather, so it completely slipped my mind, though I did get two reviews posted on time. My insomnia is the mostly likely cause of me not feeling my best. On most recent nights, I have been wide awake starring at the ceiling, only to drift to sleep around 5 A.M. and wake up two hours later. A lack of sleep equals a lack of energy, so I don't get around to exercising until nearly midnight. I did manage to get my workout finished an hour ago, so maybe I'll turn in early tonight.

One of my main goals this year is to stay on tack with my reviews, but I'm quickly following behind. I have four reviews that I'm going to try to finish today. Plus, I'm also behind in my reading. I need to make sure to read a little tonight, and then I can write a review on that book. I have a stack of books to be read and reviewed, along with a few DVDs, Blu-rays and a fan!

Actually, I'm expecting to receive a few more packages today, mostly review items. Yesterday, I received the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles DVD to review from Nickelodeon, whom happens to send random DVDs for me to review from time to time, but in this case I actually requested the title.

If you haven't noticed, I'm a little late with this post today, but at least I remembered it for once. It has been extremely cold for the past week with several inches of snow on the ground, which I hope it will melt soon, as I'm not the biggest fan of the winter weather. I have found myself oversleeping for the last several days, mostly from me not being able to fall asleep at night, which probably has a little something to do with fact that I've been exercising at nearly midnight every night. Some people say exercising just before bed helps you sleep, but that isn't the case with me, as I'm wide awake.



I'm planning on changing my exercising schedule to earlier in the day, well, I've actually been saying that since the start of the year, but I did manage to finish Day 42 of P90X 3 before two-o'clock this afternoon. I pulled something in my back (the exact same of place I had a injury last year) last week and I thought that a stretching/yoga workout would help it out today, but right now it seems to be worse. I guess I'm going to have to be careful with tomorrow's workout. Right now it would be nice to have a hot tube or one of the Sapphire Plunge Pools to lounge in, as they're suppose to be good for a person’s sore muscles or back injuries, but it would have to be an inside pool, as it is just too cold outside. I would probably freeze to death.

At the end of every year, I'm sure many people hope for the best for the new year, well at least I do, but it seems no matter what plans or hopes you have, something always goes wrong. Between a broken tooth, the flu bug and sewer drain problems, the year 2014 is on a rocky start. Despite a few setbacks, I have been able to exercise daily since December 26th, then I started the new P90X 3 workout program on the 31st. I'll be starting Phase 2 tomorrow.

I've been reading up a storm this month, well I'm partly attempting to read a few books from my TBR pile, but mostly I'm reading books sent to me to review. I read Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews, which is the second time I have read the novel. Of course, I watched the Lifetime's remake, which I thought was better than the 1987's version, but it felt too much like a made-for-TV movie (otherwise silly). I just finished reading The Unwelcomed Child by V.C. Andrews (well the ghostwriter) and I'm planning on writing the review today.

Last year, I went through my large collection of books and I donate several boxes and bags full of paperbacks and hardbacks to the Salvation Army. You would think I would have more room, but since then I have either received more books to review or have picked up a few books from the thrift stores, though I don't buy as many as I use to.

My most recent thrift store buys are: