This may be a first

I've started several books this month that I gave up on, for various reasons. Yesterday I found another pile of half read books under the bed that I lost track of and look at now with a feeling of meh. I think I'll give them all away half read.
Sherrilyn Kenyon: Born of ice (also born of night). Scifi romance - Ive read some of her novels and enjoyed them. I think these got a bit samey for me & I couldn't empathise with the characters
Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell: Vox - too kiddy  
Carol Berg: The spirit Lens - I think this is actually a good novel but I just could not get into it.
Cassandra Clare: Clockwork Angel - its a prequel to a series I found interesting, but none of the characters or the story particularly grabbed me or held me  
Johan Harstad: 172 hours on the moon - horror masquerading as scifi (I just don't enjoy horror as a genre, it makes me itchy)
Robert J Sawyer: Watch - I did enjoy the first one in the series, but the main character explaining her point of view to the audience got monotonous - story line please. I don't remember the first one having quite so much in it.

 Theres a couple I finished, but I won't be keeping
 TC McCarthy: exogene - interesting idea and viewpoint, very violent, never really could fit myself in with the heroine.
Galen Beckett: The magicians and Mrs Quent - rip roaring storyline and very Georgette Heyer in style (I like Georgette Heyer) but I struggle with books that run parallel storyline where the different groups of people barely interact (and some of them I quite disliked). I may get the second book anyway, as there may be some long term plan top have the characters join together more.

Theres a few I read and will keep (some came from my bookshelf)
Robert Buettner: Orphans alliance - less original now I'm at book 4 but still good hard war sci fi
Pittacus Lore: The power of six - I'll be reading ther rest of this series to see how it turns out. This is book 2  
Tamora Pierce: Tortall and other lands - I never used to be a short story reader. I found them unfulfilling, but as I get more busy, I appreciate the small bites of time. Particularly in a unverse I'm familiar with already. This lead me to pulling out a couple more of Tamora's books and buying a new one.  
Tamora Pierce: Terrier, Bloodhound, Mastiff - I bought mastiff on Saturday and read it last night and today. I was doubtful as it had been savaged a bit in the reviews, and yes, there's some treachery that could have been subtly forshadowed a little better without giving the game away, but it sucked me in and kept me reading well past lights out. So I feel a bit off today - need sleep (had a nap). I actually liked it better than Bloodhound. I think Terrier is the best. The treachery is very well done in that.

Thats it for April. Off to do some gardening so i don't feel guilty about the computer games later :)

The human spell checker

I spend so much of my time marking reports, that I can't read anything without mentally circling the typos. And yes, I do recognise that I spell atrociously myself - mainly due to the two finger typing (looking at the keyboard), followed by immediately hitting the enter key. And no, that doesn't mean you can send me your writing to check it for you.

TMNT

Can I still use an image of the teenage mutant ninja turtles on my point mutation lecture? What if it doesn't make sense any more? Maybe now I'm inferring the aliens are involved. These are the things I think about while writing lectures.

my poor computer

I tried to fix it, gave up and sent it into my repair guy. He thought he'd fixed it but i couldn't get back to him Friday, so it sat there over the weekend. Called him Monday and he said he turned it on Monday and got new error messages (after installing new hard drive and sata cables). I really hope i didn't corrupt the motherboard in some way. It all sounds very connections related. Anyway...still in the shop.

Edit: back now - new load of windows on new 1TB hard drive. So I'm updating the few things that didn't get swapped across. They did remarkably well, vent has been copied across & kept the passwords and logins - as has firefox. I'm also doubling the ram - but it wasn't in stock so when they get it, they'll drop by and install it at my place. Must remember to make bed that morning and make sure there's nothing embarrassing lying around.

Lotro needs a slight update, doing that now....SWTOR needs a new download of the installer. Guess whats not available right now.