It's 11 degrees outside right now...

but feels like negative 8 with the wind, according to weather.com.  

Guitar Hero: Metallica (XBox 360), by Activision. The kids had asked to play this, but I originally said no. Like the other music playing games, this is rated T, but they songs on here are pretty dark. The songs are mostly Metallica, with some other bands in there (you can see the whole play list on Wikipedia-- they come through almost always on the video game and manga questions I have), but they're all pretty violent. I know the kids aren't thinking about the lyrics, but I'm not comfortable having them play it here at the library. I don't want to get yelled at by parents for letting them play it here, but the kids keep begging me for it, so I am working on a permission slip-- it'll cover all T-rated games, so that will save me some time and the kids some whining. I do like some of the bands, so if I had the system at home I'd check it out for myself. I'd really prefer an Aerosmith version, with a little Queen and The Who in there as back-up bands.

American On Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot, by Craig Ferguson. This was kind a let-down. Craig's pretty funny-- I've seen his late night show about 3 times, always when I'm on vacation-- but I didn't enjoy his writing style. First, he's basically documenting how much his life sucked since the beginning of time, so it's kind of a downer. His voice isn't very developed: it feels like a generic memoir voice, with some random cuss words thrown in. His attempts at modesty also feel very fake. He may actually feel that way, I don't know, but it doesn't feel like he feels that way. Also, he doesn't really talk very much about the whole patriotism thing, which is silly since the title and cover make it seem like it's the premise of the book. There's an interesting observation within the 1st 1/3 of the book about the separation of church and state, and he wraps the whole thing up with some more sappy-ish, fake-sounding spouting, but that's about it. I've only seen about 2 episodes of The Drew Carey Show, but the first thing I saw Craig Ferguson in was an episode of Red Dwarf (oh, how I love the BBC!), which he doesn't even mention in his book. He was pretty drunk that year, so maybe he doesn't even remember it. So, to sum up, rather a let down all around, don't read it unless you a) really really love this dude's on-camera work, or b) have nothing better lying around, like you're snowed in and surrounded by piles of those green inspirational and red "super hot" Harlequins.

Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom, by Juli Kenner. You can stop now, because the title is as witty as it gets. I forced my way through a large portion of this book, holding out hope it would improve, but finally decided I couldn't subject myself to any more of this awful story. The writing leaves a lot to be desired, the author brings nothing new to the paranormal genre, and the story is pretty well crap: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 20 years older, for an audience old enough to have been into the original movie but too old to have followed the TV series that spanned my high school and college years. Plus totally unneeded sexual references, of course. I'm going to have to stop reading books with main characters over 30 because I don't need those images. It's part of a series which I had recently ordered the latest of, and all the installments we have circulate well, so I thought I'd give it a go, but bleh! I've so got to stop trusting the tastes of my patrons. People out here should try something a little more intellectually stimulating.