The second cake in this post on Cake Wrecks would have been perfect to have at one of Dawn's good-bye parties.

( On to the most appropriate cake ever! )

x-posted to

1. Put your iTunes (or any other media player you may have) on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
We Got the Beat

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Silent All These Years

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Ruby Tuesday

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Crush

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
100 Years

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
It's a Heartache

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Footloose

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Fireworks

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Head Over Heels

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Crazy Train [okay, so this one is perfectly right]

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Stick 'Em Up

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Learn to Fly

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
It's Not Unusual [this one isn't accurate at all]

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Afternoon Delight

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Cornflake Girl

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Jump

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
After the Rain

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Satisfaction

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Vindicated

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Whip It [this might be the funniest thing ever]

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
What's Love Got to Do With It?

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Strange Little Girl

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
We All Sing With the Same Voice

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Joyride

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
True Colors

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Mr. Roboto

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Won't Back Down

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Man on the Moon

I've been trying to complete my Camp Sunnyside Friends collection, and I think I have all of the books now except for #17, Camp Spaghetti. Recently, I found a used copy of #16, Happily Ever After, which I never read when I was a kid.

The plot: Sarah's widowed father marries Trina's divorced mother, and the friends are thrilled to become stepsisters. Sarah and Trina want to prove that their new family will be perfect and that everybody will get along all the time, so they decide to share a bedroom, even though their house is big enough for them to have separate rooms. But it turns out they hate sharing a room, because they're just too different. For example, Sarah likes to listen to music while she does her homework, and Trina can't concentrate that way at all! Oh noes!

Does this book remind anybody of anything? ;-)

x-posted to babysittersclub

I was at a used bookstore today and I was looking at It's Great to Be Eight, which I'd seen before. It has a bunch of stories about, well, being eight. There's a series of books — It's Heaven Being Seven, It's Fine to Be Nine, etc. I knew Ann M. Martin had a story in it, but since almost all of the "stories" in these are excerpts from books, I'd assumed Ann's story was something that had been previously published in a longer work that I'd already read. But I actually bothered opening the book today, and the Ann M. Martin story is something that hadn't been published elsewhere... and it's BSC-related!

It's called "8 x 2 = Sweet Sixteen" and it's also not much of a "story," just a long internal monologue. It takes place three weeks before Karen Brewer's eighth birthday, and since Karen Two-Two is of course having two eighth birthday parties, she thinks that it's sort of like turning sixteen, and she's thinking about all the things she would want if she really were turning sixteen. Obviously, it's very classic Karen! There's an inconsistency in it that irks me, though. Karen talks about Charlie being sixteen "last year," but if she were turning eight, he should already be eighteen. On the other hand, it's not as if I'm not used to time warps in BSC-land.

x-posted to babysittersclub

I read this article in the Globe and Mail today and it made me think of the BSC:

Someone to Watch Over Them

Oddly enough, it doesn't mention that the people you bring on vacation to watch your children should be thirteen years old.

x-posted to babysittersclub

Topps trading cards/stickers that parody consumer products, usually in a gross way? I don't know if anyone in the community has mentioned it before, but apparently card 53 in the 1991 series was a Baby-sitters Club parody, and you can see it here. I think I love it.

x-posted to babysittersclub

I now have every Baby-sitters Club book!

My boyfriend and I were in Fredericton today, and we went to a huge used bookstore. They had tons of BSC books there, although it was mostly because there were multiple copies of earlier books and very few after about #80. There also weren't many Super Specials or other books outside of the regular series, but for some reason I had a feeling that I'd find what I was looking for there, and I did. There was a copy of Mystery #35: Abby and the Notorious Neighbor, which was the last book left that I needed.

So I've got all the regular series, Super Specials, Mysteries, Super Mysteries, Friends Forevers, Friends Forever special editions, Portrait Collections, Special Edition Readers' Requests, California Diaries, Chain Letter, Secret Santa, the Complete Guide, the Postcard Book, the Notebook, the Guide to Baby-sitting, the movie novelization, and the Ann M. Martin biography. This feels like Stage 1 of a "complete BSC book collection."

Now I can focus more on LS (I also got two of those today), The Kids in Ms. Colman's Class, new-style covers, replacing some of the more worn books in my collection with ones in better condition, foreign editions, and non-book materials. Whee!

Oh, and I'm also still looking for another copy of #89 Kristy and the Dirty Diapers because my copy is somewhere in my parents' house and it's bugging me to still have one book missing from my apartment even though I actually own them all.

x-posted to babysittersclub

You know those dreams you have where you're at a bookstore, and you find a bunch of BSC books you don't have, and every time you think you've found all the ones that are there, more keep turning up, and it's just awesome? Well, yesterday I had that happen to me in real life. Only these were French translations, since I have every book in the series except one (Mystery #35) in the regular American edition, but until yesterday, I only had fourteen in French. Now I have twenty-four, because I found ten at Value Village that I didn't already have. I am very psyched about this, as I didn't have Super Specials or Mysteries in French before. These are the Héritage jeunesse editions from Québec, not the Folio Junior ones. Every time I was about to leave, I'd notice another book and then pick that one up, too. I'm really glad I didn't overlook the Mysteries, since they're a different size than the other books so they were in the next section over. I bought the following books:

#28: Sophie est de retour
#35: Mystère à Nouville!
#40: Claudia et la tricheuse
#63: Le juene jeune ami de Claudia
#64: Diane et la querelle de famille
#66: Anne-Marie, bonne à tout faire
Super spécial #1: Les baby-sitters en croisière!
Mystère #4: Christine et l'enfant perdu
Mystère #5: Anne-Marie et le secret du grenier
Mystère #14: Sophie et l'énigme du centre commercial

So today I have been reading random bits from the books and being entertained by changes in the translated version. Like how in #63, when Stéphane Robitaille (Shea Rodowsky) writes the letter to Jackie Robinson, he mention that Jackie Robinson played in Montréal and there's a statue of him in Montréal, which of course isn't mentioned in the original book. Even more bizarrely, in the regular book Mary Anne decides that since Jackie Robinson is dead, the letter should go to the Los Angeles Dodgers, which pretty much makes sense, but in the French book, Anne-Marie tells him to send it to the Montreal Expos, which makes almost no sense at all.

x-posted to babysittersclub

I posted this to babysittersclub and am just reposting it here so I can keep somewhat of a record of posts I make there.

Just a quick question — what's the URL for the BSC board? Although I've moved into my new apartment in New Brunswick, my computer is still packed (and might stay that way for a few weeks, until we move into a two-bedroom, because there is no room in this one-bedroom), and I've got it bookmarked on my own computer, but not on my boyfriend's.

Oh, some actual news: I visited my parents for a few days before moving here, and while I was there I rounded up ALL of my BSC books that were still at their place (except for #89 Kristy and the Dirty Diapers, which I couldn't find, so I'll probably have to buy a new copy of it) and I brought them with me. So now I've got all my BSC books and paraphenalia (calendars, bookmarks, etc.) under one roof — except for the two board games and three jigsaw puzzles, which were too big to bring along this time. I also brought all my LS books. Wow, this is exciting. I'm such a total dork.

I just read this book for the first time, and I really should jot down some of the snarky things I think when I read BSC books, because I can hardly remember any of them by the time I'm finished a book. The mystery wasn't stellar, but it wasn't completely ridiculous, either, and I liked the atmosphere of the book. I wanted to be hanging out with them at the bookstore, helping them get it ready for the opening. Because I am a dork.

( some spoilery stuff here )

x-posted to babysittersclub