Top Ten Reasons Why Breakfast is Awesome

10. For the obvious reason... It's bloody good for you, so just eat it! (Well, except for maybe that waffle... it's probably not so good for you... although blueberries ARE a super fruit...)

9. I have never met a breakfast food that I didn't like. I could eat cereal for every meal, and am an egg fanatic.

8. Breakfast is the ultimate comfort food. It's impossible to be sad when you're eating it.

7. Have you ever dipped your bacon in maple syrup? It's better than crack.

6. It's the cheapest meal of the day. Unless you're eating steak and eggs. You can buy a whole box of pancake mix for a $1.

5. No one lets you eat cake for breakfast, but no one has a problem with syrup saturated flap jacks and strudel. I bet if cake and syrup went head to head on a sugar count, the syrup would win.

4. Eggs are the most versatile food on the planet. You can put anything in them and call it gourmet. (Eggs aren't just for breakfast anymore, but we don't need to tell anyone).

3. Try buttering your pancake and then sprinkling brown sugar on top. The brown sugar gets saturated and makes this lovely thick gooey mess that makes your teeth hurt when you eat it. Sometimes I put peaches on and then the sugar so that I can feel like I'm eating something healthy instead of flour, butter, and sugar.

2. There are 24 hour all you can eat breakfast places... but no 24 hour all you can eat dinner places. Ever try to get a plate of spaghetti at 3am? No? I bet you have no trouble finding an omelet. I recommend greasy spoon diners. Mm mm greasy.

1. A yummy breakfast ensures you start the day with a smile on your face. If it goes downhill from there, it's your own fault!

The world of Pern

I was first introduced to the world of Pern when I was a young girl. I read Dragonflight for the first time at the age of 12 and was immediately and irrecovably in love. I used to dream of having a dragon of my very own and frequently named my pets after characters in the stories, (I once had a salamander named Ruth- however things got complicated because my beloved grandmother's name was also Ruth and she was quite put out by sharing her name with a slimy critter... I also didn't have the heart to tell her that, in the book, Ruth is a BOY dragon!).

The world of Pern was created by the late Anne McCaffrey, who sadly left us in November of 2011. The entire world is based on a group of human colonists from earth and how their culture develops as they settle their new home. Everything seems perfect with their new home until they discover the menacing Thread which is an organism that falls from the sky and eats everything biological in its path! Genetisists create the dragons out of a smaller life form that exists in the natural ecosystem of Pern, and these are used to combat the Thread. The story begins hundreds of years later when all technology is lost and only stories remain of the original landing of the settlers.

I recently began re-reading the series in anticipation of a movie that is scheduled to go into production sometime this year. You can read more about the movie here, but so far I'm very excited. Some small part of me knows that the world of Pern on the big screen could never be as wonderous as in my imagination, but I can't help feeling like a little kid at Christmas to see my childhood fantasies come to life.

If you are not a science fiction / fantasy geek like me, I encourage you to read them anyway. If for no other reason than to appreciate the enourmous talent and descriptive literatary genious that was Anne McCaffrey. The world is a darker place without her, but she will live on in our imaginations.

P.S. ----> Anne, if you can hear this - please let Santa know that I still would very much like a dragon for Christmas, a Queen if he can manage it, but I'm not picky.

Love Jewels