Chelsea tagged me on this thing, then encouraged me to post it as well.
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread." As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded, but not to be read. A $ for the ones you own, * for the ones you've read, ** for the ones you read for a class, *** the ones you started but did not finish.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina $
Crime and Punishment $
Catch-22 $
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights $ **
The Silmarillion $ *
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick **
Ulysses
Madame Bovary **
The Odyssey **
Pride and Prejudice $
Jane Eyre ***
A Tale of Two Cities $
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace $
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad **
Emma $ **
The Blind Assassin
Zatoichi
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Quicksilver Exposition
Wicked $ *
The Canterbury Tales **
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein $
The Count of Monte Cristo $
Dracula $*
A Clockwork Orange *
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno **
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility $
The Picture of Dorian Gray $ ***
Mansfield Park $
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels *
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune $ *
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter $ **
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion $
Northanger Abbey $
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame *
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid **
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit $ *
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers $ *
So, that's it. I guess there are many books out there that I haven't read. I hesitate to tag anyone to follow suit, because I'm pretty sure no one will read this. Clearly, you are reading this however, so feel free.
106 Books
Seasons
Baseball season is pretty much over. The NLCS and ALCS are getting ready to start, but my Cardinals aren't involved (and neither is anyone else in the NL Central...). On the other side of the spectrum, the Miners have been done for almost a month now. I'm usually somewhat saddened by the transition from summer to fall, and baseball season to football season. I love baseball. This year, however, I find myself wholeheartedly welcoming the change. This summer was a bit draining, moreso than last summer even. I'm not sorry to see it go. I'm enjoying spending more time with Chelsea, though she is busier now with school, work, and myriad activities.
Hoos Coming for Dinner?
Mrs. Hatter was gone at Super Summer last week, leaving me all by my lonesome. I was fortunate enough, however, to have several opportunities (when not at work) to spend time with some friends that I don't get hang with nearly enough. So, wherever you are out there, thanks fellas.
Tim Challies has a friend that makes homemade jewelry, and I happened upon her site last week. One of her pieces struck me as one that Chelsea might like. So, I procured this one-of-a-kind necklace for her. Fortunately, she likes it! See?
Isn't she pretty? I'm glad she's home.
Firefox 3 Download Day
Today is Firefox 3 Download Day, an international effort by the Mozilla Corporation to have as many unique downloads of the brand-spankin'-new final release of the third iteration of the popular open source browser as possible. Prepositions, anyone?
So, chuck Internet Explorer and download Firefox. It's better. For those belonging to AppleNation, the Firefox team has apparently spent much time and effort on Firefox 3 for Mac in order to improve performance and, perhaps more importantly, the look and feel of Firefox for OS X, which hasn't felt like a Mac program in the past. I am, however, still a fan of Camino, the Mac only browser built on the same Gecko engine used by Firefox. It's limited in some respects, though, so we'll see what end up with for my everyday browsing.
You may now return to your regularly-scheduled avoidance of this "blog."
Hijacked!
Hello all, Chelsea here. I am hijacking Kyle's blog because he has no time to post anything and won't for a few weeks. So, to show him that I love him, I'd like to post one of his favorite You Tube videos.
This little guy likes to write songs, and we like to watch videos of him. This is Kyle's favorite. I hope you all enjoy as much as he does!
What's your function?
I have to work all day today, but I'd rather be at home watching cartoons...like this one.
Flashbacks
Legal ones.
I'm amazed at how certain stimuli can trigger memories. I'm not even talking about significant memories or memories that bear any sort of meaningful impact...just everyday things.
Last night, Chelsea had her entire iTunes library on shuffle, which kicked out a number of "interesting" tunes. Lots of stuff from the 90's, most of which needs to stay in the 90's (in my opinion). At one point, the speakers started belting a song from Switchfoot's 2003 album The Beautiful Letdown.
I immediately hurtled back in time and was walking north on Goodwin Ave. in Champaign, then cutting behind the Nuclear Engineering Building, angling toward the Digital Computer Laboratory. It was pretty weird...it felt like I was on my way from ISR to DCL to work on a
project. I distinctly remember listening to that album on my iPod (back when it was new, shiny, and would play for longer than an hour) while making that trek across campus.
Goings on
I would probably have to say that my weekend was somewhat eventful. More or less.
I had to work for a few hours on Saturday, and they ended up being very productive hours. I finished things that needed finishing, and there was much rejoicing. Saturday night we had dinner with my parents and watched Stranger Than Fiction , which I enjoyed. I've seen it several times (and own it), but I think it's a pretty good film.
Chelsea awoke with a killer migraine on Sunday morning. If you're fortunate enough to have never had one (I believe I've only had one or two), you're...uh...fortunate. Dizziness, nausea, blurred vision, and, of course, the pounding headache. So, I trotted off to Lakeland by my lonesome and filled in for her with the little kids, where I had great fun getting marker ink all over my hands (some children-made kites were affixed to walls in the process). Pastor Phil expounded upon Numbers 30, regarding making vows to God. This is something God clearly wanted His people to recognize as serious business. Clearly, some of them got it.
As we began reading the text, I mentally jumped forward in time to Judges 11, which I recall from previous study of Judges. Jephthah was leading the people at this time, and vows to the LORD, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering" (Judges 11:30-31, ESV). This, of course, has all the makings of tragic foreshadowing. Jephthah is victorious, and heads home only to see his only child, his daughter, come out to meet him. He is heartbroken and confesses to his daughter that he has made a vow to the LORD. Jephthah's daughter, though, reacts in a manner contrary to what would make sense to the unbelieving world. "My father, you have opened your mouth to the LORD; do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the LORD has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites" (verse 36). She understood that God does not take vows lightly; that when her father made his vow, the law of the Creator of the universe required that he keep it. Jephthah was not only faithful to obey the LORD, but brought his daughter up to be as well.
Sunday afternoon was most unexpected. While I fully expected Sunday to have an afternoon, I did not anticipate the direction it would take. Chelsea recovered from her malady with an unexpected vigor, and initiated a full-scale spring cleaning. We did an embarrassing amount of purging, making multiple trips to the dumpster laden like pack-animals. It was pretty intense, but we managed to get rid of a great deal of clutter, and will be donating a number of t-shirts and other seldom-worn items of clothing to Goodwill. That kept us busy all afternoon and evening.
Then I slept. Then I went to work. Then the St. Louis Cardinals kicked off the 2008 season! Then the Cardinals jumped out to an early lead! Then came the rain delay! Then came the game postponement!
Those last two statements should not be exclamatory.
It is what it is
Had an online observer happened to refresh this blog every couple of minutes or so throughout the course of today, he/she would have witnessed quite the roller coaster. The blog was unable to connect to the site where my CSS sheet is being hosted for a while this morning, so I decided to throw caution to the wind, follow Johnny's advice, and switch to a new template during lunch.
Well, I had a few that I liked all lined up. I tried template number one, but couldn't quite get a few of the kinks worked out. So, I went with option number two, which I primarily like for the AJAX effects (click where it says "Pull"). It didn't work right away, and I decided not to fiddle too much with it. So, I'm back where I was when the day began.
Thank you all for your feedback. I'll be sticking with this for a while, and hopefully making use of this space, so that I can earn the right to change my template sometime down the road, should I so choose (thanks, Chase). I really do enjoy the layout...I think I've just been itching to tweak (it happens sometimes).
So, that's that. Stay tuned.
What to do...
Throw a question mark in there, and you've got it. Clearly, I've not been feeling very "bloggy" lately. Additionally, in retrospect, I've decided that there's probably a good reason why I've never heard anyone say "bloggy" before. It's not good. I don't like it. I shan't attempt to use it again.
Back on track now.
I really like the idea of blogging. I rarely utilize this blog, however. Maybe it's a discipline thing, or maybe I just don't feel like I have anything good to write about. I'm thinking though...when I remember to think.
Please, all three of you, answer me this question: is this current template simply too spectacular to change? I like it, but I also like change sometimes. The idea of something new sounds nice.
Plus, I can always change it back.
So, type on your keyboards and input me an answer.
Whether you're a LOST fan or not...
...there's amusement to be found in this video.
Seriously, Sayid, why haven't we seen any of these moves on the island?
That time
Yes indeedy...it is in fact that time again. Time for me to post something in this abandoned space that Blogger has provided to me. It's been quite a while this time...I'll refrain from referring to any of the seemingly myriad warnings I've uttered in the past with regards to posting irregularity. I don't believe there are too many individuals out there that have been simply chomping at the bit whilst waiting for me to post something again (Disclaimer: this statement is not intended to generate any self-perceived necessity to leave a comment. Disclaimer disclaimer: please feel free to leave a comment).
As those of you that have any sort of semi-regular interaction with me likely already know, I am once again in the employ of the Southern Illinois Miners baseball team. Whereas last season I interned in the box office, I am now the Box Office Manager. All things considered, I have a challenging seven months ahead of me, but have been given a great professional opportunity regardless of where my career path meanders over the next several decades. I started last week, but spent the entire week at a ticketing conference in Chicago, where I promptly took ill. Those be the breaks. In any case, I'm in the office this week and pushing on a snowball that will get considerably larger in the coming months, metaphorically speaking. Literally speaking, I have had my fill of snow and would like few things more than to not see any for the next nine months.
In addition to my well-(self-) documented issues with irregular blogging, I also tend to be an irregular blog reader. I have, however, been better about that of late (thanks in no small part to the valiant efforts of Google Reader). I am hoping this will transition into more fruitful and frequent blog commenting and posting.
Until next time...and may it be soon,
Madly Hatter
