Stumbled onto this tonight. Decided to share.

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2010 has been a good year.

Despite the fact that when it began I was probably at the most rotten place I’ve ever been in my life. After months of unemployment I was working a temp. job. It was one of those classically horrifying cubicle places. I now have a new respect for Office Space, and anyone who makes their living in a cubicle.

I eventually moved on to a new job at a bookstore. This is the best job I’ve ever had. As with any job there are moments of uneasiness and instability, but overall I love it. I’ve made some great friends from working here, and learned a lot more about myself and my abilities. I also have a continuous stream of books.

In August my family came to visit that was awesome. I was able to show them around Lincoln and had a great time for a solid week. I can’t wait for that to happen again.

In October a great friend from high school, however rare those are, came to Lincoln to cover a football game. It was amazing. We spent 3 days hanging out and walking around downtown Lincoln. There are some snazzy pictures from that.

In November, wife and I went on a trip to Chicago and Ft. Wayne, Indiana. I love my wife and the trips we take together. No matter how nervous I am about traveling, she makes it better!

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I’m not entirely sure how this list came to be, especially since some of the items are sort of duplicates of others, Hamlet and The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

I’ve striked the ones I’ve read, italicized the ones that are incomplete and made bold the ones I want to read.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien**
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams***
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
40. Animal Farm – George Orwell
41. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown****
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
44. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
46. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies – William Golding*****
49. Atonement – Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi – Yann Martel******
51. Dune – Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
61. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
64. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
68. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
70. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
71. Dracula – Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
73. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses – James Joyce
75. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
76. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal – Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession – AS Byatt
80. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
91. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
92. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
93. Watership Down – Richard Adams
94. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
97. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
98. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
99. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Read: 23
Incomplete: 4
To-Read: 15

These numbers don’t really bring me up to the full 100, however it does bring me over the requisite 6, but I don’t mind. I’m not interested in a lot of them at this time, but maybe that will change. Any good reasons I should read the unmarked ones? Leave a comment.

**I started these and stopped. I attempted to read them at the height of my fantasy obsession, and couldn’t get through them. I’ll probably try again.
***This is probably the best series of book ever. I love Douglas Adams’ writing. I just picked up the sixth book in the trilogy. Adams had started it, but passed before finishing. It was written in his stead by Eoin Colfer.
****I don’t know why this is on here, but Angels & Demons isn’t. It was clearly the better book.
*****Probably my favorite book.
******In the top running for Chet’s Favorite Book.

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Today I’m here to show you guys my fancy new journal! At Indigo Bridge we have a super neat Moleskine display, and this past Friday we received two of their Passions Book Journals. Naturally I was thrilled, as these journals have been nearly impossible to get into stock, much less keep in stock. I haven’t added anything to the journal yet, but it’s mine. My awesome mom bought it for me, along with some other goodies that I will be sharing soon!

This journal will be great for me to keep handwritten notes about what I’m reading, while I’m reading it. I’m terrible at remembering to type my notes, especially since I usually read just before bed. So here’s to hoping that the post quality will only go up here.

Do you keep a book journal, or any journal for that matter?

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For more information: [Wikipedia Article]

Also see: [User Friendly]

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Often Ezra feels as though they are the crowning optimist. Especially with regard to other people, who are overly concerned with the perpetual marathon life has become. Little do they know, there are others among them. [link]

You all should check it out, give it a try, and share what you commit to the project in the comments below.

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A TRUE STORY RECEIVED FROM AN ENGLISH PROFESSOR

You know that book Men are from Mars, Women from Venus? Well, here’s a prime example of that. This assignment was actually turned in by two of my English students: Rebecca (last name deleted) and Gary (last name deleted).

First, the Assignment:

English 44A
SMU
Creative Writing
Prof. Miller

In-class Assignment for Wednesday:

Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.

And now, the Assignment as submitted by Rebecca & Gary:

Rebecca starts:

At first, Laurie couldn’t decide which kind of tea she wanted. The camomile, which used to be her favourite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked camomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So camomile was out of the question.

Gary:

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed, asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago.

“A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,” he said into his transgalactic communicator. “Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far…” But before he could sign off, a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship’s cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

Rebecca:

He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one
last pang of regret for psychologically brutalising the one woman who had
ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless
hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4.

“Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel”,
Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited
her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth –
when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to
read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at
all the beautiful things around her. “Why must one lose one’s innocence to
become a woman?” she pondered wistfully.

Gary:

Little did she know, but she has less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu’udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted, wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenceless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty, the Anu’udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverise the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan.

The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporised Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. “We can’t allow this! I’m going to veto that treaty! Let’s blow ‘em out of the sky!”

Rebecca:

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.

Gary:

Yeah? Well, you’re a self-centred, tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.

Rebecca: Asshole.

Gary: Bitch.

The original can be found here: [ORIGINAL]

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The most important part about her post today is her review of He’s Just Not That Into You:

I loved this movie! It had a ton of famous people in it. It had a lot of different story lines going on it once, but was easy to follow and fun to see how they would all relate back to eachother. I think this is one of those chick flicks that the guys could also enjoy. This one goes on the rainy day movie list.

I’m going to go ahead and pop her bubble. This is not a movie I think guys will enjoy. I think this movie was about an hour longer than it needed to be. While watching it with Fiancee, we checked the time about an hour and fifteen in, it had another hour left and I had no idea where else they could take the story. In the end it didn’t go far. I will say that it makes a good rainy day movie if you just want to get some warm and fuzzy in your life. However it does not measure up to other films.

Which brings me to my next story point. A few weeks ago Fiancee and I made a Blockbuster run, because we were still hoarding our Netflix. While in line I witnessed something ridiculous happen. The clerk actually convinced a couple to put Liam Neeson’s awesome, action flick Taken back on the shelf, and get He’s Just Not That Into You instead.

This leads me to believe 1 of 2 things:

1. The Clerk is a douche and wants to ruin these people’s night.
2. The couple has just started dating and the guy was trying to impress her.

Either way, no one who has seen Taken can reasonably say that it’s worse than He’s Just Not That Into You. Of course it’s just my opinion on the matter. Maybe I’m the mad hatter here.

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Now I charge you all to go to the game and try to destroy my castle. To load it go to the Build My Own menu, and from there click load. Once the load menu is open you must paste my code in.

1~w_i:408.35,363.35|w_i:466.7,365.05|w_i:578.35,363.3|
w_i:636.7,358.25|w_i:755,358.3|w_i:813.3,356.65|
w_i:883.4,358.3|w_i:943.35,360|w_i:1000,356.7|
w_i:1061.7,358.25|w_s:426.65,363.3|w_s:446.65,365|
w_s:596.7,360|w_s:616.65,361.65|w_s:773.35,356.7|
w_s:793.35,356.55|w_s:903.35,360|w_s:923.4,361.7|
w_s:1021.7,358.25|w_s:1041.7,358.35|fl_i:500,298.35|
fl_i:700,294.95|fl_i:903.35,293.3|fs_i:1028.35,294.95|
fl_s:500,286.7|fl_s:696.7,283.35|fl_s:893.35,281.65|
fs_s:1013.35,283.35|w_s:726.7,218.3|w_s:745,218.35|
w_i:708.35,216.65|w_i:763.35,215.05|f_i:736.7,151.65|
f_i:786.65,133.3|f_i:693.35,133.35|fs_i:735,143.35|
fs_i:688.35,141.65|fs_i:781.65,143.3|fl_w:740,123.3|
f_i:823.4,113.35|f_i:646.7,113.3|f_i:738.35,113.35|
fl_i:635,106.65|fl_i:836.7,106.65|fl_i:741.65,98.3|
fl_i:943.35,98.35|fl_i:540,98.35|fl_i:651.7,88.2|
fl_i:851.7,88.3|f_i:503.35,88.3|f_i:1000,88.3|
fl_i:586.7,78.35|fl_i:788.35,78.35|f_i:936.7,78.25|
fl_i:620,68.35|fl_i:821.65,70|fl_i:666.7,60|f_i:815,60|
fl_i:701.7,50|f_i:681.7,40|f_i:776.65,40|fs_i:821.7,50|
f_i:730,30|w_s:673.35,-26.7|w_s:785,-26.7|w_i:653.35,-26.7|
w_i:805,-25|fl_i:726.7,-91.65|fl_s:726.7,-103.35|
fl_i:725.05,-113.3|w_s:655,-178.35|w_s:675,-178.35|
w_s:776.7,-178.35|w_s:795,-178.35|w_i:636.7,-178.35|
w_i:815,-180|fl_i:725,-245|fl_s:726.7,-258.35|
fl_i:726.65,-268.35|ws_s:638.35,-303.35|
ws_s:675.05,-303.3|ws_s:711.65,-301.65|ws_s:748.35,-301.7|
ws_w:656.7,-303.3|ws_w:693.35,-303.35|
ws_w:730,-301.7|ws_w:766.7,-301.7|ws_s:785,-300|
ws_w:803.35,-301.7|ws_s:821.7,-299.95|
fl_s:731.65,-340|fl_i:730,-350|p_t:670,-380|
p_t:790,-380.05|p_s:661.65,398.25|p_s:675,390|
p_s:700,395|p_s:688.35,406.65|p_s:718.35,405|
p_s:733.35,410|w_i:326.65,361.65|w_i:345,361.65|
w_i:365,361.7|w_i:386.65,363.35|w_i:326.7,240|
w_i:386.7,240|w_s:346.65,240|w_s:366.65,240|
w_s:346.65,116.65|w_s:366.65,116.65|w_i:326.65,118.3|
w_i:386.65,116.65|w_i:326.65,0|w_i:386.65,0|f_s:356.65,-66.6|
f_i:358.25,-76.7|p_t:358.35,-105.05|w_i:305,361.65|
w_i:305,248.35|w_i:305,126.65|w_i:306.7,3.3|
w_i:286.6,114.9|w_i:286.65,238.3|w_i:285.05,363.25|
c_k:846.7,381.65|c_q:546.7,381.65|c_p:500,383.25|
w_i:686.65,216.7|w_i:783.35,218.35|w_i:993.35,215|
w_i:971.7,216.65|ws_i:971.65,126.65|ws_i:990.05,128.3|
w_i:463.3,220.05|w_i:485,220|ws_i:484.9,128.35|ws_i:466.65,133.3|
w_i:506.65,221.65|ws_i:503.3,133.3|

I know it’s really, really…really long, but it’s an awesome castle.

Leave a comment with how many hits  it took to kill the family inside.

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The ties run deep between Sam Houston & Texas Department State University of Criminal Justice

I know this isn’t what the headline actually says, but headlines should not be that difficult to interpret. News copy is meant to be written for all lay people to understand.

Today there is an opinion piece by Mad Brad Basker, this isn’t out of the ordinary, his pieces are printed almost every week. When I first started reading his pieces were pretty well written, and stuck to the humorous side. Lately however, his pieces have become a bit more editorial. I normally make my comments on the paper’s Web site, but today they may be taken especially rough so I decided to put them up where I was in control of the content.

Basker’s article today is meant to show his support for Texas secession from the Union. He begins by telling fanciful stories about brave Texans fighting in the Texas Revolutionary War of the 1830s.

Then, in 1845, some scoundrels decided that it would be better if we were annexed by the United States…

These scoundrels that Basker writes on, saved Texas by becoming part of the United States. In the 10 years of sovereignty Texas was only successful at deepening their debts to the US and other countries. People think the economic trouble we’re facing today is awful; they should try living in a country where the money is literally worth less than the paper it was printed on.

I would stay behind my massive hand-built log cabin, with a hairy chest, a
heart full of fire, George Strait on my jukebox, hoisting an axe with my glistening biceps. The coffee I drank would be strong and black like the buffalo that roamed the plains and my countenance would be hidden behind the fiercest man-beard The South had ever seen. I would smoke a pipe while running with
a pack of wolves, eat beef jerky for breakfast and strangle snakes to make my boots.

This next section is why I decided to post my remarks on my own page instead of theirs. Mr. Basker is an African American student at Sam Houston State University, and as much as I don’t like his articles mostly, he’s a pretty well spoken individual with a good head on his shoulders. I’m actually really excited that this did not come up in his article, it really shows that we are moving on as a society from an atrocious past, but sadly the past does exist. If Brad Basker had been in Texas 145 years ago, chances are he would not have many of the aforementioned freedoms, since he is not a W.A.S.P.

I believe I wrote that in much more considerate way that what could have originally been achieved in the heat of the moment.

Basker then blames the annexation of Texas on his rather cultured life style. If you want to drink black coffee, drink it. If you want a full beard, grow it. If you’re unhappy with your pretty man feet, wear boots and work outdoors for a few days.

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