Long and Literary Post

I found this on MagicMarmot's blog.

I wasn't going to give in. I mean, post 106 book titles? What am I? Crazy?

My English degree won me over and here I am.

From MagicMarmot:

What we have here are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose (and I liked the movie)
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
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 : a novel
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 : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (HATED the movie)
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

To total up:
Read on my own: 16
Read for school: 22
Started but didn't finish: 7

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I have to share this little St. Patty's Day goodie with everyone. One of our fellow cast members from "Sound of Music" sent this my way today. THANK YOU, Sharon!

The best rendition of "Danny Boy"... EVER!

Think Positive

"Life is what our thoughts make it." -- Marcus Aurelius

As I drifted off to sleep last night, negative thoughts kept rolling through my brain. It's easy to let that happen these days. Discussions with co-workers, friends and family turn into massive bitch sessions about the weather, politics, the state of our country, etc.

I found myself wondering, "Where's the good news?"

I've decided to try a little experiment. Every day, I'll try to post something positive. It could be from the news, my personal life, observations... anything. It just has to be positive.

Granted, this doesn't mean that I'll stop posting rants or general silliness. There will just be something positive in the mix.

Postive Post #1

Famed Tall Ships to Grace Duluth Harbor

Avindair will love this one! August 1-3 in Duluth, three tall ships will be in Duluth Harbor. The Pride of Baltimore II is a recontructed War of 1812-era ship with working cannons. The Niagra, also a recontruction from the same era, has propulsion engines and modern navigation equipment, but no modern amenities. The Madeline, is a reconstructed schooner that sailed the Great Lakes 150 years ago. According to the article, three days of music, entertainment and food with a maritime flavor will ensue. It's a weekend. Mark your calendars!

Leap Day Post

Just so I can say that I posted on Leap Day.



Note: I found this image of "Whimsical Leap" on a site called Go Leap. The artist creates these beautiful, colorful sculptures of the body in motion. Worth checking out!

The Next Gen of Trekkies are... Cute!

Two Feel-Good Businesses

One I've experienced, one I have not.

First, the Purple Crayon Factory. I first met Teresa Thomas-Carroll, the director and founder of Purple Crayon Factory, through a business women's networking group. It's rare and refreshing to meet someone who is as enthusiastic about their work as she is. PCF's workshops bring a creative approach to self-reflection, realization of goals, stress management, life balance and much more. Check out her website and workshops!

The second was a link I followed from Teresa's PCF newsletter today, HOURCAR. Have you ever come across a business idea so incredible that you wish you'd thought of it? HOURCAR is a car-sharing membership for the Twin Cities. Not a service for suburbanites, like myself, but great for people living in the middle of the metro. Instead of owning a car and having loan payments, insurance payments, maintenance, fuel, garage, etc., members pay an affordable monthly membership fee, plus hourly use and mileage for just the hours they use the car. Plus, all of the cars in their fleet are gas-electric hybids. What a great idea!

Ew?

Admission to the zoo: $15
Stroller rental: $10
Seeing your child lick a pig's nose: Priceless

(Thanks to my son, MonkeyDude, for the link to the picture AND the commentary!)

Smart Drivers DO Exist!

I found proof on the road today that smart drivers exist when I spotted this bumper sticker:

On the other end of the bumper was another gem that I still can't find an image of. In parody of the "got milk?" adds it read "got photons?"

Awesome. And the driver even used his turn signal! Wow!