Barely ever do these...

So I feel fairly accomplished, and I didn't bother with those I Love. I just wanted to see how many I had read. And if I put (*) it means I own it and plan to read it one of these days.

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
a) Look at the list and put an (x) after those you have read.
b) Add a (+) to the ones you LOVE.
c) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
d) Put a ($) next to any you are currently reading.
e) Tally your total at the bottom.
f) Put in a note with your total in the subject

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

TOTAL:
52 Read
1 Am in the Process of Reading
9 Own and Need to Read

North Dakota House approved a measure this morning giving fertilized eggs a Right to life. The measure still has to pass the State Senate, but if it does, it would basically place a ban on abortion in the state. I guess I don't follow North Dakota's state politics all that well, but it surprises me that they are apparently making leaps in a pro-life direction. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out and how other States and the US government will take it.

this made me laugh.

AP

Feb 16: This No Kissing sign was unveiled at Warrington Bank Quay railroad station in Warrington, England, Monday in a bid to cut delays. The sign has been placed at the dropoff point.

One baby with extra pickles and a side of fries, please.

A made-to-order baby? It scares me that reproductive technology (it also bothers me that we associate these two words) has gotten to the point where parents can special order a baby with the "perfect" eye and/or hair color. Why can't couples just wait for the surprise and rejoice with what they are given? This quote from the article bothers me: "Reproductive technology is a blessing for families who need it to give them what nature could not — healthy children." Why are unhealthy children automatically keyed off as not being a blessing? Arg. Our country, well, much of our world, really irritates me sometimes.

Any thoughts?

... always perseveres.

An interesting photo essay from TIME on love. Every couple interviewed and photographed has been married a minimum of 50 years. Wow. That seems like eternity at this point. David & I have only made it 6 months thus far, and my parents are not even halfway there. One of my sets of grandparents is already on their way (two more years I believe) to 60 years, and the other set should hit fifty in 4 more years. Now that's what I call Love.

suspicious?

I should think so.

"...David Ogden’s advocacy for the pornography industry goes much further. His position would allow the purveyors of exploitative images to hide their abuse behind a vanishing paper trail. There is some irony in the fact that while our country employs thousands of inspectors to ensure that meat and poultry are safe, David Ogden opposed even basic steps to ensure that the images consumed by pornography users are not of children. While David Ogden’s stated concern was protecting “free speech”—in his confirmation hearing he said that he is opposed to the exploitation of minors, and presumably he is sincere—it is hard to see any justification for a position that has the effect of abetting abuse. In addition to making it harder to prosecute those who sell images of child molestation and rape, Ogden has sought to ensure that pornography can be easily distributed and readily accessed in almost any medium or location.

He has fought cases in Puerto Rico to allow Playboy to broadcast explicit programming on TV. He represented Philip Harvey, a man who runs the nation’s largest mail-order pornography shop out of North Carolina, in his attempt to deflect a Department of Justice investigation of his business. Completing a sort of multi-media grand slam, Ogden has sued to allow sexually-explicit content to be transmitted over the phone. Taking this quest to its absurd limits, he has even claimed in court that there is a constitutional right for pornography to be kept in firehouses. Ogden’s position is good for the industry groups he has represented but bad for female firefighters who could be subjected to humiliating and harassing images in the workplace. With an equal disregard for the comfort and protection of children, in 2000 Ogden sued to allow pornography to be accessed in public libraries."

To read the entire article from thePublicDiscourse.com, go here.

Radical Love.

May I just say how much I love nuns?
http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2009/radical_love/

funny?

I saw this through my Google RSS feed, and thought it interesting...

Geva Comedy Improv Presents: Be My ValentineTime: 10:30 PM
(US/Eastern)Location: the Nextstage at Geva Theatre Center
Roses are red, violets are blue, some love-crazed lunatic is gonna kill you.
Be My Valentine: An Improvised Blood-soaked Slasher/Romantic Comedy Join the Cast of
Geva Comedy Improv for a special run of shows wholly dedicated to the “Slasher
Movie” genre. Each performance will be a unique live action “movie” based upon
suggestions from the audience. Be sure to catch this heartwarming/horrifying/hilarious evening of entertainment. Enjoy thrills, laughs and warm memories with that “special someone” in your life. Woo your date with cheap drinks, or snare someone who has already enjoyed a few - we're not
judging. It's simultaneously the most AND least romantic date night in Rochester!
(Studies have shown that people are more likely to make out after watching scary movies, just tossin that out there…) Oh yea, there will be blood. Stage blood. Gallons of it. You may get splattered. Does the blood wash out? Yes. Will the psychological scars heal? Probably not. Will someone find
love? (We’re hoping it’s Ted)
Friday February 13th 10:30 PM Saturday
February 14th 10:30 PM
Thursday February 19th 7:30 PM Friday February 20th
10:30 Saturday February 21st 10:30 PM
All shows are in the Nextstage at Geva
Theatre Center, and they only cost $7! Get your tickets at the Geva Theatre Box
office, online at http://www.gevacomedyimprov.org or
by calling 232-Geva (4382).
Sometimes love hurts. Other times love murders you…

http://rocwiki.org/Events_Board

obsessions of the week.

my hot water bottle.




















m. ward.

twinings. blackcurrant.

This quote below was in Chaos Theory, which I watched the other night with David & Christin. The movie had it's laughs and interesting turns. I wouldn't count it as a great movie, nor one to add to a movie collection, but it wasn't bad for the $1 Blockbuster fee. This quote, however, I thought interesting... it was right near the end of the movie after a story that did show relationships that overcame dirt and sin and betrayal.

"Ever heard Chaos theory Ed? Its a science, tries to determine
underlying patterns in chaotic systems like weather, ocean currents, blood
flow sort of things. But it turns out that are few things more chaotic than
the beat of a human heart. Its beating up, slowing down. Pretty face, flirty
stares. Its always changing on whats happening to ourselves out there its
erratic sound... But underneath all of that bump to bump mess,
there is in fact a pattern, the truth, and its love. Most important thing
about love is that we choose to give it, and we choose to receive it. Making
it the least random act in the entire Universe. It transcends blood, it
transcends betrayal and all the dirt."
and makes us human.

maybe i'm just too skeptical.

This seems like a perfect example of loving generosity... but a side of me wonders if there is a catch, if these people are possibly just the victims of another exploit... I don't know. I guess the right approach wouldn't be to judge right away and to not assume that someone who is giving what they have is automatically a horrible person out for selfish gain.


Man hands out cash in New York
By Sima Kotecha Newsbeat US reporter

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/newsbeat/newsid_7869000/7869277.stm

"Imagine getting £35 for doing absolutely nothing. Well in New York, a man is
giving away stacks of cash to anyone who's prepared to stand in line for it.
The mystery man, who calls himself 'Bailout Bill', says in the middle of an
economic crisis ordinary Americans who are struggling to make ends meet deserve
a bailout.
In order to get the money people have to go the 'Bailout Booth'
in the heart of Manhattan's Times Square.
It's a small cubicle, a couple of
blocks away from the massive Virgin Megastore.
The minimum anyone can get is
$50 (£35). The maximum is $5,000 (£3,513).
No matter who you are or what you
do Bailout Bill guarantees that you'll get something if you just show up and
tell your story. "

biscuits and honey made for a lovely breakfast.

"The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of." Blaise Pascal

the office had wegmans cereal on its shelf.

Lord, teach me how to have a heart that is pure.

silence.

I've been reading (well, re-reading I guess) Mother Teresa's book No Greater Love recently. Here is a passage I've been pondering over:

"We cannot find God in noice or agitation. Nature: trees, flowers, and grass grow in silence. The stars, the moon, and the sun move in silence. What is essential is not what we say but what God tells us and what He tells others through us. In silence He listens to us; in silence He speaks to our souls. In silence we are granted the privelage of listening to His voice

Silence of our eyes.
Silence of our ears.
Silence of our mouths.
Silence of our minds.
... in the silence of the heart, God will speak.

Silence of the heart is neccessary so you can hear God everywhere- in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.
If we are careful of silence it will be easy to pray. There is so much talk, so much repitition, so much carrying on of tales in words and in writing. Our prayer life suffers so much because our hearts are not silent.
I shall keep the silence of my heart with greater care, so that in the silence of my heart I hear His words of comfort and from the fullness of my heart, I comfort Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor."

Silence. It's almost an anomaly.