Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

If you don't see me...

At work we have one of those computerized calendars with everyone's schedules so you can see when people are free for meetings and so on. My offically scheduled hours are 7:30 am to 3:30 pm. I usually get in around 7, but I don't like having to go to a meeting before I've had a chance to check my messages and drink my coffee (yes, we have people who schedule 7 am meetings. We have people who schedule 6 am meetings.) Likewise, I often leave closer to 4, but I like having the end of the day unbooked so I can tidy up my desk (this is a joke...my office looks a manila folder factory exploded).

Our fiscal year ends tomorrow, and in July I need to write staff reviews, work up objectives for next year, and do an inventory project that involves reconciling data from six different (and incompatible) sources. And I need to do my usual work, and cover for some vacationing people. In July, my days tend to end at 5:30 or 6, plus the work I bring home, plus weekends. (A couple years ago I brought my inventory stuff with me to a wedding. August 1 is a hard deadline.)

I'm not bitching (I know too many people who work my July hours all the time), though it's a bit of a bummer to be so busy when I really want to be outside playing. I'm really just mentioning this in case I don't find time to blog for a few days. I don't want you to worry that I've been hit by a bus or something. Not that you would, but I'm feeling self-important. That's what happens to me when I work senior executive hours, I get a swelled head.

Unrelated...the emergency vet was for one of our rats. We thought he had a bad respiratory infection and maybe a stroke, but our regular vet thinks he's actually had a spinal cord injury. He's doing ok today...not great, but ok...and we appreciate your good thoughts. Thank you.

I had two frustrations at the emergency vet. One was a family who were there with a pregnant german sheppard who was having a tough time, and it was clear from the conversation that 1. the father was also their dog, 2. they were not intending to breed, and 3. they didn't have a plan for what to do with the puppies. I wanted to throttle them for not having those dogs spayed and neutered. I think any animal owner who neglects to neuter like that oughta have to spend a day seeing shelter animals being euthanized.

The other thing that bothered me was that when the vet finally came in to our exam room, he excused himself and left in the middle of what passed for taking care of our guy four times. Now, I understand triage, and if a cat had come in after being hit by a car and he'd blown us off I'd have understood, but one of the times he left it was to write up the medical history form on the sheppard, who by that time was (in the vet's own words) doing great. I can't help but think that if we'd been there with a dog in respiratory distress who'd suffered two seizures he would have given us a bit more attention, but we were the "just a rat" being fit in between "real" patients.

Now I'm all cranky again, just like I was last night. I think I should go to bed now, or I'll be too tired for Fiscal New Year's Eve tomorrow.

ER

A night at the emergency vet isn't any more fun than a night at the people emergency room.

Today is June 27

...and that makes today National HIV Testing Day.

Not Friday, when I first mentioned it. (I dated everything on Friday June 27. Stuff at work, checks, everything. Thanks, Zenchick, for pointing this out..)

The fact remains: anyone with any potential to be infected with HIV should be tested.

Look at this:

The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt is in town this weekend...well, 1,000 panels of the quilt. There are over 44,000 panels now, panels to memorialize someone who died of AIDS.

In 1988, the year I started working in public health, I became friends with a guy named Paul. He was young and gay but still mostly in the closet, since he'd been estranged from the family he'd told. Paul was the one who introduced me to the Quilt that year, when all 8,288 panels were displayed on the Ellipse.

We have come so far since 1988...but only just so far. With all we have learned, people are still being infected, people are still unaware of their infections and not being treated, and there is still only treatment, no cure. We still have a long way to go in the fight against HIV/AIDS. And the Quilt keeps getting bigger.

Now I'm bugged

I think the news of my love for cicadas spead around the insect world...and while I'd have welcomed the red-eyed guys, I'm am not so thrilled to find the bugs I'm finding now.

I planted vegetables this year. I was so enthused about the prospect of picking a few squash and throwing them right on the grill for dinner, or tossing some tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers with a red wine vinagrette, seasoned with some oregano.

The plants got off to a great start, too...bright leaves, abundant blossoms. I was thrilled by the first embryonic fruit...a pepper the size of my pinky thumbnail, tiny zucchini.

Then the leaves on the tomatoes started yellowing and curling. The blossoms dried and the baby fruit stayed small and green. The squash turned brown and soft, and the peppers were stunted.

I tried watering them. I'm a lazy gardener...I thought maybe we weren't getting sufficient rain. Then I quit watering them, thinking maybe they were getting too much rain. Then I noticed the little white spots on the tomato plants were moving...aphids. And on closer look, I found baby hornworms.

And across the yard on the squash, the leaves of which were also dying...a greenish yellow spotted bug. At first my hopes were raised: a lady bug come to eat the aphids! But after an internet search I found out I was playing host to spotted cucumber beetles, which could spread bacterial wilt which may well be what's killing the squash and cucumber.

The flowers out front are also full of holes, but I'm not sure what's eating them. Japanese beetles, maybe, although I know I have slugs and I also saw an earwig.

Oh, and my next-door neighbor (in my townhouse, so we are attached) told me she has termites.

At least I have one friend:

...but she really needs to get eating.

Get tested.

Today is National HIV Testing Day.

From the CDC:

CDC estimates that between 850,000 and 950,000 Americans are now living with HIV. This is the greatest number since the epidemic began more than two decades ago. It is estimated that one fourth of the people living with HIV, approximately 180,000 to 280,000 people, remain unaware of their infections. An estimated 40,000 new HIV infections continue to occur in the US each year.

If you have any reason to think it may even be slightly possible that you are infected, you have no excuse. Get tested.

The "F Word"

I try not to use bad language too frequently in my blog...in stark contrast to my real life, where I sound like an extra from Scarface most of the time. I'm trying to clean that up, because I don't want to get the blame the first time my niece or nephew comes up with a shocking explative in front of a grandparent or a nun. And it's not terribly professional or dignified...not that I'm either, but I'm trying to improve.

I'm not shocked or offended by Dick Cheney (or John Kerry, or anyone else) swearing. I'm just amused by the way the press has to dance around the direct quotes, since there are still some words you aren't supposed to say on television or print in a "family" paper.

It made me smile this morning to hear the radio newscasters saying "the F word." (I started substituting other F-words..."Frog yourself!" "Frappe yourself!") And I was beside myself with delight to see that the Washington Post has made journalism history by printing, without dashes, the direct Cheney quote. That's accuracy in media!

Interestingly, in the same article the Post censored George Bush's quote about Adam Clymer, saying "major-league [expletive]" instead of "asshole." Does that rearrange the hierarchy of bad words, or will direct quotes of an unseemly nature only be reported from this day forward?

Work like you don't need the money

What exactly does than mean: work like you don't need the money?

Take your own sweet time doing a half-assed job because your parents/spouse/sugar daddy will pay your bills when you get fired?

The rest of this post isn't related to that question, except perhaps subconsciously.

Except for the new cafe, work hasn't been real happy. We found out yesterday we're being reorganized...or restructured or reengineered, I can't remember which one it is this time. In 12 years, we've re-something-ed eight times.

I've had seven bosses, five of whom are no longer around. That doesn't sound too bad, but the first five years were under the first boss. In one reorg I actually did get laid off, but they hired me back for a different position.

Right now I'm in limbo...I may keep my current boss but under a new VP, or I may be shifted to a boss to be named later who may or may not be under my old VP. Whichever way it doesn't change what I'll be doing when I go in tomorrow*, so I'm trying not to be too wigged out. For one thing, I've been working on accepting change and my lack of control over the universe...on Tuesday I didn't know my future either. The only difference is that on Wednesday I was being reminded that I didn't know my future. And today (and this is the second reason I'm trying to be laid-back...some of my coworkers are freaking enough for all of us) everyone and his brother wanted to remind me of my uncertain future at every possible opportunity.

*Checking my e-mail, reading some blogs, paying some bills, getting coffee and maybe breakfast from the new cafe...**

**I'm joking, of course. I will be the only one in the department tomorrow, so I will be fielding customer calls in between trying to get several end-of-quarter things done. And in case you a prospective employer with very impressive Goggle skills: I am extremely dilligent and wouldn't be surfing the Internet on company time. Really.

This is not a meme

This is me being too lazy to write a real post today.

In the extended entry: the AFI Top 100 movie songs. In bold: the songs that make me want to gouge out my ears when I hear them in elevators.

(Gouge out my ears...that's not right, is it? Well, you know what I mean. And dammit, now I have these going through my head...all of them. Aurgh!!)

# SONG MOVIE YEAR
1 Over the Rainbow WIZARD OF OZ, THE 1939
2 As Time Goes By CASABLANCA 1942
3 Singin' in the Rain SINGIN' IN THE RAIN 1952
4 Moon River BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S 1961
5 White Christmas HOLIDAY INN 1942
6 Mrs. Robinson GRADUATE, THE 1967
7 When You Wish Upon A Star PINOCCHIO 1940
8 Way We Were, The THE WAY WE WERE 1973
9 Stayin' Alive SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER 1977
10 Sound of Music, The SOUND OF MUSIC, THE 1965
11 Man That Got Away, The STAR IS BORN, A 1954
12 Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES 1953
13 People FUNNY GIRL 1968
14 My Heart Will Go On TITANIC 1997
15 Cheek to Cheek TOP HAT 1935
16 Evergreen (Love Theme from A
Star is Born)
STAR IS BORN, A 1976
17 I Could Have Danced All Night MY FAIR LADY 1964
18 Cabaret CABARET 1972
19 Some Day My Prince Will Come SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN
DWARFS
1937
20 Somewhere WEST SIDE STORY 1961
21 Jailhouse Rock JAILHOUSE ROCK 1957
22 Everybody's Talkin' MIDNIGHT COWBOY 1969
23 Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE
SUNDANCE KID
1969
24 Ol' Man River SHOW BOAT 1936
25 High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me,
Oh My Darlin)
HIGH NOON 1952
26 Trolley Song, The MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS 1944
27 Unchained Melody GHOST 1990
28 Some Enchanted Evening SOUTH PACIFIC 1958
29 Born To Be Wild EASY RIDER 1969
30 Stormy Weather STORMY WEATHER 1943
31 Theme from New York, New York NEW YORK, NEW YORK 1977
32 I Got Rhythm AMERICAN IN PARIS, AN 1951
33 Aquarius HAIR 1979
34 Let's Call the Whole Thing Off SHALL WE DANCE 1937
35 America WEST SIDE STORY 1961
36 Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious MARY POPPINS 1964
37 Swinging on a Star GOING MY WAY 1944
38 Theme from Shaft SHAFT 1971
39 Days of Wine and Roses DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES 1963
40 Fight the Power DO THE RIGHT THING 1989
41 New York, New York ON THE TOWN 1949
42 Luck Be A Lady GUYS AND DOLLS 1955
43 Way You Look Tonight, The SWING TIME 1936
44 Wind Beneath My Wings BEACHES 1988
45 That's Entertainment BAND WAGON, THE 1953
46 Don't Rain On My Parade FUNNY GIRL 1968
47 Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah SONG OF THE SOUTH 1947
48 Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que
Sera, Sera)
MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, THE 1956
49 Make 'Em Laugh SINGIN' IN THE RAIN 1952
50 Rock Around the Clock BLACKBOARD JUNGLE 1955
51 Fame FAME 1980
52 Summertime PORGY AND BESS 1959
53 Goldfinger GOLDFINGER 1964
54 Shall We Dance KING AND I, THE 1956
55 Flashdance…What a Feeling FLASHDANCE 1983
56 Thank Heaven for Little Girls GIGI 1958
57 Windmills of Your Mind, The THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, THE 1968
58 Gonna Fly Now ROCKY 1976
59 Tonight WEST SIDE STORY 1961
60 It Had to Be You WHEN HARRY MET SALLY 1989
61 Get Happy SUMMER STOCK 1950
62 Beauty and the Beast BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 1991
63 Thanks for the Memory BIG BROADCAST OF 1938, THE 1938
64 My Favorite Things SOUND OF MUSIC, THE 1965
65 I Will Always Love You BODYGUARD, THE 1992
66 Suicide is Painless M*A*S*H 1970
67 Nobody Does it Better SPY WHO LOVED ME, THE 1977
68 Streets of Philadelphia PHILADELPHIA 1993
69 On the Good Ship Lollipop BRIGHT EYES 1934
70 Summer Nights GREASE 1978
71 Yankee Doodle Boy, The YANKEE DOODLE DANDY 1942
72 Good Morning SINGIN' IN THE RAIN 1952
73 Isn't it Romantic? LOVE ME TONIGHT 1932
74 Rainbow Connection MUPPET MOVIE, THE 1979 (I give this a pass only because it is Kermit)
75 Up Where We Belong OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, AN 1982
76 Have Yourself a Merry Little
Christmas
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS 1944
77 Shadow of Your Smile, The SANDPIPER, THE 1965
78 9 To 5 9 TO 5 1980
79 Arthur's Theme (Best That You
Can Do)
ARTHUR 1981
80 Springtime for Hitler PRODUCERS, THE 1968
81 I'm Easy NASHVILLE 1975
82 Ding Dong the Witch is Dead WIZARD OF OZ, THE 1939
83 Rose, The ROSE, THE 1979
84 Put the Blame on Mame GILDA 1946
85 Come What May MOULIN ROUGE! 2001
86 (I've Had) The Time of My Life DIRTY DANCING 1987
87 Buttons and Bows PALEFACE, THE 1948
88 Do Re Mi SOUND OF MUSIC, THE 1965
89 Puttin' on the Ritz YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN 1974
90 Seems Like Old Times ANNIE HALL 1977
91 Let the River Run WORKING GIRL 1988
92 Long Ago and Far Away COVER GIRL 1944
93 Lose Yourself 8 MILE 2002
94 Ain't Too Proud to Beg BIG CHILL, THE 1983
95 (We're Off on the) Road to
Morocco
ROAD TO MOROCCO 1942
96 Footloose FOOTLOOSE 1984
97 42nd Street 42nd STREET 1933
98 All That Jazz CHICAGO 2002
99 Hakuna Matata LION KING, THE 1994
100 Old Time Rock and Roll RISKY BUSINESS 1983

Vitaball

Somebody at work pointed these Vitaballs out to me today. (I think he wanted to see my head explode.)

Vitaballs are candy-coated gumballs with vitamins. They are clearly marketed for children:

Vitaball delivers 100% RDA of 11 essential vitamins but in four flavors selected by kids, and sweetened with a blend of high quality sweeteners for kid-preferred, long-lasting great taste. And, to top it all off, Vitaball is a bubble gum gumball that's fun for kids of all ages.

My head did not explode, but I do have some, shall I say, issues with using this particular dosage form. I'm concerned that blurring the line between "medicine" and "candy" will confuse kids and lead to poisonings and overdoses. The manufacturer addresses the OD question:

The recommended use of Vitaball is one gumball per day, chewed for 5-10 minutes. We strongly advise adults to supervise children's daily intake to prevent over-consumption.

In the event more than one vitamin gumball is consumed, the question of potential toxicity may logically be raised. Vitaball contains both water soluble and fat soluble vitamins. Water soluble vitamins (vitamin C, and the B-vitamins, including thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B-6, folic acid, B-12, biotin, and pantothenic acid) present no real issues of toxicity. Water-soluble vitamins are not stored in the body in any significant quantity or for any length of time. The body regulates its use of these vitamins and excretes any unneeded amounts though urination and perspiration.

Great, the water-soluble vitamins don't pose a risk, but how about the others? You can overdose on vitamins, and plenty of adults don't understand the dose-response curve. I see a kid getting his yummy gumball. I see him asking for more yummy gumballs and Mommy saying no. I see Mommy maybe, if Mommy actually understands it herself, saying that a certain amount of vitamins are good for you but too many vitamins will make you sick. And then I see the kid climbing up the on the kitchen counter as soon as Mom's back is turned and stuffing his mouth full of as many gumballs as he can hold.

I could go on...I should go on, to make all my points...but I need to go make dinner. So on the subject of food, I'll point out this very useful chart that's also on Vitaball's web page. It's got the vitamins, what they do, and where to find them...vitamin A, for example, is in green and yellow fruits and vegetables. Vitamin E is in cold-pressed vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes and eggs.

I read the whole chart...it didn't mention candy-coated bubblegum in there at all.

The Last Cicada

We saw the first ones emerge at my sister's house, and I saw a couple at her place yesterday when we were up there for Father's Day. The buzz is gone, though, and I haven't seem one at the office for a week. I think that's it.

I'm looking forward to Brood XI.

So around New Year's 2021 I'm going to start shopping for a house in my sister's neighborhood.

Saturday at the WWII Memorial

The friend we were meeting moved west a couple of years ago and was back in town this week for business. He wanted to walk around the Mall, one of the things he misses about the city, and while there we visited the World War II Memorial.

This may make me unpopular, but honestly...I was less than moved. The memorial is impressive but to me it lacks poignancy, and it doesn't seem to encourage contemplation. It has too many elements: Pillars! Arches! Waterfalls! Fountains! I found myself wondering what was symbolically significant (are the states in some kind of order? If the moving water represents the sea battles, what represents land and air?) and what was just architecture for its own sake.

In some ways, because the scale of the memorial is so huge, it's more like a park within a park rather than a monument. It's going to be a nice place to eat lunch on a warm day, and that's not bad thing...being able to sit in a nice park and eat lunch with views of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the Capitol dome may be an excellent way to pay tribute to the Greatest Generation, if you remember what they did to allow you to be there.

It's been several years since I last visited the Vietnam Memorial, but to me that had quite a different atmosphere, one that really did promote remembrence. People were hushed at the Wall. It was reflective. As I said, though, I haven't been there for years, and maybe it's not like that anymore.

Like they do at the Wall, people are leaving things at the WWII Memorial...flowers, photographs, newspaper clipping. Here is a page from a program remembering the USS Gilligan and a medal. That's when this becomes poignant and what I think of as a true memorial.

Update to add: The medal is a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Saturday in Dupont Circle

Victor and I went to brunch at Luna Grill at Dupont Circle. Actually, brunch was serindipidy; I'd forgotten they serve it on Saturday as well as Sunday. Not that I needed Hollandaise sauce, but I so rarely have the opportunity to eat Hollandaise sauce, that, well, what the heck.

Then we checked out the August Sander and Aaron Siskind photography exhibits at the Phillips. I really liked Siskind's work...the abstract designs, the depth and texture. (The last show I caught at the Phillips was Edward Weston. When I played at photography, I found myself trying to turn common objects into interesting abstractions using angles or closeups and things like that. I never had a great eye, though, and I was a terrible slob in the darkroom...too impatient...and since the classes I took were photojournalism rather than art, I didn't have great incentive to concentrate on being technically good. Our rule of thumb was "f8 and be there." Because of my shortcomings I really admire artists who do so well what I did so poorly.)

Anyway, the only bad thing at the Phillips was that I got nailed for being the Asshole with a Cellphone that everyone hates. We were meeting up with a friend later in the afternoon but hadn't firmed up plans, and of course his call came in while we were in the Georges Rouault room. I tried to be very quiet, unobtrusive, and quick (my phone was on vibrate, not ring) but the docent was on me in about a nanosecond. I felt about three inches tall, and I apologize profusely to all patrons I disturbed.

Other than that, though...more serindipity. We had time to kill before meeting our friend, and walking back through Dupont Circle we found ourselves in the park just in time for the Pets-DC Pride of Pets dog show. This ain't no prissy dog show with purebreds marching around the ring with snobby people in suits...classes include Best Costume and Least Obedient. (I think our dog has a good chance of blowing the competition out of the water in that category, and next year we may enter.) Two great costumes were a dachshund wearing a hot dog bun (while his owner was dressed as a mustard bottle) and a spaniel dressed as a cicada.

Update on the twins

From the Post:

Surgeons at Children's Hospital in the District yesterday successfully separated 4-month-old girls conjoined at the chest and abdomen in an emotional day-long operation that their grateful parents described as "the best Father's Day gift ever."

The rest of the article is here. This was still major major surgery and the girls are in intensive care, facing weeks or months of hospital recovery time, and I'm keeping these folks in my thoughts.

"There is a purpose to everything, and the key is understanding it"

I don't know this family at all, but I've been following their story in the Washington Post.

In February, their twin daughters were born...conjoined, attached at the chest.

I've been marveling at the medical technology, like the way doctors inserted saline-filled expanders in the girls' chests so they could grow extra skin they'll need after separation, or how they are going to divide the liver with a harmonic scalpel that ultrasonically coagulates blood, alternating the cutting with ultrasound images that can't be taken at the same time, since the scalpel interfers with the imaging.

I've been impressed by things like this:

The medical team asked Medical Modeling of Golden, Colo., to help it visualize the three-dimensional relationship of the internal organs in the area where the babies are connected. Using data from CAT and MRI scans and employing a computerized "3-D printing" system, the company fabricated three models out of plaster powder. The most elaborate one shows the girls' hearts in different colors and opens at the expected plane of separation to demonstrate how big a hole will have to be closed or covered on each girl with skin and synthetic substitutes. The company has done about $10,000 worth of work, most of it donated, and expects to be paid no more than $3,000, its president said.

But I think the aspect that's really caught my attention has been the faith of the parents. The father was quoted as saying

"I look at death and life differently than she does, knowing that's not the end of the story if both don't make it out of the operating room. It's the cycle. There is a purpose to everything, and the key is understanding it.

"When we found out about the girls, I wasn't surprised necessarily because to me it was just another opportunity to understand more about the Creator and how He works . . . . Someone's got them this far, and it wasn't me, it wasn't Dr. Macedonia, it's not Dr. Hartman."

and

"We can't control when we're born, and we can't control when we die," Kevin said, sweeping the girls into his arms for another trip to the hospital. "And it's just vanity to think we can control anything in between."

I'll be thinking of them today, as the doctors attempt the separation surgery at Children's Hospital. As I said, I don't know them, but I think I can learn a lot from them.

(Here are the links to all of the Post articles about the twins.)

Long Tall Carryout Coffee Cups (I Can Dance)

When I started working in my current office there was a 7-11 down the street. I liked having 7-11 there...I'd pop in for coffee in the morning, if I didn't have time to make lunch I could grab something there, and I once became an intern's hero by rescuing him from a very tedious job and going to get Slurpees in the afternoon. We also had a couple of sub shops and access to the cafeteria in the federal building across the street, and there was a Chinese restaurant that was only occasionally shut down by the health department.

A few years ago a developer bought up pretty much everything in the neighborhood except us, the federal building, and the iffy Chinese restaurant. Gone were the sub shops and 7-11. We lost access to the cafeteria because of security restrictions. We were in a snack food wasteland.

Today it changed. A cafe opened in the new office building next door. I went in for coffee...they had regular coffee, flavored coffee, coffee with syrup and coffee with frothy milk. They had frozen coffee. They had tea and chai and hot chocolate.

They had a cooler full of fruit juices from every fruit you can juice.

They had a salad bar with the actual fruit.

They had omlettes and eggs, bacon, ham, corned beef hash, and sausage in links and patties. They had pancakes, waffles, and french toast. They had potatoes O'Brien and hash brown patties. An Atkins disciple would flee at the variety of bagels, muffins, danish, and biscuits.

The menu board of sandwiches included at least four vegetarian options, including one with roasted vegetables with brie. They have club sandwiches with names. At lunch the breakfast bar becomes a hot food bar and the fruit bar changes over to salad. They had every flavor of soda and chips I've never seen.

I left with a huge plate of breakfast and Leo Sayer going through my head...

Of course I can dance
Of course I can dance
I'm sure I can dance
I'm sure I can dance...

POST-LUNCH UPDATE: I'm in sensory overload. They still had the fruit bar. Did I mention it had kiwi? And a salad bar...all the normal vegetables, and Waldorf salad, greek salad, ceasar salad, pasta salad, potato salad, tofu salad...the hot bar had meatloaf, London broil, lasagna, broccoli pie, asparagus, Chinese food, mashed potatoes...

Good thing I had to leave the office early to take the dog to the vet; I'd be way too tempted to return a third time for a mid-afternoon Smoothie.

The movie meme

Victor is trying to start a movie meme, Stephen (who has seen a lot of movies) is passing it on, and here's my list in the extended entry.

1. CITIZEN KANE (1941)
2. CASABLANCA (1942)
3. THE GODFATHER (1972)
4. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
7. THE GRADUATE (1967)
8. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)
9. SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)
10. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)
11. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
12. SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)
13. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957) (On? or Over?)
14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)
15. STAR WARS (1977)
16. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
17. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)
18. PSYCHO (1960)
19. CHINATOWN (1974)
20. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)
21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)
22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)
24. RAGING BULL (1980)
25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)
27. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
28. APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
29. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)
30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)
31. ANNIE HALL (1977)
32. THE GODFATHER PART II (1974)
33. HIGH NOON (1952)
34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)
35. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)
36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)
37. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)
38. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)
39. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)
40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)
41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961)
42. REAR WINDOW (1954)
43. KING KONG (1933)
44. THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)
45. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
46. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)
47. TAXI DRIVER (1976)
48. JAWS (1975)
49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)
50. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)
51. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
52. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)
53. AMADEUS (1984)
54. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930)
55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
56. M*A*S*H (1970)
57. THE THIRD MAN (1949)
58. FANTASIA (1940)
59. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)
60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
61. VERTIGO (1958)
62. TOOTSIE (1982)
63. STAGECOACH (1939)
64. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)
65. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)
66. NETWORK (1976)
67. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)
68. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
69. SHANE (1953)
70. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)
71. FORREST GUMP (1994)
72. BEN-HUR (1959)
73. WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939)
74. THE GOLD RUSH (1925)
75. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990)
76. CITY LIGHTS (1931)
77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)
78. ROCKY (1976)
79. THE DEER HUNTER (1978)
80. THE WILD BUNCH (1969)
81. MODERN TIMES (1936)
82. GIANT (1956)
83. PLATOON (1986)
84. FARGO (1996)
85. DUCK SOUP (1933)
86. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935)
87. FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
88. EASY RIDER (1969)
89. PATTON (1970)
90. THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)
91. MY FAIR LADY (1964)
92. A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)
93. THE APARTMENT (1960)
94. GOODFELLAS (1990)
95. PULP FICTION (1994)
96. THE SEARCHERS (1956)
97. BRINGING UP BABY (1938)
98. UNFORGIVEN (1992)
99. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967)
100. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)
101. THE CAINE MUTINY (1954)
102. METROPOLIS (1927)
103. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959)
104. The Fountainhed (1949)
105. Dead Poets Society (1989)
106. The Emperor's Club (2002)
107. Slapshot (1977)
108. The Stepford Wives (1975)
109. The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

As with the book list: bold the ones you've seen, add three of your own, and post.

Hey, it beats trying to come up with something to write about!

I'm glad I'm not in IT

When I came in this morning the few people who were already here were fuming that they couldn't log in to the network. I tried, and sure enough, neither could I. I tracked down an IT guy and found out that the little "your password is about to expire" notification thingy (see why I'm not in IT? I call things "thingies.") isn't working, and pretty much everyone is being locked out for trying to use an expired password.

So the poor IT guys are having to reset passwords as infuriated users call them.

Now there's some kind of freaky print problem. Jobs are piling up in the queues, and occasionally a printer will spit out half a page of a job followed by a blank page and then a page with some random characters. Actually, it looks like the printers are cursing: #$%^&*!!!

I heard one workgroup is giving up and going out for breakfast, which, come to think of it, sounds like a darn fine idea.

A bookish meme

Via Pixy:

Here (in the extended entry) is a little summer reading list. Bold what you've read, italicize those you've started and not finished, add three of your own to the end, and post.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corellis Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerers Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The DUrbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alices Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Joness Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnights Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (I read an abridged version for school. Isn't it 5-some volumes total, with a volume or two just about lampblack?)
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. Georges Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick OBrian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby **** , Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlottes Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophies World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis loved!
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews (I hate to admit that.)
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winters Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winters Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Dolls House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline LEngle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Blackbird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. OBrien (I have rats in part because of this book.)
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen Gods Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setters Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookmans Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magics Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magics Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magics Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving.
302. Enders Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lions Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucaults Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Liliths Brood), Octavia Butler
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christs Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magics Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime ONeill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline LEngle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
365. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
366. The Moors Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
367. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
368. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
369. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
370. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
371. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
372. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
373. Howls Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
374. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
375. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
376. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
377. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
378. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
379. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
380. Time for Bed by David Baddiel
381. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
382. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
383. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
384. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
385. Jhereg by Steven Brust
386. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
387. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
388. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
389. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
390. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
391. Neuromancer, William Gibson
392. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
393. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
394. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
395. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
396. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
397. Childhoods End, Arthur C. Clarke
398. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
399. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
400. The God Boy, Ian Cross
401. The Beekeepers Apprentice, Laurie R. King
402. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
403. Misery, Stephen King
404. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
405. Hood, Emma Donoghue
406. The Land of Spices, Kate OBrien
407. The Diary of Anne Frank
408. Regeneration, Pat Barker
409. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
410. Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia
411. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
412. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg
413. Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede
414. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
415. A Severed Wasp - Madeleine LEngle
416. Here Be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman
417. The Mabinogion (Ancient Welsh Tales) - translated by Lady Charlotte E. Guest
418. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
419. Desire of the Everlasting Hills - Thomas Cahill
420. The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris
421. The Things We Carried, Tim OBrien
422. I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
423. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
424. Enders Shadow, Orson Scott Card
425. The Memory of Earth, Orson Scott Card
426. The Iron Tower, Dennis L. McKiernen
427. The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
428. The Four Feathers, A.E.W. Mason
429. The Jester, James Patterson
430. Cry the beloved Country, Alan Paton
431. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
432. The Stranger, Albert Camus
433. Deathscent, Robin Jarvis
434. Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice
435. My legendary girlfriend, Mike Gayle
436. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Phillip K Dick
437. Bored of the Rings - Harvard Lampoon
438. The Pelican Brief - John Grisham
439. Schild's Ladder - Greg Egan
440. Excession - Iain M. Banks
441. One For The Morning Glory - John Barnes
442. The Manchurian Candidate - Richard Condon
443. A Death in the Family - James Agee
444. Fup - Jim Dodge

I don't like spiders and snakes

Actually, I don't mind snakes. I'd never keep one, what with them eating, well, rats, but I think they are fascinating and beautiful.

But spiders...

I know it doesn't make sense. I like big ugly bugs, reptiles, and rodents. Spiders are fascinating, too, and build beautiful, intricate webs that are delicate marvels of engineering. What's not to like?

When I was a small child...nursery school-age...I saw a nature show that showed, in super macro close-up, a spider spinning a web. The narrator with the cultured nature-show voice explained how the spider caught the hapless insect in the web, wrapped it up in the silk, and left it to die, to be eaten later. He made it sound elegant.

Cool stuff. Fascinating. And that night I had the first nightmare I remember, still one of my most vivid dreams. A giant spider had spun a web in our classroom doorway. Despite my frantic attempts, my classmates one by one walked into the web, where the spider wrapped them in the sticky silk, leaving them to die to be eaten later.

Victor loves spiders. In his old condo, he had a spider he considered a pet. I, on the other hand, have been known to upend a bucket over a spider then sit on the bucket for an hour until someone else came home to kill it. (Because if I tried to step on it myself, you know, I might miss and the evil thing might get away, and start building a web in my doorway. Phobias are not build on rational thought, ok?)

I have made huge strides. I got home from work the other day to find a smallish spider hanging in my hallway just about face level. I did not shriek. I did not flee. I picked up a newspaper, folded it around the spider, stepped calmly outside, and flung the whole thing about thirty yards.

Then I went inside and locked the door. And when I had to walk the dog, I left the house through the back...just in case.

Sweet potatoes

For a long time I ate sweet potatoes once a year, on Thanksgiving, and that was it. (No, not covered in marshmallows and syrup...that's revolting. I have an excellent sweet potato recipe with brown sugar and cinnamon...but I'm digressing. I'll revisit this in November.)

Anyway, in an effort to add more vegetables to our usual dinners, particularly vegetables of different colors (there's a scientific basis for this), I decided to start making sweet potatoes more often.

The easiest way to cook them is to just bake them. You can also boil and mash them (add a small splash of bourbon--I said small! Trust me on this one, you can overwhelm them with Jack Daniels, and that's not necessarily a good thing.) And the other night I decided to try sweet potato oven-baked "fries" (to go with our veggie burgers. Ten years ago if you told me I'd be eating like this, I'd have laughed so hard Jack Daniels would have been spraying out of my nose.)

They were actually even better than I'd hoped. I cut the potatoes into slices about the size of a steak fry...maybe 5mm thick...then tossed them in a plastic bag with olive oil to coat. Then I spread them on a cookie sheet and sprinkled them with paprika. I baked them at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, flipping them over at about the 12-minute mark.

They weren't as crispy on the outside as white potatoes made this way (Victor pointed out that the difference in the starch content would cause that), but they had more flavor. And they did hold up to being dipped in ketchup.

Plus they have all that beta-caronteny goodness!

ne1 bothered? y?

I heard that the National Spelling Bee earlier this month was picketed by the American Literacy Society, who are calling for a modernization of English to make the spelling rules more logical and easier to learn.

I'm a pretty bad speller, and I keep a dictionary next to my desk at home and at work. I'm also lazy, so now I frequently type words into Word or Goggle to see if I've got the spelling right. I'm not unsympathetic to the concerns of the American Literacy Society.

I don't know that they need to lobby for it, though, they just need to be patient. Language will continue to evolve (or devolve, I guess, if you are the type that gets freaked about such things.) If language didn't change, we'd still write things like this:

But nathelees, whil I have tyme and space,
Er that I ferther in this tale pace,
Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun
To telle yow al the condicioun
Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,
And whiche they weren, and of what degree,
And eek in what array that they were inne;
And at a knyght than wol I first bigynne.

...which I understand slightly better than I understand IM and chatroom shorthand.

I've read real poetry that wasn't this good

In fact, when I was a teenager I probably wrote poetry that wasn't this good:

The purple mouse adheres.
Mine round stupid slopy laptop sleeps.
Their noisy glasses smiles and still our children hairy smart mp3 player show its value.
Their bluish carpet falls.
Our noisy sony sleeps.
Their white stupid bicycle prepare for fight.
Her tall mouse is on fire and still his brothers odd shaped purple bicycle makes sound and our white dog show its value.
Whose shining book stares however, our golden underwares run.
Mine red smart table is thinking.
A white green ram smiles.
A given green glove fidgeting.
Their well-crafted spoon is angry.
Whose round sport shoes walks or a silver smart car fidgeting as soon as his noisy carpet walks.
A given round gun show its value.
Any tall kitchen smells or her bluish forg stands-still.
Our white dog looks around.
Her soft clock stinks.
Any golden round-shaped sofa is thinking.
Our white wine stands-still.
The soft forg stands-still.
His little soda calms-down.
Whose red soda calms-down at the place that our children purple hairy dog falls the time that his fancy spoon is on fire as soon as his brothers round-shaped golden computer snores or maybe a red kitchen stares.

...or maybe a red kitchen stares.

Doesn't that just sum it up...the suburban angst, the bitterness between the generations, the futility and finally, the hostile ennui?

I have tears in my eyes.

I'm not even sure what this spam is trying to sell, because they managed to screw up the html codes so the link doesn't work.

Saturday's Wildlife Pictures

In my photo gallery: A heron, turtles, geese, and fish. Oh, and of course, there are still a few cicadas...

The pictures are from a local park where we rented a pedal boat this afternoon. Since we're used to cycling, we figured that would be a good way to make the transition to water. Since we're used to cycling, not being able to adjust the seat didn't feel right, and neither did pedalling without fulling extending the legs. Ah, well, it was still a lot of fun, and as we went around the lake we were able to rescue a few cicadas who'd made water landings only to find that they are not amphibious.

Some of the pictures are a little blurry. I need to RTFM and learn how to set the shutter speed and apature instead of relying on auto settings; I think I was shooting too slow for the telephoto and the movement of the boat.

Next time I think we'll try a kayak so we can get in closer to the shore where the herons and turtles hang out.

It was beautiful being out there...to think this is just a few minutes from the traffic and the strip malls.

I don't blog on Friday

Want to--by Friday I have lots to say, just no time to say it. By Saturday, I have forgotten it all. Remind me: Sweet potato fries. Vitamin D. Spelling Bee.

That looks like the subject line of a spam e-mail.

Sigh. Heavy sigh.

I don't know why I expected Sports Illustrated to put the Lightning on the cover. It's not like they just won the oldest trophy in professional sports...between this kind of thing and the swimsuit issue I don't know why I sub...oh, wait. I did cancel my subscription years ago; this one is Victor's.

Well, maybe this will keep them from being cursed.

Belated congratulations to Tampa Bay. I was rooting for Calgary, but really, it's petty of me to hold a grudge against the Lightning for last year's playoffs (I oughta hold the grudge against the Capitals if I'm going to be holding grudges), and they deserved the Cup. It was fun hockey all around, and I can't wait til next...oh, yeah.

Never mind.

How soon the cicadas must die

It is soon. The buzzing is definitely softer now, and today when I walked around my building I didn't see a single live cicada. Yesterday most of the ones I saw were on their backs, waving their legs slowly...I righted them in the grass, but I know at least one of them died right where I had put him.

I will miss them. Part of it was the crazy distraction...I may not enjoy work, I may not be comfortable with much of what's going on in the world around me, but the cicadas were harmless and interesting. And yeah, I got a kick out of rescuing the bugs from the squeamish people in the office, the people who cringed and backed away when I picked one up with my (eeewwww!) bare hands.

I'm also very grateful for the cicadas. Because I got so obsessed with them, I have been spending much more time outside. When I went looking for cicadas I saw the beaver, the frog, and the swan, and now I'm hooked on meeting my local wildlife. And believe it or not, while I've never been actually frightened of bugs (spiders are a different story), I've also never really liked them.

Last night at the lake I was looking for the beaver and saw that the Japanese beetles are out. Now, unlike the cicadas, Japanese beetles can do some damage...I remember them eating the rose bushes when I was a kid. I also remember not liking them and taking great care to not come into contact, so I never got a good look at one. I did last night; they really are quite striking.

I'll have to take some pictures.

Bike shopping

My niece turns six this month, and Victor and I took her to buy her birthday present, a new bike, on Saturday.

We didn't tell her where we were going beyond "to the store." She accepted with no trouble or particular interest. She's used to be being dragged along on errands. In the bike shop, she followed me when I went to the children’s' bikes, but it took a few minutes for her to ask "Why are we here?"

"To look at bikes," I said.

After a long pause, she said "For who?"

"Well, who here doesn't have a bike already?"

She did break into a big smile when she answered "I don't!" but I'm not sure she really comprehended it until I said "Which bike do you like?"

"They're all very nice," she said. There were four models on display, all bubblegum colors and decorated with flowers or butterflies. (I really hate that bike manufacturers are so obviously gender-specific in kids' bike finishes, but that's a rant for another day. My niece is a pretty girly girl and doesn't mind that kind of thing.) She contemplated the bikes for a second, then made her choice in the most logical way: "Eeenie meenie miney mo. Catch a tiger by the toe...." complete with deliberate pointing to each bike as she loudly pronounced each syllable.

The bike shop owner was laughing so hard he turned away, and I could see his shoulders shaking.

The one she picked out is a hideous shade of fuschia. But when the owner pulled it out for her she never looked back...and each feature she noticed brough more delight. "What should I put in here?" she asked about the handlebar bag. I suggested snacks; she said "I'll make red sandwiches!" She ran her fingers through the streamers on the grips and said they sounded like music. She was very pleased to find a pink helmet to match.

I was telling a friend about it on Monday, especially the eenie-meanie selection method. I was amazed that she never even looked at the other bikes. My friend said "That's how we should be, you know. Don't agonize. Don't second-guess. No buyer's remorse...just take the plunge and trust that all is right with the universe."

Pretty pictures!

The Florida State University Research Foundation has the coolest gallery of photomicroscopic images. Check out Foster's Lager, then get sucked in...

(I was working when until I found this. I was researching prostaglandins and followed a Goggle hit...next thing I knew it was time for lunch.)

Race for the Cure

I almost didn't bother to go down for yesterday's Race for the Cure. It was pouring rain when my alarm went off. But when I turned on the tv news to see the weather report, they were interviewing a 14-year breast cancer survivor from Louisiana who talked about how moved and inspired she was by the huge number of people at the race in D.C. After that, I couldn't blow it off.

We did get damp, but not soaked. And there really is something impressive about 51,000 people walking together through the city. And while I do walks like this for my own selfish reasons (to get the exercise and the t-shirts), I get a lump in my throat when, for example, I find myself behind an older man with a limp and a sign on his back listing his mother and two sisters, or a teenager with one that says "In memory of my mom. I miss you."

Ronald Reagan

All that I'll say about the Reagan administration is that those years did a lot to solidify my liberal sensibilities. However, I respect President Reagan as I respect all who serve the public, and I have very deep sympathy for his family. I can only imagine how painful it has been to see someone so dynamic and witty dulled by Alzheimer's disease.

The exorcism is done

I got the demons out of the computer, finally, though it did take reformatting the hard disk. (But I managed to save the cicada pictures!) Since I was destroying in order to create anew, I went ahead and upgraded to Windows XP, and I've loaded up on security and so on...I have a firewall, I have spam filters, I have pop-up blockers, I basically can't hit a key without software asking me "Is this ok?"

I'm proud of myself...I went to the computer store and stood in front of a shiny new P4 3 gigahertz machine with 512 MBs of RAM and a 160 gig hard drive, and I was so close to just bringing it home. But it did occur to me as I stood there that I don't even how much faster 3 GHz is than my current machine (1 GHz, I think)...I mean, yeah, it's two faster, but what does that mean in practical terms? I don't have time to make coffee while I wait for it to boot up? Do I need that much computer?

I also remember buying a computer with a 20 MB hard drive and saying "I'll never fill this up." And actually, I never did fill that drive...that machine had DOS 3-something, and WordPerfect 2-something, and a little database thingy. It was a step up from the old IBM with the dual floppies (one drive was where I left the boot disk...kids, did you know there was a time that boot disks weren't just for emergency recovery?)

So while I know as soon as I get a bigger badder machine I'll need it, and then I'll need more later, for now I decided to stick with this desktop. With its additional memory and new Windows it is almost like new. There's something elegant about that blank teal screen, so uncluttered and crisp...I'm vowing to save all my files in neat folders with descriptive names, and back them up often. I will be a model computer user.

And using it I will be, for several days. I have a lot of software to reload and lots of backups to restore, and then maybe I'll get around to noticing President Reagan's death, Smarty Jones' lose at the Belmont, the National Race for the Cure, Game 6 of the Stanley Cup, and my niece's new bike...

More cicada lessons

Zenchick has a beautiful post about cycles and transformation and finding spiritual messages when you aren't looking for them. (Oh, and cicadas, and everyone knows by now how much I love cicadas.)

But seriously...she found a quote from Basho Matsuo:

Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die.

I found what I suspect was the same writing as a haiku, translated a bit differently:

In the cicada's cry
No sign can foretell
How soon it must die.

After I read this I heard from my mom with the results from my aunt's doctor visit. My aunt, who is 86, appears to have a tumor on her lung. She had lung cancer a few years ago, but other health problems since then make her a poor candidate for surgery, and my aunt has decided she doesn't want surgery anyway. She's not pulling a Final Exit, but she wants to limit her health care now to maintenance, not major repair. And she says she's not afraid to die.

I have no doubt that she's being honest. She's 86, the last of her generation in the family, and she has a very strong faith that there is some heavenly reward. If you talk to her, there's nothing in her song to suggest that she's going to die.

I fear death, literal and metaphorical. I fear death, loss, change...I am the classic miserable person who is miserable because I want permanence, which is probably why I'm drawn to Buddhist teachings.

I'm struggling mightily with the big deals like death. I'm making little tiny steps of progess, though, with the smaller things. Like my computer...it's hosed. The demons are in control; when I turned it on yesterday (not even logged on to a browser, just booting up) I had such an onslaught of malware that it crashed. I can't even get the clean-up programs run. I think I'm going to have to wipe the drive, even if I do lose all my pictures. I'm not happy, but there are worse things to lose.

And what was going to happen to the cicada pictures anyway? My niece would be standing there some day saying "Does anyone want Aunt Nic's bug pictures, or should I just throw them away?"

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

I heard a commercial for Oklahoma , which is playing at Wolf Trap, on my way to work this morning.

I hate Oklahoma.

I am not much of a fan of musicals anyway, although I can stand some of them...Chicago was okay, because the music was cool. Hairspray at least featured a rat, although only briefly. But Rodgers & Hammerstein are way too syrupy for my taste.

And now I have The Surry With The Fringe On Top going through my head, and I'm ready to gouge out my brain.

Demons Out!

I booted up the computer this evening and got a massive pop-up attack. I've been really sloppy and lazy with my poor magic box...no spyware protection, no spam filters, just an occasional Norton anti-virus update. So instead of catching up on blogs during computer time, I downloaded and ran Ad-aware and Spy-bot, getting rid of 900-some nasties in the process.

I think I may resort to a spam filter too, since the porn e-mails with embedded graphics are starting to get on my nerves (someday maybe I'll talk about how much I dislike pornography, but right now spam and spyware has me more irked). While I'm at it, I should try to figure out MT-Blacklist, since the poor Ratblog (which my niece reads, for Pete's sake!) keeps getting comments about penis enlargement, and I don't want her telling her grandmother she learned about that from my web site.

And since I'm in spring cleaning mode, I'm pondering an external hard drive so I can back up all my really important stuff, like digital pictures of cicadas. I mean, lose that and I'm out of luck 'til 2021.