Yes, AGAIN with the book thing (or, The Longest Post of All Time)

(Beware, lots of scrolling on this one!)

Probably nobody gives two hoots about what I've read except me and perhaps my mom and maybe Jules' mom (whose total would, I'm sure, put mine to shame). But I don't care!

I stole this book quiz from another blog. Below is a list of books printed by the NEA-sponsored The Big Read, which apparently seeks to "restore reading to the center of American culture." They say, though, that the average American has only read six of the following hundred.

Key
1) Bold the books you have already read
2) Italicize the books you intend to read
3) Add asterisks ** to books that you LOVE
4) Added bonus! Snarky comments by me are in parentheses.

***********************
1) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen**
2) The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
3) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (I have not technically finished this book, I am counting it anyway. I have gotten halfway through it THREE TIMES, but I cannot seem to get through it. Effort made. Ultimate failure.)
4) Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling** (Um, duh.)
5) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee**
6) The Bible (Is it wrong that I'm not putting asterisks by this one?)
7) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
8) Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell (I'm not sure how it's possible that I'm nearly 25 years old and have not read this. But it's true. See also: #41)
9) His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (Have read 2 of 3, and the last is on my beach reading pile.)
10) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
11) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott** (Favorite Book of All Time)
12) Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
13) Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
14) Complete Works of Shakespeare (Don't know if I've read EVERYTHING--I mean really, every last sonnet? Doubtful--but I've come close.)
15) Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
16) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
17) Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
18) Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
19) The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger* (This book pretty much rocks. It is not on my Best Books of All Time list, but I'll give it one asterisk.
20) Middlemarch by George Eliot
21) Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
23) Bleak House by Charles Dickens
24) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
25) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Seriously? This is on the list? I finally read this one summer while home from college because several of my male friends in high school were horrified that I had not. So I read it, and we discussed it during many late-night Ultimate Frisbee games.)
27) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28) Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
29) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll** (Would you like me to recite The Walrus and the Carpenter for you? Because I can.)
30) The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
31) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
32) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
33) Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis (Have read a few. Own them all.)
34) Emma by Jane Austen (I am working my way through all the Austens, so I'll get there. Currently on Mansfield Park.)
35) Persuasion by Jane Austen**
36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis (How is this different from Chronicles of Narnia?)
37) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
38) Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres (Started once. Read 1/3. Got bored. Made effort, so am counting it.)
39) Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
40) Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne****** (They should totally add Now We Are Six to this list, also.)
41) Animal Farm by George Orwell (See also: #8)
42) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
43) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving
45) The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
46) Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
47) Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
48) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
49) Lord of the Flies by William Golding (I can't remember if I read this or not...)
50) Atonement by Ian McEwan
51) Life of Pi by Yann Martel
52) Dune by Frank Herbert
53) Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
54) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
55) A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
56) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon** (Loooved.)
57) A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
58) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
60) Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez**
61) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (No, but I've seen the opera, which is NOT GOOD.)
62) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
63) The Secret History by Donna Tartt
64) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
65) Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
66) On The Road by Jack Kerouac (Similar situation to #25. Seriously overrated, in my opinion.)
67) Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
68) Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
69) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
70) Moby Dick by Herman Melville
71) Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (HOLY COW, does Dickens really make up half of this list?!)
72) Dracula by Bram Stoker (Either this or Frankenstein, I can't actually remember...)
73) The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
74) Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson (Liked a lot, but Bryson's A Walk in the Woods is by far the best. Recommended to anyone!)
75) Ulysses by James Joyce
76) The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77) Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
78) Germinal by Emile Zola
79) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
80) Possession by AS Byatt
81) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (FINALLY, a Dickens book that I've read!)
82) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
83) The Color Purple by Alice Walker
84) The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
85) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
86) A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
87) Charlotte's Web by EB White** (I think this might be my mom's favorite book.)
88) The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom (Nope, but I've read Tuesday's With Morrie!)
89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90) The Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton
91) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (I started this once, but it wasn't exactly beach reading--which is where I was at the time--so I stopped. Will try again sometime.)
92) The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93) The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
94) Watership Down by Richard Adams
95) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
96) A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
97) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98) Hamlet by William Shakespeare (Again...doesn't Complete Works of Shakespeare cover this?)
99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
100) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
********************
Total: 39 (sort of)
Not bad. I think this list is pretty weird, though, considering that practically the Complete Works of Charles Dickens are on there (yet not in one single category, a la Shakespeare) and several things that I would consider worthy are not. I, for instance, would include the magnificent The Tender Bar, which has some of the most richly drawn characters in literature. Also, where is Hemingway? I'm not the hugest fan, but no The Sun Also Rises or The Old Man and the Sea or SOMETHING? That one surprises me. And I could add numerous others. But whatever, it's kind of fun anyway.

UPDATE (9:05PM): Jules thinks that I should create my own list of must-reads, so I believe I just might do that.

Off the wagon (almost)

I have been trying SO HARD to curb my spending habits--specifically, my Ann Taylor Loft addiction--but they keep sending me emails! I've been successfully resisting until today, when they announced their August line and I immediately discovered this. It is ALL I CAN DO not to buy it RIGHT NOW. I would get 15% off! And free shipping!

And then there's this, but I need another black dress about as much as another pair of flip flops (which is to say NOT AT ALL). I mean, I already own five, three of which are from (SURPRISE!) Ann Taylor Loft.

I can already think of eight ways to justify both of these purchases. It is an ILLNESS, I tell you. As much as it pains me, I might have to unsubscribe. But I'm not sure I have the strength.

Heard... (well, typed, actually)

...on G-Chat while discussing lodging arrangements for Ash and Jason AND JULES AND MICHAEL's (yaaaaaaay!) trip to DC in August
Me: And if you don't [find a hotel], we will have a serious slumber party at my house--
one on the couch, one in the bathtub, one on the carpet, and someone in bed with me!
Jules: I CALL DIBS ON BED WITH PANNIE.

We are Party Prawns, ohkeh

WORD. Jules is coming next week to finish up with the Florida move, and we have made all sorts of exciting [former] Roommate Bonding plans, including:

1) Hair appointment (Jules)
2) Dentist (me)
3) Chipotle
4) Pedicures
5) Mamma Mia
6) Ice cream (I just added that one right now. I don't think Jules will mind.)

Technically, the first two are not communal events, but we have planned them into our schedule, because we are big nerds.

(Why, yes, this IS the third post today. Is that a problem? No? Good.)

Adventures with Lola: Automotive Mishap (kinda)

So. Lola and I have been estranged for the last few weeks, due in large part to my reluctance to relenquish the excellent parking spot that I had in my neighborhood. (And, yes, I was out of town for a weekend.) Anyway, I went out on Saturday evening to head to CZ's birthday party over near Eastern Market and discovered (as soon as I had pulled out and someone else had jumped into my spot, of course) that Lola had a flat tire. Oh, the tragedy.

So I called AAA--who, to their eternal credit, sent someone to fix it within 45 minutes--and then proceeded to the party via cab, arriving quite late and quite sweaty, but alive nonetheless.

(TANGENT: And, by the way, I am FAMOUS. I got to CZ's house, and both of her roommates and several of her friends were like, "Oh, HANNAH, we've heard so much about you! It's so nice to finally MEET YOU." Which was kind of disconcerting, but apparently I am beloved.

TANGENT EXPLANATION: CZ was my assistant/sidekick/partner in crime at the Previous Job. I adore her, and if I could create a position for her at Current Job, I would do so immediately.)

Right. Anyway. So, on Sunday morning, Lola and I and the temporary spare "donut" tire trundled out to Montgomery Mall to get the injured tire checked out. The injured tire, of course, wasn't punctured on the tread (which is usually fixable--this I learned from the very helpful Vincente at Sears Auto Center, who, btw, used to live not far from where I live now... Anyway. Sorry, back to the story), but rather on the SIDE of the tire. Hence...new tire! There went $90 that I wasn't planning to spend.

We also got Lola's oil changed, in preparation for our impending journey to South Carolina, as well as a nice car wash on the way home.

And then, of course, I inadvertently took the Bumpiest Road Ever back into town. (Oh, so you just got the cast off your broken leg? Good thing, because you have to SCALE THAT MOUNTAIN to get home.)

So now Lola is well and has four working tires, though the clean car lasted less than 24 hours before a bird christened it.

Picture it: Sicily...

It is a truly sad day. Sophia Petrillo is no more.

In memory of the hilarious Estelle Getty, I offer you this:

Suggestions, please

I'm thinking about buying a digital camera, and I could use some recommendations. What kinds do you folks have? Would you recommend them? What kind of technical specs (megapixels, memory, etc) are good for a casual photo-taker? Any feedback would be appreciated.