I saw this at CJ Hill's Blog and had to do this!

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd 

Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works.

It's okay. I understand.

StrikeSwag.com - the non-profit site which donates all profits to the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund to assist non-WGA members of the industry who are in financial distress as a direct result of the strike - is out with its January 2008 line which Fashion Week boldly called "the black and white shield tee." This 100% cotton shirt a variant of the official WGA West strike shirt.

Hosted by Between the Covers

I discovered that I already have books on my list that fit into this challenge. No new books added but another challenge to participate in. Sounds good to me!
Here are my choices:

1. The Bootlegger's Daughter - Margaret Maron
2. The Nazi Officer's Wife - Edith Hahn Beer
3. The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
4. The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak

Alternates/Extras:

• Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
• The Archivist's Story - Travis Holland
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
• The Welsh Girl - Peter Ho Davies

And just for fun I took this quiz that I have seen bobbing around the book blogs. Here are my results:

Sounds of weather like this will probably always remind me of certain nights in the car — driving rain and stormy, wintry winds battering around outside that sound like wet laundry flapping about on washing lines across the sky. One time in the car in particular has come to mind in the last few days. I’m not sure why but it’s always the same one: one evening walking back to the car in the dark to drive to the laneway for the night, cold and wet and absolutely dreading another night of being out in it.

This quiz has been making the blogging world rounds. Sounds about right too.

Here's a toast to Jack Balkin who 5 years ago had the foresight to create Balkinization and who has nurtured it with such loving care all these years.

I drafted this post (about "The Long Black Veil") a while back, but never quite had the nerve to put up... what better way than with a reinterpretation of a song to celebrate Jack's contribution to our worlds.

I’ve always loved the song, “The Long Black Veil.” But I’ve also been troubled by the chorus’s claim: “Nobody knows, nobody sees, Nobody knows but me.” Is it a claim that “nobody knows that she cries over my bones,” or a claim that “nobody knows that I remained silent to protect her”? The latter can’t literally be true. She also knows. It also can’t be a claim “nobody knows that they hung an innocent man.” Because the guilty party would probably know that they tagged someone else for the crime.

This is yet another one of those recipes that I can't believe I haven't posted before. I served this Chips and Veggies with Sun-Dried Tomato Dip along with the Garlic Herb Spread on Super Bowl Sunday. Yeah, I'm a little behind on posting these recipes, so sue me.

Every single time I have made this dip, someone has asked me for the recipe. I know there is a shocking amount of feta cheese in the recipe (which means it also isn't cheap), but you gotta just go for it. For some reason, it doesn't scream feta once you start eating it. Maybe because of the strong sun dried tomato taste?

I use this as my "healthy alternative" dip at parties, but it's so good I think people don't even know I'm giving them something healthier. As you can see, I serve it with pita chips, red bell peppers, carrots, and celery. I think it would also be good with Triscuits or slices of sourdough baguette.

3/4 pound feta cheese, crumbled

Books read in October

Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Pigman's Legacy by Paul Zindel
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Mosiac by Amy Grant
Black Creek Crossing by John Saul
The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
First Times Compiled by Marthe Jocelyn
fake id by Hazel Edwards
The Great Number Rumble by Gillian O'Reilly and Cora Lee
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Total: 14
Fiction: 12
Non-Fiction: 2

Best Read: Black Creek Crossing by John Saul
Worst Read: Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

Woke up to bleak, grey, drizzly skies again today. Everything, even the grass and, in the mist that hung over everything, the trees, looked grey today. I stood at the kitchen window, in the new, pink bathrobe I got for Christmas, eating cereal, staring out at what could have been a scene straight from an old grainy, Sunday-afternoon black-and-white. Definitely a day for thinking about going straight back to bed... But for a while I stood there, chewing mindlessly, watching a pair of magpies hopping about next-door's lawn. Then just as my eyes adjusted to all the grey, two tiny, colourful little birds flew through the drizzle onto a birdtable in the garden at the other side. I don't know what they were, but seeing them there among all that grey made me smile. They were soft, minky-brown little things, with yellow breasts and bright red faces. Tiny like tits, but not tits...Beautiful splashes of colour brightening up the monochrome. There was something quite clownish about them.

From May 1 - Feb 28/09, read 10 books from the 1001 list (which would be about 1%) for this challenge. I'm already planning to read 15 books from this list before Dec. 21/08 so this challenge shouldn't be a problem. Below are the 15 books. Life of Pi by Yann MartelThe God of Small Things by Arundhati RoyMemoirs of a Geisha by Arthur GoldenThe Stone Diaries by Carol ShieldsWild Swans by Jung ChangThe Color Purple by Alice WalkerNineteen Eighty-Four by George OrwellOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken KeseyTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeJourney to the Center of the Earth by Jules VerneEmma by Jane AustenThe Handmaid's Tale by Margaret AtwoodOne Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia MarquesThe Poisonwood Bible by Barbara KingsolverSlaughter House-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

It was difficult to concentrate at work today. I found distraction in everything. I kept staring out of the window trying to watch the clouds changing shape, or found myself standing in the kitchen down on the first floor, staring out at the long lawns at the backs of the houses across the way. Towards the back of one of them there's a weathered bench beneath a beautiful maple tree with big, beautifully-shaped red and gold leaves the colour of flames. The rest of the lawn in front has been raked and is clear and green, but the area behind is still thickly carpeted with gold and russet leaves fallen from the taller trees at the back of the garden. I looked at the leaves and looked away a few times today before I saw what was in them. Curled up, just to the left of the bench, right there in the open, was a big fox, asleep in the leaves. Just curled there, happy as you like, in the middle of the day, at the back of a garden in a busy area of London.

Booknut is hosting this great challenge to read 4 books by authors that are not Caucasian. More details here.

I'm definitely participating as the majority of the authors I read are white. I don't have a list of books yet but I'll work on them. I'm going to do her second choice and read one from each of the categories listed (that's 6 books, but 4 minimum to finish this challenge) This challenges is from January-April 2008

I'm a real fan of the cartoons starring Fog Horn, the Louis Armostrong-sound-a-like frog used in 5 cartoons by Harman and Ising.
The only reason of interest for the majority of the Harman and Ising cartoons, for me, are the marvellous backgrounds as well as the animation. But these cartoons (the three ones with Bosko, "The Old Mill Pond" and "Swing Wedding") got everything: the above mentioned elements plus great gags and musical score. And they are fast and furryous too.
No matter infact if they are formulaic shorts( in each and very one of the Bokso cartoons the li'l black boy is given by a Mammy some cookies and he got to bring them to his Grandma. He then have dream-like adventures in which the frogs, caricatures of black entertainers of those days, try to get the cookies), the energy put in them produce terrific entertaiment!
Enjoy this restored copy of "Little Ol' Bosko in Bagdad" and let me know if you like it or not.

Be seein' ya,
Duck Dodgers

My third challenge done (second posted about.)

I managed to finish Black Creek Crossing and the Ghost-Hunter's Handbook before Oct. 31, I just haven't posted the reviews yet.

The internet isn't working right here at my parents house so I haven't gotten much done even when I do get over here. It's very frustrating. So expect a bunch of reviews as soon as the internet starts working right!

Now back to the RIP challenge. I enjoyed doing it, Black Creek Crossing by John Saul and The Ghost-Hunter's Handbook by Herbie Brennan were the best. It was a good challenge as I read books I normally wouldn't and I even got a new author out of it! I'll be reading more John Saul.

I look forward to it next year.

This morning we heard from representatives of the Children's Defense Fund, who discussed the Fund's report and campaign called Cradle to Prison Pipeline. Using what a take to be the method called Life Table Analysis (although they didn't actually say so), CDF has figured out that a Black boy born today has a 1 out of 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime, and a Hispanic boy a 1 out of 6 chance, compared to 1 out of 17 for a white boy. Ratios for girls are similarly disproportionate, although the absolute chances are lower.

The CDF points out that 1 out of 6 children in the U.S. are living in poverty, and that the numbers living in poverty, and the poverty rate has increased during the reign of the current Christian moral values administration -- most dramatically among the very poor. Poverty is of course associated with all sorts of problems for children -- failure in school being the most pervasive. The CDF goes on to talk about all the other ills that afflict poor children, and disproportionately afflict poor and minority children, but I want to get to the bottom line.

Well, friends!
That which I hath most greatly feared has happened, as I guess it must inevitably happen, now and then.
My computer, my wonderful Mac PowerBook has... committed suicide or something.
Happened just a few minutes ago while I was sitting at Starbucks happily clicking away.
Screen just went gray and then black and all hopes at re-starting are not working. I am only hearing plaintive beeps when I try.
So, I trod on over here to this Internet Cafe, where I currently sit, surrounded by gamers and their six-shooters and space ships and stuff. Lots of noise. Plus it does not smell good!
Through the banks of snow I hath trod, to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Whatever Else you may be celebrating over the Holiday season!

From Lawyers, Guns, and Money - one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

The problem:

Legitimate MVP, or simply the poster boyfor a vast white-wing conspiracy?
white-wing conspiracy (wit wing kuhn-spir'-uh-se) noun. The theory that there is a vast positive bias -- be it unconscious or calculated -- given to white basketball players by the mostly white media. Some people believe that this prejudice led directly to Steve Nash's back-to-back MVP awards as well as his overall reputation as an NBA savior.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 26, 2008

Writers Guild Members Overwhelmingly Ratify New Contract

I just spoke on a panel in San Francisco, with a group of activists supporting same-sex marriage. (I’m also a supporter, and defend my views here.) Afterward the panelists had some conversations about what’s been happening in California, and they explained their current strategy to me. I came away convinced that my allies are out of their minds.

Kevin Robin Hood Rudd will happily wax poetic about 2020 with Cate, but how about some funding programs the way google just doled out $25K to 50 mobile apps android developers ? Via Techcrunch.

Watch the latest entry in our 1st Annual Short Film Contest. View the rest of the submissions at www.FairDeal4Writers.com.

Daughter's Night Out. Every Thursday evening a companion comes to watch after my father and I have a carefree night out. I thought about going further afield last night, but traffic on 101N was particularly noxious, even later in the evening. So I decided to try a place in my backyard that I've been wanting to visit for awhile, Ora. It was the perfect choice.

As an aside, you can tell that it is indeed heading towards winter fast as the darkness is palpable suddenly significantly earlier. So again it will be the season for rather dark outside photos when I cover a dinner, an example being the one above.

Tim Lea wrote an email which Mike Royce and Steve Skrovan made us aware of. We’ve excerpted his analysis of the strike to highlight his truly inspired perceptions.

Hey all --

So the AMPTP has responded. Four days of 'meetings', and the resulting offer is a strange hybrid of calculated low-balling, contempt and picaresque fantasy that would better become a Voltaire novel than an early 21st-century labor negotiation.

I was doing this Sept 2007 to Sept 2008 because I missed sign ups but now since it's starting again in 2008 and I've only read two books out of my whole list, I'm going to change those two books and make this a 2008 challenge. This also means I have to come up with an author list.

A - A Dog So Small by Phillipa Pearce
B - Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (re-read)
C - Critical Conditions by Stephen White (also for 888 challenge)
D - Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor
E - Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (also for In Her Shoes Challenge)

Hey!
A dear reader, and dearer friend, informed me that I share my birthday [December 4th] with a legendary literary figure.
Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the German language’s greatest 20th Century poets. Born in Prague, Bohemia.
Yesterday, I turned 44.
Rilke turned 132.
And I thought I was an old fogey! This guy is ancient!