Yes, yes. I'm a horrible blogger. I have to write more and more often. Blah, blah. Really sometimes shit gets busy and while I have a lot to write about I have very little time. Well very little time where I can blog. If only the public transport in this city would install wireless ... oooh, interesting thought.

Anyway, quick thing before I leave work and go home - to attempt to write a real post and not some short piece of crap that ends with a link to someone else's work. But here it is anyway:

http://artofmanliness.com/2009/05/13/ask-wayne-man-wants-to-be-friends-with-her-after-the-breakup/#more-2949

I'm a great fan of this blog and to be honest - this is one of the many entries that has really rung true for me. I (as the author said) know there will be a LOT of flaming going on, but seriously - get over it. All the males out there know this to be true - and all the females out there thinking "it can work - we're different to everyone else" is just plain wrong.

Case closed. Almost hometime. Where's my cigar and scotch damn it!

You Spin Me Round

Well, not to put much effort in here but I do feel like things are still spinning around in my head. Between work, moving, wedding (people will chuckle with this comment) and trying to keep things afloat, blogging has fallen to the very bottom of the heap. But I'm working through it and am slowly clawing my way out of this slump.

Anyhoo, I've decided what I really need - something that will save time and proved me with something I think I'm in dire need of. Please view the next amazing invention (and yes, apparently it does still "work"!)


On to slightly more serious things - I've got nothing. Well lots of stuff, but nothing that is blog-worthy right now. As the boys said "We're not worthy!", but in this case it's true.

Come back in a little while and I'll have something here. Even if it's "Oh god, oh god, we're all going to die". (I wonder who will get those 2 quotes!)

Yay for us!

Getting engaged seems to be relatively easy. Although finding the right person helps too.

Before Cathy gets the chance - we're engaged. It's an amazing feeling.

Now for the countdown to the day and the stress that comes with being Assistant Coordinator in this.

I seem to have read a few books this year

I may have mentioned that I read a lot. Apparently I read quickly too. I figured I'd test this out and see how fast I could read 2 books. Of course at the same time.

Fortunately Cathy brought home 2 interesting books last tuesday.

Making Money - Terry Pratchett
Stranger in a strange land - Robert A. Heinlein

Two very different books and seemed to be acceptable to my speed trial. I finished "Making Money" on Tuesday night and have less than 100 pages on "Stranger in a strange land". So I'm guessing I'll finish that by the weekend.

I've never considered myself to be a fast reader, but to finish almost 2 books in just over a week is apparently fast (light speed if one of my friend's opinions is correct - although he only "reads" from "books-on-CD" these days).

So, I guess a question is in order - how fast do you read? And like me, do you read more than 1 book at a time? (I've had a maximum of 4 books on the go once, that was a little confusing!).

2 more to the list

I just finished reading 2 books (yes, I do that - read a few at once, I get bored).

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Both are very interesting books, I guess dealing with the struggles of life and how to live. I must admit I did enjoy Life of Pi more than American Psycho, but I suspect I was always going to enjoy it.

Surprisingly I also enjoyed the movie American Psycho and have suggested to a number of people that the movie and book actually compliment each other, to me this is a miracle and the indication of serious talent.

100 must-read books (shamelessly stolen)

I've mentioned I read a lot of books and I've even mentioned a couple of good ones here, but I think I need something more. Cathy emailed me an interesting new blog the other day and once I started reading it, I'm actually enjoying it.

So, first thing to steal - the books I (apparently) have to read. 100 of them. This could take me a few weeks.

Yes, I did mention I have stolen it and I'll even put a link to the original article before I edit it for my liking (and ease of reading) - 100 must-read books.

So, here goes a few things ... 100 to be exact
(Legend:
TBR - To Be Read
RI - Read It
RA - Read Again
NRA - Never Read Again
FR - Finish Reading)


The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald TBR
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli TBR
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut TBR
1984 by George Orwell RA
The Republic by Plato TBR
Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky TBR
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger TBR
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith TBR
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway TBR
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde TBR
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck TBR
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley TBR
How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie FR
Call of the Wild by Jack London TBR
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris TBR
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss FR
Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac TBR
The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer TBR
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller TBR
Walden by Henry David Thoreau TBR
Lord of the Flies by William Golding TBR
The Master and Margarita by by Mikhail Bulgakov TBR
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut TBR
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand TBR
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka TBR
Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins TBR
White Noise by Don Delillo TBR
Ulysses by James Joyce TBR
The Young Man’s Guide by William Alcott TBR
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy TBR
Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond by Denis Johnson TBR
Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky TBR
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse TBR
The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry by Christine De Pizan TBR
The Art of Warfare by Sun Tzu FR
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra FR
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer TBR
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri TBR
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien RI
The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt TBR
East of Eden by John Steinbeck TBR
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes TBR
The Thin Red Line by James Jones TBR
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain TBR
The Politics by Aristotle TBR
First Edition of the The Boy Scout Handbook TBR
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand TBR
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller TBR
The Crisis by Winston Churchill TBR
The Naked and The Dead by Norman Mailer TBR
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen TBR
Animal Farm by George Orwell TBR
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs TBR
Beyond Good and Evil by Freidrich Nietzsche TBR
The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison TBR
Moby Dick by Herman Melville FR
Essential Manners for Men by Peter Post TBR
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly FR
Hamlet by Shakespeare RA
The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn TBR
A Separate Peace by John Knowles TBR
A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway TBR
The Stranger by Albert Camus TBR
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe FR
The Pearl by John Steinbeck TBR
On the Road by Jack Kerouac TBR
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson TBR
Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole TBR
Foucault’s Pendulum - Umberto Eco TBR
The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux TBR
Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard TBR
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose TBR
Paradise Lost by John Milton TBR
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck TBR
American Boys’ Handy Book TBR
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer TBR
King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard TBR
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky TBR
A River Runs Through It by Norman F. Maclean TBR
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells FR
Malcolm X: The Autobiography TBR
Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris TBR
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas FR
All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarq TBR
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane TBR
Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by Plutarch TBR
The Strenuous Life by Theodore Roosevelt TBR
The Bible FR (literally - god damn it! why?!)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry TBR
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett FR
The Long Goodbye by Raymond ChandlerTBR
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee RI
The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden TBR
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara TBR
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin TBR
The Histories by Herodotus TBR
From Here to Eternity by James Jones TBR
The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner TBR
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig TBR
Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson TBR


There are actually many in that list I'm NOT looking forward too. This is only slightly depressing. There are a number I have started reading (when I was so much younger) that I will have to go back and start again. There are others that are so jam packed full of Americana that I know I'm going to have trouble with them.

But here goes nothing, almost 100 books to jump into and see what sort of person I am at the end.

Now don't worry, I'm not going to be reading so much that there's no more entries - I'll be reading and posting about all the inane chatter that some of these titles are. It's going to be an interesting experience.

1, 2, miss-a-few, 99, 100

Quick update before bed. It's a bit of a cheating one too. But ah well, I'm rather tired.

Here's a list I stole from somewhere that out of 245 films, I've seen a couple.

(x) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x) Grease
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
(x) Boondock Saints
(x) Fight Club
() Starsky and Hutch
(x) Neverending Story
(x) Blazing Saddles
() Airplane
Total:8

(x) The Princess Bride
() Anchorman
() Napoleon Dynamite
(x) Labyrinth
() Saw
() Saw II
() White Noise
() White Oleander
(x) Anger Management
(x) 50 First Dates
(x) The Princess Diaries
() The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Total so far: 13

() Scream
() Scream 2
() Scream 3
(x) Scary Movie
(x) Scary Movie 2
(x) Scary Movie 3
(x) Scary Movie 4
(x) American Pie
() American Pie 2
() American Wedding
( ) American Pie Band Camp
Total so far: 18

(x) Harry Potter 1
(x) Harry Potter 2
(x) Harry Potter 3
(x) Harry Potter 4
(x) Resident Evil 1
(x) Resident Evil 2
(x) The Wedding Singer
() Little Black Book
(x) The Village
(x) Lilo & Stitch
Total so far: 27

(x) Finding Nemo
(x) Finding Neverland
() Signs
(x) The Grinch
() Texas Chainsaw Massacre
() Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
() White Chicks
(x) Butterfly Effect
(x) 13 Going on 30 (Suddenly 30)
(x) I, Robot
(x) Robots
Total so far: 34

(x) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
(x) Universal Soldier
(x) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
(x) Along Came Polly
(x) Deep Impact
() KingPin
(x) Never Been Kissed
(x) Meet The Parents
(x) Meet the Fockers
() Eight Crazy Nights
(x) Joe Dirt
(x) KING KONG (which version? - Matt)
Total so far: 44

(x) A Cinderella Story
(x) The Terminal
() The Lizzie McGuire Movie
() Passport to Paris
(x) Dumb & Dumber
() Dumber & Dumberer
() Final Destination
() Final Destination 2
() Final Destination 3
() Halloween
() The Ring
() The Ring 2
() Surviving X-MAS
(x) Flubber
Total so far: 48

(x) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
(x) Practical Magic
() Chicago
() Ghost Ship
(x) From Hell
(x) Hellboy
(x) Secret Window
() I Am Sam
(x) The Whole Nine Yards
(x) The Whole Ten Yards
Total so far: 55

(x) The Day After Tomorrow
() Child's Play
() Seed of Chucky
() Bride of Chucky
(x) Ten Things I Hate About You
() Just Married
() Gothika
() Nightmare on Elm Street
(x) Sixteen Candles
(x) Remember the Titans
() Coach Carter
() The Grudge
() The Grudge 2
(x) The Mask
() Son Of The Mask
Total so far: 60

(x) Bad Boys
(x) Bad Boys 2
() Joy Ride
() Lucky Number Slevin
(x) Ocean's Eleven
(x) Ocean's Twelve
(x) Ocean's Thirteen
(x) Bourne Identity
(x) Bourne Supremacy
(x) Bourne Ultimatum
() Lone Star
(x) Bedazzled
(x) Predator I
(x) Predator II
() The Fog
(x) Ice Age
(x) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
(x) Curious George
Total so far: 74

(x) Independence Day
() Cujo
() A Bronx Tale
() Darkness Falls
() Christine
(x) ET
() Children of the Corn
() My Bosses Daughter
() Maid in Manhattan
(x) War of the Worlds
(x) Rush Hour
(x) Rush Hour 2
Total so far: 79

() Best Bet
(x) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
(x) She's All That
(x) Calendar Girls
(x) Sideways
(x) Mars Attacks
(x) Event Horizon
(x) Ever After
(x) Wizard of Oz
(x) Forrest Gump
(x) Big Trouble in Little China
(x) The Terminator
(x) The Terminator 2
(x) The Terminator 3
Total so far: 92


(x) X-Men
(x) X-2
(x) X-3
(x) Spider-Man
(x) Spider-Man 2
(x) Sky High
() Jeepers Creepers
() Jeepers Creepers 2
() Catch Me If You Can
(x) The Little Mermaid
(x) Freaky Friday
(x) Reign of Fire
(x) The Skulls
(x) Cruel Intentions
(x) Cruel Intentions 2
() The Hot Chick
(x) Shrek
(x) Shrek 2
Total so far: 106

() Swimfan
() Miracle on 34th street
(x) Old School
(x) The Notebook
(x) K-Pax
() Krippendorf's Tribe
()A Walk to Remember
() Ice Castles
() Boogeyman
(x) The 40-year-old Virgin
Total so far: 110

(x) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
(x) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
(x) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
(x) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(x) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(x) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Total so far: 116

(x) Baseketball
() Hostel
() Waiting for Guffman
() House of 1000 Corpses
() Devils Rejects
(x) Elf
(x) Highlander
() Mothman Prophecies
() American History X
() Three
Total so Far: 119

() The Jacket
() Kung Fu Hustle
() Shaolin Soccer
(x) Night Watch
(x) Monsters Inc.
(x) Titanic
(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
() Shaun Of the Dead
() Willard
Total so far:123

() High Tension
() Club Dread
(x) Hulk
() Dawn Of the Dead
(x) Hook
(x) Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
(x) 28 days later
() Orgazmo
() Phantasm
(x) Waterworld
Total so far: 128

(x) Kill Bill vol 1
(x) Kill Bill vol 2
(x) Mortal Kombat
() Wolf Creek
(x) Kingdom of Heaven
() the Hills Have Eyes
() I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
() The Last House on the Left
() Re-Animator
() Army of Darkness
Total so far: 132

(x) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
(x)Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
(x) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(x) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
(x) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
(x) Ewoks The Battle For Endor
Total so far: 140

(x) The Matrix
(x) The Matrix Reloaded
(x) The Matrix Revolutions
(x)Animatrix
() Evil Dead
() Evil Dead 2
() Team America: World Police
(x) Red Dragon
(x) Silence of the Lambs
(x) Hannibal
Total so far: 147

() Braveheart
(x) Gladiator
(x) 300
(x) Shawshank Redemption
() Killer Bees
(x) Alien Vs. Predator
Total: 151

Apparently there are 245 films in that list, I really have no idea. Strange how I seem to have seen quite a number of them. Time to widen my movie watching habits I think. Perhaps even those of my (only 81!!) girlfriend. Slacker.

Hehe.