The Witching Well

They didn’t pull it off, but at least they tried. And I don’t care whether Kerry did it because it was the right thing to do, or because he’s thinking about running again. The results are the same: someone had to try, and the Massachusetts Senate delegation did that.

Too bad half the Democrats in the Senate don’t seem to understand what Alito’s presence on the Supreme Court is going to do to the rights of women, minorities, and anyone being stomped on by big business. Not to mention the environment.

Scarfed from PZB.

Have read
Intend to read
Won’t read
might consider reading if somebody gave it to me
started but never finished
*finished but hated
[] don’t know enough about to decide

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
[His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman]
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) - J.K. Rowling
[Life of Pi - Yann Martel]
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
[The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon]
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) - J.K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) - J.K. Rowling
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter 5) - J.K. Rowling
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Book 1) - J.K. Rowling
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson (actually, I’ve just started this one)
[The Secret History - Donna Tartt]
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) - J.K. Rowling
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender’s Game (The Ender Saga) - Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
[Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell]
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
[Atonement - Ian McEwan]
[The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon]
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert
I notice I didn’t mark any of these as started but not finished. There have been a few books in my reading history that I’ve simply not been able to get through, but they’ve been very very few in number. I chalk it up to my inability to let go of the hope that even a very bad book will eventually redeem itself somehow. Frequent disappointment in this doesn’t seem to deter me.

Don’t you just love a company whose motto is “Don’t do evil” which then turns around and agrees to engage in political censorship for the sake of profits? But, really, what did we expect? Business is business, after all.

Of course, I’m hearing Albert Finney’s and Sir Alec Guinness’ voices in the back of my head right now.

Scrooge: But you were always a good man of business, Marley.

Marley: Mankind was my business!

Scientists are saying that the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages may have as many as three million male descendants worldwide. Connected modern surnames include (O’)Gallagher, (O’)Boyle, (O’)Doherty, O’Donnell, Connor, Cannon, Bradley, O’Reilly, Flynn, (Mc)Kee, Campbell, Devlin, Donnelly, Egan, Gormley, Hynes, McCaul, McGovern, McLoughlin, McManus, McMenamin, Molloy, O’Kane, O’Rourke, and Quinn.

From Barb.

The first player of this game starts with the topic “five weird habits” and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don’t forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says “You have been tagged” (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.

1. I can’t sleep in a bed that isn’t properly tucked in, with the pillows just so and the sheets evenly distributed and folded over at the top all tidy and such. This is particularly odd since I’m not really a tidy person in general.

2. I keep the Halloween decorations up all year in my office at work. The witches and bats, anyway. I used to leave the fake spiderwebs up, too, but people’s hair kept getting caught in it when they sat in the chair in front of the window that looks out into the main area.

3. I drink tea during the work week and coffee on the weekends.

4. I hate panty hose with such vehemence that I will only buy long skirts with no vent slits so that I can get away with knee-his at work.

There are probably tons more, but I can’t think of any right now.

I’m not much for tagging others, so feel free to consider yourself tagged.

Starting in March. And, because the Gods are kind, it will apparently be on Friday nights, right before Battlestar Galactica.

Yes, it’s true. Those who use the internet to “annoy” someone else and don’t give their real names are now violating the law. There’s a potential two-year jail sentence in the offing for trolls, Nigerian phishing scammers, internet stalkers… and anyone who speaks his or her mind online using a pseudonym. If it “annoys” someone, it’s a crime.

So, I guess I’m going to go to jail one of these days, because something I write, sooner or later, is going to annoy someone. Yes, you can find my real name attached to this website if you look hard enough for it; I’m not really hiding myself here, just using an alter-ego. But I occasionally post on other people’s blogs, too, and BBSs, usually under the name Ardellis, but not always.

Still, I’ll have lots of company, won’t I?

Bwa ha ha! Look! A linguistic filk! Well, orthographical, anyway.

The plugins all seem to be working correctly, and the new theme seems to have come through wthout any wierdness, but if you happen to notice anything odd/nonfunctional, please do let me know.