Here’s an orange flower for this week’s PhotoHunt. There’s a bit of green in the photo too, I’ve really been liking the way green has been showing up in my photos.

Anyone know what kind of flower this is? I think I took this by the garden plots behind U of M Dearborn…

You can participate in PhotoHunts too.

I love surprises! And I don’t need much. A weird candy bar I haven’t been able to find. A pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Coca-Cola in a glass bottle!

A complicated thing could possibly disastrous though: Don’t take me on a surprise trip to Chicago without my camera(s) and rollerblades (or bicycle). I’d need something to make be bring the right supplies. Tell me we’re hiking for a bit so I bring two kinds of shoes with a camera or two and that I should bring my blades “in case the new paved trail is done”.

Parties are good (I’m pretty happy with a party even if it’s not a surprise!). A trip around the world, surprise away, it should include some places that I want to go…

I’d be really surprised if Kim sent me some of those Star Wars cookies she baked

This question is from this week’s (#122) Friday Question…

This is for Photo Friday and this week’s theme is “Symbols”. This is not my favorite picture that I’ve taken of hieroglyphics, but certainly by shear quantity it has the most symbols in it.

This is taken at the temple of Edfu, near the south end of the Nile on the west side. Most cities/temples were on the east side , I’m sure I was told why but I can’t recall; I want to say “evil” was from the west, but I really aren’t certain.

You can also view a huge 2300 pixels wide version.

This is for Photo Friday and this week’s theme is “The Coast”. This is actually just a series of photos (7 or taken with my iPhone 3gs and stitched together with AutoStitch.

This photo was taken north of St. Pete Beach, FL. Possibly Medina?. Click it for a 1200 pixel wide version. A few stitching problems due to everyone not standing still but still a nice photo considering I was shooting into the sun during the evening.

The second photo is the same photo, but just before cropping.

I had just commented the other day on how much I loved this photograph. And then Friday shows up and I’ve got a chance to use it. This is for Photo Friday and this week’s theme is Sexy.

This photo was taken last summer on Lake Huron on the Canadian side.

PS – Did you notice the conflicting product placement..?

I like the Friday Question #98 for this week: What hobbies would you pursue if money was of no concern?

The first thing I thought was “Does travel count as a hobby“? But since KIm listed travel as hobby I figured it was okay to use…

So I’ll talk about travel as my topic. For me, the most expensive part about traveling is the getting to the destination. I can be pretty happy about staying somewhere cheap and out of the way but it’s getting there. Even when I get to Costa Rica and I can usually pay about $300-ish for my flight it’s still the getting around in country that costs money.

So even when I get to my isolated places and find a cheap place to stay. It’ll cost me more to rent a scooter or 4-wheeler for the day compared to the hotel; heck a bicycle rental is half the price of a hotel. Some other things to do on a trip like a horseback ride of out to an island where you can snorkel is more than the hotel too. As vacations go, these are cheap things to do ($35-$40 a day) but when that’s exceeding your other big costs you start to notice.

I guess if the money was of no concern I might stay at nicer places and in bigger cities but I’m pretty happy in some little town by the water or up in the mountains somewhere.

I guess photography and videography would be another hobby, since I love to do that. The problem is that just ends up with more stuff for me to carry around with me when I travel. And I guess for $5,000-$8,000 I could buy more than everything I need (multiple cameras and lens of different types and two different sized video cameras) and be done with it for more than a few years. Travel is a lot more expensive over the long haul.

I guess I just need a job that lets me travel, write about it and shoot lots of photos and video!!!

Here are some of my easy tips for reducing spending. I don’t go in to as many items as Kim (from the Friday Question) does but these can add up quick so I’ll share a few of my easiest ones. Actually I think most of these add up faster than shopping around for gas prices (even if you drive a big vehicle).

1) Pay your bills automatically (and on time)! I don’t mean electronically (this is work), I mean automatically so they just deduct your account. Set up auto-bill payments just one time so bills comes out the of the bank (generally on the day due, you can’t pay it any closer that that) any you don’t have to write checks, buy stamps or take the time to do it. If it’s a regular payment (same amount every month) that can’t do direct withdrawal see if your bank can send a check for you, my bank does it for a quarter (less than a stamp) and I never have to think about it. If you do this you’ll avoid any fees or fines for tardy bills. I’m assuming you already do direct deposit for your checks, don’t you?

2) Keep what you drink around you. If you’re always drinking water keep a few in the trunk. Or grab a cold soda on the way out of the house. I keep a case of water bottles* in the garage, if I take an empty out of the car, I put in a full one. If you’re heading out to a picnic bring the sodas with you. If you’ve got a fridge at work, keep sodas/water/etc. there. If this stops you from buying one drink a day ($1.00-$1.75) and you purchased your drinks on sale (stock up dummy!) you could easily save $365 a year, if this stops you from buying two drinks a day you could double that. Even just twice a week could pocket you a $100 at the end of the year. I’m not suggesting that you take your drink into a restaurant or movie theatre just if you’e going to get one anyways.

3) Pay a little attention to grocery sales. I shop for groceries for myself and traditionally when trying coupon cutting I waste more time cutting and looking at the store for the coupons then I save. But look for the obvious: If Orange Juice is on sale for $2 a gallon (down from $4) and you drink a gallon a week, stock up, pay attention to the dates though. If the cereal you like is on sale, stock up! And if you soda pop you drink is on sale, buy lots, it keeps for a while. Besides you want to keep some at your desk at work.

4) If you ever eat out, buy an Entertainment book. It’s not just food, most food coupons are B!G!, but could save the price of a book just with the Radio Shack, Target and Border’s book coupons. I’m not saying go to restaurants that you don’t normally go to, I’m saying just look at the book and go to the same places you already go! After the first year, you’ll buy one for both of your cars (if your family has two). Better yet, buy one before the family goes on vacation and use it there, because if you’re going to eat at unfamiliar restaurants, you might as well as use one you’ve got coupons for!

5) Don’t pay too much for gasoline. Speaking of saving money when shopping for gas, you can pay more than the cheapest place, just not too much. Some people drive across town for 5 cents a gallon, but not out of the way may save them 3 cents. Take two seconds to check prices at GasBuddy.com and see what’s average and if prices are going up or down (once you select your cities you can bookmark it). For example, there’s a few places at $2.59 but that’s across town but there is a bunch around $2.63 on the way to where I’m going but now I know to ignore the $2.77+ stations, which is what it was a few days ago. BTW, there’s an iPhone app for that.

6) Use the library for books, audiobooks or DVDs. Figure out how to reserve items on-line and they’ll contact you when it’s sitting at the counter. My library seems to put books in the electronic catalog when they order, so I can reserve best-sellers months before they come out; they’ll even ship them between branches for me. Just return them on time so you don’t pay fines.

7) Don’t buy lottery tickets! But then again if you don’t play you can’t win. That reminds me, I need to check my ticket numbers. I’ll admit, I do buy tickets, but $3 would be a busy week for me. But someone has to win, don’t they?

Most of these, especially the first five, are easy to do and don’t require much change in your life. If anything the first one will save you time and money.

Would you rather live somewhere where the you see significant changes in the seasons throughout the year, or where it pretty much stays the same? What is your ideal daily temperature? from Friday Question #91.

I like the changes in weather. While I’d rather have winter shorter, Michigan weather isn’t too bad, but then again I’m used to it. I need more sunshine though! Give me more below freezing days but with sunshine I’d be a happy camper.

My preference would be the nice weather of Costa Rica every day (75-95° F) but I can’t have that here if I have to wear a suit every day. Plus, when you get something like the nice weather of Costa Rica you get the ultra-rainy season to be the down side (and when it stops you can’t get around due to the flooding).

So I think I’d choose Costa Rica. GIve me the hot weather and if I complain in the rainy season just remind me that I live in paradise.

So this week’s Friday Question (#87) is

“If rain could fall in any scent, what scent would you want it to be?”

I had several answers come to mind: I like the smell of rain, the ocean, or I think I’d get bored of the same smell. But the I noticed first few people to comment gave those answers, so I’m going with my fourth option, the world (could) would be happier option…

I think the smell of rain should change every time it rains. Everyone would go outside to see what today’s scent is or they’d open the windows so they can catch of whiff of it. So instead of being sad it was raining, everyone would be chatting about it and if they liked the smell or not. And the puddles would smell nice too.

Maybe people would tweet to say go outside and smell the maple syrup! Or, just as importantly, we’d get asparagus alerts to not to go outside.

And maybe after the rain it would affect the color of the sky or the rainbow, everyone would wonder outside to see what the flavored sky would look like and have something else to talk about and to brighten up their day.

This weeks Friday Question is: What’s your reaction when you receive a compliment?

If it’s something about me being nice or smart or something like that, I’m never so sure how to respond. A mumbled thanks or something is most likely.

But if it’s a compliment about my cool shoes or something like that. Then I appropriately say thank you and probably tell you more than you ever wanted to know about them.

So it’s a mixed response depending on the kind of compliment.

From the Friday Question #76:

What is your favorite (cold) cereal? You know, the one you could just eat bowls and bowls of?
So this summer, when I was up north at my Aunt and Uncle’s place, I had Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries Cereal one morning. It was delicious and it’s “Special K” so it’s got to be nutritious, right? Well, it turns out it’s pretty negligible on the being more nutritious when compared to something like Frosted Flakes, and it’s way more expensive. (But don’t tell my aunt!)

So my usual favorite is Frosted Flakes, but occasionally I’ll buy some of the Kellogg’s Special K Red Berries as a treat.

FYI, cereal is more of a snack to me, it’s pretty rare that I eat it as breakfast (especially when at home).

The Lens Day Challenge for this week is Traffic.

This is on a busy side-street in San Jose, Costa Rica; It’s a block or two east of La Sabana Park. I think it’s this messy intersection off of Calle 40; but if that’s where it is, it’s not even a very good representation of the intersection.

This week’s word associations are

Death :: Funeral
Identified :: Body
Saturday :: Weekend
Dumped :: Sad
Division :: Multiplication
Stilted :: Jilted (or is that because it rhymes) maybe it’s time for the dictionary?
Crimes of :: Passion
Stumped :: Quiz
Future :: Time Travel
Team :: Go (as in Go Team)

Check out the list every week at Unconscious Mutterings

Here’s this week’s Manic Monday questions:

Both were really easy to answer, at least there were to me.

Would you rather go a week without bathing, but be able to change your clothes, or a week without a change of clothes, but be able to bathe?
Even though I like to take showers, I think I’d go with the clean clothes. There really is some magic in “the magical powers of a new shirt” (a reference from The West Wing), getting rid of the dirty sweaty shirt can make you feel much better about the day.

If you had to be trapped in a TV show for a month, which show would you choose?
Doctor Who. Preferably the 2006 season. Traveling places and times (and saving people).
Torchwood would have been a good choice but they way they keep killing characters, I wouldn’t last a month.

From Manic Monday #178.

I don’t know how I would/could give up the Internet. It’s just too much a part of who I am. I could give up TV and movies (I don’t really play electronic games) if I had to, way easier than the ‘net.

I’d certainly read more. I’ve got 3 new library books sitting here all overdue! I’d definitely play more board/card games, but I need more people for that, I love games.

I’d check out more local music (which I do already) and theatre. And I should probably play outside more, but it’s so cold right now that thought doesn’t really register.

From Friday Question #51 over at ilaxStudio.com

So there is a new 26 Things Photographic Scavenger Hunt for May 2007, they only do this every few months so I’m glad to catch it in advance.

It’s a photo meme-like thing where they list 26 things and you need to take/post photos related to the topics. It’s way open to interpretation and I like the idea of it so take a look and take some photos…

1. Order :: Chaos
2. Mortician :: Casket
3. Determine :: Solve
4. Ignore :: Noise
5. Guy :: Girl
6. Crush :: Blog (Blog-Crush)
7. Garlic :: Vampire
8. Wacky :: Weekend
9. Parent :: Child
10. Burning :: Fire

Free Association weekly quiz/meme from Unconscious Mutterings.

Another photo-meme. Today the Thursday Photo Challenge is Wildlife so I’m using this White-Faced Monkey photo from Montezuma, Costa Rica.

If you look very close (just below/by the neck) you can see there is a (very tiny) baby on the back of the monkey!

Speaking of Costa Rica, here’s a information page from Time for Kids about Costa Rica…

So I was watching a re-run of Grey’s Anatomy last night. It’s the one where the wife has the fork stuck in her neck; her and the husband were being adventurous since she has an aneurism and only has weeks/months to live. So they are traveling and doing all the things they’ve always said they’ll do some day.

This ties back in with the meme from a few weeks ago about what would you do this six months to live. This also ties in with the new show Three Moons Over Milford where the moon gets hit with an asteroid and everyone knows it’s only a shot amount of time before the pieces fall back to earth. Several of the people and episodes are all about living life to the fullest.

So back to my question: “Why wait?”

If there is all sorts of stuff I want to do, what am I waiting for? What are you waiting for? Now I know some of us have responsibilities so that has all sorts of implications. But many of us are single with no responsibilities. Why not quit the job and just travel to those places that I’ve thought about? Go volunteer. Go move somewhere interesting and get a job for a while? I could probably figure something out so I could do some reasonable consulting via the net regardless of where I might live.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. My best friend just keeps waiting for the day I call and say see ya, I’ve off to move to Costa Rica…

I was tagged by RW to do this meme

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
Web Programmer
Computer Trainer
Cook
Camp Counselor

Four movies you could watch over and over:

The Flight of the Navigator

The American President

The Cutting Edge

A Christmas Story

Four places you’ve lived:
Berkley, MI
East Lansing, MI
Haslett, MI
Dearborn, MI

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Gray’s Anatomy
Psych
Dead Zone
Kyle XY

Four websites you visit daily:
Blogography
SlickDeals
The Daily Meme
Google

Four of your favorite foods:
Pizza
Hot Wings
Chicken With Pineapple (Chinese)
Beef With Brocolli (Chinese)

Four places you’d rather be:
The Beach
Costa Rica
London
The Moon

Four albums you can’t live without (for the moment):

Avril Lavign Under My Skin

Anna Nalick Wreck of the Day

Tori Amos Little Earthquakes

Indigo Girls Strange Fire

I’m stopping at four (2 new & 2 old) but I really couldn’t stick to four…

Here’s an interesting post from over at GirlSpoke. Turns out while looking at the vistor log Meme found a link visitor from “house.gov” (which would be a machine under the House of Reps domain). The question in her mind was what link did they follow to get there? The answer was they got there from a Google search:

The Google search terms were: “How do I find a chick to f-ck if I am married?”

She’s got more details in her original post.

From Question of the Day.

From Question of the Day.

So it’s Memorial Day and Dearborn is having a parade today. Usually I don’t even notice until it’s over and their walking by my place (it ends at the end of my block). So I wandered on by late this morning.

One of the first things I saw was the Redford Township Unicycle club, they were pretty good, I wish I had gotten some better pictures. It was interesting, lots of people, in lots of heat, I wandered around and notice my around the corner bar was open, they’re never open on a holiday, it turns out they were just open for the parade so I got a Coca-Cola, said hello and wandered back outside. Another odd hit was the Downriver Remote Control club, they had cars and they towed a ramp and drove around and jumped the ramp. They seemed to get more daring as they neared the end so there were more jumps and crashes…

I came late so I missed all the military and more memeroial related portions of the parade, it was just all the local groups, I’m not really sure what time it started. Now that’s I’m home I realize how hot it really was outside, 88 degrees with 51% humidity and it’s suppesed to hit 93! I really don’t want to go back out, but I’ve got some errands to run.

The Wednesday Mind Hump seemed extra easy (and quick) so here we go:
Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate.
Hot or cold? Hot.
A bunch of short weekend trips, or one long vacation? Bunch of short trips.
Almond Joy or Mounds? Neither!
Country or Rock And Roll? R & R!
Cosbys or Bradys? Cosbys (I always liked Bill)
Brand new car or brand new house? House.
Inside or outside? Outside.
Pepsi or Coke? Coke!!!

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
Web Programmer
Computer Trainer
Cook
Camp Counselor

Four movies you could watch over and over:

The Flight of the Navigator

The American President

The Cutting Edge

A Christmas Story

Four places you’ve lived:
Berkley, MI
East Lansing, MI
Haslett, MI
Dearborn, MI

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Gray’s Anatomy
Two and a half Men
Medium
Veronica Mars

Four websites you visit daily:
Blogography
SlickDeals
The Daily Meme
Google

Four of your favorite foods:
Pizza
Hot Wings
Chicken With Pineapple (Chinese)
Beef With Brocolli (Chinese)

Four places you’d rather be:
Egypt
Costa Rica
London
The Moon

Four albums you can’t live without (for the moment):

Avril Lavign Under My Skin

Anna Nalick Wreck of the Day

Tori Amos Little Earthquakes

Indigo Girls Strange Fire

I’m stopping at four (2 new & 2 old) but I really couldn’t stick to four…

Via Webmiztris via Kimi and Wendy.

From the Saturday Six.

So it’s been two years that I’ve been blogging!!! I’m still short three posts from 1,000 but maybe I’ll have something more introspective to post in a few days. I just couldn’t let the day go without a post. Besides, I have a few questions for you…

Blogging facts from Gary Said…

From the brand new meme theGhost Works Virtual Hash.

I love my Christmas tree! When I get a few more decorations up (and clean up the living room) I’ll do a picture. All the white lights are really bright though.

Another 26 things got by me and I didn’t get more than one photo taken. I can’t find it (maybe it’s still on the camera).

I need to finish my 101 things in 1001 days list since I know I’m going to be crossing one off this week.

It was Cat in the Hat day in the morning and afternoon preschool so they asked me to dress up and come read to the kids! We did “The Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham” They all had paper hats (and big bow/bowties) that looked like the Cat in the Hat.

BlogSpot.com seems to be down tonight (a few blogs and memes I like are up there).

You’re a Scientific Intellectual!

Kind of expected but I even changed a few of my answers on the few that I couldn’t decide on to see if it would change, but still scored the same. I guess I pretty much answered enough in that direction so that my poetic or philosophical answers were still out weighed.

What Sort of Intellectual Are You? brought to you by Quizilla

Found at UltraBlog.

While not actually a board, my favorite is actually Dominoes, which (if you’ve never played) is like playing cards, they’re a million games you can play with one set. As actual board games go Scrabble is probably my favorite regular old board game.

It’s trivia, has a board and requires a DVD player: Scene It? It’s the best trivia game out there, games are fast and it’s easy to learn.

From Tuesday’s Tales via The Daily Meme.

From Tuesday’s Tales via The Daily Meme.

So this seems to be the badge/test/meme all the cool kids are doing this week, so me being the follower that I am (not), I’ll do it too…

The previous version of this blog (http://garylapointe.com/mypointe/) is worth about the same (so if I redirected all traffic would it be worth double?)

The Daily Meme is worth $103,310.82! Which is just funny since I put so little time into it, but it’s a resource, a compilation of memes (although not usually badge creators such as this). So I only make changes as the happy and as sites die.

Click the link and you can find out the value of your blog! It uses Technorati data and Weblogs/AOL deal for value. More than I’m willing to analyze but still fun to check out.

What are your Top 5, all-time favorite candy bars?

Sarah said:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

“I’m the guy who still hardcodes his own HTML and I just didn’t get it.”

“It” was using special software like Movable Type to run a web log. Why would I every want to do that?

FYI, this was over 800 posts ago on January 5, 2004 and the title was Might as well face it… (I’m addicted to blog!)

So I don’t usually take these quizzes but this one looked kinda interesting, so I took it. It’s only 16 questions, so give it a try…

From the Friday Forum.

I’m actually doing a Friday Meme on Friday, what are the odds of that?!?

So I found this cool meme and the object is to make a list of 101 goals and get them done in 1001 days. I’m going to put something together and see how far I get. This ties in with today’s Friday Forum (goals and reflections) and 9/11 (no, not that 9/11, the other one).

Actually, I didn’t find it Sarah did.

If I were a piece of food caught in your teeth, would you pick me out? What kind of food would I be? Would I be delicious even after I’d been trapped between your molars since lunch?

Okay so this isn’t a real meme. I stole it from 5ives.com a site that lists all sorts of (generally) humorous lists of “five things” such as: “Five terrible fake LiveJournal memes”.

WordPhoto.org appears to have just gone back to a daily format (probably just Monday through Friday). They change the topic everyday and you can upload a photo related to that topic. Pretty simple, eh? Here’s all the photos I’ve submitted are and here is a list of the archived words. PS – Once there’s a new word, you can’t upload an old one any more!

This is my name using Egyptian Hieroglyphs (supposedly). Does anyone know if this is really related to anything hieroglyphic? There are no references on the generating page to anything authentic. I’m seriously interested. I’m still thinking Egypt may be my next trip…

LATER: I see now that these “letters” do have some meaning according to the Hieroglyphic entry in the Wikipedia. Although, even after reading the Wikipedia article, I’m still confused why some letters are stacked and some are side by side (my name doesn’t fit this schema).

From Saturday Six.

So I’ve been tagged with the book meme (list current books and favorite books and tag a few more people) from Dave over at Blogography.

How Many Books Do You Own? At least five-hundred. A complaint from the last time I moved was “who the hell taught you to read?”. The answer is probably my grandfather, who didn’t teach me to read but taught me to want to read.

What is the Last Book You Bought? Mindscan by Robert Sawyer. I have yet to read this one, so here’s some background on the author. He’s the canadian Michael Crichton, what does that mean? It means he’s awesome (I hope he likes MC) and he makes complicated science fun. He generally does more with connecting everything (science and religion and the mind and the universe) in a holistic way and making it all tie together. He’s entertaining, humorous and very knowledgeable.

What is the Last Book You Read? Time’s Eye by Arthur C. Clark and Stephen Baxter. Imagine To Your Scattered Bodies Go (a classic series from way before it’s time where everyone who ever died resurrected all at once) and the Secret Wars comic (pieces of planets carved up and reassembled into one new planet) combined into one new story. The Earth has been cut up into pieces throughout time and a mishmash of the planet has been reassembled, one step to a new piece of the puzzle may take to the ice age or the future. Plus these silver orbs that defy physics and appear to be watching. Throw in Alexander the Great and Ghengis Khan and you’re ready to go.

Name five books that mean a lot to you. Let’s see if I can keep it to five…

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. This and the rest of the Narnia Series will take you to another world. Don’t let the recent chronological renumbering of the books confuse you, this is the one to start with. Four children who find a passage into another world. A world where they are destined to sit and rule and fight to save the world where “every day is winter, but never Christmas”. This will be a movie this December and I get chills when I see the preview.

Calculating God by Robert Sawyer. Imagine aliens land on earth (Canada of course) and only want to meet with a paleontologist. Imagine they have record of several disasters in the past of their planet the coincide with ours (such as the dinosaurs being wiped out 65 million years ago). What can the cause of this? Why God of course! Isn’t that the reason for science? To prove the existence of God? He’s got some great humor and science and philosophy that’ll make you want to read all his recent books. I’ve given several of this book away as gifts.

Lightning by Dean Koontz. This is a book that I cannot believe hasn’t been adapted into a movie. A non-typical Dean Koontz book with a hero (that I can’t reveal too much about) and the woman he loves and has fallen in love with over and over. And in typical Dean Koontz fashion they are being chased by the bad guys. Hmm… i don’t know what else to say without giving away the story. But it’s my favorite book by him.

So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane. Forget Harry Potter, if you want wizardary this is the series to read. There are rules to spells, you calculate them, they take time, they have a price and in the long run they slow down the death of the universe. Join Kit and Nita as they learn about wizardry and save the world (several times). Diane Duane has written seven of these books and several other fantasy series, Star Trek books and some SpiderMan books. Another book I’ve given away multiple copies of…

Alas Babylon by Pat Frank. The 1959 classic end of the world novel on how a small courageous Florida town survives after the bombs drop. This is probably the only required fiction I ever had in high school that ever made an impact on me. It’s about people and the basic needs they have after an attack. I can’t imagine how the pampered world of today would be impacted if the same thing happened now.

I’ll mention The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but won’t use it since Dave did. And an Honorable Mention to The Watchmen (which to me) was the backstory to The Incredibles (yes, this dark comic is the reason those cartoon characters retired) and resposible for the resurgence of Batman (The Dark Knight Returns) in the mid-1980′s.

Now “tag” five individuals to provide their own lists. Okay lets see. Heather, who got me into blogging. Allison who actually has a Douglas Adams quote at the top of her blog right now. Dave at A Product of the 80′s who comments often but I can’t think of him ever mentioning any books. Diane at Arcadian Expressions who’s another Michiganian. Alfie at Noiblata who’s also local. Jenni at Kitten Kiss with whom I share a birthday. And Kelly who doesn’t post often enough but I bet has some interesting reads. So maybe that’s more than five but at least I stuck to five books…

Feel free to tag yourself (no, that’s not dirty) and post a link in the comments.

And I’ve already thought of a few other books I should add… Sigh…

So I’m reading this book review (by Martey Rich Keenan in the Detroit News) for a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Now when I read the description it sounded like a blog, alphabetical but a blog nonetheless. So of course I had to check it out.

When I saw the book it made me think blog in so many ways. Timelines, lists of things (like smells) and memes (yes, I said memes!). There is at least one meme in the book that hasn’t been done yet (like we won’t be using that one in the near future)! I’m going to spend some time Wednesday and read this one, you should too! I’m not going to say much more – the review and the Amazon info (which is more than usual) should be enough to get you interested if this is your kind of thing.

I just remembered this part of the story – So when I saw the review (see above) I tore out the article with the intent of adding it to my amazon wishlist, but I forgot. But then I noticed it in my pocket when I was at Borders so that’s when I looked for it (with the educator discount this weekend). When I grabbed it I noticed there was a gap like another copy or two had been recently purchased (since the review yesterday). When I was back in Border’s tonight (did I say I liked books?) I heard a woman asking about it (I took the last copy earlier) so we started chatting, I think she’s really sure she wants it now, but I think she wanted the educator discount this weekend…

From TODAY_WFD_QOTD.

Jane says:

I amaze myself sometimes. I lie to my mother about like, what time I woke up yesterday morning yet I’ll tell the complete, absolute truth on a two page internet quiz about Which Harry Potter House Do You Belong In?

That’s over at Girls in the Bag. A few different women post to the blog, but it seems like Jane does the most of them…

What piece of music have you listened to just because someone you respect or admire – but don’t actually know in person – recommended it?

They also do a podcast – The BiddyCast.

From the Midweek Music Meme

It’s time for this week’s free association meme from Unconscious Mutterings.

1. Stink:: Skunk

2. Renewal:: License
3. I remember…:: when I…
4. Loneliness:: Boredom
5. Ooooh::  Ahhhh
6. For real:: ________ (not a thing pops into my mind)
7. Titanium:: Powerbook
8. Get down:: Make Love (Queen song, right?)
9. Rupture:: Burst
10. Dramatic:: Prose

From Unconscious Mutterings.