Friday, November 03, 2006

Nope, sorry

Hey y'all!

Remember how cool "invisiblog" sounded yesterday? How excited we all were to have found a name for our sub-microblogs that would speak to their extreme paucity of readership and separate us from the "microbloggers" who get the vaunted HUNDREDS OF HITS A DAY?

Wasn't that fun? Didn't it feel neat?

Yeah, it did. I guess the people who actually
COINED the word felt that way too. Now, while the idea of a completely anoymous blogging service sounds cool, and I'm sure lots of people who want to blog from work or sound off about their spouses or coworkers or rant against the political macine from their snug office on Capitol Hill might find it to be an extrememly valuable service, I'm just a tiny bit disappointed that our really cool name has already been pressed into service as a corporate identifier.

Therefore, the search continues. Your contributions are most welcome.

"Subversablog"? "Nematodalblog"? "Meohmyohblog"? "Masturblog"?

Gah.

========================

Hey, once again I got tagged to play along with a popular interweb game. This game involves me embarrassing myself in front of all y'all tens of readers.

What's not to like about THAT?

See it goes like this: I answer questions about books. Firstly, for you younger readers, books are stories (or maybe poetry, or a collection of stories...) that are printed on paper that are then bound into some kind of cover that you can then carry around with you and read. Books also tend to smell nice, and when you gather a whole bunch of them together that you have what's called a "library." Amazing! You can MAKE YOUR OWN LIBRARY! No card required.

Anyhow, because I got tagged, and because I'm at a loss for anything else to put in this post (Yahoo headlines no longer snarkable and nothing else much tickling my fancy), here goes:

(Disclaimer:
Tracy Lynn, who tagged me, has all kinds of erudition in her answers to these questions. There shall be no such thing contained in my answers.)

1) One book that changed your life.

Here is the first admission of just how shallow the pool of my answers is going to be, because the first thing that popped into my head was "The Dragonriders of Pern."

How I wish the answer could have been some philosophical tome, or work of great literary merit (Pulitzer prize winning would be good), but no, I come up with the first three books in the massively entertaining and transporting Pern series.

I WAS Lessa, in my brain, for a couple of years. How I WANTED a dragon of my own to impress and train and live with and fly. How I wanted to be "discovered" as the gifted and insightful next Weyrwoman....

Confession: A part of me still does.

2) One book that you'd read more than once.


"
The Stand." Randall Flagg, baby.

Yes, the ending is as weak as water (hand of God, my ass), but the rest of the book is chilling enough to keep those pages turning, over and over.


3) One book you'd want on a deserted island.

"
Another Roadside Attraction" Tom Robbins wrote a full-blown awesome novel his first time out of the gate.

If I could be any fictional character (that has to live in THIS world and no other), I would be Amanda. She's got her life right.

Plus, a former football-playing fake monk who winds up at the Vatican and finds a big surprise, a world-famous artist who dresses in skins and speaks in tongues, a courtly baboon, one of the best oral sex scenes ever to be written, and a flea circus? All in one book? And it all makes sense?

Amazing.

4) One book that made you laugh.


"
Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress" by Susan Gilman

This book was loaned to me by the fabulous
Rennratt many moons ago, and it took me far too long to start it. It's going to take me far too long to finish it as well, because I keep going back to reread what I've just read to see if it's really really that funny, and by God it is.

It's no exaggeration to say that this is by FAR the most fun reading I've done in some time.

5) One book that made you cry.


I do not read books that make me cry. At least not lately. The ones that did I've since forgotten, because that's how I roll.

6) One book you wish you'd written.


The Bible. All of it. Hoo-boy, the editing that would have happened. Plus, the royalties. Mind-boggling.

All right, I kid.......just seeing if you're still with me here.

Um, other than that, let's see. Jane Austen is pretty good, as is Ms L'Engle, and of course Ms Rowling's got herself rather a nice little enterprise going on, and I do like Mr King's work and Mr Bradbury's and of course ol' Tommy R's stuff is mighty fine, and oh crap I can't pick one.

I guess that, really, I don't wish I'd written any of their books, or any of the books that exist, but to instead be able to create my own tales as adeptly as they have so that some day someone will say "that was a good book Tiff wrote."


7) One book you wish had never been written.

The Bible.

Hahahahahaha!

Woo!

Ahem.

Allrightie then.....one book I wish had never been written. My brain hurts at this question, because there's so much CRAP out there getting published that has no business even living through the first edit. I have picked up so many books and left them on park benches or in the donations bin at the library after having read only a little, that I can't single out just one. Sorry.

8) One book you're currently reading.


"
Tis," by Frank McCourt.

Love it. I can hear the brogue in his writing, the lilt of his storytelling is phenomenal, and even when he's describing things that are unpleasant there's a bit of a twinkle in the telling that softens the hard edges. Again - LOVE it.

9) One book you've been meaning to read.


Oh, I don't ever MEAN to read a book. I don't intend them; they, by and large, just happen.

10) The tag.

Renn, Wordnerd, Rick, DebR, Utenzi, come play with me!

Also, if you're reading this and want to play along, please feel free, and let me know you did. I'm keen to know what's on YOUR personal library shelves.

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