Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

According to Italian tradition, you should wear new red underwear to ring in the new year.

(Actually, I'm just hoping that posting a picture of myself in my underwear will boost my blog hit count.)

Happy New Year, everybody!

2005: The Year in Review

January
Saw friends, Rockapella and Sean Altman in NYC. Drank Manhattans in Manhattan, bought a hoodie at the Strand bookstore. Best road trip ever! Plumbing problems, transmission problems, not good. Johnny Carson died.

February
Ushered in the Year of the Rooster, which is my year, at the T’ai Chi studio’s Chinese New Year celebration and demo.

March
Created my own online survey. Saw Sister-san and family in Tucson while there on business. Quit the magazine, started a new job downtown.

April
Bought my Treo, entered geek heaven. Saw friends and Rockapella in La Crosse.

May
Spent Mother’s Day weekend in AZ with Sister-san and family. Saw the Bobs and the Flying Karamazov brothers.

June
Attended a Saints baseball game. Gave a T’ai Chi presentation at work. Spent time at Mom’s place.

July
Spent 4th of July weekend geeking out at CONvergence. Taught T’ai Chi at a Lutheran women’s conference; heard Barbara Ehrenreich give keynote address. Mom hung out at my house for a while. Saw first Santa of the year. Scotty died. Learned how to photoblog. Saw Bruce Campbell in person.

August
Got Sensational Acres fence fixed. Attended annual T’ai Chi retreat. Bought an iBook, the love of my geek life. Things began to go south at work.

September
Saw Kelly and family for Dragon*Con in Atlanta. CNE had her first birthday. Began planning for Italy 2006 trip. Saw Rockapella in Madison. Best concert ever! Saw first Christmas displays of the season. Things got seriously ugly at work.

October
Got fired. Got new, better job within 48 hours. Began a blissful month of unemployment. I attended a Tupperware party. Attended Amy & Jazret’s wedding.

November
Saw Tonic Sol-Fa in a metro suburb; I only got lost once on the way. Started new job. Attended my first flamenco recital. Saw Four Shadow’s Christmas concert.

December
Learned how to audioblog. Bought a digital camera. Glue-trapped the first mouse at Sensational Acres. Saw the family and Rockapella in Missouri. Made a slide show movie/DVD from all the pictures. Became addicted to Sudoku. Hosted Mother Media for Christmas. Saw my first Holidazzle parade.

All in all, a very good year. Cheers to the next one!

Aftermas

Brought to you by the ghost of Christmas recently past.

Christmas is finally over. The celebration that began Dec. 14 with me heading off to Missouri in a blizzard officially ends today with Mother Media backing her Buick Le Sabre out of my driveway and heading west once more. What a melancholy day this is. I don’t like parting without knowing when I’ll see her again.

It really was Christmas for me this year, not “X-mess,” as I’ve called it in previous years. I attribute my attitude shift to the fact that I didn’t buy people things this year. I stayed out of retail areas online and off. Instead, I made things. I made CDs. I made a family reunion. I made photos from the reunion into a slide show and the slide show into a DVD. I made memories. I was able to celebrate the creating and the giving rather than the buying, and it was great.

I also got to celebrate being this Christmas. I was fortunate enough to be with family for two full weeks, a rarity for me. I got to see almost everyone on one side of the family at the big party, plus spend one-on-one time with KC and Mother Media, plus play with CNE. I also get to be happy and productive in my new job, cherished by my friends, at peace with myself. I am well, and on my best days, I am good, too. I am lucky, and I am grateful.

Two weeks of Christmas seems like a lot, but I got used to it pretty quickly — so used to it, in fact, that I’ve decided to extend the happy buzz one more week. Anybody else?

Today around the world: December 28 is Holy Innocents’ Day in Mexico. Holy innocents, Batman!

Holidazzle

The Holidazzle parade is a winter tradition in Minneapolis. Several nights a week between Thanksgiving and Christmas, lit-up floats depicting storybook themes process down Nicollet Mall to wow throngs of kids and their parents.

It worked on Mother Media and me. We went tonight and had a great time. I've lived here a dozen years without ever making it to the parade, so Mom gave me the perfect excuse. The weather was balmy and the crowd cheerful. We could have stayed much longer.

Here you see a choo-choo train, a zoo, Princess and the Pea, Ready Sit Read, and my personal favorite, a gingerbread house. (Leave it to me to fixate on the food float, right?) I also got some nice shots of the backs of waving mittens and heads in stocking caps (not pictured).

Pimp My Nutcracker

Click here for holiday cheer: Pimp My Nutcracker. Keep clicking on "head" to try on a variety of headgear; click repeatedly on other choices as well.

Boot Cramp

I’ve just finished my first four-star Sudoku and now consider myself a genius.

Okay, that’s not true. If I were a genius, I wouldn’t have gone to the Mall of America wearing my snow boots last night. Like so many of my smooth moves, it seemed logical at the time. I had to put on the boots to carry the snow blower into the living room, and we were leaving to run errands right after that, so why change?

What, you don’t keep your snow blower in the living room?

Normally I don’t either. However, when I was blowing snow last Sunday, I ran into something solid, and the motor quit and refused to turn over. The guy at the hardware store advised me to let the blower thaw completely in case a chunk of ice got lodged in the works. The garage at Sensational Acres isn’t heated, so the only place the machine can thaw is inside the house. It’s now guarding the front door — very fiercely, I might add. I’ll test it tonight, and if it still doesn’t work, it’s off to the repair shop.

So that’s why I had my boots on. Mother Media and I had one quick errand to run at Target and one at the Darth Mall. I figured they wouldn’t take long, so the snow boots would be fine. But I had forgotten one key point: unlike me, Mother Media is a shopper. I’m a buyer. I go to the store only when I know what I need and where to get it. I buy it and go home. But Mom is a shopper who actually compares prices, products, and stores before settling on a purchase. Her method is more fiscally responsible than mine, but it also takes longer.

And that’s how it came to pass that I tromped through half the Darth Mall in my biggest boots last night. Yeah, we only had time for half (so far), but that’s just as well. Those boots are NOT made for walkin’. There I was in Baby Gap, clomp clomp clomping amongst the delicate kiddie clothes. There I was in the Apple store, clomp clomp clomping amongst the delicate electronic devices. In the all peanut butter store, clomp clomp clomp. In the classy department stores, clomp clomp clomp. Trying to keep up with Mother Media on the mall thoroughfares, clomp clomp clomp. Clomp! Clomp! Clomp! I was tired when I got home!

How tired? So tired I didn’t even check my e-mail.

Today around the world: December 22 is Winter Solstice Holiday in Hong Kong. Here comes the sun!

Pepto Talk

Due to holiday busy-ness and me not feeling terrific today, I think BND will go on a lighter schedule for the next couple weeks. Mother Media is here, and I want to spend as much free time with her as possible. I may or may not do a year-end clip show; we'll see how much free time I have — and whether I can wrest the iBook out of Mom's grasp. For a self-proclaimed technophobe, she sure has embraced my dear iRonny.

Anyway, be well, be good, and eat lots of cookies. And keep checking back here, because you know I can't stay away for long.

LOVE!

at the airport

Saturday morning

I babbled out a 2-minute audio post live from Columbia Regional Airport, only to find that due to spotty cellular service, I'd been disconnected at some point during the call. D'OH! What I said was, I've had a lot of fun and am heading home too soon.

Dancing to Christmas music

Jocelyn loves ho ho ho.

Dancing with Great Aunt Eva

Cutest Niece Ever!

Didn't I tell you? Cutest niece EVER!! That's Jocelyn, my Christmas angel.

Reunited!

And it feels so good!

What, me geek out?

KC, using her photo phone, captures the true essence of the Media Sensation. Nice fancy frame! Yep, we found a wireless network to tap into. We're as fascinated by our tech as the cat is by the reflection from my Treo screen on the wall.

At the concert

Left: Mother Media, KC, me in the back row at the Rockapella concert

Below: Me and Sister-san

Made it!

At Kasey's, headed for venue. More later.

Rented a car

Flight delayed

Am I nuts or what?

It's snowing steadily in the Twin Cities, but I made it to the airport OK. My flight seems to be on time so far. I'm lucky. Can't say the same for Chicago-bound travelers today.

Roadtrippin'

I'm preparing to depart for a family reunion, Christmas, and a Rockapella concert in the Show Me state, all rolled into one. I don't know what kind of internet access I'll have while I'm there, so you're on your own to stop by and see what's new for the rest of the week. I do plan to post a few audio entries, so come check them out. And I'm sure I'll get at least a few decent photos to share once I get back. Mostly I'll be concentrating on having fun, which really shouldn't take much work.

Catch you on the backswing, fair readers. Wish me safe travels.

Blanket Statement

Brought to you by snow days.

The blanket you see pictured here is an old favorite: fleece with a southwestern sort of pattern. The cats are especially fond of it, so it needs a wash. I love it, too, and always feel a little guilty about that, because I didn't love the boy who gave it to me.

His name was Ron, and we met at work about a dozen years ago. Ron was a nice guy who didn't have much going for him besides his niceness and a low singing voice. He was scrawny and homely with — deal breakers — bad teeth and bad breath. I liked him as a work buddy, but he wanted more. He gave me this blanket that winter as a courting gift. I kept the warm fuzzy but ditched Ron when I changed jobs. I've thought of him fondly as I've snuggled under the fleece with other beaux.

Another of my favorites is the red afghan crocheted by my late Grandma Clar. I think Grandma made blankets for most of the girl cousins in the family, and maybe the boys, too. Sister-san has a pink one. They're called wowies, actually, not afghans, because when Grandma would tuck them under the chins of her own children, she'd say, "Wowie, that's warm!" My red wowie clashes with my mauve couch, so it's a foot-of-the bed blanket.

Then there's the down-filled duvet, a legacy of my ill-fated marriage to El Pendejo. He and I bought a house in 2000 and elected to spend that year's Christmas in our new home rather than traveling to stay with family. His sister Snaggletooth gave us the duvet that year. We spread it beneath the Christmas tree while we opened our gifts. It didn't provide much padding on the hardwood floor, but it kept my side of the bed toasty at night. It was in pristine shape until EP spilled coffee right in the middle of it one Sunday.

I kept most of the good stuff when EP and I split, including the duvet. It's in the guest room right now wearing a mossy green cover from Mother Media. I should bring it back up to my bedroom now that winter has come to stay. Again, the cats would approve.

And let's not forget the fuzzy green blanket. I've had the fuzzy green blanket for as long as I can remember. It's lain on every bed I've slept in from childhood through college, apartments, marriage, and the years beyond, which makes it . . . old. It's spread across my lap right now, in fact, as I type on my laptop computer in bed. The fuzziness is all matted and pilly, with a thousand hairs and threads woven into it despite years of laundering. We have history, ol' greenie and me.

My bedroom here at Sensational Acres is in the upper half-story of the house, and since it's a loft, there's no door to the stairwell. That means that most of the heat my furnace kicks out rushes straight up the stairs, leaving the ground floor chillier than I'd like. A couple winters ago I bought an expandable closet rod and hung it at the foot of the stairs with ol' greenie draped over it in an effort to trap heat downstairs. It didn't work, but Warren and Sprite did enjoy springing out at one another from behind the curtain.

Ah, warm memories. This calls for some hot chocolate.

Geeky editor's note: Rather than proofread this entry in the usual way, I asked Word to read it aloud to me using a new text-to-speech function that makes written information available to the visually impaired. The computer correctly pronounced made-up words, including "Snaggletooth," and the Spanish term "El Pendejo," but it pronounced "duvet" as "doo-vet" instead of "doo-vay." So. Mi computadora habla español.

Today around the world: December 12 is Neutrality Day in Turkmenistan, where everyone dresses in shades of beige, khaki, and ecru.

Long with the Wind

Holy crap!

Get into the holiday spirit by stopping by Going Jesus to check out Angels We Have Heard Are High. If that's not festive enough for you, check out some of the other goodies in the lefthand nav bar. I'll be back in an hour or two to see how you're doing.

Deck stairs in winter

Deck stairs with fresh snow.

Clementines

It's cold and clear here today, so I thought a closeup of something tropical would make us feel warmer. I never buy oranges because I don't like wrestling with the icky stringy white stuff under the rind. Clementines, however, are easier to peel, so I always buy some when they're in season.

I tried to take a couple shots of the bunny making hoppy tracks in the snow in the back yard, too, but my flash was not powerful enough to overcome that much darkness.

Guess I don't have much else to say today, so just enjoy the weekend.

P.S. Tonight I will begin watching Gone With the Wind, which I have never seen. Wish me luck! Unless you don't give a damn.

BitTorrent

Has anybody used BitTorrent? What can you tell me about it?

Natural Resource

This is for all the smart kids out there.

Once upon a time in grade school, I got damn sick and tired of my teachers calling on me when they wanted to hear a right answer. The problem was not that I didn't know the answers, but that I did. Apparently in teacher school, they're instructed not to give away information for free, but to drag it out of students whenever possible, so any time a question had the group stumped, Mrs. Whoever would eventually come around to me whether my hand was up or not. It was my job to prove to the class that the material could be grasped.

This tactic fell under the heading "things you might not realize kids notice, but they definitely do." My classmates did; they teased me for being a know-it-all. I must point out, however, that they never rode me too hard because they could see that I got called on more than I volunteered. (It was another of those fine lines you walk in school: being smart enough not to act like you thought you were smart. [If you practice this CYA technique for too long, you'll forget you were smart to begin with. I've seen it happen.])

Anyway, I noticed my teachers' habit — it was obvious enough that even the kids who caught on to nothing else caught on to this — and it annoyed me. I was already under pressure to be a big sister and a good girl at home, in Girl Scouts, and in catechism (the Sunday school we Catholic kids attended on Wednesdays); why did I have to set an example in school, too?

I tried keeping my hand down in class, but that didn't work. I tried giving occasional wrong answers, too, so as not to seem so reliable, but Mrs. Whoever was having none of it. "I know you know this," she'd scold, and in the face of her certainty, I couldn't lie. I'd answer, sigh, and go back to discretely reading the horse story (or, later, the fantasy novel) in my lap.

This wasn't a great tragedy by any means, just one of those annoyances you live with. But I do recall telling one of my parents at least once that I sometimes wished I were dumb so I wouldn't have to know things. Whichever of them I told had a hard time answering me, because they'd both had the same "problem" as kids — and as adults, too. They ran a store, where they had to know things all the time, and I'm sure it made them tired.

College was a relief. There were plenty of smart kids for the teachers to call on if they chose, but most of the professors were willing to let a question hang in silence for a while. In the larger lecture classes, they didn't even call on us at all, just wrote notes on the board or on slides for the overhead projector. It was great!

I went on to graduate school, where work as a teaching assistant paid the tuition for seminars in which my classmates tripped over themselves to bellow offer their opinions. When I taught, I made a conscious effort not to call on the same people all the time, and when I went to class as a student, I let the boys do most of the talking. That one might get me stripped of some of my feminist stripes, but it's true. Letting somebody else sit in the hot seat was a luxury.

Many years after I'd soaked up all the formal education I could stand, I was browsing through some sort of material aimed at grade school teachers. I don't remember what or why. But when I came across the term "resource student," I froze, backtracked, and reread the entire passage. Resource student: one you know you can call on to get classroom discussion rolling.

Resource student! I was an ex-resource student! I was delighted to learn that there was a name for the affliction I'd suffered and that I was not alone.

And then, abruptly, I was angry. Resource? Why the hell did I have to be a resource for my teachers? Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around? Or had their own education failed them so badly that they needed to lean on fourth graders for support? (Don't get me started on teacher education in South Dakota in the 80s. Just don't.)

Then, somehow, I found myself standing in front of classrooms again, teaching community ed classes in software use. And finally I began to see why one might be tempted to look to the same student time after time for answers. It's because a teacher wants to know she's getting through to at least one person at least some of the time. Even a confident instructor needs that reassurance once in a while.

So now I get it. That doesn't mean I have newfound love for my memories of being a resource student. I still don't think it's fair when children have to act as crutches for adults. I also don't have a remedy for the problem. Guess I just don't have the resources.

Today around the world: December 8 is when Christians celebrate the Immaculate Conception.

Glove Up

As promised: better photos of the cloven-hoofed mittgloves. Thank you for your patience. Live long and prosper.

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It's Back

You know yesterday when I said my butt had frozen off? Absolutely true. It fell off in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, between my snow boots and the lawn mowing shoes I won't need for another six months but haven't quite gotten around to putting away yet, and I found the cats playing floor hockey with it when I got home from T'ai Chi last night.

Bad news, though. It grew back.

Cloven-hoofed Mittgloves

Here are my famous cloven-hoofed mittgloves, the only things I've found that will keep my hands from freezing and falling off when it's -5 degrees F like it was this morning. They're warm like mittens, but I have slightly more dexterity like I would with gloves. Since they're several sizes too big, I'm still pretty clumsy with them, but at least I can still feel my fingers. Fair trade.

Live long, prosper, and try to stay warm.

Incidentally, this image, taken with my good new camera, looked much better before my Treo downsized it to mail to Blogger. I'll have to work on that.

Presents of Mind

Brought to you by a busy preholiday weekend.

Editor's note: A few posts back, I wrote about Signature Sound Quartet and posted a photo alongside the writeup. Astute readers have pointed out to me that there are FIVE guys in that picture of the quartet. That's because SSQ always includes pianist Roy Webb in photos, something I forgot to mention until I was reminded. Sorry about the confusion.

Anyway. Remember the other day how I said April the doofy Apple store clerk sold me something that didn't look like a microphone, but I trusted her and took it anyway? Bad move. It was not a microphone, it was a mic adapter, which I would have realized in the store if I'd bothered to read the packaging right there like I should have, knowing as I do what a twit April is. But I was in a hurry and got lazy, so I brought this tragedy on myself.



Like many annoyances, though, this one turned out for the best. After liberating Snow Toro from the garage and clearing the driveway and my walkways and deck, I went back to the Mall as soon as it opened Sunday morning, adapter in hand. The clerk at the register, Kang, cheerfully took my return and refunded my money. I’d been dreading another trip to the mall, but this one was off to an auspicious start.

So I asked Kang about the solid memory cards April swore the store didn't carry, the ones that I can swap from camera to Treo and back. She assured me that they carry them and hustled to the back room to fetch me a few. Then she hustled again when I asked for one with even more capacity, and I walked out of there with a 1 gigabyte memory card smaller than a packet of sugar. I can save more than a second or two of video on that bad boy!

Since I was in the mall anyway, I went to my favorite store and picked up a couple more gifts and whatnots for the coming trip to MO. Then I spent nearly 90 minutes wrapping the things I made last week. That's about 75 minutes longer than I usually spend wrapping gifts, since I'm bad at wrapping and don't usually enjoy it. But I seem to be improving with age, and my packages this year look downright purty. It helped that I had Starsky & Hutch going in the background. Very festive. I got extra cat-owner points for filling the kitchen with ribbon, too.

Sunday I also got groceries, made chili (again), cleaned house, did laundry, steamed some sweaters, and amused both cats. Whew! Thank goodness the phone rang when it did, or I might have accomplished even more.

Today around the world: December 5 is the King’s Birthday in Thailand. Who wants cake?

Saturday afternoon

my first audioblog

Subarushi after class

Several hours later . . . Not too much accumulation.

Subarushi before class

Snow is falling. We'll check back in a few hours.

This Is the Day

On the eighth day, God created quartets. I’m convinced of this after a few viewings of the new concert DVD from Ernie Haase & Signature Sound. Me, digging southern gospel music? It’s true. What’s also true is that while all quartets are unique, they all seem to be alike in some ways. Here’s what I think happened on Day 8. See if it reminds you of anybody:

And He said unto them, "There shall be four of thee, and thou shalt lift thy voices in song. Be thou neither flat nor sharp, but always on key. Thy harmonies will bring joy to the heart and tears to the eye.

"Thou shalt array thyselves onstage according to thy parts, and the highest shall be rightmost and the lowest shall be leftmost. The smallest among thee shall be unexpectedly sexy, while the tallest shall have dimples. Thy baritones shall possess crinkly eyes and thy tenors shall possess crinkly hair. And yea though the highest be the leader of thy group, the lowest shall steal the show.

"Fear thou not the striped fabric, for it shall gladden the eye while thy voices gladden the ear. Disdain thou not the synchronized slide-step, for it enhanceth thy esteem in the minds of the many. High-five thy brother when he hath riffed mightily, for he deserveth thy praise. But eschew the milk of the cow before a performance, lest thou be overcome with phlegm. Drink thee instead of pure water, that it may hydrate thy pipes.

"Thou shalt hold thy microphones left-handed so that thy wedding rings glint in the stage lights. Hear Me, my sons! Be thou willing to sign album covers and photographs in the lobby after the show, but give thee not of thy favors. No matter how thou art mobbed by willing maidens, cleave unto thy wives, or there shall be gossip, backlash, disease, and a decline in sales.

"Harken unto Me and do as I have commanded. And don't forget to thank Me in thy liner notes."

Book 'Em, Danno!

Biggest, baddest book meme EVER!!

Here’s a list of books that’s been circulating amongst my blogfriends. The game is basically “Have you read this?” Feel free to copy, paste, and reformat to reflect your own experience. Or you can just point and snicker at mine. I have a master’s degree in English. Notice how many of the classics I have not read.

For me, bold = I’ve read it, italics = I’ve seen it (movie or play).

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (but it’s in my Netflix queue)
22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
25. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
26. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones' Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel
93. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls in Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell (read part of it)
120. The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A.S. Byatt
130. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny, the Champion of the World, Roald Dahl
133. East of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls in Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men at Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville (Tried, could not finish it. Because it SUCKS.)
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According to Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R.D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used to Play on Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R.L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man and Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once and Future King, T.H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers in the Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of OZ, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost in a Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin and Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Blackbird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, Robert C. O'Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman's Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving
302. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C.J. Cherryh
307. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco (read part)
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Liliths Brood), Octavia Butler
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous (selected exerpts in grad school)
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic's Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O'Neill
351. Othello, William Shakespeare
352. Poems, Dylan Thomas
353. Poems, W.B. Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L’Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. Five Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large, J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for Bed, David Baddiel
351. Barrayar, Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning, Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun, Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric, Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg, Steven Brust
356. So You Want to Be a Wizard, Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
368. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
370. The God Boy, Ian Cross
371. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
373. Misery, Stephen King
374. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
375. Hood, Emma Donoghue
376. The Land of Spices, Kate O’Brien
377. The Diary of Anne Frank
378. Regeneration, Pat Barker
379. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
380. Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia
381. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
382. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg
383. Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede
384. Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynne Truss
385. A Severed Wasp, Madeleine LEngle
386. Here Be Dragons, Sharon Kay Penman
387. The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte E. Guest
388. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
389. Desire of the Everlasting Hills, Thomas Cahill
390. The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris
391. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
392. I Know This Much is True, Wally Lamb
393. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
394. Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card
395. The Memory of Earth, Orson Scott Card
396. The Iron Tower, Dennis L. McKiernen
397. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
398. A Ring of Endless Light, Madeline L’Engle
399. Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy
400. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
401. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor
402. The Bridge, Iain Banks
403. How to Be Good, Nick Hornby
404. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
405. A Map of the World, Jane Hamilton
406. Eragon, Christopher Paolini
407. A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket
408. I'm a Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson
409. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
410. The Shining, Stephen King
411. The Alien Chronicles, Deborah Chester
412. Redwall, Brian Jacques
413. Mossflower, Brian Jacques
414. The Iliad, Homer
415. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
416. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
417. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
418. The Odyssey, Homer
419. Pure Sunshine, Brian James
420. Doomsday Book, Connie Willis
421. Voyage of the Fox Riders, Dennis L. McKiernan
422. Freedom's Landing, Anne McCaffrey
423. Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey
424. Shadow Mountain, Renee Askins
425. Tithe, Holly Black
426. Wolfwalker, Tara K. Harper
427. Shadow Leader, Tara K. Harper
428. The Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende
429. Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami
430. The Wasps, Aristophanes
431. Poetics, Aristotle
432. Confessions, St Augustine
433. Decameron, Boccaccio
434. Poems, Catullus
435. The Bacchae, Euripides
436. The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
437. Praise of Folly, Desiderius Erasmus
438. The Histories, Herodotus
439. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli
440. Metamorphoses, Ovid
441. Canzoniere, Francesco Petrarch
442. Secretum, Francesco Petrarch
443. The Symposium, Plato
444. The Rise and Fall of Athens, Plutarch
445. The Quest of the Holy Grail
446. Poems, Rumi
447. Antigone, Sophocles
448. Antigone, Jean Anouilh
449. Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin
450. Collected Works of William Blake
451. Nadja, Andre Breton
452. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
453. Poems, Paul Celan
454. Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thomas de Quincey
455. The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot
456. My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin
457. Helen in Egypt, H.D.
458. The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis
459. Zangezi, Velimir Khlebnikov
460. How Green Was My Valley, Richard Llewellyn
461. Delta of Venus, Anais Nin
462. At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien
463. Poems, Wilfred Owen
464. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
465. Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Edgar Allan Poe
466. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
467. Poems, Rainer Maria Rilke
468. Le Bateau Ivre, Arthur Rimbaud
469. Le Fleur de Mal, Charles Baudelaire
470. The Ghosts of Sodom, Marquis de Sade
471. The Red and the Black, Stendahl
472. Poems, Cesar Vallejo
473. De Profundis and the Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde
474. Orlando, Virginia Woolf
475. Arthur: The Seeing Stone, Kevin Crossley-Holland
476. The Silver Pigs, Lindsey Davis
477. The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B, Sandra Gulland
478. The Many-Coloured Land, Julian May
479. Fire from Heaven, Mary Renault
480. The Persian Boy, Mary Renault
481. Funeral Games, Mary Renault
482. Seventh Scroll, Wilbur Smith
483. The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart
484. Silk, Alessandro Baricco
485. The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
486. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
487. Lost Souls, Poppy Z. Brite
488. Liquor, Poppy Z. Brite
489. Cathedral, Raymond Carver
490. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
491. The Vintner's Luck, Elizabeth Knox
492. The Reader, Bernhard Schlink
493. The Passion, Jeanette Winterson
494. Kappa, Ryuunosuke Akutagawa
495. Confessions of a Mask, Yukio Mishima
496. Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
497. Almost Transparent Blue, Ryuu Murakami
498. Ten Nights' Dreams, Natsume Soseki
499. The Makioka Sisters, Junnichiro Tanizaki
500. Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto
501. Ruby, V.C. Andrews
502. No Logo, Naomi Klein
503. The Fox in Socks, Dr. Seuss
504. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
505 Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters!, J.D. Salinger
506 Franny & Zooey, J. D. Salinger
507 Time's Arrow - Martin Amis

Jugglernaut adds to the list:

508. The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell
509. Take the Canoli, Sarah Vowell
510. Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
511. The Holy Bible, various (I’ve read parts)
512. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin
513. I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
514. Just a Geek, Wil Wheaton
515. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich
516. Elements of Style, Strunk & White
517. Break In, Dick Francis
518. Rage, Jonathan Kellerman
519. The Salaryman’s Wife, Sujata Massey
520. Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel, Scott Adams
521. Nor Crystal Tears, Alan Dean Foster
523. Brain Droppings, George Carlin