Here are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.
( One hundred and six books--what a random number. )

Author J.K. Rowling is suing the publisher of an encyclopedia based on her blockbuster "Harry Potter" series of children's books. She says she had planned her own reference guide cataloguing the characters and events in the series.

The encyclopedia in question will be based on (if not directly copied from) an existing website, the Harry Potter Lexicon.

So, since the book-to-be sort of already exists, does Rowling have the power to stop it from being published in dead-tree format? How could the book "constitute a wholesale theft of 17 years of hard work" if the website it's based on didn't?

It's not just about the money -- the HPLexicon website sells advertising, so one could argue that it has already been earning revenue at Rowling's expense.

I'm a big champion of copyright and usually firmly in any author's corner. But this is an unusual case, and I'm not sure whose argument I support.

What do you think?

In my freshman year of high school, I was at a party. A friend was reading The Nine Billion Names of God and toting it around in his backpack (I was in with a very geeky crowd that year – they’d even incorporated themselves as an after-school club: the Future Mad Scientists and Sorcerors of America). During a lull in the party, upon learning that I was getting into Asimov and Heinlein but hadn’t yet read any Clarke, my friend sat me down with his book and set me to reading. I was astonished and enrapt.

I quickly thereafter went to the library for a copy of The Nine Billion Names of God, then I started picking up some secondhand paperbacks: Islands in the Sky, Reach for Tomorrow, Tales of Ten Worlds. Eventually I read 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequels, and found out to my regret that although I loved nearly every one of Clarke’s short stories, essays, speeches, and interviews that I had come across, his novels didn’t engage me to any great degree.

But those short stories – they blew my mind wide open, and certain ones can still bring tears to my eyes. He wrote more words than I can hope to read, short of quitting my job and all my hobbies. I hate that.

Writer Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90

I am absolutely falling in love with my alternate Mondays off. I'm not so much in love with the extra hour of work on the remaining days, but it's not too bad, and it's entirely worth it.

I slept late, got a couple of small errands done, and then went skating again today. Alas, I wasn't all by myself this time—there was a woman and her two young children. However, I did skate even longer than last time: 20 minutes, a 5 minute break, and 20 more minutes. The final five minutes were a real struggle, as my legs got tired and I tottered slowly around the rink, but I was determined to keep at it.

So, I attempted to skate backward and I could not make myself move. :(

I managed a couple of hockey stops, but I couldn't manage to keep my balance after I came to a stop. (Which is why I practiced all my stops near the side rail.)

I was able to start paying attention to things that I need to correct in practice, such as my posture. I became aware of leaning back too far on my heels, and of turning my ankles inward instead of balancing directly on top of my blades. Not that I was able to keep from doing these things until I really focused on it, but awareness is the first step, I suppose.

I'm hoping to get in a few more practice sessions before the rink closes next month. Then, next year, maybe I'll be able to take intermediate (or even private) lessons. My goal is to become as natural and comfortable on ice skates as I am on skis, and maybe (since I'm dreaming) become a skilled enough skater to play hockey in a recreational league.

Comment on this entry, and I will:
1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, a word, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you. (Although there's no obligation to provide an answer publicly.)
6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
7. In return, you must post this in your LJ.
[Well that's how the originator of the meme wrote it--but it's not like anyone's going to check up on you to make sure you've reposted this.]

Had a splendid weekend in New York. I hadn't been since -- gasp! -- Nobember 2001, so I'm way behind on my theatre-seeing. Alas that I could only fit in two shows this weekend.

Young Frankenstein -- I enjoyed this, mostly just because I've been utterly in love with Roger Bart for about 10 years (when I heard King David). It had a couple of wonderful production numbers, and Andrea Martin is amazing, but the music is pretty pedestrian and the book did not improve on the source material. (That came out wrong -- I adore the movie Young Frankenstein. But replaying a movie onstage with songs added isn't the best approach to take when writing a new show.)

Spring Awakening -- Spectacular. Freakin' fabulous. Great songs, great voices, great energy. Although the sightlines in the Eugene O'Neill Theatre suck.

I have terrible luck as far as seeing the billed cast when I go see shows. Sutton Foster wasn't performing in Young Frankenstein (even on a Saturday night!); Skyler Astin wasn't performing in Spring Awakening. But those are only minor disappointments. (It's not like the time I got tickets to a Signature Theatre show specifically because Marc Kudisch was starring, and when I went to the closing performance I saw the understudy. I came so close to walking out.)

It may seem like a strange notion, but this stuff makes me happy.

I'm home from work today. I just started working a flexible schedule — I get alternate Mondays off in exchange for working an extra hour on the other days. (But since yesterday was a holiday anyhow, I got today off this time around.)

I'm attempting to be constructive today. I did accomplish one thing so far. You may remember a while back I said I was planning to do some more ice skating this winter? Well, today (yes, sigh, two months later), I finally went back to the rink. And it was pretty great.

I had more stamina this time around. I skated laps by myself for 20 minutes and then I had to stop. So I went off to the bench and had some water (I was clever enough to remember to bring water with me this time) and thought about ending my session, but I didn't actually need to quit yet. I rested for five minutes, and then went back on the ice for another 10 minutes. (Then I was starting to see spots. Outdoor exercise just doesn't agree with me. Or maybe it's the cold weather. Or the going around in circles.)

I didn't fall. I did have to hang on to the railing two or three times to keep my balance when I tried something fancy (or hit a rough spot in the ice), but I never actually fell. I suppose it's because I bought kneepads after I fell and whacked my knee last time. Kneepads as fall-prevention are just as good as kneepads as fall-protection, I guess.

I had the ice all to myself. I had thought about going yesterday, but the rink is in a shopping mall and I figured that even if the rink wasn't crowded, the mall would probably be crowded enough that I'd never find a parking space. Today, though? Nobody but me, skating laps, checking out the scratches in the ice and knowing that I was the one who'd made those patterns. (That could have been useful information, if I knew how to analyze what I'd done.)

On the other hand, I still can't do anything fancy. I tried crossovers and hockey stops just to see if I could, and I really couldn't. However, I could propel myself forward and I can even — when I'm thinking about it — lift either foot off the ice while moving forward. So if I can just find time to keep practicing, I'll be all set.

My street has a fairly high volume of foot traffic (but not much vehicular traffic). I live about 3 blocks from a Metro station, and many people pass in front of my house on their way to or from the Metro. People even park their cars in my neighborhood all day and use the Metro for part of their daily commute (there's no residential permit required).

So here's the thing that baffles me: About 90% of those pedestrians walk in the street. And before you ask, yes, there are sidewalks. On both sides of the street. In generally good repair.

So why do people choose to walk where the cars are supposed to drive?

Date:	2007-12-27 22:12
Subject:	ping dawntreader90
Security:	Public

I was at the Petsmart this evening, and I thought of you when I saw a package of dog treats called "Chicken Chips." Naturally, even as I read the package silently to myself, I couldn't read it as "chicken chips." And it's all your fault.

Everywhere I turn today, I'm bumping into rank stupidity. Pox on the lot of them.

Oh, dear, that really snuck up on me. Somehow I thought Hanukkah started next week.

Thanks to dawntreader90's reminder yesterday, I got up especially to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving parade this morning. And I would like to fire the director for crimes against television production.

Examples:
- The Rockettes are doing their famous kickline, and the camera is focused in close on four of the ladies from the waist up.
- The parade's largest high school marching band is performing, featuring a rather impressive baton twirler. She tosses her baton high into the air -- and the camera cuts away to the drummers before I can see whether she caught the baton. On two separate occassions during her performance.

Also, I have a question: Couldn't everyone's costumes be adapted for the fact that it's 60 degrees in New York today? All these singers and TV personalities are dressed in puffy jackets and cashmere scarves. Why wouldn't the producers plan ahead enough to provide layered costumes? It just looks silly.

I believe November is my favorite month. I love winter, and I think I love this month because winter feels so...incipient. So full of promise and brimming with potential brisk, clear days; and frosty nights; and (with luck) a snowstorm or two.

By February, I'm usually disappointed at the mid-Atlantic's lack of snow, and by March even I am depressed by the string of unrelievedly wet, brown days. But for the next three months I'll be full of joy.

Today I observed the burgeoning winter season and my day off (thank you, veterans) by going ice skating. I should admit up front that I am not a good skater. I learned when I was in college, because it would fulfill my physical education requirement and because I could borrow skates from a hockey-playing friend. And I thought I'd be able to apply some of the abilities I'd learned from a lifetime of skiing. (I have strong abductors.) So I did learn, and I do like it, but I've never been able to become "good."

On the ice today I was seriously weak. I had no stamina; 20 minutes did me in. Although it was 20 minutes of steady laps at a fairly good pace.

I banged my knee up into pretty shades of purple by falling onto it twice. (I have to remember to fall onto the parts with natural padding, not on the bony bits.)

I couldn't manage to do anything other than proceed forward on ice skates. I used to have passable basic skills: backward skating and crossovers were required to get the phys ed credit in college. (I learned to go backwards, though very slowly, and I developed solid crossovers to the left, at least -- but the teacher generously overlooked the pathetic crossovers on my right side.)

But I'm an optimist. I bought a 10-session pass for the season. So I have to go back. A lot. It will add some nice variety to my regular rowing-machine-and-weight-circuit workouts.

( I can only do this because I remember 'Fifty Nifty United States' )

Hockey starts on Friday!

( Behind a cut, because all of *your* dream homes are breaking my friends page )

I am ashamed to know that you voted against permitting debate on the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007.

I know your conscience would, wrongly, impel you to vote against such a bill, but I am mortified that you cannot see fit even to hear debate on the topic.

By your logic, half a million D.C. residents must not be citizens of the United States of America. Surely those people deserve either to be fully enfranchised as citizens, or relieved of the responsibilities faced by residents of the "several states."

I am grateful you have announced your intention to resign from the Senate. Perhaps those poor disenfranchised D.C. residents will have a better chance in the next Congress.

Three votes short for cloture. I am disproportionately heartbroken.

L'shana tovah tikateivu.
If I have done anything to upset or offend you in the past year, I beg your forgiveness.

Date:	2007-08-29 12:44
Subject:	Tagged by thatliardiego: quirks meme
Security:	Public

( Because he knew how much I would enjoy it )