Everybody’s up in arms about this list of One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately. Personally I find it pretty funny. I love that U2’s The Joshua Tree is at #2. “Oh, to be earnest, politically correct, Christian, and filthy rich. It’s been 15 years since the birth of this critical and popular favorite, and U2-worship still hasn’t been eradicated. When will it stop? When you do the right thing and retire this pompous collection of religious rock songs, that’s when.” HA! Anyway, I’ve got eleven of these, and I pretty much agree with his assessments. At any rate, I hardly ever listen to them, with the exception of REM’s “Out of Time”. And I can’t even argue with his criticism of that; the rap with KRS-ONE was heinous. How many have you got? Do you cherish these albums, or are you now embarrassed that you bought them in the first place?

Please list your suggestions for our first book in the comments. Once we’ve got a good selection, we’ll have a vote. Then we’ll have all August to read it, and we’ll have our first discussion at the end of the month. Sound good? Some thoughts:

• It might be a good idea to include a link to the book’s page on Amazon. That way people can check it out to see if they’d like to select it.
• Speaking of Amazon, commonly-available books are better than obscure ones. We’re not all in the same country, so we’re going to have to limit ourselves to stuff most people can find in libraries or bookshops.
• Shorter is better than longer. 🙂
• We’re not in school; we’re not trying to go through the “canon” of Great Books or anything. We can pick fun stuff.
• Feel free to throw out as many suggestions as you like, and to comment on others’ suggestions. After all, if everybody else has already read something, there’s no point considering it, right?

If you have no clue what we’re talking about but you think you might like to be involved, here’s the original post that started everything. Everyone is welcome to join in!

Friday Five:

1. Where were you born?
I hate this question. *bracing for laughter* Hicksville, Ohio. Seriously. My parents lived in Indiana, but Hicksville is real close to the state line and thus was closest, I guess.

2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don’t live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not?
Well, I never lived there. I guess I’d like to move back to Indiana some day. It’s a good safe place to raise kids, and the cost of living is low. It’s got nice hot summers and cold snowy winters. I liked it.

3. Where in the world do you feel the safest?
Back in Indiana, no question. I never realized til I left how sheltered we were there. Granted, bad stuff still happens, but it’s mostly of the “car hitting a deer” variety as opposed to, say, violent crime.

4. Do you feel you are well-traveled?
Surprisingly, no. I’ve been to a lot of countries, but I don’t think having a stamp in your passport means that you know anything about the place. It just drives me crazy how many Americans have no desire to experience life outside their own country. Do you know how many Americans have passports? Like, less than any other civilized nation in the world. Even Australians, who are much more isolated than Americans, do way more traveling to other countries. I purposefully tried to make sure that my brother and sister would visit overseas (him to Germany, her to England), if only to open their eyes a little bit to a world outside the U.S. It’s such a shock to realize that there are places where under-21s can drink, health care is available for all, and the government isn’t in the pocket of big business and religious wackos. But I’m getting off on a rant. To answer the question, yes, I’ve traveled a lot, but nowhere near as much as my non-U.S. friends have. So I suppose I’m only well-traveled compared to my fellow Yanks.

5. Where is the most interesting place you’ve been?
People think Australia is pretty exotic, but the bits where people live (the cities along the coast) are fairly Westernized. I’d probably say Singapore was the most interesting. It just seemed more “foreign” than any other place I’ve been. (Although Rodd’s friend Kenya has invited us home to Africa next year for a safari, so I may have to revise that.) The most beautiful places were Heidelberg (in Germany), Paris, and Sydney.

The Emmy nominations are out, and once again Buffy gets the shaft. Bastards. Six Feet Under did fantastically well, though. I think every one of the main cast got an acting nomination. (Don’t bother going to the official Emmy site. It’s crap. The nominations are everywhere else on the Web but those idiots haven’t even updated their own site yet.)

New Poll: I’m cookin’ you breakfast. How do you like your eggs?

Diet Update
Well, it’s been a week and as near as I can tell, I’ve lost over 8 pounds. That sounds like a lot but I’ve still got a long way to go. I am noticing that some of my jeans feel looser, though. I’ve started taking a vitamin supplement (as Atkins recommends) but I haven’t noticed any effect from that yet. I also harnessed some of this new-found energy yesterday and headed back to the gym for the first time in a week. I did my entire weightlifting workout PLUS two miles on the treadmill. Surprised even me! And what’s more – I think I’m going to go run again today… outside! Y’all have convinced me to give it a try. I’ve got a little two-mile route planned out through the neighborhood. I’ll let you know how it goes. Later: It didn’t go so well. I wore way too much clothing, and within 10 minutes I was sweating bullets. Next time I’ll forgo the sweat pants and long-sleeve T-shirt in favor of cooler attire.

On the food front, meals are getting less boring as I figure out how to cook more stuff with the limited carbs I’m allowed. I’ve become the Queen of Eggs. I fry ’em, I boil ’em, I make omelettes. Yesterday alone I made deviled eggs AND a chicken-egg salad. I’ve also decided that as I’m not drinking or eating sugar, I am allowed a new vice – Diet Coke. I always hated the stuff before, but somehow now that I’ve kicked the sugar habit it tastes a lot better. I think I prefer the Lemon version, even though it originally reminded me of Pledge. But I drink a can or two of that everyday and pretend that I’m getting lots of sugary goodness. It helps.

Gah. Too much new Apple coolness! Brain suffering overload. 20GB iPods that come with belt clip, remote, new headphones, and work on PCs! iTunes 3 with smart playlists and audiobook support! 17-inch iMacs with SuperDrives and 80GB hard drives! And finally, the piéce de resistance, Mac OSX 10.2 (codename “Jaguar” – I love that!). And I’m spent.

Do Tara D a favor and go vote for her blog in the Bloggys Humorous category. Thanks.

Once again I found myself debating a book on somebody’s blog today. It gave me a small idea: would any of you be interested in participating in a little online book group? I’m sure there are similar things already in existence, but I figured it would be more fun if the group all knew each other. We could pick one book a month (maybe via a poll to be democratic) and then discuss it at the end, either in normal weblog format or even via a group chat. What do you think? Anybody interested or have ideas?

There was no Friday Five last week! That sucks. Since my meme-propagation urge is unfulfilled, here’s a new one I picked up from madalog:

10 bands/artists you’ve seen live
REM, They Might Be Giants, Ani Difranco, Reel Big Fish, Indigo Girls, Violent Femmes, The Bangles, Huey Lewis and the News, Dave Matthews Band, and Ben Folds.

9 things you’re looking forward to
Our housewarming party, Snookums’s birthday, the start of summer, getting a full-time job, finishing my quilt top, getting down to my target weight, picking out a new dining room set, the Buffy Season 4 DVD, and the next release of Mac OSX.

8 things you wear every day
My glasses, my contacts, my watch, my ND class ring, two silver hoop earrings in my earlobes and one at the top of my right ear. (Altogether that makes 8 things, right?)

7 things that annoy you
Inappropriate children, guys who wear hiking boots at the gym, my inability to own a Tivo in Australia, the fact that IKEA never has anything we want in stock, insulting commercials for “feminine products”, George W. Bush, and Mac-bashers.

6 things you touch daily
My eyeballs (to put my contacts in!), my iBook, my mobile phone, my wallet, the TV remote, and Snookums.

5 things you do every day
Check my e-mail, visit my list of daily blog reads, watch Days of Our Lives, feel guilty about not going to the gym more often, and look for jobs.

4 people you spend the most time with
Ouch. The Snook. That’s pretty much it. I suppose you could count the three fish too. We do have friends, but a lot of them are outside the country for various reasons right now. And I don’t know anybody else!

3 movies you could watch again and again
Pride and Prejudice, Office Space, and anything from the Star Wars series.

2 favourite songs of the moment
Based on what I woke up singing this morning, “Dr. Worm” by They Might Be Giants and “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. Embarrassing.

1 person you could spend the rest of your life with
You know the answer. My Snook. Awww…