Late night, pipe smoke in the air, some nice music on the computer (Annie Lennox), so here's another silly meme.  I saw this somewhere else before, but currently I'm reading it at Samantha Burns.

A list of 150 things.  Bold the ones you've done.  As usual, I am compelled to add a few comments.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain (not all the way to the top, but then I was only 8 years old)
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne (no, but gotten pretty smoothed out on Asti Spumanti a couple of times)
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse (I don't even buy lottery tickets)
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight (same place that I climbed the mountain in Colorado)
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can (sometimes it's the only way to get their attention)
32. Held a lamb (no, but held newborn calves, goats and pigs)
33. Seen a total eclipse (lunar, best solar eclipse I saw was only about 80-90% or something like that)
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day (no, but I once spent an entire day quoting Jim Morrison)
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer (one 420 meg, the other 1.2 gig--it was a long time ago)
40. Visited all 50 states (only 40 or so)
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow (also goats)
56. Alphabetized your CDs (and records and cassettes--never attempted the books, though)
57. Pretended to be a superhero (I was Batman often at 4 years old)
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight (only once)
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days (no, but once in college I lived for two days on nothing but popcorn)
77. Made cookies from scratch (no, but I've made biscuits from scratch)
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason (no, but there's a girl out there somewhere who might still be wondering who sent her those flowers back in 1985--or maybe she figured it out, eventually)
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music (not for public consumption, but yes)
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date (I never dated.  Ever.  Hard to believe, but it's true.  How did I manage to get married?  It just sort of happened.)
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children (still in progress)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over (temporarily, after my parents' divorce)
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone (never did that, but did have several fractures)
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol (heh)
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about (maybe, but probably not)
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey (tried the Odyssey, never finished)
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read (Steinbeck)
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions (went to 20th, it was fun)
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream (no, but sometimes I think I'm living in someone else's)
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair (no, but I once died some pants purple)
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

I've had a very quiet, normal life.

UPDATE:  This is the first post in which text formatting has successfully been fed via the RSS feed to Bloglines.  Now I need to figure out why it worked this time, and why some of the lines were bolded incorrectly.

Found at Ride Fast & Shoot Straight.  I've done this kind of thing before, but what the heck.  I'll bold the ones I read.  Asterisking which ones I loved is kind of strange.  There were some I loved at the time but now am kind of ambivalent about.  There are none on the list that I started but didn't finish, nor are there any that I outright hated (although frikkin' Shannara comes pretty close).  But of course I have to comment on some of them.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
(plus Unfinished Tales, and all sorts of other stuff that most people haven't forced their way through, but not nearly as much as a friend of mine who is a real Tolkien scholar)
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
(plus the fourth book that I think finally finished the story)
Dune, Frank Herbert
(all of them, not counting the stuff that his kid churned out after he died--multiple times)
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
(not a really huge Heinlein fan but I read this and a few others)
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
(the whole series)
Neuromancer, William Gibson
(I went through a phase during which I considered cyberpunk the only authentic sci-fi of the time--an opinion I no longer hold)
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
(and lots of other PKD, for that matter)
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
(and The Martian Chronicles is one of my favorite books)
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
(several--how many, I'm not sure--of the Discworld books)
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
(the whole series, including hunting down all the short stories)
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
(First and Second Chronicles--twice.  This is one series I "loved" at the time.  I heard he's putting out some new ones starring Thomas' son.)
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
(first three)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
(whole series)
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
(had to try three times before I got the swing of it and read the whole thing)
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
(don't think I read this, but my favorite of his is "The Cosmic Rape")
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, Larry Niven
(and the sequel)
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
(yep, see above)
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
(all Elric books, all Corum books, all Hawkmoon books, the Jherek Carnelian books, but was never able to slog through the Jerry Cornelius books--tried twice)
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
(give me a break, this is fluff at best--sheesh--why didn't they just put "Urshurak" on the list?)
Timescape, Gregory Benford
(I tried to read something else by him once.  It stunk.)
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

So there you are.

Found at Ride Fast & Shoot Straight.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent."  You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas.  You have a good voice for TV and radio.
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The South
The Northeast
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

That's because I was smarter than most, and I could choose--I learned to talk the man on the six o'clock news.

You should hear some of my relatives talk.  Or maybe you shouldn't.