Just Got My Assignment

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

A plan for the Weekend

I'm a bit more lenient with my definition - I prefer the Vodka martini. Over our anniversary on the 15th, Diane and I want to Legal Seafood in Boston. One of them anyway. Apparently they're a chain. Damn good seafood, though.

I ordered a "Flight" of Martinis - actually, I thought I was getting a bargain on a pitcher of Chopin. What I got was THREE martinis all at once. Frankly, that works too.

Shaken Not Slurred: "Shaking? Stirring? Whatever. Anyone who says they can tell the difference is a lying pompous twit. "

I usually drink mine up, with olive. My favorite is made with a gorgonzola stuffed olive, made with Chopin or Grey Goose.

Baghdad Burning

Wow.

I'm simply mucking about, posting a few random thoughts, not taking enough time. But this is real journalism.

Baghdad Burning

Classics?

Apparently, BookMagazine published a 2002 chart of the "best selling classics". OK, I'll buy the best selling bit, but what's their definition of classic?

eliot - Classic Bestsellers

In this annotated list, we also see the date when the book will enter the public domain, which is very interesting and somewhat disturbing. I'm a writer, trained as a playwright, and am very interested in copyright issues. I'm in favor of authors retaining copyright for life and their estate for up to by not exceeding 50 years after their death. Rolling copyright extensions aren't good for anyone.

But back to the whole "classics" thing. A few years back, just when CD-ROMs were coming out, some friends and I talked about putting together a multimedia CD series called "Required Reading". The idea was to put together a genera specific reading list that would allow anyone that was interested in literature to take a guided tour of really terrific books, but often overlooked because they were shuffled off into a ghetto somewhere. We were all fans of science fiction, and all very well educated and widely read and could quickly come up with a list of books in just that genera that were terrific literature, that virtually anyone could enjoy and benefit from reading, but were largely unknown. The CDs would, when possible, contain the public domain works, but also provide "talking heads" to provide expert help and opinions on the works, influences, and what else to read.

Ah, so many good books, so little time.

But "Memoirs of a Geisha" is a classic? "The Clan of the Cave Bear"? "Watership Down"? "Interview with the Vampire"?

Somebody's definition of classic is way, way off.

25 or 6 to 4

Sometimes I puzzle over things, often for years, without ever thinking to ask someone, "what the hell does that mean?" That happened a while back with this song. I heard it on the radio, had heard it for years, hell, even played a pretty cool jazz version. But I'd never thought to ask.

Of course, until recently, there may have been no easy way to have the right person to ask. But sometimes the net does come through.

The answer: it's a time.

Oh. Now the song makes sense.

Now if I could only find that cartoon music.

"Not the Works!"

Today, while helping my oldest daughter mount some hooks to her bedroom wall, huming happily, she asked, "is that music running through your head all the time?"

You know the one. It's from that Warner Brothers cartoon - haven't seen it in years - the one with a cat and dog, probably, and the cat is being given various punishments and he keeps begging, "Not the Works!" as in being put through said works.

And yes, any time I'm doing anything skilled, or I'm planning anything devlish or overly clever, that's exactly the music that's running thorough my brain.

But the damn internet isn't quiet clever enough to find and play it for me based on this feable description.

Dum de dum, de dum, de dum dum