Take Pity On Me: For I am spending the afternoon doing my taxes.

Are You a Slow Reader?: This is something I would like to see expanded. Classic Novels delivers an entire classic novel to you via email. You get an email each day containing about 1500-1800 words. Roughly a five minute read. You can jump in anytime, but that doesn't make much sense. The thing to do is subscribe before a mailing starts. It looks like Oliver Twist is next up starting on Feb 1, then Celtic Fairy Tales on Feb 4. You can also vote for what you want next. (I voted for The Man Who Was Thursday.) I'll try to alert you to anything interesting that may come up.

Of course, the copyright on all these novels has expired, so if you just wanted to download the entire text you could probably find it at Project Gutenberg But I like the idea of getting a little every day. Sort of like disciplining yourself to a single piece of candy from the jar each day; it makes it that much sweeter. Granted that only works until your boss dumps on you or you get caught in traffic and miss your favorite TV show and then you have to eat the whole jar just out of spite for the world, but you see what I'm driving at.

Cat Got Your Tongue?: Speaking of reading, I'm cruising through When The Cat's Away, by Kinky Friedman, the world's only Jewish Country Singer and Amatuer Private Investigator. It would be tough to categorize Kinky's mysterys except that they contain a sort of hard-boiled, sarcastic, homespun, meta-physical bent. Plus they are very funny. Highly Recommended (but not for everyone).