This blog entry was great. Jeff Maurone, a Microsoft intern, got invited to dine at the home of Bill himself. If I were running Movable Type, I'd definitely join the mile-long list of trackbacks. But I'm not, so I can just plug this really cool article and move along.

Guess what, boys and girls?!

FreeiPods is legit!

This shack post has one guy's pictures of his freshly-received iPod.

Sounds pretty badass to me.

But I've always revered stand-up comics as some of the greatest advocates of social progress, whether they know it or not. There's a certain kind of wisdom that derives from the mix of wit and satire that only a good comic will possess.

The comedians on Tough Crowd, however, are not this bunch.

Tonight, like all pundits, they decided to take their conversation to the Democratic convention. Even Colin Quinn, who's a pretty staunch, cynical right-winger (I say staunch and cynical positively, I promise) made a few good jokes in his monologue out of it. Their guests, however, can be a little ignorant. Sometimes it's funny, others, it's not.

Take Ellen Cleghorne, for example. This chick.

This post isn't about politics. Just hang with me.

Everyone within the Democratic party, and just about any undecided swing voter out there, approved of the first night speech given by Barack Obama. A half-white/half-black child born in Kenya, Obama is now running unopposed for Senate in the Illinois district where Jack Ryan (the pervert in the news, not the Clancy character) was incumbent. Anyone who sees him speak remarks him as very eloquent, one of the most poised speakers in years. One Shacker remarked that his speech "almost had [his] dad in tears." I watched his convention speech, and it definitely lived up to his reputation. One of his biggest talking points, not surprisingly, is erasing racial lines.

This post isn't about that. Keep hanging in there.

The part of that point that I found interesting was that he wanted to erase, more than any other label, the one that says a black child who reads is "acting white."

Enter Ellen Cleghorne.

2 minutes into the show, the Tough Crowd pundits, who now stand because chairs were too uncool (or everyone just got up out of them too often), get onto the topic of Obama. Cleghorne, very clearly a black woman (see pic above), rips into Obama for essentially being white. I can't quote her verbatim, but what she said was very clear: he was raised by a white mother, and therefore, he's white.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Ms. Cleghorne, but since Obama was fathered by a black man, that would have made him a slave in the 1860s. In the 1960s, it would have made him a nigger, subject to the colored drinking fountains, stores, and restaurants. And you mean to tell me that in 2004 that it makes him white? Granted, times have changed - but if you happen to find yourself on this post, Ms. Cleghorne, I'm still thinking that you're wrong.

-----------------------------
Quick links for people who are doing the iPod thing:
The Guide
Signup @ my referral
-----------------------------


This is going to be a monster post, so be forewarned. A few key points for everyone who won't be reading closely:

-This does not by any means guarantee you will get an iPod. The company can bail out anytime they wish and not give you an iPod for no reason whatsoever.
-This process will take time and effort, but not money. The info I provide is here to simplify the process for the people who want to take a stab at it.


Now that that's out of the way, I've gotten some more information on this whole scheme and how to best get through it quickly. By quickly, I mean it will still probably take several weeks to get an iPod, assuming it works. Economically, I think it's worth it to provide a snail mail address for junk mail and spend a couple hours working on this to take a shot at a free $250 toy. Even if it doesn't work, you've only killed a couple hours.

So, on to the pods. They're offered by, not surprisingly, freeipods.com. (Don't hurry off there just yet, keep reading this). It's run by a company called Gratis Internet, an advertising firm. Though I forget the term at the moment, their method of giving stuff away is an advertising technique that has a name that isn't "pyramid scheme" that sounds like it makes sense in the advertising world lingo. Moving on: all signs point to it's a legit company. You can go to gratisnetwork.com to see their website, their domain name whois lists actual people, and they have a BBB page here. That page is worth reading alone to find their other identities: Freeflatscreens.com, freeDVDs.com, freevideogames.com, and freecondoms.com. lol.

How they make money: I'm reporting hearsay, but supposedly the site makes money on advertising when people sign up, do part of the process, and don't get a full 5 referrals to get the iPod.

This guide has a great breakdown of how to go through the process. If anything's still unclear, check that guide.

So, if you're going to go after an iPod, here's what you're going to do:

1. Make an account
2. Do (or don't do) the entry survey
3. Choose an 'offer'
4. Do 'offer'
5. Refer 5 friends and make them do steps 1-4
6. Profit

OK, so time to break this down:

Step 0: USE INTERNET EXPLORER. We all know how much Firefox rocks, but for the time being you're going to have to let it go. The problem lies within the site giving you credit for doing their 'offers'. But there will be one exception, and that's from here to step 2. You can safely make an account and log in to it using Firefox, but don't start any offers.

Step 1: You sign up for the site with an email address and password. You need to be able to communicate with this email account but still ignore spam, so I'd recommend using a Hotmail account for your primary contact. Since you're making an account, you might as well make one and be one of my referrals at the same time by clicking this particular link to make your account: http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=7263887.
(If you're not feeling that generous, think of it as payment for reading this guide or my being an early adopter or something.)

Step 2: Here's where Step 0 comes in. If you log in for the first time using IE, you'll go through a survey (I didn't do it) until you can get to your account page. If you don't feel like doing this survey, after you've made an account, close your browser, go back to the site in Firefox, and log in. Bam, no survey to do.

Step 3: (Here is where you start using IE again. Disable popup blockers because the popups are helpful and probably help track your progress.) Click the link for "Complete Offer," it's in the navbar at the top. You'll see roughly 10 offers. The only ones worth looking at are AOL, AOL Broadband, Ancestry.com, and eBay.

The first three require you to make a trial account using your credit card (The little tagline "No credit card required!" is a bolder lie than Fox News knows how to tell.) You can sign up for a trial, get credit for it on freeipods.com, then cancel your trial. The perk to this method is that it verifies your offer completion very quickly. The downside is that it can be a hassle to go through these services to cancel your trial accounts.

The other option, and the one I've taken, is eBay. What they want you to do is create a new account and bid on something with it. The perk to this way is that it's easy, painless, and doesn't require a CC, but the downside is that it's slow to verify.

Step 4: Do your offer. For the AOLs and Ancestry.com I don't have any more information than what I wrote in step 3, but I do have some more info on the eBay method.
-Don't sell anything: it won't get you credit. Had I been paying attention, I would have known that and not tried to sell anything.
-Bid on something early: you do not have to win your auction. It's been reported that you only have to be the high bidder at some point in the auction. I searched for Gmail invites and bet $1.54 on one that ended up going for like $8.
-Get credit for it: They say it takes up to three business days to get credit for your bid. If you don't have credit after three days, see the Guide for info on emailing Gratis Internet with an "offer problem." They've had reports that people got validated within 10 minutes of emailing. I just sent this email an hour before posting and nothing, but I'll update when I have been validated.

Step 5: Get your 5 referrals. Yay for pyramid schemes. You'll be able to hand out hyperlinks like the one I have to people you know, or people you've invented with the clever use of email accounts and addresses on Arlington streets you've never driven. Make sure you can check email at those accounts if you have to, though. Avoid being stupid about it, because they will check for anything that looks like cheating and have it not count toward your 5 people, so get some decent alibis if you have to invent people. One of the first things they check for is dummy email addresses, so if you need, have me or aroon make you an account at snagger.org or viperstyx.net or pureimaginary.com.

Step 6: Profit! Click the link to the Guide for some pictures of people who have received their iPods.

This will be updated if any new information comes in, but for now I'll try to keep all the reference materials at the top of the post. Happy iPod hunting, boys and girls.

And don't think that's in adoration of a Limp Bizkit song or anything.

The good part is that I had a pretty active weekend.

Friday: John Mayer soundcheck and concert. Aside from playing a pretty predictable set, he did a lounge-singer rendition of Maroon5's "She Will Be Loved," busted out with a blues track, and covered Eric Clapton. I have pictures and videos that I'm currently too lazy to put online, but I'll show them to anyone who's curious. Many thanks to Carina for having the ovaries to take me up on the extra ticket and come along. Afterward, the two of us headed to a party at the Casa de Moreno, where I was very happy to see everyone all together at once.

Saturday: Ride&Drive with Ale. It was a test session that lasted a little bit over an hour. We took a Volvo S60, BMW 325, and a Subaru Legacy 2.5 (the brand new one) out on three separate tracks, giving each of us a total of nine short runs. After finishing the runs, they submitted us to a survey and a 'gift bag' that made it clear that the whole thing wasn't really a comparison but an advertisement for the Legacy (Subaru was confident that they would win the comparison test among most drivers). I might be a bit biased, but after taking a little time with FWD and AWD, I've got to say that I love rear-wheel much more. It's a little riskier when you're toeing the line in a RWD car, but in exchange you get so much more control both going into and out of a turn. I know, conceptually you should only get more control coming out of the turn, but the BMW's traction control (and weight balance) and the Legacy's AWD systems together made the Volvo feel like a clumsy American car - it would take almost no effort to understeer it.

After the shameless Subaru plugging, my brother arrived in town and barely set his bags down before we were out the door to Charleston's, a sorta-nice-ish American chain restaurant over in Fort Worth not far from TCU. There, the three of us (Kris, my mom, and I) met up with Kris's wife-to-be-ish girl and her sister. So this story gets more confusing every day, but here's what I've gathered: Kris *is* marrying Jolie-Beth, but they don't seem to call themselves engaged. They both insist on not buying an engagement ring and spending the money on something cooler, like a trip to Europe or something. It's like they're best friends who happen to be getting hitched. It's an interesting story for the gossip freaks of the family (my aunts and cousins) to tell for sure.

The rest of the weekend was spent with Kris, watching strange movies (I can vaguely recommend Kung Pow: Enter the Fist) and spending *hours* on end playing "Horse" in Tony Hawk 3. Thankfully, I learned a couple of new things while he was here:

I CAN TOLERATE SEAFOOD. It was a "WTF, mate" moment for sure. I got dragged to Rockfish on his promise that with his guidance, I'll find something good. I ended up with a plate of blackened tilapia that wasn't that bad. The spices were great, but I've still got to get used to the texture of fish.

And! I got another music lesson. Kris kind of made me realize that I can, in fact, read chords and play those without a whole lot of effort. He helped me clear up the symbols I didn't know how to read (such as suspended and 6 chords) and now it's going to be much easier to read these songbooks I have.

Oh, yeah, I broke some stuff too. I got stuck in a bad situation on the highway on the way to the John Mayer concert. On I-30, almost at the exit for Smirnoff, there was a tire in the center of my lane. A whole, balled-up, tire. Naturally, there was traffic on both sides of me (I was in the center lane), so swerving wasn't an option. I bit the bullet and decided that running over the tire was better than hitting it in the center of my car, so over the tire I went. It took out a piece of trim, half of my front passenger wheel well, and a temperature sensor. So, the money I had almost set aside for a short trip out of town is now going into replacing those parts (and hopefully not $500 worth of labor if my mom will just shut the fuck up and realize that some car labor you can do yourself).

And I have this giant beard. Not a Tim Allen giant beard, but giant for me. I'm scruffy as hell. What perfect timing for me, then, to drop my damn electric razor and put a dent in the sheet metal thing. I could buy another metal cover and replace the blades, because they need replacing, but the razor is apparently old enough so that Panasonic won't sell the parts anymore and they just refer you to two out-of-state retailers that sell *just* accessories for things. So instead of spending $40 on parts, I'll give in and go spend another $40 I had set aside for Quakecon on a new damn razor.

Stupid how this summer worked out. I should've worked instead of going to school. Oh well. Off to go razor shopping I go.

There's a pyramid scheme in the works on the internet, and a *bunch* of Shackers picked up on it really quickly. You provide an email address for spam, take a "free" trial of something (such as AOL) or sell something on eBay, then make 5 people under you do the same, and bam - free iPod mini or 4th-gen 20GB iPod (the brand new one) for you.

We'll have a good indication early next week of how reliable this might be, but early research says yes, this might actually be legit. Aroon and I spent some time going through it last night, and we've created a strategy for getting through it quickly as possible. If everything works ideally, you can get through the system and snag a 4G iPod before it's time to move back to school.

I'm not enlisting everyone in doing this yet because if it's a BS offer (which is usually what happens in these situations), I don't want to drag everyone else into a lot of useless effort and even more spam. By Tuesday we should have that "early indication," so check back then.

Here's some of the latest tidbits on GT4:

There was a new demo version built for a tournament that took place at the 24 Hours of Le Mans recently, which included new physics code and new tracks. The game is now more precise than GT3 was, and two guys walked away with completely tricked-out entertainment systems for winning hour-long endurance races in M3s on the Nordschleife.

Like Toyota did with the GT4 demo disc, BMW released a European demo disc for the 1-series. Toyota's was locked to 2 minutes in a Prius (or the TMRC, but that's rubbish), but BMW upped the timelimit to 10 minutes, which allows a good driver to finish a complete lap on the 'Ring in a 116i. (Yeah, Nurburgring is the demo course. That's nice). I'm looking into picking this up if my PS2 mod discs will run PAL code.

Screw Need for Speed Underground, GT4 will have drag racing. But blakerson, where will we meet to race our keenly modded GT4 cars online? The Las Vegas Strip.

Pics from my Austin trip are up. Click the link to files.snagger.org over on the right. Next up: working on my very own Day in the Life post.

Remember when we passed around the copy of Masters of Doom last summer? Well, this year there's going to be another Doom book, and this one promises to be better.

Steven L. Kent, the author of the awesome books covering the complete history of videogames, was in on the Doom3 development since very early in the process and his book on the making of Doom3 should be coming out soon. I'll be the first in line to buy it.

I had a great 72 hours in Austin. A sampling of some of the stuff that went down:

-4v4 Halo (the way it's supposed to be played)
-I, Robot (sucked)
-Played the most violent game of post-midnight hall soccer ever
-Watched Saturday morning cartoons with Kurt
-Got my ass *burned* on the Guadalupe River
-Suffered massive heat exhaustion on said river
-Watched insane amounts of South Park and VH1 while laughing at girls reading Cosmo

Thanks to: Thomas, Adam, Kurt, Syed, Tim, Grysen, T-man, Joshvar, Ruthie, and the cool new people I met (Amanda, Gibby, Renee). You guys are great, and pictures will be up once my camera recharges.

Hang on. Blogger redid the backoffice once again and I have a bunch of

new buttons. Including spellcheck, and HEY! A picture button! The

Tooltip says I can upload an image.

Well, let's try it out:



OK, apparently this new backoffice is a buggy disaster at the
moment. It tries to make everything work like Frontpage and the
result is a page with a ton of unnecessary HTML tags and broken
pictures, and word wrapping causes even more problems. *sigh*

DOOM 3 has gone gold, boys and girls. The internet will only go more crazy once Half-Life 2 goes gold, and then we'll all settle down for 5 more years while id and Valve work on their next games. It's officially being released August 5th here in the States, but you might be able to get it as early as the 3rd, depending on if retailers decide to start selling early.

Well, there goes my month of August.

Which is the DVD of the movie whose trailer I linked in my last post. It's $13.50 including shipping. Bug me / comment here if you're in on splitting the cost and getting together to watch it.

Because Fox News is evil.

I'm going to Austin on Friday (that's the 16th) and staying until the 18th (Sunday). I'll try and get a hold of as many of you as I can between now and then so there can be happy fun gatherings (I can't promise I'll get you on stage with Dynamite Boy, but I'm fun nonetheless), but just toss that little bit of information in the back of your mind somewhere.

First was Winnebago Man, now comes this:

1. Despite the lameness of the Comedy Central commercials, The Graham Norton Effect is a great show. I tend to like imported comedy, so if you don't find British people funny you might think it's stupid, but I happen to think it's late-night TV done right. I was laughing so hard at one point I rolled off the couch. New show to watch religiously.
2. www.rockpapersaddam.com
3. More ironic than funny, but after a week of democracy, Iraq has established martial law.

I sound like the Winnebago Man after 30 hours with no sleep.

Quakecon/CounterStrike2/Doom3 upgraders, read this

Fatwallet has the details on a program being run by AMD:

You join their market reseller program ostensibly (you sign up as an "enthusiast" and thus don't have to have a company or resale license), take a "quiz" on the AMD64 tech, and once you get 15 of 20 questions right, they cut you a deal on some of their parts:

Athlon64 3200+ 512 cache
Asus K8V SE Deluxe
Stock heatsink/fan
And the parts are pre-assembled, even.

Grand Total: $179 plus shipping (came out to $192 for a forum poster).

Let's compare that to the same parts over at everyone's favorite parts emporium, Newegg:
Athlon64 3200+ 512 cache: $282
Asus K8V SE Deluxe: $118
Shipping: $0 (free ground)
Total: $400

If you're thinking of upgrading in the near future, GET THESE PARTS. Apparently this tactic is exploding in popularity and some people are getting their registrations denied, so just keep trying and it'll be worth the effort.

Update 7/10: Apparently this deal is no longer in effect, but if anyone has any success with it anyway be sure to let me know.

So I went to the first day of my second class at UTA (that's Arlington, kids), and it was god-awful. The professor must've had quick feet, because she sure as hell had been evading death for a long-ass time. She looked maybe 90, dressed like she hadn't bought clothes since 1930, and constantly talked in circles as if the whole class had the worst collective case of ADD in the history of humanity. After I told mommmy about this, she just told me to drop out, so I drove like a crazy man over to UTA to withdraw myself for the rest of summer and get at least most of mom's money back.

Other things I'm planning for summer:
-Work on the Worthington essay
-Learn some more piano (John Mayer and Something Corporate are coming along nicely)
-Volunteer for the DNC if there's something around here
-Do as many athletic things as possible
-Work out more, now that I'm out of excuses
-Catch up on my damn sleep.

All in all, I'm excited for the rest of summer. I'm a lazy bastard, yes, but I'm being productive with my life, so shut it.

Edwards's daughter.

and that is Bush, so stop giving me so much antagonism.

Quakecon tournaments announced:

Q3 1v1
Q3 4v4 CTF
Doom3 DM

And what's better? Registration begins on day 1 of the event. No online competition. The game will have been out for a week at best. This is going to be insane.

and I'm going to post a giant, giant list of books in the new blogVirus - your reading list. Blame Abby.

Here are the rules:
Boldface books you have read
Italicize books you started but haven't finished
Underline books you own but haven't read
Add 3 more books of your own to the end

edit: I caught the books I missed the first time through - about 15 in all - and bolded them, and replaced my already-present Gatsby with the Iliad.


001. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
002. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
003. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
004. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
005. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
006. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
007. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
008. 1984, George Orwell
009. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
010. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
011. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
012. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
013. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
014. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
015. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
016. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
017. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
018. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
019. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres [The book title isn't the same as the movie]
020. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
021. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
022. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, JK Rowling
023. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
024. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
025. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
026. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
027. Middlemarch, George Eliot
028. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
029. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
030. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
031. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
032. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
033. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
034. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
035. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
036. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
037. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
038. Persuasion, Jane Austen
039. Dune, Frank Herbert
040. Emma, Jane Austen
041. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
042. Watership Down, Richard Adams
043. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
044. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
045. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
046. Animal Farm, George Orwell
047. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
048. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
049. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
050. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
051. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
052. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
053. The Stand, Stephen King
054. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
055. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
056. The BFG, Roald Dahl
057. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
058. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
059. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
060. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
061. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
062. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
063. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
064. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
065. Mort, Terry Pratchett
066. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
067. The Magus, John Fowles
068. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
069. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
070. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
071. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
072. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
073. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
074. Matilda, Roald Dahl
075. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
076. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
077. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
078. Ulysses, James Joyce
079. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
080. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
081. The Twits, Roald Dahl
082. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
083. Holes, Louis Sachar
084. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
085. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
086. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
087. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
088. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
089. Magician, Raymond E Feist
090. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
091. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
092. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
093. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
094. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
095. Katherine, Anya Seton
096. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
097. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
098. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
099. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt Bleh.
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman's Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving.
302. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith's Brood), Octavia Butler (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago)
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic's Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O'Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L'Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
368. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
370. The God Boy, Ian Cross
371. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
373. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
374. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner), Philip K. Dick
375. Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb
376. number9dream, David Mitchell
377. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
378. Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris
379. Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
380. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
381. Dance On My Grave, Aidan Chambers
382. Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Leguin
383. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
384. Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
385. Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett
386. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
387. A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin
388. Four Ways to Forgiveness, Ursula K. LeGuin
389. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Tom Robbins
390. High Society, Ben Elton
391. Battle Royale, Koushun Takami
392. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
393. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard
394. The View From Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg
395. Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
396. Belle Prater's Boy, Ruth White
397. Red Dragon, Thomas Harris
398. The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris
399. Hannibal, Thomas Harris
400. Sabriel, Garth Nix
401. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
402. Blindness, Jose Saramago
403. The Nanny Diaries,
404. Prey, Michael Crichton
405. The Solitare Mystery, Jostein Gardner
406. Foundation, Isaac Asimov
407. In an Uncertain World, Robert E. Rubin
408. Moneyball, Michael Lewis
409. 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
410. Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand
411. Wild Magic, Tamora Pierce
412. No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre
413. Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong-Kingston
414. Red China Blues, Jan Wong
--additions--
415. Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy
416. The da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
417. Iliad, Homer

Shamelessly ripped from Blamebush, a hilarious site that actually does a good job of making fun of both parties.

Now go make the Bush administration happy and spend some money. Ya know, to "boost our economy."

I would recommend the $5 game sale at Circuit City going on today, for anyone who's reading this on the 4th itself. Lots and lots of earlier GBA, PS2, and Gamecube games (including some cult-classics like ICO and most 2K4 sports games) and a relatively small and unworthy collection of Xbox games are all, you guessed it, five big ones.

I'm headed to Oklahoma for the day to "celebrate" my grandfather's 4th-of-July birthday, but it's only a day trip, so I'll be home later tonight (~10:00) for any festivities going on.

Only in America!

Alizee is a friggin' hottie.

You DON'T sue Google. You just don't do it. Stop being a greedy bastard. If the Google founders decide to rape my daughter one day, well that's *fine* considering their contribution to humanity.