Odds and Ends, #4

1. I'm sure we have all had that dream of tunneling down through the earth and coming out on the other side. When I was a child the story was always that you would come out in China. Actually, if you go here, you will see that if I did that at home now, I would end up in the ocean, west of Australia, south of India. Drag the map from side to side until you can see your general home area in the left hand map to start. You can zoom in pretty far on the left hand map. Where the drop down menu says map, I chose Hybrid and could zoom (that's the + button) all the way to my house.  Then you can zoom out on the right hand map to see where you would end up after your tunneling. Google Maps is always fun to play with.    

B.  National Public Radio (NPR) just completed a survey of its listeners ranking the top 100 science fiction novels of all time.  Over 60,000 people voted from a list of hundreds of possibilities, and the number one novel was ... Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Followed by Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Ender's Game. I don't have any problem with those as the top three. From my list of favorites, Neil Gaimin's American Gods finished tenth, Watership Down by Richard Adams finished 32nd, and a perennial family favorite, the Belgariad series by David Eddings finished 41st. If you are looking for imaginative, thought-provoking stories, you can't go wrong with this list. I have read 70 of the top 100, and plan to finish the rest in the next year. Let me know which books you really like from the list. And if you haven't read any Terry Pratchett yet, the list has a couple of his books  that I am sure would make you laugh out loud. There is no joy like reading.   

III.  Jeff Daniels has been in some good movies (Good Night and Good Luck) and some bad movies (Dumb and Dumber). He says if he hadn't gone into acting, he would probably be working at the Chelsea Lumber Yard with the rest of his family in Chelsea, Michigan. And playing music on weekends combining storytelling with a good blues beat. The song below is a tongue in cheek song about fame called "Are You As Excited About Me As I Am?" Enjoy.