It’s come down to the final stretch.  I planned on 15 days of horror movies leading up to a Late Night Double Feature on Halloween Night of Little Shop of Horrors and The Rocky Horror Picture Show and it’s Halloween night right now (earlier in Taipei than back home) and I’m only two movies shy of what I thought I would watch.  I made it to 21 movies without the impending double bill and I have to say my taste for horror movies seems to have changed and things that freaked me out before just don’t do it for me now. 

I think one of the first movies that scared the crap out of me as a kid was a Disney movie The Watcher in the Woods.  I also remember my older sister sneaking me into The Lost Boys when I was supposed to see something else and from then on I started really liking being scared of movies.  Of course now most of it doesn’t scare me.  It made me realize that if I was to write a horror story, like I want to, I would have to make sure it scares me since most things out there don’t.  I have a few ideas now after my fifteen day marathon. 

So, here’s the final stretch into the double bill later tonight…


#16 – Day of the Dead (2008)
I needed more zombies after a few crap movies in the marathon.  Zombies always work for me (well, except for that awful novel World War Z) and I figured the Dead series is always a safe bet.  I know some of the Dead series are not as good as either version of Day of the Dead, but I figured a zombie movie with Ving Rhames in it would be good.  Day is a pretty good zombie movie, but they tried to alter the zombies a little too much.  They gave them more memory of their past and their reactions to things were more than just ‘brains, brains’.  The gore was great, the story wasn’t too bad with the zombies coming from an infection instead of dead rising from the ground, but then they came up with a vegetarian zombie who was still in love with a survivor.  That was a little wrong to me.  All in all it’s a pretty good zombie movie, much better than Land of the Dead was, and I imagine probably better than Diary Of and Survival Of… I think he best choice for zombies nowadays is either The Waling Dead or Dawn of the Dead, but who knows, maybe someone will out do them both and really show the reality of zombies and the gore that comes with it (and I do NOT mean World War Z).


#17 – The Crazies
Nice, nice, NICE!  A town goes crazy and turns into violent killers bent on pretty much destroying each other and everyone around them.  Tainted water, a tough guy sheriff who needs to get into the quarantined town to save his pregnant wife and crazy people everywhere killing people with guns, fire, wrenches and even a kick-ass pitchfork!  I didn’t expect much from this movie and I was surprised how much I liked it.  It’s no masterpiece of modern cinema, and it’s a remake of a little known George Romero movie from the 1970′s (which is why the Crazies are a little zombie-ish), but really, what more can you ask for.  Gore, killing, a stupid military who thinks they know what’s right and scenes with people trapped places with a Crazy coming very close to offing them.  I won’t buy it, but I sure will tell people it’s worth the seven day rental fee from the store.  They didn’t try to make anything but a freaky horror film and they succeeded nicely.  And I could actually stand Timothy Olyphant for, well, maybe the first time ever in a movie.


#18 – Rogue
What a load of crap!  This was in IMdB’ list of Top Ten Underrated Horror Movies for this year and it SUCKED!  IT wasn’t scary, you never see the damn crocodile until the end (but unlike JAWS, it makes the movie boring) and I actually found myself cheering for the croc to show up and pick off people.  Hell, it would have been better if the damn thing ate at least twice the amount of people it did in order to give me a small semblance of terror and fear, but it didn’t.  I have no idea who said this was a good crocodile/monster movie… hell, Lake Placid was a hundred times better and Anaconda was a classic compared to this.  The croc moved to silently that you never saw it coming, but when it did it took people quietly, which IS NOT SCARY!  I’m sorry, I’m pissed because I went to three different video stores in Taipei with their list of Top Ten (five of which I hadn’t seen) and this was the only one I could find.  I should have just re-watched Jaws and pretended it was about a crocodile instead.  DUMB!!!


#19 – Ringu
What’s the big freaking deal about this movie?  It’s slow, boring and not terrifying in the least.  I hate to admit it, but the American version was at least freaky.  This one kept close to the original novel (I read RING, SPIRAL and LOOP last year and loved them), but they seemed to actually leave things out of the movie for some reason.  Maybe I’m looking at it differently because I know the whole trilogy and what comes next, but come on, this movie was more about talking about the damn tape than actually seeing it.  How many people died?  Umm… two I think that we see.  Oh, we see footage of two others and hear about three others who die during the film, but NO ONE DIES ONSCREEN.  And the girl in the well/TV only comes out once and isn’t even freaky.  Usually I put the Japanese right up there with some of the best f’d up horrors movies ever (see: Organs), but this just let me down on so many levels.  Even the tape (which was more true to the book) was just a few images that didn’t matter much.  The book does a good job of getting to your through explanation, but the filmmakers seemed to miss the boat with visually recreating the horror and using it to scare us.  I have the Japanese sequels here, but I think I’m just going to pass by them and watch other things instead.  If the first was that bad, the others must be worse!


#20 – Pet Sematary
I was looking for a few other movies when I found this on the shelf and I couldn’t pass it up.  This is a classic Stephen King adaptation movie that still works well.  I love cats and Church still freaks me out in this.  Add the freaky cat to a the ghost of Paskow, a Chucky-like Gage, old Jed talking about the dead walking and a cool looking Micmac burial ground and you have the perfect blend of freaky and scary.  Oh, and Zelda… how can you forget Zelda?  I remember chasing my friend down the street after watching it one night at my house yelling ‘Zelda’s coming for you’ and him running home screaming.  It’s no Shining, but it beats the hell out of most movies made from King books and is definitely in the Top Five I think (with Shining, Carrie, Salem’s Lot and The Mist).  They adapted the book perfectly and when you can make a guy like me afraid of a cat, you did a great job!  I hope they never remake this one because it’s great just the way it is.


#21 – The Midnight Meat Train
I can only say two things about this movie AWE… wait for it… SOME!!!  I read Clive Barker’s Books of Blood earlier this year and was skeptical they could make a good movie out of a short story, but DAMN!  They got it dead on, and even with the additions to it in order to make it feature length, they didn’t mess up a thing.  Come on… a guy who butchers people on the subway like hogs at the slaughter, hanging them from the handles and covering the train with blood from end to end every night… and it’s Vinnie Jones!  AWESOME!  I loved this.  Forget the happy ending, no stupid haunting by ghosts or family histories that make the person a demented freak, IT’S JUST KILLING.  I’m going to buy this movie so I can watch it again with some of my other favorite horror movies.  The title may be strange, but it’s what Barker called the short story when he wrote it, and what more do you need to say?  The Midnight Meat Train may be the most surprising movie as well as one of my favorites of my entire Horror Movie Marathon.  I’m glad it was the last one I watched before the double bill tonight.  It was great, got me excited for horror again and now I can watch two of my favorites after being so happy about something new.  Once again… AWESOME!!!


So, it’s time to go and put in the first DVD of the Double Feature tonight.  I think I’m going to start at Mushnik’s Flower Shop then move myself over to the Frankenstein Place…

Well, I have kept up with my Horror Movie Marathon up until I watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Halloween Night here in Taiwan.  I’ve watched a bunch of stuff I had on my shelves for a long time, found a few DVDs in bargain bins while shopping, and read about some I want to rent if I can fit them into the marathon.  I am realizing that now that I’m older a lot of the stuff just doesn’t get to me.  I do love zombies, and good, violent vampire stuff (not lovey-dovey blood suckers) still makes me jump, and I’m pretty much a sucker for anything to do with a haunted house. 

So, the marathon and the countdown to Rocky Horror continues…


#9 – The Invisible Man (1933)
I found these sets of classic horror films at a video store last week that had four classics (plus Van Helsing) in cool coffin boxes marked down from $70 to $6 a set.  I had to get them.  I didn’t know where to start and then I was listening to the Rocky Horror soundtrack and they told me ‘Claude Rains was the Invisible Man…’ and I knew that was the one to watch.  The Invisible Man was the first book I read when I came to Taiwan and this version of it was great!  They made it scarier and more horror for the times, but it really holds up over the decades.  They just don’t make them like this anymore, and I wish they did, but audiences and times have changed and people just wouldn’t get the simplicity of a movie like this.  One of the best I have watched so far!


#10 – The Amityville Horror (1979)
I read this book this year and although was not as sacred of the book as I was the movie when I watched it a long time ago, I really liked the more realistic haunting in the book.  Of course, now I watch the movie and it doesn’t do much for me.  The differences from the book to the movie are so huge, and really, it isn’t that scary.  The newer version I remember being scarier than this one, but this is a classic and I can’t hate it.  It just doesn’t seem to hold up over time as much as it has in my memory.  I wish it did since there aren’t many horror movies left from when I was a kid that are still scary, but the elements and the idea of this one still freak me out when I think about it.  I’s a classic, but not one I am going to rush to watch again for a long time.


#11 – A Chinese Ghost Story / 倩女幽魂
Now this really isn’t a horror movie, but it is a classic of Chinese cinema… and it has enough elements in it to fit into my marathon.  A hapless drifter (tax collector) wanders into a town where he isn’t welcome and ends up having to stay in an old haunted temple on the outskirts of the village.  Of course he meets a beautiful woman who is really a ghost who collects the souls of men for the 100 year old tree demon who has enslaved her soul.  Mix in a crazy Wu Xia Taoist swordsman who is out to rid China of the undead, a doomed romance between the living and the dead, and some cool Chinese zombies living in the basement and you have something that should be a B-movie, but is thought of as one of the best movies ever created in Hong Kong.  I have the trilogy and can’t wait to watch the next two as well.  Leslie Cheung is great in it, but he’s great in everything he did, and I hope movies like this make people forget about his tragic suicide and focus on just how fun he was to watch in so many movies.  I think as of #11, this has to be my favorite of the marathon so far… zombies, hot ghosts and kung fu!  You can’t ask for anything else!


#12 – The Messengers
Another bargain bin purchase, and not only because it was a cheap horror movie, but because it is a Pang Brothers movie (Bangkok Dangerous, The Eye).  They didn’t fare well early in the marathon with Forest of Death, so I gave them another shot with this one.  People don’t like this movie much, but I liked it.  It had the right elements to it; an old haunted farmhouse, a new family moving in and a creepy little kid who sees it all.  Maybe it just wasn’t horror enough for people and the killing was pretty scarce, but it was in Forest of Death too.  I liked the idea and I liked the film.  It’s nothing special, but it did make me just a little in a few spots, so it did more than some of the more classic horror movies I have been watching this past week.  I know there is a lot of better movies out there, but there are a lot more pieces of crap worse than this as well.


#13 – Return to House on Haunted Hill
Okay, in my defense, I was shopping, saw the DVD in a $1 bin and grabbed it without noticing I had bought the sequel, and not the original.  This movie was, to put it nicely, a flying, flaming bag of monkey feces!  I kinda remember the original (which I think I fell asleep during or never finished watching), but this one made no sense.  This one had a statue that people were hunting for that the doctor of the haunted house had, and they all went in to find it, there were bad guys, anthropologists and the usual T&A.  The visuals were cool and I liked the stye of some scenes, but the copy I bought was a former rental and the bastards edited it so the real gore was blurred.  Of course they left the zombie lesbian scene uncut, but I don’t get to see a guy’s arm ripped off?  WTF?  This movie was a waste of pretty much my time, the actors’ time and even the time of the poor guy who had to cater the food to the set of such a waste of film.  I can think of about ten thousand things I would rather have done instead of watching this movie.


#14 – Predators (2010)
YEAH!  I’m a sucker for a good Predator movie, and really, if there is a Predator in the movie, it has to be good.  I even liked the AVP movies, even though I am not a big Alien fan.  This movie kicked ass!  Action from the start, blood, gore and monsters from outer space that come out of nowhere and kill just for the hell of it.  I get excited just thinking about a Predator movie (yes, even Predator 2).  This movie was a great reboot/sequel/continuation to the other movies with a much cooler concept of being hunted on a distant planet instead of aliens coming to Earth.  And Topher Grace… how I hate you in everything.  And to see you die on screen, slowly and painfully, it made my day!  The Predator should become the James Bond of space horror/action movies and we should get a new one every few years for the next 30-40 years if we are lucky.  I will always cheer for the Predator, love the Predator and fear the Predator.  I may go watch it again now… I’m getting all geared up just writing about it!


#15 – The Frighteners
I realized when I started watching it that I had never seen the whole movie before.  I must have caught parts of it on TV, but never the movie in its entirety.  This was a cool ghost movie along the same lines as Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice and Little Shop of Horrors.  There were funny ghosts and there were some pretty freaky ones as well which makes me wonder if I can actually show this to my grade four kids next week or not.  They have seen Goonies, but this one may be a little scarier.  Ghost movies can be fun, but still a little scary, and I think this one got it just right.  Plus, come on, has Michael J McFly ever really done anything bad?  He fits into his roles perfectly and I liked him n this one as well.  This was definitely worth the dollar I paid for it from the video store!



So there it is… fifteen horror movies down and I have four nights to go.  Luckily I have the entire weekend to do a marathon in and hopefully since I have nothing to do I can get into some more I have read about, as well as get to some of those Japanese and Chinese horrors movies I already have lining my shelves.  And there has to be room for JAWS… I cannot leave that out of the marathon in any way…

We’re gonna need a bigger Ton-Ton…

I have too many DVDs here that I can’t even figure out what the hell to watch.  I got a few new horror releases from Hong Kong this month and I have stuff that has been sitting here for more than a year or two that I haven’t watched yet, so I figure I should just do a marathon of the horror movies.  I always watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Halloween night, so I’ll fill the time until then with what I have, what I can find in Taipei video stores and DVD shops and maybe something downloaded if I really can’t find what I want that night…

#1 – 1408… It’s too bad that I remember this one being a lot more frightening than it was this time.  I guess you can make a really good, scary movie and really freak out an audience, but it takes a lot more skill to make something that holds up to multiple viewings.  1408 was boring this second time around with nothing to really make me drop my popcorn.  I still love both Stephen King and John Cusack, but kind of a disappointment to begin my marathon with.


#2 – The Shining… So my first movie was a disappointment so I figured I’d go with a tried and true scare the shit out of myself movie.  I have seen The Shining at least 30 times (maybe more) and the second they enter than hotel I’m freaked out.  I love when the kid is racing the hallways on his big wheel and or course Jack as a crazy bastard and Olive Oil screaming her face off at everything.  I read the book one summer when I was young and loved how different, but still scary the book was, but I do love this movie.  There’s nothing better than Jack and an Ax!


#3 – The Thing (2011)… This was cool!  I barely remember the original so this was a great movie.  Glad I saw it in the theater as it just gives it more impact.  They did a great job making it look like the film was from the 1980′s and they relied on the story  more than big actors which was good.  I was pretty geared up for the whole movie, and I loved the extra footage during the end credits.   They ended the movie in a great way, and then the epilogue after that tis to the old movie made it even better.  Someone needs to learn from this movie how to make a good monster/alien movie where you don’t need torture and over the top kills.  Just give us a creature and abunch of people who are not going to survive and I’m happy!


#4 – Tremors... What better combination can you have than massive underground slugs that burrow and eat people, Kevin Bacon as a redneck and the dad from Family ties as a crazy, gun toting survivalist?  I worked in the movie theater when this movie came out years ago and I would watch as much of it as I could every night when I was working.  The sequels get a little strange, but this one is a great Hollywood B-like movie that was and still is better than so much of the crap out there today.  There is no way you wouldn’t want to have this movie in your collection.


#5 – Tales from the Crypt… I got the entire series of this from Hong Kong last month and it’s still cool.  Watched a few episodes just to see if it was as dated as I thought it would be, but they are still cool stories.  I love seeing a lot of stars in these cheesy little tales, but they were actually good horror. the Crypt Keeper still rocks and the best thing is I watched five episodes so far and I think there are still about 80 more to go!


#6 – Forest of Death / 森冤… What a disappointment!  I ordered this special fro Hong Kong as I can’t get it here in Taiwan with English, and I finally get to watch it and it bored me to death!  I love (see: absolutely, positively, head over heels in love with) Shu Qi and even she wasn’t much in the movie other than something to distract me frm the actual story.  A forest in China where people go to kill themselves which is supposedly haunted and tries to keep people from leaving… good concept, but I seem to recall only ONE PERSON DIES in the movie.  Add in Ekin Cheng, a cool HK star, who believes that plants can speak to you and tell you things that have happened.  Put him together with Shu Qi’s detective trying to solve a rape/murder in the forest and you have… well… not much, which is sad.  I was looking forward to this one (not just due to my love of Shu Qi) and it just didn’t deliver.


#7 – John Carpenter’s The Ward… Now the trailers, the box art and the concept for the movie made me really want to see it.  Maybe it was nostalgia from the Nightmare on Elm Street to see a horror movie in an insane asylum again or just the hope that Carpenter can still pull it off… but I have to say, meh.  I admit the whole movie had me a little on edge, and I liked the ideas behind it, but there were two things I just didn’t like… the killing were a little weak and made me think something strange was going on, and of course the ending SUCKED!  If there was ever a cop out at the end of a horror movie it was this one.  They’ve dine this ending before and it worked (the first time) and they did not need to do it again here.  I’m amazed at how quickly the movie bottomed out at the end.  Come on John… you can do so much better!


#8 – Dawn of the Dead... Too many disappointments so far in my marathon, so I went with another solid guarantee.  I love both Dawn of the Dead movies, but the new one kicks ass more than The Walking Dead does.  Zombies that can run… blood everywhere and even the dad from Modern Family!  I really think the new version of this movie should be the standard for zombies movies now.  The movie has everything you want right down to the very ending and the credits.  Zombies from the first to the last minute.  I love this movie.  I haven’t seen any of the ones after this.  I may go try to find Day of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Survival of the Dead, Breakfast with the Dead and George Clooney vs. the Dead to complete the series. 

Not a bad set of movies for the first seven nights.  I plan on some kind of a marathon within a marathon this weekend or next.  I have the entire run of Japanese Ring movies, the Asian Eye movies, plus the 28 Days/Weeks/Dresses set, the Resident Evil set, some cool Korean monster movies and even some good Japanese gore flicks like Tokyo Gore Police to keep me going.  Not sure what to watch when I get back from the night markets tonight, but I have the original Amityville Horror, a Taiwanese horror movie titled Invitation Only and an 8 DVD set of Drive In horror movies beside the TV ready to go.

I’m going to give myself nightmares this month… I know it!

1. Charlee’s real name was Sharlee when I got her, but it just didn’t suit her.  I was thinking about names for her, and changing it a little sounded right.  Plus it reminded me of those old commercials from the 1980’s for ‘Charlie’ perfume when they always said “She’s so Charlie.”
2. Charlee was listed by the shelter she came from as being 6-7 years old, which was a mistake since she was really only about three when I got her.  Her paperwork shows her birthday, but the shelter people couldn’t read I guess.
3. When she lived with me, Charlee loved playing with little mice made from rabbit fur.  We played a game where she would go to the far end of the apartment hallway and I would toss them over her head and she would stop them like an NHL goalie.  She was good.
4. Charlee’s favorite place to sleep in right into the side of someone’s neck, but as she shifts herself in her sleep to get more comfortable she usually ends up on your face, almost smothering you as you sleep.
5. Charlee’s favorite song is Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.  She always came in the room and meowed when it was playing.  A true Paul Simon fan.
6. Charlee will come to you for attention and loves to sit on someone’s lap, but she has to do it, you cannot force her.
7. Every day when I would give Charlee her treats I would put them on a shelf above her head.  She would always stand up and bat them down with her paw.  If she heard the treats, she would go directly to her shelf.
8. Charlee loves to sit in bookshelves with her bum on the bottom shelf and her front paws on the ground in front of the shelf.
9. Charlee was the last of our cats to live with George before he died.  They actually got along pretty well.
10. My dad still calls her Sharlee… but his memory is going and we can’t blame him for forgetting names.  He’s old.  We may have to put him down soon.
11. Charlee was the first mix I ever had.  She is more of a tortoise shell tabby with a lot of white as well.  Our cats before her were mostly tabbies, and Bubba was pure black.  Her marking are very bold and beautiful to look at and follow.
12. I got Charlee two days after Christmas.  I had to fill in the adoption form twice as they weren’t going to let me take her since I had lost a cat (Bubba) only a few months before.  When they said that I tore up the form, took another and filled it in saying I had lost Bubba a year earlier.  I wasn’t leaving without Charlee.
13. Charlee hid for the first day after coming to my house, which really upset me (even though I know this is normal) so I called my little sister.  She came over and within 15 minutes Charlee was up on the couch curling into Megan’s lap.
14. Charlee never played with Pumba… I think she knew it was Bubba’s.
15. The night I was leaving for Taiwan she sat with me in my parent’s front room watching me get things ready at the lest second.  She stayed with me until I left.  We’d only been together for ten months but I really felt bad for leaving her.
16. Charlee loved when I played the guitar, but she would always want to get right up in my face when I was singing and smell my mouth.  It’s hard to play guitar and sing when a cat is doing that, but I loved that she loved the music.
17. Charlee’s nickname is Tuna, both because she loves tuna and after the old Starkist Tuna cartoon spokesman Charlie Tuna.
18. Charlee loves to be with my dad all the time… which is weird since he gets her name wrong all the time!
19. After moving to my parent’s house she became a total outdoor cat, never wanting to come inside.  She loves to be outside all the time, chasing bugs, catching mice and eating moths.  Even in the winter, she wants to be outdoors.
20. Of all the cats Charlee was the easiest to get into a carrier to take her in the car.
21. Like most cats she loves to be in boxes, but she always finds the smallest box possible and then squeeze herself into it. 
22. I had my grandfather’s old recliner in my house which I used to sit in and read at night, but within days of her arriving it became her chair and she would spend her days sleeping on it and standing on the arm of to look out the window.
23. When I started to get things ready to move and shelves started clearing out (books, Cds, DVDs,) I would find her later on in that shelf like it was new space she had never tried out before.  She tried out each and ever shelf in my house.
24. She was never afraid of dogs.  Dogs came to our window (my apartment window was even with the ground outside) and she just talked to them.  She even scared my friend Amy’s dog when they came to visit since she just walked around and pretended like she didn’t care Andie was there.
25. Charlee and Koko have basically sectioned off my parent’s house; Charlee has the downstairs and Koko has the upstairs.  They share the kitchen, but only when they have to.
26. When I was thinking about adopting a cat I was also thinking about moving to Taiwan to teach so I was worried I was making a bad decision.  My mother told me if I wanted a cat to go ahead and they would take care of her while I was away.  I’m not sure she knew I would be gone for this long, but Charlee loves it with them.
27. Charlee only lived with me for about ten months, but has been at my parent’s house for five years now.
28. Charlee would sometimes come with me at night to the laundry room across the hall from my apartment, but only if I left both doors open so she could come and go as she pleased.  One day an old ladies dog from the building came in and Charlee was there.  She chased the dog to the far and of the hallway.  I don’t think the dog ever came to do laundry again.
29. Charlee was up for adoption during the month of December at a local petfood superstore.  I visited twice a week to see all the cats and play with them and she was there from the first day to the last.  I saw many cats adopted out, but Charlee always remained. 
30. The day I went to see Charlee after Christmas the girl at the shop told me she was going back to the shelter soon.  They felt she was severely depressed and was non-responsive to people by that point.  She had been up for adoption for almost six months and no one took her in.  They said she would be re-evaluated and maybe put down if she had become too lethargic.  They said she would never make a good pet and would never respond to anyone anymore.  She was just sitting in her cage in a ball in the corner, not paying attention.  I looked at her and almost started crying.  I told them I would take her and they actually told me to adopt another cat.  When I said no, I wanted her, they tried to convince me that it was a bad decision.  I was pissed off and just looked into her cage and said “Sharlee, you want to go home?” She got up, came to the cage and rubbed against it letting out a small meow in answer.  I opened the cage and she curled into my arms like I had held her a thousand times before.  The workers were shocked and I just looked at them and said “Don’t just stand there, wrap her up, I’m taking her home.”
31. I adopted Charlee only a few days after my girlfriend and I broke up (on Christmas… but she was Jewish, so it wasn’t wrong in her mind) and a few days later she had seen me write on my blog about finally sleeping in the same bed as Sharlee (name not changed yet).  She asked if she had been replaced already and I said yes.  When she asked where I met this girl, I told her at a petstore.  She laughed and said ‘Oh, so it’s only a cat, right?’  I remember looking at Charlee and thinking ‘No, she’s not just a cat.  She’s my cat.  You were only a girlfriend. She’ll last much longer.’ 

Charlee in her window and Charlee looking like she is either listening to the worst music
in the world or laughing at the funniest joke ever!



Charlee’s obsession with shelf space.



Heavy drinker and window watcher.



I always loved her tail curl when she sat.  Such a princess.



Charlee and her big brother George.

1. Tiger was the first ‘official’ Thompson family cat.  Although my parents had cats before we were born, Tiger was the first cat we had as kids.  Melissa has now had four (Whiskey, Marshmallow, Paris & Caramel), Megan four (Koko, Roxy, Cringer & Marbles)  and me, six (Tiger, George, Bubba, Charlee, Elmo & Mouthy). 
2. Tiger came from a family that lived at the end of our street who had cats that had just given birth kittens.  I was only two but I loved the cats and tried to feed them.  One day David (their son) came to our house with a kitten in his toy wagon for me.  That’s when I got my Tiger.
3. Tiger seemed to love the snow and would play in it, dig through it and be outside in it more than a normal cat would.
4. When we were young we got a Weebles set for Christmas.  It was a house with a long track that the Weebles would roll/flip down from the top to the bottom, through a tree and around the house.  With Tiger around, no Weeble ever made it to the bottom without being bashed from the slide.
5. To this day the cat food in our house has always been kept in a cupboard in the kitchen.  Tiger was the first to figure out where it was, how to get in and how to knock over a giant back of food so she could climb inside and eat all she wanted.  We would come into the kitchen and find a 10kg bag of food laying on the floor with a cat tail sticking out of it while she fed herself.
6. Tiger was the only cat of all the cats who have lived at my parents house that did not live with or meet George. 
7. Tiger never really totally accepted Whiskey when my sister brought her home, but they did chase each other through the house, and Tiger did protect her outside since she was such a large, strong, dominant cat.
8. Tiger had two litters of kittens before we had her fixed.  People nowadays always say how mean that is and why have kittens when there are so many cats out there that need homes, but as kids it was amazing to see her go through the pregnancy, have the kittens, help care for her kittens and then find homes for all of them (which we did).  We never asked for money for any of the kittens and each and every one went to a good, loving home.
9. Tiger’s first batch of kittens were born just before we moved from our first house to the house my parents still live in today.  I remember sitting on the floor of the moving truck with Tiger and the kittens in a box with towels, worried only about them and not the fact that we were moving.
10. Tiger would lie on the stairs, turn sideways and sharpen her claws on the inside part of the steps.  She would also use this to drag herself along the steps and rub her body into t he almost shag carpet.  The first five or six steps in our front hall that went upstairs were pretty much in tatters when they were finally replaced, but they were puke green anyway.  She was helping out.
11. She loved to climb trees and even used a small lilac tree in our back yard as a way to climb onto the roof of our house.
12. Tiger slept with me almost every night of her life.  When she was older and my parents put her outside sometimes, I would open my bedroom window and she would climb up the greenhouse and jump through my window to sleep with me.  I tried this once and fell through the greenhouse!
13. Tiger was a total guy’s cat.  She always stuck to me and my father.  She also really liked my Grandfather Knight when he came to visit, but who wouldn’t?  He had cat treats and dog food in the glovebox of his car just in case he met an animal that looked hungry.
14. I think out of the millions of pictures of my family that have been taken over the years, my favorite is of my father, sleeping on his favorite chair in front of the TV with a 2 year old Megan curled into him on one side of his chest and Tiger curled into the other.  Like Daddy and his two little girls.
15. The day Tiger died was one of those ‘Rule of Three’ days.  I was sitting in my class playing with my pen and it all of a sudden shot ink all over my favorite shirt (Ron Jon Surf Shop, bought in Florida).  As I left the class to go wash up I ran into my highschool girlfriend who decided we needed to end things (this was the second breakup of about five different relationships we had over time).  I went home, covered in ink, dumped by my girlfriend and there was my mother with Whiskey (the cat, not the drink) in her arms asking me to sit down.  I had never lost anyone before that day…
16. When Tiger wanted to come into the house she would go to the backdoor and not only pick at the full length screen, but she would climb it so she was eye level with people and meow to be let in.  We went through quite a bit of screens.
17. When we were young my father always flooded our backyard to make an ice rink.  He built a small, enclosed change room outside the back door.  Tiger would destroy the plastic lining used to insulate it so she could get in, so he built her a cat door to come though.  She still destroyed the plastic at times anyway.
18. In the summer she would lay on the top of the big old air conditioner in our back yard.  I was always afraid somehow she would fall in since the top was a big grate and under it was a monster fan that I thought would chop her up.
19. In the winter (and even the summer when she was older) she would find ways into my father’s greenhouse in the backyard and just bake herself in the heat.  She never destroyed any of the plants that I can remember, but I don’t think Dad would have been that upset anyway.
20. In the back corner of our yard is what we call ‘The Pole’.  It is really a very old hitching post for horses that we played on all the time.  Tiger would climb into it and use it as her scratching post.  I’m sure that between her and the other cats that hitching post is only about a quarter as thick as it used to be.
21. I was sick one night a few months after Tiger died and I remember falling asleep ,thinking about how she always would sleep with me all day and night if I wasn’t feeling well.  I remember waking up and hearing her walking across the hardwood floor of my room, and jump onto my bed the way she always used to.  I felt her walk around me and her wet nose as she checked if I was okay.  She then went down and curled up directly behind my knees like she did for years.  When I finally realized that it couldn’t be her, I opened my eyes to see.  My bedroom door was closed, and there was no cat there with me, but I could still feel her there, just behind my legs all night.
22. Tiger never really jumped up where she didn’t belong in our house, but she did have a great knack for knocking over and beheading every one of my mother’s Royal Daulton figures that she collected.  To this day you can check the figurines and see they have all ‘lost their heads’ at some point due to Tiger.
23. Tiger is the first of four cats buried beside the greenhouse in our backyard.  I buried her with a picture of me and her because I remember thinking I wanted her to remember me when she was gone.
24. When I was young I slept on the top bunk of a bunk bed and Tiger always came up.  When she was younger she would leap from the floor to the bed no problem.  As she got older she would still do it, but pull herself up with the sheets.  Once I was old enough to not need the ladder anymore we placed it on an angle at the head of the bed and she would come in and climb up the ladder to sleep with me. 
25. I used to be afraid of the dark and have bad nightmares as a kid (some bordering on night terrors at times) but I don’t ever remember having them when she was sleeping with me.  I also used to make sure my door was never completely closed so she could come and go at night.
26. I was born in the Year of the Tiger, which I have always felt gives me a connection to cats.  I find it awesome that my first cat was also named Tiger, which is the reason I want a Chinese tattoo  of the Tiger character, for me and her.
27. Tiger went bald from the waist down for about a year once when she was older.  No one ever really figured out why, but it did grow back after some time.  She was a dark grey tabby.
28. Tiger used to follow me to school a lot.  She would walk the three blocks with me to the school, then sit on the hill until I went inside and then go home.  She was always very protective.
29. I remember once finding her chewing on the arm of my Hulk Hogan wresting figure.  I never got mad at her.  It was Hulk Hogan.  He probably deserved it!
30.  The Day Tiger died my mother found her in the backyard of our house.  She had dragged herself across the length of the yard in the snow to find us as a tumor in her stomach had burst.  My mom found her at the back door and rushed her to the vet.  They knew there wasn’t much they could do for her and were going to put her down, but she passed away before the vet could get the needle ready.  I always believed she didn’t want to die alone and fought to be with one of her family that day.  She was 13 years old.
31. When we were asked what we wanted to do with Tiger I told my dad I wanted to bury her in the backyard.  It was the middle of winter so it was impossible.  We went to the vet (without telling my mom) and got her.  We put her in a box wrapped in a blanket and placed her in the big freezer in our garage.  Dad thought it would be smart to put her under their wedding cake since Mom would never move it and then bury her in late springtime.  I still remember the look on my Dad’s face as we were watching TV a few months later and Mom was cleaning the freezer out to make room for more things and saying “What’s this wrapped in a blanket in a box under our wedding cake?”  We ran like hell!

Me and my two best friends, Tiger and Todd



Proof we had ugly sinks and carpet in our house in the early 80′s. 
Spot the Muppet Christmas record in the background!



Christmas morning pics with Tiger.  One is after she opened her stocking (all our cats have one)
and the second is Tiger eyeing her favorite Weeble House.



Tiger by the fireplace in our first house



Dad, Tiger and little Megan.  Greatest picture our family has!

So, some guy who had an interview at my school last week was pissed off about it not going well.  He decided to go onto a forum board for living and working in Taiwan and place our school on the ‘Blacklist’.  Of course this is usually for school who screw over teachers in many ways, not for people who don’t get a job.  Here’s his post about my school and supervisor…

He really caused quite an uproar at our school today.  They thought it was a new teacher who had just begun to work for us and has had some teaching issues, but after a few minutes I figured out just who he was.  I hope this guy has some good backing since in Taiwan writing something online about a person in this manner can be cause for a charge of slander.  I don’t always agree with the lawsuits here, but I do think this time Diana should teach this little guy a lesson.

He’s what I posted there (being the evil writer that I am)…

What a total (words removed… you know… just in case I hurt his feelings a little more)…

1. Bubba’s real name was Tommy when I adopted him.  His name was changed to hide his identity.  By the end his name was fully Thomas ‘Bubblicious The Pooh’ Thompson… and sometimes Beauford!
2. Bubba was pure black, including whiskers, lips, pads on his feet and all his fur.  Most black cats have a spot of white somewhere, but not Bubba.
3. I’m 6’4’’ and when he would sleep on my legs while watching TV he would stretch out to the point that he could touch my stomach with his back feet and my feet with his front paws.
4. Bubba always slept at the foot of my bed, right on the corner closest to the door.
5. His favorite toy was a small stuffed Pumba from a McDonald’s Happy Meal.  He carried it with him like it was his baby, played with it and even slept with it.  Pumba now goes everywhere with me including over eight countries.
6. Bubba would drink from the far side of his water dish and would end up with a wet chin and chest.  He would also pull the water dish out from the wall, sometimes spilling it so he could drink properly.
7. Bubba was a breast man. Any chance he got he would always climb into a girls lap, act all cute and innocent, then push his face directly into their cleavage and start purring really loud.  I think it was his version of the motorboat.
8. When Bubba lived with Koko (my sister’s cat) he protected her like she was his cat.  When Megan would cut Koko’s nails and she would fight, he would go up to Megan and growl at her, protecting Koko from her.
9. Bubba always wanted to be outside, but was mostly an indoor cat.  When he did get to go out, he would go no more than about 2 meters from the door and just lay down.  He never strayed.
10. Bubba was already fixed, declawed and was about 2 years old when I got him.
11. Bubba was the youngest of all my cats when he passed away, He was just under 10 years old when he died.
12. Bubba was obsessed with collecting and stealing dirty socks.  After being away for the day I would come home and find my socks all over the house, most at the front door as if they were gifts for me when I came home.  He would also walk around with them in his mouth meowing loud and sounding strange with the sock in his mouth.
13. Bubba liked to watch TV, and one day we found that he not only watched, but reacted to The Jungle Book.  He would sit and watch the entire movie, meowing and talking to characters on the screen, especially Bagheera, the black panther.
14. Bubba was given his name ‘Bubba’ one night when he was running all over the apartment like an idiot and I was trying to watch Forrest Gump.  He came into the room, stared at me for a minute and the second they yelled Run Forrest on the screen, he took off like a shot.  Since Bubba was big, black and a little slow at times ,I started yelling ‘Run Bubba’ when he went crazy. From then on the name stuck.
15. Bubba was good in the car and usually did not need a carrier, but he always wanted to be on my lap when I was driving which made it difficult.
16. From the time I was about 2.5 years old, I had always lived with a cat in the house.  When I went to my second year of university it only took me one weekend in my apartment without a cat to decide to go and adopt one from the Humane Society.
17. Bubba’s adoption was a mess.  I got him, took him home and a week later they called me and said they needed him back.  His family had left for a two month vacation and left Bubba in the care of the grandmother.  When they returned home they found out she had put him up for adoption and wanted him back.  The grandmother claimed she thought she was putting him in a care facility, but she filled out all the adoption forms and never paid for boarding.  I almost returned him, but when I was told they traveled a lot and the next time they went away they made sure that the grandmother would not do it again, I decided it was better if he stayed with me.  The Humane Society was not too happy, but I had legally adopted him and they had no real right to take him away.  This began his time under an assumed name in the Feline Witness Protection Agency (my house).
18. Bubba began having seizures when he was 8 years old.  After a short time it was discovered that he would only turn to his right hand side as the seizures had taken his ability to see properly to the left.
19. I used to take catnip and make trails of it in the carpet of the apartment.  He would rub his face into the carpet and then follow the trail through the house with his nose to the floor like a bloodhound.  He was a total catnip addict.
20. Unlike most cats, he seemed to like dry cat food more than the canned food. 
21. I’m not sure if it was the action, the sounds or the breasts (his favorite), but whenever there was any kind of sex scene on the television (we had a cable crack box that got every channel) he would come running and watch.  He also watched wrestling with me, but he seemed way more interested in the porn.
22. Bubba actually enjoyed having a bath (well, not near the end of his life) and would just sit or walk around in the water.  He would even have a small drink while in the water.
23. Bubba was terrified of waterguns.  He was caught in the crossfire of a massive waterfight in my apartment and from that point on all you had to do was pick up a supersoaker and he would run.
24. Bubba was placed on a very strong steroid when the vet figured out his illness was most likely due to a brain tumor or lesion.  The steroids eased the swelling and actually gave him about four more months where he was back to normal and in much less pain.  After time they did not work anymore. Without the steroids he was very confused and paranoid, sometimes attacking for no reason.  In the end I had many scars and cuts on my from him, but never punished or got angry at him for it.  I knew he was scared and in pain and I just tried to make everything as comfortable as I could for him.
25. I could have a 30 minute discussion with Bubba, with his responding and talking to me the whole time.  He would respond every time I stopped talking and would follow me to other rooms to keep talking.
26. At bedtime, he would run down the hall to the bedroom ahead of me and dive into the center of the bed.  Once I was in and settled he would curl in with me for a few minutes, then move to his position at the end of the bed.
27. A girl I dated for a while took a pair of really soft, fuzzy socks (his favorite) and sewed catnip into them for him.  He pretty much stopped stealing my socks and would carry these socks everywhere with him.  I think this fed his catnip addiction even more.
28. Even when he was almost 18 pounds at one point, the vet examined him and said he was really only a small bit overweight as he was just a very large male cat, much like a baby panther.
29. The day Bubba was put down, I gave him valium so he could relax in the car on the way home.  He was very well sedated, but the second the vet took him out he was full of energy.  It took me, my father and the vet to try to hold him down, two needles and lots of blood (ours, not his) to finally put him down.  He scared the other animals at the vet’s so much that they ran to hide from him and the vet was shocked that a sedated cat with a massive brain tumor would put up such a fight before being put down.  I got to hold him and look into his eyes as he passed and it was the most calming moment I have ever felt seeing my Bubba finally go with no more pain.  He was purring as I stroked his head when he passed.
30. Once when Koko was in the yard behind ours she was approached and cornered by another cat.  She let out a loud screech to try to get the cat to go away.  Megan and I ran outside to see what the problem was and Bubba ran past us, saw Koko and ran as fast as he could toward her to save her.  He was so set on saving her he didn’t see the chainlink fence between the two yards and ran, full force and full speed into the fence.  He bounced back about two feet and I swear I saw cartoon birds flying around his head when he stood up and looked at me.
31. Bubba is buried with Tiger, Whiskey and George in my parent’s backyard.  Before burial we cast his footprints in plaster of paris and made footprints with ink for a tattoo I still plan to get.  I almost buried Pumba with him, but I know he would have wanted Pumba to stay with me and continue protecting me and to live the long life he never got…

  

1. Mouthy was meant to be the first of ten cats picked in a TNR campaign through Animals Taiwan.  She avoided capture for over three months and was #35.
2. When Mouthy was captured, she went into the trap to eat the food (the first time into the trap) and the trap would not go off as she was so light.  It only went off when she picked up the whole chunk of food in her mouth.
3. I named her Mouthy the first night I met her when she was a baby kitten.  She talked to me from the top of a set of steps, but would not let me tough her.
4. Mouthy has a Time Machine which is a large washing machine box which sits under the balcony window.  From there she can spend/waste time in the sun, watching the neighborhood cats and talking to the golden retriever on the rooftop across the alleyway.
5. The orange parts of her body are actually Orange Tabby markings.  The mix of pure black, orange tabby and white stomach and paws make her look like four cats chopped up and put back together.
6. Mouthy’s right ear was half removed by the vet who ‘fixed’ her in the TNR.  Usually they only take a small nick off the end of the ear to let people know they have been fixed, but they took half her ear!
7. Mouthy loves rough, bumpy bathmats.  We now have four in the house now.  When they come in from the wash she goes to each one and rubs her face and body into them to feel the texture on her face.
8. Mouthy’s mother, Toughy, was born at the Bitan Bridge and has lived there for more than eight years now.  The life expectancy of most street cats is about two to three years.
9. Mouthy was part of a litter of three or four kittens.  When she was small, Toughy and Mamacat took care of the group of them.  There were two calico’s like Mouthy, an orange and white kitten and a black and white kitten.  Only the orange and white kitten is gone after three years.  Her sisters, Crazy and Calico still live by the river.
10. Mouthy steals hair elastics, then shoots them around the apartment with her mouth and paw.
11. You can hear Mouthy calling from the sixth floor window if you are down on the street.
12. Mouthy is scared of the sound of a plastic bag.
13. She loves cardboard boxes and will squeeze herself into any sized one.  OF course then she has to destroy it from the inside out ripping at the edges and leaving pieces everywhere.
14. Mouthy was fixed and returned to the street, but she was found a month later with a very bad flu where her eyes and nose were so clogged she could not see or barely breathe.  When the vet cleared her eyes out, they found her left eye had been damaged by a severe cut.  The vet thinks she may have done it herself trying to clear the gunk out of her eyes.  After attempts to let the eye heal, it was found that the damage was to severe so the eye was removed.
15. One of Mouthy’s nicknames is Goonie… this is because her favorite pirate is One Eyed Willie.
16. Mouthy loves to pub her face into my chin and really dig into my beard.  She loves anything rough on her face.
17. She is not very scared of the vacuum, but she is terrified of brooms.
18. The day I agreed to foster her at my house I picked her up from Animals Taiwan, about 40 minutes from my house.  I drove her home in a carrier on my scooter.  I got lost, ended up across a river and could not find my way home.  Her first scooter trip with me ended up taking almost four hours.
19. Mouthy lived for almost four months with a cone on her head so she could not touch her damaged eye.
20. She loves to touch nose to nose with people as if giving them a kiss.
21. One night while trying to catch her for the TNR she finally let me scratch her on the bum.  I thought that meant she trusted me so I tried to grab her.  She was eating beside a fountain and ended up diving into the water to avoid me.  The second she hit the water, she turned on me and jumped right at me, soaking me in the process.  When is was all over, I was soaked, the ground looked like a tidal wave had hit and there was a trail of wet cat prints off into the distance.
22. Mouthy is the best cockroach and spider catching cat I know.
23. If you are reading a book, she will place herself in between you and the book, but looking at the book as if she wants to read it first.
24. She likes to have conversations with me while I am in the shower, but will not come into the bathroom to do so.  She calls to me from the living room.
25. When she is very scared of something she will go on the balcony and hide behind the washing machine. 
26. The balcony has interlocking foam squares on the floor that I put there for her when she first came to live with me and she only stayed on the balcony (the balcony is approx. 7’x30’).  She has always used these to pick at and sharpen her claws on.  Even now, she never picks at the furniture, only the foams mats.  I have to replace them every few months and find little foam pieces everywhere in the apartment.
27. She likes to chew on bubble wrap.
28. When she sleeps in her favorite chair she is most comfortable when sleeping completely upside down like roadkill.
29. When Mouthy lived on the street she was the only female in a large group of streetcats that lived by a set of stairs near the Bitan Bridge.  Her best friends were Moustache, Wrong Place, Baby, Big Orange, Princess (male), Kangaroo and Wulai.  Toughy was never part of the group, but always came to the territory to visit and eat.
30. Mouthy loves to lay beside the computer when I am using it.  She usually goes to sleep, but always hits the keyboard with her tail when she wants attention.  She can hit it hard enough that it types things.
31. The first time I met Mouthy I said that she was so cute and friendly that I would love to have her live with me if I was going to get a cat.  Just over three years later, she’s laying beside my laptop as I write her ’31 Things…’ like she’s the queen of this house and I am just here to feed her, clean her litter and talk to her when she is bored…

I really hate those book lists that seem to be made to show that someone is more well-read than others, or a list that has been generated to say that  not enough people are reading classic novels, and then they add in books like Bridget Jones’ Diaphragm or Five People You Meet in Line at 7-11 proving to me that they can’t even come up with a list of 100, 75, or even 50 books that people should read.  Who cares? (Note: that paragraph was one long run-on sentence and I refuse to fix it!)

Read what you want is what I say.  I like to read.  I have an English Literature degree and I enjoy Elmore Leonard over Jane Austin.  There are days where I want zombies over true love or a great graphic novel (yes, they count) over a two thousand page trilogy.  I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I’m addicted to Philip K. Dick.  I studied classics of the romantic periods but my favorite books are the Fletch novels.  If you are reading… good.  Pick up a romance novel, a paperback about aliens, zombies or Predators and you are reading, and that is what the authors wrote them for.  Books are for people to read!

So forget the stupid lists and start writing down what you read.  Once you hit 50, 75 or 100, go back and see just what you read and I bet the list is much better than the BBC’s 100 Books You Are a Loser if You Haven’t Read list, or The Pretentious Bastard Printed Matter You Need list.  Your list will mean a lot more than if you have ever read 100 Years of Soy Sauce or Paprika and Prejudice.  Make your own list.

So, that’s what I did.  I used to just keep all my books, but when I came to Taiwan four years ago I had to start trading books in and not collecting them, so I made a list.  Facebook did erase the list a while back and I had to piece the list back together from blogs and memory so I am missing three books (I know from the number I read each year), but this is a pretty damn solid list.  So…

The Last One Hundred and Two Books I Remember I Read and Maybe You Should Too, If You Want, But Don’t Have to Because it Doesn’t Make You Any Better if You Have, Although I Read 100% of Them, So Beat That you Pencil Necked Geek…

(The list is in reverse order because that’s the way it is on my computer and there is no way I am re-typing over one hundred titles and authors)

1. Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard (currently)
2. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
3. Bigger than Hitler, Better than Christ – The Rik Mayall
4. Predator: Cold War – Nathan Archer
5. Books of Blood Vol. 1 – Clive Barker
6. George’s Marvelous Medicine – Roald Dahl
7. King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
8. The Punisher Max Vol. 2 – Garth Ennis
9. WWE: Are We There Yet – Robert Caprio
10. The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
11. Parker the Hunter – Richard Stark/Darwyn Cooke
12. The Punisher Max Vol.1 – Garth Ennis
13. The Paper Men – William Golding
14. Iron and Silk – Mark Salzman
15. Out of Sight – Elmore Leonard
16. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
17. The Naked Sun – Isaac Asimov
18. Of Love and Other Demons – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
19. Shit My Dad Says – Justin Halpern
20. The Talking Horse and The Sad Girl and The Village Under the Sea – Mark Haddon
21. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
22. Living Between Fucks – Cry Bloxome
23. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Jane Austin
24. Unknown Man #89 – Elmore Leonard
25. Gates of Eden – Ethan Coen
26. The Amityville Horror – Jay Anson
27. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
28. Generation A – Douglas Adams
29. Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
30. Vengeance is Mine – Mickey Spillane
31. The Leaf Storm – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
32. The Masque of the Red Death – Edgar Allen Poe
33. Thai Girl – Andrew Hicks
34. Platform – Michel Houellebecq
35. The Caves of Steel – Issac Asimov
36. The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
37. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said – Philip K. Dick
38. Chinese Fairy Tales – Sun Xuegang
39. Turn Left, Turn Right – Jimmy Lao (read and translated with Eva from Chinese to English)
40. The Shack – Wm Paul Young
41. Welcome to the Monkey House – Kurt Vonnegut
42. The Short Stories – Ernest Hemingway
43. No One Writes to the Colonel – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Chinese Myths – Sun Xuegang
45. Chronicle of a Death Foretold – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
46. White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
47. RANT – Chuck Palahniuk
48. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie
49. Please Don’t Call Me Human – Wang Shuo
50. James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
51. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
52. The Gum Thief – Douglas Coupland
53. Running Scared – Gregory McDonald
54. Loop – Koji Suzuki
55. The Lake House – James Patterson (Avoid this one at all costs!!!)
56. Fletch, Too – Gregory McDonald
57. The Inheritors – William Golding
58. Freaky Deaky – Elmore Leonard
59. The Catcher in the Rye
60. Darkly Dreaming Dexter – Jeff Lindsay
61. Dearly Devoted Dexter – Jeff Lindsay
62. Dexter in the Dark- Jeff Lindsay
63. The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
64. Killshot – Elmore Leonard
65. The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
66. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
67. Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul – Douglas Adams
68. Fortress of Solitude – Jonathan Lethem
69. Werewolves in their Youth – Michale Chabon
70. Heart of Darkness / The Secret Shaker – Joseph Conrad
71. Spiral – Koji Suzuki
72. Post Office – Charles Buckowski
73. No Country For Old Men – Cormac McCarthy
74. The Cheese Monkeys – Chip Kidd
75. Peter Pan – J.M. Barrie
76. Teacher Man – Frank McCourt
77. On The Run 1-3 – Gordon Korman
78. Memories of My Melancholy Whores – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
79. Snakes & Earrings – Hitomi Kanehara
80. The October Country – Ray Bradbury
81. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
82. In The Miso Soup – Ryu Mirakami
83. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – Philip K. Dick
84. Swag – Elmore Leonard
85. A Spot of Bother – Mark Haddon
86. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
87. Ripley’s Game – Patricia Highsmith
88. Galapagos – Kurt Vonnegut
89. Carioca Fletch – Gregory McDonald
90. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
91. Pagan Babies – Elmore Leonard
92. Marathon Man – William Goldman
93. Diary – Chuck Palahnuik
94. Everything in Silico – Jim Munroe
95. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
96. Stick – Elmore Leonard
97. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
98. How to Be Good – Nick Hornby
99. War of the Worlds – HG Wells
100. Traveling with Che Guevara – Alberto Granado
101. Skylar – Gregory McDonald
102. The Invisible Man – HG Wells

I would be interested to see how many of these books my friends have read, but I don’t expect a high number since these are not classics (well, some are).  They’re just books that kept me entertained and I like to remember. 

It just feels lonely here now…  

I know I don’t come here that much, and lately I haven’t been able to type with a broken shoulder, hand and shattered fingers (along with the nose and a forehead fracture), but I came back here to try and do some writing, which is why I was here in the first place so many years ago.  I know people have moved on to other place and spaces, but one of my favorite people on Xanga, and on this Earth is gone… forever.

I sent her postcards from Taiwan when I first moved here, we used to joke about me coming there for a ‘real’ American Thanksgiving dinner, she understood Dylan and let the music take her everywhere, and she always… ALWAYS told me to keep my hair long and strong.  I think it was her love of life, her love of music, her love of her family and her love for everyone and everything around her (right down to her BooBoo Kitty) that made me love her back.

I wonder what song was the last one she heard… or let me rephrase that.  I wonder what song was the last song to touch the soul of MommaRose and make her dance one last breath.