Posted on 09/27/2007 8:09:20 AM PDT by MplsSteve
It's time again for my quarterly "What Are You Reading Now?" thread!
It can be anything...a NY Times bestseller, a technical journal, a trashy pulp novel...in short, anything!
DO NOT answer by saying "I'm Reading This Thread". It stopped being funny a long time ago.
Here's what I'm reading. I'm just about finished with "Street Without Joy" by Bernard Fall. It's about France's war in Vietnam from 1946-1954. Very interesting and tragic.
So, tell me. What are you reading now?
Voyage of the Space Beagle A.E. Van Vogt
Some of these are funnier than others...
- Set up a TV next to you and play instructional videos on how to improve your Monopoly game
- Hand out performance appraisals after the game.
- If somebody else joins you in jail, ask them what they're in for.
- When close to losing, ignore your turn
- Serve Cheetos. Get orange cheese dust on all parts.
- Constantly ask "Is it my turn?"
- After it's well known that all properties are bought, keep asking "Does anybody own this?"
- On your way to jail, keep saying that you were framed and are waiting for an appeal.
- If you're the wheelbarrow, push it around like a real one.
- Make other players push your game piece no matter where it is, stating that you can't reach it.
- When you're the real estate agent, tell everybody that all properties were under-valued and taken off the market indefinitely for further "analysis."
- Keep trying to go out of turn.
- When people are collecting rent from you, defiantly state "Yo Mama!"
- Count other people's moves out loud in French.
- Make your own set of Chance/Community Chest cards that "only you can use."
- Accept a call from a telemarketer and ask the other players to hold.
- Once everybody's money is laid out, turn on a fan.
- When the car passes you, ask if you can clean its windshield for extra pocket change.
- Upon landing on "Go To Jail" ask the other players to drop you a line from time to time because you'll be "lonely."
- Refuse to pay any medical bills from Community Chest stating "that bitch Hillary" was supposed to take care of it.
- Keep a magic 8-Ball on the board at all times and refer to it as "your advisor."
- After rolling the dice and landing on an opponent's space, just pretend you didn't see it and keep moving until you move on one of your own spaces.
- Haggle. Ask if opponents take coupons.
- Violently throw the dice against the wall when it's your turn and say that it's the way the original version had you do it.
- Purchase Baltic and Mediterranean. Place your hands on your hips and confidently state that "I've got big plans for this place."
- At some random point during the game, ask rhetorical questions like "If I'm not driving the car, why does it matter if there's free parking?". Then say, "Just asking."
- When passing another player, nudge their piece off the board. Ditto for home and hotel pieces.
- Make appropriate sounds for each playing piece. "Vrooooom" for car. "Ssssss" for the iron, etc.
- Upon landing on Free Parking, ask if they validate.
- When you land on Atlantic Avenue, start singing Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue." When people try to correct you, state that you just really like that song.
- At some point during the game, try to practically use the pieces. For example, wear the hat, try to iron your pants with the iron, etc.
- If you're the thimble, ask players if they need their socks darned.
- Use the green houses and red motels in your Christmas nativity scene.
- If you're the banker, blatantly embezzle money and when caught, fall to the ground and act like you were fouled. Then proceed to tell other players that your father is the President and he'll get you off the hook.
- Suggest splitting off into discussion groups to delve into why (for instance) Marvin Gardens is green, Park Place is blue, etc.
- Bring your own playing piece. Try dryer lint and state that it's good luck and that the piece has been in the family for generations.
- Whenever staying at Baltic, make sure the owner of the property knows what kind of a shithole it is.
- When passing Go and collecting $200, insist it be paid all in ones and declare it's because you're a heavy tipper and need singles.
- When you buy a hotel, let other players know that after some heated number crunching, you plan to rent out the rooms by the hour.
- Keep money in a roll with the $500 bills on the outside. When asked why, tell people you like to spend big.
- Buy up both of the utilities and constantly threaten to turn off people's power even when they don't land on a property. Then ask "Who's the man?!"
- When you land in jail, hum "Nobody Knows" until you are released.
- When people start buying hotels, say that the place is going to hell in a handbasket.
- Paste Ed McMahon's face in the Free Parking space stating "You may already be a winner!"
Have you read Brave New World?
He's the guy that recruited both Aldrich Ames (CIA) and Robert Hanssen (FBI).
Liberals and people with no moral compasses (but, I repeat myself) make fine recruiting material for any enemy.
I just finished Winds of War by Herman Wouk. So, now I am reading War and Remembrance - the follow up.
“The undersea war, 1939-45”
Did you see the new Pride and Prejudice movie? My daughters LOVE it, and have watched it many times.
The Dragonriders of PERN series is actually very complex and serious reading throughout! I’ve loved those books since I was a kid. :-) Re-read them over the past 30 years probably a hundred times.
I've read a few of The Dragonriders of Pern series, and this past year read all of the Ender series save the new Shadow series. I think you've got your son some good reads!
I'm also reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. As far as I'm concerned it's the only worthwhile thing Hemingway ever wrote, and it's only interesting if you start with the assumption that Hemingway was a jerk.
“Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy.
Reading “Paris 1916”. Its the story of the aftermath of WWI and the negotiations of the Versailles Treaty, Fascinating history....set the stage for many of todays conflicts!
Also “Looming Tower”. Story of growth of al Qaeda and path to 911. Just starting it.
You are going to love Lonesome Dove. One of the best books I have ever read. (Watch the miniseries too - you won’t be disappointed)
Just finished Brad Thor’s ‘The First Commandment’, and will start Karen Kingsbury’s ‘Waiting for Morning’ this afternoon.
“Children of God, An American Epic” by Idaho author Vardis Fisher. A novelized history of the Mormons. And interesting “take” by an apostate Mormon who later became what I long ago named an “evangelical atheist.”
“The Holocaust Industry, Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering” by Norman G. Finkelstein. A critical view of popular perceptions of the Nazi Holocaust by a Jew whose parents suffered through it.
My interests don’t just run to religious/cultural issues. I’m also working on “ruby & sapphire” by Richard Hughes, the huge and definitive work on gem corundums.
The Bible, Freerepublic, North American Windpower Magazine.
I finished that one last month. I didn't like it very much.
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