I found a link to this article in the Onion. How very apt in light of this article on NPR.

(As a side note, I find it kinda sad when if you read 5-9 books a year, you're considered an avid reader..)

I was talking to my friend Olivia yesterday & she told me that Masterpiece Theater is doing a big Jane Austen event starting next weekend - all of her novels will be shown between now & March. And they're showing the "real" Pride & Prejudice - the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle version. I've been on a bit of an Austen kick lately - just finished reading "Lost in Austen", a choose-your-own-adventure novel (very cute), as well as an Austen biography.

So, I'm hereby declaring 2008 the year of Austen. I'm going to make reading the complete works of Austen my recreational reading goal for this year. Who's with me?

I just started a new job & the adjustment period is exhausting me. Bring on Christmas - I could use a few days r&r. Thanks to him and her for inviting me to spend the holidays with them.

So Kirsten from my knitting group (much less dorky than it sounds...) tagged me for this meme. I don't mind participating in stuff like this now & again, but I flat-out refuse to pass it on to anyone else. So not tagging anyone unless you want to be tagged.

THE RULES:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

THE THINGS:
1. I like to eat food, one type at a time. So burger & fries - eat the burger first, then the fries.
2. Canada is the third country I've lived in. I wonder if it will be the last.
3. I have a tendency to book flights for the wrong day/month. 3 times in the last 5 years. Last time, I went to Florida for a week, but booked my ticked for a month (checked the date, but not the month!). I'm a little paranoid about it now.
4. I have read 190 books so far this year. I'm aiming for 200 but now that I'm not spending 3 hours a day on the subway, I don't think I'll make it...
5. In a corollary to 4, I go to the library at least once a week. I don't think this is weird, but I recognize that other people probably think so.
6. When I was 2, I tried to climb my dad's chest of drawers and pulled it over on myself. It took my mom & 2 nurses to hold me still enough for them to put stitches in my cheek.
7. This is much harder than I thought it would be. So, what do you guys think is random or weird about me?

So my brother called me last week to tell me that he and his friend had just gone to a casting call for the new season of Beauty & the Geek.

The local station just added a slideshow of the auditions:
This is my brother...

And this is Kenny...

Too funny. Now to see if either of them get called back... (In case you don't know them, they don't normally look like this. They geeked up for the casting call.)