So in an effort to get the post- juices flowing, here's an easy one (I stole it from someone's VOX):

Kitty asks you to name a book you started reading but never finished.

Here’s mine:

The Namesake

Jhumpa Lahiri

Let’s get into the wayback machine, shall we?

Skip to Christmas '05, I have recently moved my kit-and-caboodle all the way back across the country. I'm in LA. AGAIN. I am broke. AGAIN. And it's Christmas, UGH! But surprisingly, I make it through the holiday with my sanity and a few nice gifts, one of which is Lahiri's first novel The Namesake. So I settle down to read it, but somehow it just doesn't take. Without the rumble of the subway or the knowledge that the story will end in 20 pages, I just can't get into it. A few months later I try again but the thought of an arranged marriage and this poor woman pregnant and isolated in the middle of Cambridge, Mass. makes me sad (and COLD). I put the book down and it stays down until…

Cut to spring 2007, (or now, for those of you still paying attention) and I read that Mira Nair's big screen adaptation of The Namesake is opening March 9th (that's today, folks!) Now, I feel ridiculous. This book has literally been sitting on my shelf, unread for YEARS, and the thing that has finally shamed me into finishing it is that I want to see the movie! But I have a rule about reading the book first. So now I am reminded of “T”, another NY friend who has since fallen off my radar. “T” was my movie buddy and the person from whom I adopted the "read the book first, see the original before the remake, eat your dinner before your dessert" rule. I can't stop laughing as I recall walking up to meet him one night long ago, on the ticket holders line to see "Bram Stoker's Dracula" at the now defuncked Paramount theater. Seeing him desperately trying to skim the last few chapters of the signet classic edition before being let into the theater, is among the most hilarious memories I have of T. Maybe you had to be there, but seriously, he looked pretty ridiculous.

So I will try to finish The Namesake this weekend before I let myself spend $ on the movie. I mean, how can I pass up the chance to see Kumar as Gogol!?

OK, so if there is anyone out there still reading: Tell me what you're currently NOT reading :)

But I really want this:

Here's some more istuff that made me smile. And here are a few funny iskits. My cuz and I laughed at these for, like, a half hour.

OK, he looks kind of like a monk in this picture, but trust me he’s a vampire.

Did everybody see him totally bite his captor in the neck in the first 1/2hour of FOX's crazy-mega-4 hour-season premier last night??!. (If not, then this article will provide a recap and a quick laugh) That was so crazy! The second it happened my cuz and I both yelled "LOST BOYS!" at the top of our lungs and then dissolved in a heap. Good thing I was taping it because we were laughing so hysterically we fully missed the next scene.

Unfortunately, that was the high point of the eppy for me. Sure, I expected Jack to be free from the Chinese, clean shaven, and kicking ass in LA by minute 3 - but after that the rest of the premier was rather sluggish. Plus, here's a note to the writers: President Wayne is irritating. Make him evil, make him good, make him whatever you want but please people don't make him wishy-washy and insecure, because it’s really boring!

In other vampire news, there's actually talk of a sequel.

Q: When would these two luminaries ever be mentioned in the same breadth?
A: When discussing the day of my birth, of course!

Got this from Hot Links & Gumbo ( via Cruft)

1. Go to Wikipedia (not to be confused with Wikia, although that's fun, too).
2. In the Search box, type your birth month and day (but not year).
3. List three events that happened on your birthday.
4. List two important birthdays and one interesting death.
5. List any holidays
6. Post it.

According to the Wiki, April 21 is notable for being the day …

Romulus and Remus founded Rome (753 BC), women in France received the right to vote (1944) and about 100,000 students gathered in Tiananmen Square to commemorate the late Chinese reform leader Hu Yaobang (1989).

2 interesting Births
Two notable Italians: Ludovico Carracci and Tony Danza

1 Death
Nina Simone, American singer and pianist (d. 2003)

If Wiki says these are holidays I guess I believe it... but none of them ever got me out of school.

* Bahá'í Faith - First day of the festival of Ridván.
* Roman Empire - the Parilia was held in honor of Pales.
* Rome - city birthday.
* Sunni Islam - Mawlid, Prophet Muhammad's birthday (2005).
* Tiradentes - Brazil.
* Grounation Day in Rastafari movement.
* Texas - San Jacinto Day

Rothko at MOCA

Others have already said it, so all I can do is just nod in agreement and offer a few links. This is a really nice show. The works are beautiful and the exhibition is totally manageable (who needs another eight room, totally overwhelming retrospective? Not me). Eight paintings are just enough to get you thinking and the work fits this odd space rather perfectly. Plus MOCA at Pac Design Ctr is FREE! Yay, FREE.

While I was putting all or decorations away my cousin and I were trying to remember all the words to that crazy song. We spent 20 minutes arguing over if it was 11 or 12 freakin' lords a leapin'. Finally we called on wikipedia to settle it and discovered that we had both totally forgotten the pipers piping! After that I thought I'd put together a Post-Christmas post. I found this while searching for images. We have the same exact tree but my cousin's cat is far too nervous to help with the decorating :)

Hope everyone survived and even managed to have a good time with fam and friends this Christmas! I am trying to be good, to stay on my budget and remember all the things I already have in my life to be grateful for. Here's to a happy, healthy '07!

Ruth Bernhard
Draped Torso, 1962

Ruth Bernhard, a legendary San Francisco photographer who captured sculptural images of the female form and inspired generations of artists, died Dec on 18th at her Pacific Heights apartment. She was 101.

OK, I know it's been a while but I PROMISE I'll post more regularly in '07. Hope everyone had a great holiday season!

Right. So I’m pretty much dying to see the new James Bond flick, but I just can’t square the current tk prices with my budget (it’s the beginning of a very leeeeeeeeean season for Kitty). So, I’ve been consoling myself by reading all the (mostly favorable) reviews and ogling photos of Mr. Bond, er, I mean Mr. Caig, on the internet. Came across afore mentioned “gun barrel” post the other day and totally spent a needless hour trying to rate all the 007 opening bits. It’s quite fun. If you’ve got some time to kill, check it out.

He may not be able to drive a stick shift, but I still think he'll be as good if not better than the last 5 Bonds.

Hope you had a great day, Whoopi

From the CBS News website:

CBS) The 2005-06 season marks Correspondent Ed Bradley's 25th on 60 MINUTES. He joined the broadcast during the 1981-82 season. He also anchors and reports hour-long specials.

Bradley's consummate skills as a broadcast journalist and his distinctive body of work have been recognized with numerous awards, including 19 Emmys, the latest for a segment that reported the reopening of the 50-year-old racial murder case of Emmett Till. He received three Emmys at the 2003 awards: a Lifetime Achievement Emmy; one for a 60 MINUTES report on brain cancer patients, "A New Lease on Life" (April 2002); and another for his hour on 60 MINUTES II about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, "The Catholic Church on Trial" (June 2002).

Bradley's 60 MINUTES interview with condemned Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (March 2000) was the only television interview ever given by the man guilty of one of the worst terrorist acts on American soil; it also earned Bradley an Emmy. His reporting on the worst school shooting in American history, "Columbine" (April 2001), revealed on 60 MINUTES II that authorities ignored telling evidence with which they might have prevented the massacre.

Other hourlong reports by Bradley have prompted praise and action: "Death by Denial" (June 2000) won a Peabody Award for focusing on the plight of Africans dying of AIDS and helped convince drug companies to donate and discount AIDS drugs; "Unsafe Haven" (April 1999) spurred federal investigations into the nation's largest chain of psychiatric hospitals; and "Town Under Siege" (December 1997), about a small town battling toxic waste, was named one of the Ten Best Television Programs of 1997 by Time magazine.

I stole this pic from La Crafty Chica. Check out her site, it’s really fun!

If you happen to be in New York this month you can see the rest of this amazing show.