And I thought my cats were lazy

Meet Princess Chunky.

44 lb. Princess Chunky was found last Saturday in Voorhees. Her owner lost her home and set her adrift, but she must've not waddled far before she was found. The owner also claimes that Princess is a boy, but his/her weight is so high that that cannot be determined- a vet will have to figure it out.

Wow. I have three cats that could fit into that one.

The Fleecing of Hamilton and NJ: And the headline read...

Hamilton Stuck With Land

Does this surprise anyone? Anyone??

The state Supreme Court has decided it will not weigh in on Hamilton's agreement to buy Klockner Woods.
The court's action ends the appeal process by the township and a legal battle over one of the most politically contentious issues to grip the township in recent memory.
The high court's denial of a township petition on Friday effectively enforces a lower court decision ordering Hamilton to pony up the roughly $4.5 million it owes a developer for 51 wooded acres off Klockner Avenue.

The total comes to nearly $5 mil, when all is said and done. $4.1 purchase, nearly $800,000 in interest and another $30,000 in legal fees. Now, Hamilton has to face the music and come up with the money:

Mayor John Bencivengo did not rule out any scenario yesterday, including
selling the 51 wooded acres off Klockner Avenue or renewing applications for
grants or loans contingent on the land's preservation.
But regardless of what route Hamilton takes, it appears that property
owners in the township will be footing at least part of the bill.

The rest of it, non-Hamiltonians, may be paid by low-interest state loans and a grant from Mercer county- hence, why we were ALL fleeced on this ludicrous land deal.

However, the Hamilton taxpayers will be feeling it the most, and for a long time. For the sake of their wallets, I'm sorry this fight had to end like it did. For the sake of sanity, I bet everyone's damn glad it is finally ended.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

One week only! Joss Whedon et al. has done it again.

Disappears at midnight Sunday, 7/20/08. Read the master plan when you're done.

It'll be longer than just a moment of silence

Blanton's and Ashton's has hung it up.

Moving forward

Y'know that feeling when you have too much to do? So much that you can't even get started?

I got started today. At least it's something.

The Big Read- UPDATED!

From ktbuffy via jayananda:

The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, *or not, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. (SEE UPDATE BELOW)

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Asterisk (*) the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
*4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
*5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
! 6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman $#%&!@
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
! 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
*25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
*37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
! 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
! 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
*58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
*60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
! 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
*68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
*78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
! 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
! 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
*94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I added another category - an ! in front of books that I started and either hated or they didn't hold my interest, so I didn't finish them. (In the case of #66 and #43, I got at least 3/4 of the way through and just dropped them.) I've been told to give #82 a second chance, and maybe I will. I think I was too young to appreciate #57 when I tried to read it- maybe it deserves a second chance, maybe on audio.

I also added a string of symbols after #9, which I did finish, and was so disappointed in that I was angry at the author and the time I wasted. Those symbols don't mean anything; I'm cursing Phillip Pullman out.

So, I've read 28 of them. Not bad, I guess, for a future librarian. How'd you do?

*- after Bob pointed out that I didn't post #44 and #51, I did some research to find them and cannot discover who made this list. It seems to be based on the list of the BBC's The Big Read, not the National Endowment for the Art's Big Read, which is an entirely different project. I did, however, find some posts with a complete list so I added those books back. So, it's not really based on an NEA project, but it's certainly someone's idea of fun. Still cool, huh?

If anyone finds proof that it's an NEA project, let me know and I'll correct again.

I know what I'm gonna do next weekend!

Belmar- Revelers in this Jersey shore party town can now legally drink from unregistered beer kegs and give people the finger.

Woo-hoo! Time to get liquored up and be rude!

"I'm not sure anyone even knew that making obscene gestures was illegal," Mayor Ken Pringle said. "Right after we send out our tax bills, I tend to see a few."

Same as every other Central Jersey town, I see.

Here's the real story:

One rule that's no longer on the books related to raising one's middle finger, or the many variants thereof. However objectionable it might be to some people, such a gesture is Constitutionally protected free speech, said Pringle, who is an attorney.
He said the borough was contacted by civil libertarians who questioned the legality of several municipal ordinances.
The ban on "obscene gestures," which never spelled out exactly what was and was not covered, was overly subjective, Pringle agreed. No one can recall anyone being prosecuted for violating it. Another law prohibiting people from loitering in alleyways also was axed.
And a beer keg tagging law, which Belmar enacted last year with great fanfare, withered and died after the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control said a handful of similar local laws enacted around the state requiring beer kegs to have the name, address and phone number of the person renting them was unconstitutional.

Let's just hope the bennies keep some modicum of self-restraint...

Freedom ain't free

Never let us forget that we are the land of the free only because we are the home of the brave.

Spc. Michael Edward Curtin, 23, Howell
Staff Sgt. Terry W. Hemingway, 39, Willingboro
Spc. Gil Mercado, 25, Paterson
Spc. Narson B. Sullivan, 21, North Brunswick
Spc. Kyle A. Griffin, 20, Emerson
Sgt. 1st Class Gladimir Philippe, 37, Roselle
Spc. Simeon Hunte, 23, Orange
Spc. Marlon P. Jackson, 25, Jersey City
Spc. Ryan Travis Baker, 24, Browns Mills
Spc. Marc S. Seiden, 26, Brigantine
2nd Lt. Seth J. Dvorin, 24, East Brunswick
Pfc. Bruce Miller Jr., 23, Orange
Spc. Adam Froehlich, 21, Pine Hill
2nd Lt. John T. Wroblewski, 25, Oak Ridge
Spc. Philip I. Spakosky, 25, Browns Mills
Spc. Christopher M. Duffy, 26, Brick
Sgt. Frank T. Carvill, 51, Carlstadt
Spc. Ryan E. Doltz, 26, Mine Hill
Sgt. Humberto F. Timoteo, 25, Newark
Sgt. Alan D. Sherman, 36, Wanamassa
Lance Cpl. Vincent M. Sullivan, 23, Chatham
Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, 20, Lindenwold
Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, 30, Passaic
Spc. Yoe M. Aneiros, 20, Newark
Spc. Bryan L. Freeman, 31, Lumberton
Cpl. Marc T. Ryan, 25, Gloucester City
Pfc. Stephen C. Benish, 20, Clark
Spc. David P. Mahlenbrock, 20, Maple Shade
Lance Cpl. Brian P. Parrello, 19, West Milford
Spc. Alain L. Kamolvathin, 21, Blairstown
Cpl. Sean P. Kelly, 23, Pitman
Lance Cpl. Harry R. Swain IV, 21, Millville
Sgt. Stephen R. Sherman, 27, Neptune
Pfc. Min S. Choi, 21, River Vale
Maj. Steven W. Thornton, 46, with a Fort Monmouth-based unit
Maj. John C. Spahr, 42, Cherry Hill
Staff Sgt. Anthony L. Goodwin, 33, Mount Holly
Lt. Col. Terrence K. Crowe, 44, with a Lodi-based Army Reserve unit
Capt. James M. Gurbisz, 25, Eatontown
Staff Sgt. Stephen J. Sutherland, 33, West Deptford
Staff Sgt. Edward Karolasz, 25, Kearny
1st Lt. Dennis W. Zilinski, 23, Freehold
Pfc. Ryan D. Christensen, 22, Spring Lake Heights
Sgt. Clarence L. Floyd Jr., 28, Newark
Sgt. Matthew J. Fenton, 24, Little Ferry
Pfc. Vincent M. Frassetto, 21, Toms River
1st Lt. Ashley L. (Henderson) Huff, 23, Belle Mead
Lance Cpl. Christopher B. Cosgrove III, 23, Cedar Knolls
Pfc. Donald S. Brown, 19, Succasunna
Spc. Eric G. Palacios Rivera, 21, Atlantic City
Lance Cpl. Michael A. Schwarz, 20, Carlstadt
Pfc. Joe L. Baines, 19, Newark
Pfc. Eric R. Wilkus, 20, Hamilton
Cpl. Thomas E. Saba, 30, Toms River
Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin L. Sebban, 29, of South Amboy
Pfc. Miguel A. Marcial III, 19, Secaucus
Sgt. Michael R. Hullender, 29, Little Falls
Staff Sgt. Vincenzo Romeo, 23, Lodi
Sgt. Sameer A. M. Rateb, 22, Absecon
Staff Sgt. Joseph M. Weiglein, 31, Audubon
Spc. Farid Elazzouzi, 26, Paterson
Sgt. Eric L. Snell, 35, Trenton
Pfc. David J. Bentz III, 20, Newfield
Sgt. Trista L. Moretti, 27, South Plainfield
Spc. Kareem R. Khan, 20, Manahawkin
Staff Sgt. Jason M. Butkus, 34, West Milford
Lance Cpl. Jon T. Hicks, 20, Atco
Cpl. Terrence P. Allen, 21, Pennsauken
Pfc. Luigi R. Marciante Jr., 25, Elizabeth
Sgt. Eric J. Hernandez, 26, Waldwick
Lance Cpl. Curtis A. Christensen Jr., 29, Collingswood
Maj. Dwayane Kelley, 48, South Orange
Capt. Gregory T. Dalessio, 30, Cherry Hill
Spc. Ronald R. Harrison, 25, Mt. Olive
Staff Sgt. William R. Neil, 38, Holmdel
Cpl. Steven R. Koch, 23, East Brunswick

Happy Independence Day.