I kept a list of all the books I read in 2003 and decided to make it an annual tradition, so here’s my list for this year:

Myst: The Book of D’ni – Rand Miller, David Wingrove
Retief! – Keith Laumer
Wild At Heart – John Eldredge
Dust and Conscience – Truong Tran
Reunion – Katie Hern
On Writing – Stephen King
The Firm – John Grisham
The Visitor – Lori Wick
The Communist Manifesto – Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
Salem’s Lot – Stephen King
Dolores Claiborne – Stephen King
Lyon’s Pride – Anne McCaffrey
The Pelican Brief – John Grisham
1949 – Morgan Llywelyn
Everything’s Eventual – Stephen King
The Case for Easter – Lee Strobel
Nightmares and Dreamscapes – Stephen King
Different Seasons – Stephen King
A New Kind of Christian – Brian McLaren
Separate Parts – Martha King
The Teeth of the Tiger – Tom Clancy
From Beirut to Jerusalem – Thomas L. Friedman
So You Want to Be a Wizard – Diane Duane
Deep Wizardry – Diane Duane
High Wizardry – Diane Duane
A Wizard Abroad – Diane Duane
A Wizard Alone – Diane Duane
Skeleton Crew – Stephen King
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling
Night Shift – Stephen King
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt – Edmund Morris
Theodore Rex – Edmund Morris
The Devil’s Code – John Sandford
The Hanged Man’s Song – John Sandford
The Church on Earth – Ronald Knox
Foundation – Isaac Asimov
Foundation and Empire – Isaac Asimov
Second Foundation – Isaac Asimov
The 9/11 Commission Report
The Los Angeles Diaries – James Brown
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon
The Empress Files – John Sandford
Fighting Words – James Charlton

Total: 43

I sure am:

Say hi to my new toy: the Fujifilm S3000.

The recent Weblog Awards made me realize certain things about how I view blogging nowadays.

There are general categories floating around out there that most bloggers can identify with: personal, media, design, politics, religion. I have my own categories, and they don’t directly have anything to do with the ones I just mentioned: thought-provoking, pretty, photo-envy, word-envy, and opinionated. There’s also Family, Christianity, Fiction, News and Questions.

Now my blogreading preferences are changing once again, however, in terms of not only topics but also timeliness. Military blogs are probably my favorite sort of blogs to read right now – I just found Training for Eternity today – as are moderately liberal blogs like Michael Totten and Roger L. Simon. Also, food blogs like Chocolate & Zucchini are a daily stop; Instapundit usually gives me a good idea of what’s being linked or discussed right now in the blogosphere; the only photoblog I manage to visit on a semi-regular basis is Heather Champ’s. And Hugo may not realize this, but his is one of my favorite blogs to read, period, when it comes to thought-provoking content.

Okay, enough blog-whoring. As for this blog: I had originally wanted to gradually make Creative Slips a storytelling blog, because that’s what I do best, but it’s difficult to dredge up any inspiration on a regular basis when I have so many other commitments already pleading for attention. Writing a good story on a whim is much harder than it looks. But I’ll get to that, never fear; just because I don’t write the stories down doesn’t mean they cease to exist.

P.S. My blogroll also serves as my list of bookmarks when I’m away from my personal laptop. Just an FYI.

‘Tis the season to be jolly. Or in this case, ’tis the season to self-reflect!

Recently, a friend of mine and I were talking about the compliments we like getting, and we realized that there are physical compliments and emotional ones. The physical kind points to the way we dress or style our bodies which attracts admiration from others; the emotional kind stems from positive feedback we receive on deeds we do or abilities and skills we use which also garner attention from people.

This might seem like extravagant bragging, but I’ll ask anyway: what kind of compliments do you like receiving? Also, what kind of compliments do you tend to receive on a regular basis?

I’d like to know what some of my college instructor friends think about this article.

I’ve had my own share of experiences with instructors who went beyond the class boundaries to criticize the current presidential administration or foreign/domestic policies that have nothing to do with what we’re discussing. One notable exception is my English Lit professor who is a pretty fair-minded guy, and he tends to be more objective about current events than some of his own students, so I don’t mind when he talks about something Bush or the U.S. is doing. For one thing, he actually relates it to a discussion topic; for another, he doesn’t dwell on politics for the entire class session. It’s when the instructor goes half-cocked and starts spouting anti-Bush ramblings which take up valuable class time that I get very annoyed. (And that’s putting it mildly.)

So yes, I would gladly buy a t-shirt that says “Shut Up and Teach,” and I would wear it to class. If anything, the expression on my instructor’s face would be worth it.

(Via JJOSTM)

Does anybody listen to classic rock? If so, what are your favorites hits?

The word “classic” might throw one off, since this era of rock is still considered the best by some, preferable to the schlock that comes out today. Lately, I’ve been listening to Steely Dan’s “Do It Again” because it fits my mood. Since my tastes in music are pretty eclectic nowadays, it’s unlikely I’ll get sick of this song anytime soon.