Random Facts

I was tagged yesterday by fellow Oshkosh writer, Stacie, over here at Raspberry Latte. Apparently, the game has been going around the blogosphere and I was ignorant of it.

So -- being a good sport instead of grousing about getting tagged in an unknown game, I will comply. Being the Word Nerd, mine are all connected to words, writing and/or books.

Random Fact #5 -- I share a birthday with Thomas Hardy. (Just the day, not the date, obviously. He was born in 1840.) Of all the novelists in the world who I could have the same birthday as, it's unfortunate that it's Hardy. Hardy wrote "The Mayor of Casterbridge," and "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," two exceptionally depressing books.

Random Fact #4 -- In college, I watched the movie version of "Pride and Prejudice" instead of reading the novel. No disrespect to Jane Austen, but really, after that first line, the book really is nothing but dancing and talking. If I was going to slog through it all, six hours of Colin Firth dancing and talking in the A&E version made it much more bearable. (And Dr. Borders, if you're out here in the blogosphere, well, now you know. Sorry.)

Random Fact #3 -- As best I can figure, I've read "Watership Down" more times than any other novel. It's possible that as a kid, there was some other book that I read more, but for the sake of argument, I'll go with Watership Down for most read novel. My roommates in college at one point called it "that rabbit book," but while the characters are indeed rabbits, it's not really about rabbits. I think the count stands at five.

Random Fact #2 -- I've never read "Lord of the Flies," "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Catcher in the Rye." In preparation for doing my random facts, I googled "most famous novel." While that didn't garner a definitive answer for the most famous novel these three came up several times. Blame my struggle with classics or my English teachers. Admittedly, in my quest to read more classics in 2006, none of these is on the list.

Random Fact #1 -- I hate playing word games. Scrabble, UpWords, Boggle. They should really be called letter games, not word games, because what you get is the letters, not the words. You have to make the words. And get high point letters on triple word scores. The pressure is too much.

So, now that I've been tagged, I guess that makes it my turn to tag back. My victims? (Victims? Did I say victims? I meant choices.) Streetwise and The Fox Valley Geeks. The clock is ticking, gentlemen.