The amount today is three! Three years since I started Rat’s Reading as a standalone book blog.
Book Giveaways
Before I get into the year in review portion of this broadcast, here’s the fun stuff. I’m going to give away a couple of books from my personal collection. Two separate contests though.
According to the C.I.A. there are 266 nations, dependent areas, and other entities on Earth. Since I installed Google Analytics a little over a year ago, visitors from 116 of these places have visited the web site. For contest #1, the first commenter to intuit the largest country in terms of population from which Rat’s Reading has not had a visitor will win Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity (pre-read).
For the second contest, there is no right answer. My mother loves dumb jokes. For example:
Ask me if I’m an orange.
Are you an orange?
No.
To enter contest #2, leave a comment with a clean, dumb joke so I can tell it to my mom. The prize for this one is Matt Ruff’s Bad Monkeys, certified pre-read. Winner will be picked randomly from all joke-containing comments.
- Enter as many times as you would like for either contest.
- An entry is one comment. Multiple guesses or multiple jokes per comment invalidate that entry. But comment with both an answer for contest #1 and a joke for contest #2 is fine and counts toward both.
- Each comment for contest #2 must have a different joke.
- If you enter contest #1 multiple times, each entry must also have a different dumb joke for contest #2.
- Entry comments must have an email address so I can contact the winners for your mailing/shipping addresses. Put it in the email address field (it won’t be displayed).
- I will delete any offensive or dirty jokes. I will be the sole arbiter of whether or not a joke is appropriate. I will also delete all your other entries if you submit something I delete.
- Contest open anywhere I can legally ship. The U.S. government forbids commerce with certain countries.
- Contest #1 open until someone gets the right answer. Contest #2 will be open for two weeks (3 September).
Contest #2 is now closed. I will announce winners later today.
To win Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity leave a comment with your guess as to which is the largest country in terms of population to not have a visitor to Rat’s Reading, as of 20 August 2008. Multiple entries are still allowed, but each additional entry must contain a dumb, clean joke.
FYI, Russia, China, and Viet Nam are not the correct country. All three have provided this blog with visitors. Keep guessing. As a hint/guide, take a look at this list of countries by population.
Year in Review
It’s been a fun year at Rat’s Reading.
I’ve gotten some responses from authors. Joe Abercrombie had something to say about both my reviews of his books that I read in the last year. Former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, N. Gregory Mankiw, liked my review of an old edition of his textbook. And after I gave K. S. Augustin’s book a pretty bad review, she quoted the part where I wrote that it wasn’t the worst book I’d read in 2007. Just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with that. She ought to get something positive out of risking having me review her work. She’d seen some of my bad reviews.
For most of the last year I’ve been participating at Wordsy, Hans Dekker’s Digg clone for the book world. The idea is to have a literary focused site where people could vote to prominence the stories they liked. Or was. Participation dropped off during the first half of this year and there hasn’t really been any activity for a month or so. Which is too bad, cause I loved the idea. I got to talk books on the Wordsy podcast a few times. There’s not a lot of things I like more than talking about books.
I added four new features in the last year. First was opinion/editorial commentary not connected with actual book reviews. That’s been somewhat of a mixed bag. I haven’t made it a regularly scheduled thing and I probably should. That would force me to seek out and ponder issues in the book world.
In January I started participating sporadically in the Sunday Salon organized by Deb Hamel. That hasn’t worked out like I’d hoped, mostly because of the large number of participants. It’s become too much of a Week in Review
thing for me to care about.
The third feature is My Pile of Books
. This one i almost completely for my own benefit. All it is is me periodically listing the books I’ve added to my pretty freaking large (400 books and counting) pile of books I own and want to read. Most of my time lately has been spent in the Bellingham area, where I frequently find free books that intrigue me in front of Michael’s Books. I’m going to miss that place when I return to Seattle full time.
And lastly, I started a Free Books roundup about a month ago. So far that’s been a success. I’ve found all sorts of books that interest me by regularly combing the web for free stuff.
I did change the design of the site as well. With the new features it needed some changes. And sometimes one needs to change things just for the sake of changing things.
I really should mention the reading in the last year, shouldn’t I? I think it’s been one of the best years I’ve had as far as reading quality. Ian McEwan, Michael Chabon, Cormac McCarthy, Matt Ruff, Tobias Buckell, Scott Lynch, Erik Larson and Denis Johnson come to mind. My buying guide post (a.k.a. best read in 2008) in November may prove difficult to write.
What’s coming at Rat’s Reading? I’m not sure. I’d still like to get one other person to write for the site. My attempts to get friends to write haven’t been successful. I want to have the site cover a broader selection of books, and to perhaps develop a discussion dynamic with another contributor for the site. In general, I want to develop more of a discussion feel for the site. What do I mean by more of a discussion feel
? I don’t know yet. That’s the tricky thing. There are plenty of web forums for discussing books. There’s no need for something that’s just another forum site. I want something that is personal to me, and yet is still conversational. I’ve got an idea or two I’m mulling over, but we’ll see what comes to pass.
And lastly, thank you to everyone who thought my mental masturbation was worth reading. Without you… uh… well… it’s an awfully nice ego-boost that someone reads this thing.
Okay I have a REALLY good clean joke it is going to make you laaaugh okay here it is:
Somewhere in a small little town inside a classroom he bell rang and the class was in session being taught by a substitute teacher. A student walks in very late and the teacher asks “who are you?” he said “I’m a student in this class sorry I’m late I was throwing pebbles in the lake” the teacher angrily tells him to take a seat. A few minutes after that another two students come in. The teacher asks “who are you guys?” they answer ” sorry we’re late we were throwing pebbles in re lake” the teacher has a questioning look on his face but says nothing and tells them to take their seats. Right after this happens another student comes in and he is soaking wet! The teacher exclaims “and who are you?” while thinking “why is this kid all wet?” the student responds, “I’m pebbles”
Hehe I hope that makes you and your mom laugh :)
I know another one, hopefully you haven’t heard it my seven year old cousin told me this when she was three it was soo adorable :)
Knock knock
who’s there
boo
boo who
why’re you crying?
Hehe :)
ok these are pretty cheesey…in my opion but maybe your mom will like it
What does Peter Pan eat?
Wendy’s
Oh jeez, I forgot to spell check. That’s suppose to say opinion up there…
Why do they put bells on cows?
Because their horns don’t work.
And on with cheesiness!
Okay so I’m going to take a random guess and say Russia.
Here’s another joke. What’s orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot.
Here is a cheesy one I have always loved.
Two muffins are in an oven. One muffin says,”Is it hot in here?”
The other muffin says, “Holy cow, a talking muffin!”
My girl scout troop was obsessed with this joke in third grade. Therefore, you’re pretty much guaranteed stupid and clean.
An fruit seller had to leave town, so he left a robot in charge of his stand. Now, this robot could only say three phrases, so the man chose them very carefully.
The robot’s first customer was a young woman. “How much do the these oranges cost?”
“25 cents, 25 cents.”
“Are they fresh?”
“Fresh, fresh, very, very fresh!”
“Can I buy one?”
“If you don’t, somebody else will!”
The next customer was a boy. “Hey mister, how much do these oranges cost?”
“25 cents, 25 cents.”
“Are they fresh?”
“Fresh, fresh, very, very fresh!”
“Can I buy one?”
“If you don’t, somebody else will!”
But then a robber came to the stand. “Gimme all your money!”
“25 cents, 25 cents.”
“Hey, I said gimme all your money! Are you being fresh with me, you little punk?”
“Fresh, fresh, very, very fresh!”
“Okay, that’s it, give me all your money or I’m going to blow your head off.”
“If you don’t, somebody else will!”
I’ve heard variations, but that’s my favorite. The best alternate punchline is, “Not today but maybe tomorrow!”
Are we allowed to answer the first question on here? I’m totally guessing here…but ummm…Russia, maybe? And if this is wrong, can I keep guessing?
-Lauren
okay i have another one it’s in spanish which i hope you’ll understand because it is just HILARIOUS well to me anyway but your mom might enjoy it i’ll translate but it’s funnier if you understand spanish anywho here goes:
habia un patito que se llamaba resistol un dia se callo y se pego
okay “habia un patito que se llamaba” that means there was a duckie named” “resistol” means glue ” un dia se callo” that means “one day he fell” “y se pego” which means “and he glued himself/and he hurt himself” pego means to be glued and also to hurt oneself so i hope you get that joke i love it soo much it’s just soo darn funny : )
here’s another:
what’s green and has wheels?
grass i was just kidding about the wheels
hahahaha i really hope that made you laugh i thought that one was hilarious hehe
why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
because he was dead
okay that one wasn’t too funny it was more scary to me than funny but maybe you guys will enjoy it : ) poor monkey though : (
You can (and should) answer the first question as a comment here. However, Russia is not correct. (You can make more guesses, you just have to include different jokes each time. That way I don’t get someone who just goes does the list of countries with each comment.)
okay i just remembered this one joke from calvin and hobbes it made me laugh so much and hopefully it will make you laugh too, i can’t remember all of it but it goes something like this:
teacher: calvin go put your tiger in your locker
calvin: but he’ll suffocate!!!
teacher: (sighs) fine at least put him under your desk
*calvin puts hobbes under his desk
moments later during a test calvin whispers to hobbes
calvin: pssst, what’s 2 + 2 ?
hobbes: 22
THis is courtesy of my seven year old.
Why did the cookie go to the doctor?
ecause he was feeling crummy.
I want to say China. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong.
I’d love to enter contest #2.
One day, a blonde goes into a store. She gets an item and walks up to the cashier. She says,”I’d like to buy this TV”.
He says,”Sorry, we don’t sell to blondes”.
The next day, she dyes her hair red and goes back in the store, but the same thing happens.
Finally, she shaves her head and goes back in. When she tries to buy it for the third time, the man refuses.
She says, “How the hell do you know I’m blonde?”.
He replied, “First of all, that’s a microwave.”
Still trying for book #2…
What do you call a fish with no eye ?
FSH !
A guy walks in for his interview.
The interviewer asks, “Whats the first thing you notice about me?”
The guy responds, “Why, You don’t have any ears.”
Interviewer: “Get out! Send in the next guy.”
2nd guy walks in for his interview.
The interviewer asks, “Whats the first thing you notice about me?”
The guy responds, “Why, You don’t have any ears.”
Interviewer: “Get out! Send in the next guy.”
This guy on the way out says to the 3rd guy “What ever you do, don’t say anything about his not having any ears – He’ll kick you right out.”
3rd guy walks in for his interview.
The interviewer asks, “Whats the first thing you notice about me?”
The guy looks at the interviewer intently for a few seconds and responds, “Why, you wear contact lenses don’t you.”
The interviewer says, “That’s impressive that you’re so observant. How could you tell I wear contact lenses?”
3rd guy “Because you don’t have any darn ears to hang glasses on.”
teeheehee.. I know, that’s so bad. :P
Ooh, I love this one. :)
CAUGHT SPEEDING
Woman: Is there a problem, Officer?
Officer: Ma’am, you were speeding.
Woman: Oh, I see.
Officer: Can I see your license please?
Woman: I’d give it to you but I don’t have one.
Officer: Don’t have one?
Woman: Lost it 4 times for drunk driving.
Officer: I see…Can I see your vehicle registration papers please.
Woman: I can’t do that.
Officer: Why not?
Woman: I stole this car.
Officer: Stole it?
Woman: Yes, and I killed and hacked up the owner.
Officer: You what?
Woman: His body parts are in plastic bags in the trunk if you want
to see.
The Officer looks at the woman, slowly backs away to his car, and
calls for back up. Within minutes 5 police cars circle the car. A senior
officer slowly approaches the car, clasping his half drawn gun.
Officer 2: Ma’am, could you step out of your vehicle please!
The woman steps out of her vehicle.
Woman: Is there a problem sir?
Officer 2: One of my officers told me that you have stolen this
car and murdered the owner.
Woman: Murdered the owner?
Officer 2: Yes, could you please open the trunk of your car,
please.
The woman opens the trunk, revealing nothing but an empty trunk.
Officer 2: Is this your car, ma’am?
Woman: Yes, here are the registration papers.
The first officer is stunned.
Officer 2: One of my officers claims that you do not have a driving
license.
The woman digs into her handbag and pulls out a clutch purse and
hands it to the officer. The officer snaps open the clutch purse and
examines the license. He looks quite puzzled.
Officer 2: Thank you ma’am, one of my officers told me you didn’t
have a license, that you stole this car, and that you murdered and hacked
up the owner.
Woman: Betcha the lying sob told you I was speeding too.
A blonde walked into a bar
OUCHH!!!
Why do they polish the tanks in Helsinki everyday?
To protect the FINNISH!!!
(my fav dumb joke)
My entry is for contest #2
How do you make a tissue do a little dance?
A: Put a boogie in it!
LOL
Crystal Adkins
crystaladkins722@gmail.com
Q: Why is it a bad idea to cross a teacher with a vampire?
A: She would give too many blood tests.
I’m going to guess Vietnam.
I don’t really tell jokes, but a friend tells this one quite regularly:
What is brown and sticky?
A stick.
um, running out of jokes but here goes this one i heard last year
what did the tree tell the other tree?
i’m tired
what did the dog tell the cat?
woof
haha, you’ve probably heard that one though, i’ve heard it more than five times already : )
is it india?
The answer is not India.
darn! i thought for sure it would be : )
hmm, is it brazil?