The musings of an uncultured boob

Yup, that would be me.

So I was popping around on different blogs tonight, and came across the idea of making a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. I even googled the phrase and came across more and more lists. This idea is fascinating to me in many ways. First, I like to make lists. BUT even more than I like make lists, I love crossing stuff off said lists (as I complete them...of course).

Someone (and now I can't seem to re find that someone...sorry) listed they wanted to read 10 books off of the Time Magazine's All Time Top 100 novels. Sounds like a definite goal for my list, whenever I manage to get the list done. In anticipation of tackling this goal, I decided to browse the list for books I have already read...surely there is a bunch, and so basically my list might read...45. Read all the other books on the Top 100...you know, since I read an average of one book a week. and. and. and. I was in Oprah's Book Club.

Didn't really turn out the way I thought...here is what I have read:

~Are You There God, It's Me Margaret (easily 100 times as a tweenster)

~The Catcher in the Rye (during the summer that my sister and I had a goal to alternate our trash with classics...this is the one I read)

~The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (in my C.S. Lewis kick when I was 11)

~To Kill a Mockingbird (I told my kids when they started highschool that I would read every book they were assigned so that we could chat about them, and I could help them with discussion questions, etc. This is the only one I followed through on. If you couldn't tell...I rock as a Mom.)

That's it. I have read 4% of the best books of all time...and 2 of them were before I was even in junior high. While I am here and feeling VERY uncultured, I might as well take a gander at the AFI's Top 100 Movies. (I linked to Wikipedia because you have to register on the AFI.com website to download the lists and I was just that lazy.)

Apparently, I am a much more sophisticated movie watcher as I have seen 20% of the best movies. However to be quite honest, I only CHOSE to see 5 of them...the rest I saw because my Dad or Mr. P wanted to go. We went to tons of movies when I was a kid, at least one a weekend, and Mr. P LOVES movies...not really going to movies, but having lots of movie channels and DVDs.

6. Wizard of Oz (we watched annually until the monkeys scared my sister)
11. It's a Wonderful Life (once, and I didn't like it)
15. Star Wars (I had this on a VHS tape. Loved it.)
25. E.T.
41. Westside Story (in high school, actually in a class)
48. Jaws (I have seen the TBS version...does that count?)
49. Snow White
55. Sound of Music (LOVE. THIS.)
60. Raiders of the Lost Ark
62. Tootsie
64. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (6 degrees...the priest at our church was in the movie)
65. Silence of the Lambs
71. Forrest Gump
78. Rocky
94. Goodfellas (Ray Liotta...yum)
95. Pulp Fiction

Those are from the 1998 list, then a new list came out in 2007 and Close Encounters got bumped. The numbering then must all have changed, because there are duplicate numbers here...

71. Saving Private Ryan
83. Titanic
89. The Sixth Sense

The organization of this new list escapes me...

72. Shawshank Redeption (I even read the Stephen King novella/short story)
99. Toy Story

So, in summary, it appears that most of the top movies I have seen or books I have read, I did so before I turned 13. Maybe I need to work on Top 100 lists of movies and books for people who are kinda smart, but not that smart, and who go to the movies and read books, but to be entertained and not culturized.

Yup. You read it here first. Culturized. Spread it around.