I love wandering around at night. I also love taking photographs. Combining the two is tricky. The light is low, and it's way too cumbersome to walk around with a tripod. Also, most of the people wandering around at that time of night are drunk and/or violent. Some of those people want to punch you or steal your camera.

All of which is why I got myself a 50mm f1.8 lens. It's much smaller than the lens I normally use, making getaways that much easier. The smaller profile also calls less attention to itself while I'm shooting that college kid barfing all over his girlfriend outside the Twins. The large aperture is great for low light situations. Plus, the lens is relatively inexpensive, so if and when some tweaker decides to karate kick me in the face, I won't be out so much when he cracks my glass all meth-ninja style.

Me likey.

My sister lived in Germany at the time, which was all Nena and Falco and Sprockets, completely devoid of American culture. She'd send money for blank VHS tapes and I'd fill them, six hours at a time, with what I thought every American needed to be watching in the 80s. MTV videos, Dallas, Vikings games, and sitcoms like Night Court. She'd send the tapes back after she was done with them, along with letters explaining what she did and didn't like. Then I'd try adjust my recordings to better suit my audience. It was fun, like programming my own TV station at age 12.

I've asked several people about early video stores in their neighborhood, and received mixed responses. In our neighborhood, there was a surprising number of video stores, and all of them were independently owned. It seemed like every middle-aged couple with the ability to invest a couple grand suddenly opened a video store. My favorites were All-American Video (which seemed to employ weirdos exclusively) and Late Night Video (which was open until 11pm!). In addition, however, there was a tiny shop we called "the hole in the wall" that couldn't have been much bigger than the average gas-station men's room. Another shop had a 90% Betamax collection. Stores opened and closed all the time. Every gas station in the neighborhood also had a crappy video collection -- usually bad action movies and softcore porn, the type of entertainment enjoyed by the kind of people who go to the Milk House to shop for groceries and cough syrup, and maybe a few French ticklers from the men's room vending machine.

The thing is, I can't think of a modern-day equivalent to the mom & pop video store. What trend today inspires dozens of independent businesses to crop up all over the place, with hopeful entry-level investors banking on cashing in on this newfangled craze? None. You don't exactly see iPhone accessory shops taking over the old pet store on the corner.

Ultimately, all the stores failed, except for one: Video Vision, which became a successful chain, and now features not only video, DVD and game rentals but also tanning beds and a Ticketmaster outlet. Late Night Video survived longer than all the others, but eventually became a Mr. Movies, and then closed when Hollywood Video finally moved into the neighborhood.

All video rental stores will probably tank in about five years. By then we'll all have video devices in our abdomens.

Just to announce to those who didn't already know: As of this month of July, my girlfriend Christa and I are officially living together. It's a good match, for many reasons, one of which is that we both really, really like words. We both majored in English. We both have blogs [link]. But best of all, we both have a lot of books, and now that we're living together, we've been able to co-mingle our personal collections, put them into all kinds of geeky order, and get far too excited about strapping on our spectacles and reading the living shit of of them.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this, other than as an excuse to re-open the comments to my fellow nerds and to put this list in writing for some undetermined future purpose, but here goes.

Below is a list of our current fiction section. (Yes! We have sections! Fiction, poetry, drama, reference, general nonfiction, art, web design, graphic novels, how-to, cookbooks, and sports, to be exact.) Please don't call me/us crazy.

What I'm asking is, if you were faced with this collection, what would you read first? Now, it's true that I've already read some of these books before, but I have no qualms about re-reading books. That's why you own books in the first place.

What would you read? What should I read?

* I was gonna re-open comments for this post, but I deleted all the comment code out of my template (to prevent lapses just like this!) and I can't put it all back in for just one post. Sorry kids! But I'd still like to hear your feedback, so email me at bchase@gmail.com. And let's face it, if you're willing to read through this huge nerdy list and then offer comments, going to your email is not much of a hurdle.

Alexie, Sherman
- The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven
- The Toughest Indian in the World

Ali, Monica
- Brick Lane

Amis, Martin
- House of Meetings

Anderson, Sherwood
- Winesburg, Ohio

Atwood, Margaret
- The Blind Assassin
- Bluebird's Egg
- Bodily Harm
- Cat's Eye
- The Edible Woman
- The Handmaid's Tale (2)
- Life Before Man
- The Robber Bride (2)
- Surfacing
- Wilderness Tips

Austen, Jane
- Mansfield Park
- Pride and Prejudice
- Sense and Sensibiity

Auster, Paul
- The Brooklyn Follies
- The New York Trilogy

Balzac, Honore de
- Droll Stories

Bank, Melissa
- The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
- The Wonder Spot

Barnes, Julian
- Love, etc.

Baxter, Charles
- The Feast of Love (2)
- The Soul Thief

Berg, Elizabeth
- The Year of Pleasures

Belle, Jennifer
- High Maintenance

Berry, Steve
- The Romanov Prophecy

Bradybury, Ray
- Fahrenheit 451

Brontë, Emily
- Jane Eyre
- Wuthering Heights (2)

Bukoski, Anthony
- Polonaise

Bukowski, Charles
- Ham on Rye
- Post Office
- Women

Burroughs, William S.
- Naked Lunch
- The Place of Dead Roads

Buter, Samuel
- Erewhon

Callanan, Liam
- The Cloud Atlas

Camus, Albert
- The Stranger

Carey, Peter
- The History of the Kelly Gang

Carver, Raymond
- Where I'm Calling From
- Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?

Cervantes
- Don Quixote

Chabon, Michael
- The Yiddish Policeman's Union

Chekov, Anton
- The Essential Tales of Chekov

Chopin, Kate
- The Awakening

Christensen, Kate
- The Epicure's Lament

Cisneros, Sandra
- The House on Mango Street

Clarke, Brock
- The Ordinary White Boy

Coelho, Paulo
- The Alchemist

Coetzee, J.M.
- Waiting for the Barbarians

Conrad, Joseph
- Lord Jim

Coupland, Douglas
- Girlfriend in a Coma
- Hey Nostradamus!

Crane, Stephen
- The Red Badge of Courage

Cunningham, Michael
- A Home at the End of the World
- The Hours

Daum, Meghan
- The Quality of Life Report

Delillo, Don
- The Body Artist
- Underworld

Diamant, Anita
- The Red Tent

Diaz, Junot
- The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao

Dickens, Charles
- A Christmas Carol
- Hard Times (2)
- Great Expectations (2)
- A Tale of Two Cities

Didion, Joan
- Play it as it Lays

Dorris, Michael
- A Yellow Raft in Blue Water

Dos Passos, John
- Manhattan Transfer

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
- Crime and Punishment (2)
- The Idiot
- Notes from Underground

Doyle, Larry
- I Love You, Beth Cooper

Dubus, Andre
- In the Bedroom

Dumas, Alexander
- The Count of Monte Cristo

Dunn, Katherine
- Geek Love

Drury, Joan M.
- Closed in Silence

Ellis, Bret Easton
- Glamorama
- The Informer
- Lunar Park

Egan, Jennifer
- The Keep
- Look at Me

Ellroy, James
- The Black Dahlia

Enger, Leif
- Peace Like a River

Erdrich, Louise
- Love Medicine (2)

Faulkner, William
- Four Novels
- The Hamlet
- The Sound and the Fury

Figes, Eva
- Winter Journey

Fitzgerald, F. Scott
- The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Beautiful and the Damned
- The Great Gatsby (3)
- The St. Paul Stories
- Tender is the Night
- This Side of Paradise

Flaubert, Gustave
- Madam Bovary

Ford, Richard
- The Sportswriter
- Women with Men

Fowles, Nick
- A Thing (or Two) About Curtis and Camilla

Franzen, Jonathan
- The Corrections

Gardner, John
- Grendel
- October Light

Gravalda, Anna
- I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere

Glass, Stephen
- The Fabulist

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von
- The Sorrows of Young Werther

Golden, Arthur
- Memoirs of a Geisha

Golding, William
- Darkness Visible

Gordon, Mary
- Spending

Grayson, David
- Adventures in Solitude

Greene, Graham
- Complete Short Stories

Griesemer, John
- No One Thinks of Greenland

Gunn, Elizabeth
- Five Card Stud

Haddon, Mark
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Hamilton, Jane
- When Madeline Was Young

Hawthorne, Nathaniel
- The Scarlet Letter

Hemmingway, Ernest
- A Farewell to Arms
- Islands in the Stream
- The Nick Adams Stories
- The Old Man and the Sea
- The Sun Also Rises (2)
- The Torrents of Spring

Heller, Zoe
- What What She Thinking? (Notes on a Scandal)

Hempel, Amy
- The Collected Stories
- The Dog of Marriage

Hesse, Hermann
- Siddhartha
- Steppenwolf (2)

Hinton, S.E.
- The Outsiders

Hornbacher, Marya
- The Center of Winter

Hornby, Nick
- How to Be Good
- A Long Way Down

Hosseini, Khaled
- The Kite Runner

Hudson, W.H.
- Green Mansions

Huxley, Aldous
- Brave New World

Iagnemma, Karl
- On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction

Irving, John
- The 158-Pound Marriage
- The Cider House Rules
- The Fourth Hand
- The Hotel New Hampshire
- Setting Free the Bears
- A Prayer for Owen Meany (2)
- The Water-Method Man (2)
- A Widow for One Year
- The World According to Garp

Ishiguro, Kazuo
- The Remains of the Day

James, Henry
- The Ambassadors
- The Portrait of a Lady

Jenkins, Dan
- You Gotta Play Hurt

Jin, Ha
- A Free Life

Jong, Erica
- Fear of Flying

Joyce, James
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Kafka, Franz
- The Metamorphosis

Keillor, Garrison
- Lake Wobegon Days
- Love Me

Kerouac, Jack
- Maggie Cassidy
- On the Road
- The Portable Jack Kerouac

Kinder, Chuck
- Honeymooners

Kingsolver, Barbara
- The Bean Trees

Knowles, John
- A Separate Peace

Knox, Malcolm
- Summerland

Kosinski, Jerzy
- The Painted Bird

Kundera, Milan
- Immortality
- The Joke
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being

L'Amour, Louis
- The Collected Stories of Louis L'Amour

Lamott, Anne
- Crooked Little Heart
- Rosie

Larsen, Eric
- An American Memory

Laurens, Camille
- In His Arms

Lawrence, D.H.
- Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lee, Harper
- To Kill a Mockingbird

LeGuin, Ursula
- The Farthest Shore
- The Tombs of Atuan
- A Wizard of Earthsea

Lennon, J. Robert
- Mailman
- On the Night Plain

Leonard, Elmore
- Stick
- The Switch

Levin, Ira
- The Stepford Wives

Lewis, C.S.
- The Chronicles of Narnia

Lindbergh, Anne Morrow
- Gift from the Sea

Lopez, Erika
- Flaming Iguanas

MacDonald, Anne Marie
- Fall on Your Knees

Martel, Yann
- Life of Pi

Martin, Steve
- Shopgirl

Maupin, Armistead
- Maybe the Moon

Max, B. Delores
- Dumped

McCarthy, Cormac
- All the Pretty Horses
- Blood Meridian

McCarthy, Mary
- The Group

McEwan, Ian
- Atonement

McGuane
- Ninety-Two in the Shade

McInerney, Jay
- Bright Lights, Big City
- Brightness Falls
- The Good Life
- The Last of the Savages
- Model Behavior

Melville, Herman
- Billy Budd, Foretopman
- Moby Dick

Moore, Lorrie
- Birds of America
- Like Life
- Self-Help

Moore, Susanna
- The Big Girls

Mendelsohn
- I Was Amelia Earhart

Mendelson, Cheryl
- Morningside Heights

Messud, Claire
- The Emperor's Children

Metalious, Grace
- Peyton Place

Miller, Henry
- Tropic of Cancer

Mitchell, David
- Ghostwritten

Morrison, Toni
- Beloved
- Song of Solomon

Munger, Mark
- The Legacy

Mukherjee, Bharati
- The Tiger's Daughter

Murakami, Haruki
- After Dark
- Almost Transparent Blue

Murray, Paul
- An Evening of Long Goodbyes

Nabokov, Vladimir
- Lolita

Niffenegger, Audrey
- The Time Traveler's Wife

Nissen, Thisbe
- The Good People of New York

Nin, Anais
- Delta of Venus
- Henry & June

Nunez, Sigrid
- Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury

Oates, Joyce Carol
- Black Water
- Blonde
- I'll Take You There
- Man Crazy
- Middle Age
- We Were the Mulvaneys

O'Brien, Tim
- July, July
- Tomcat in Love

Olson, Shannon
- Children of God Go Bowling
- Welcome to My Planet

Ondaatje, Michael
- Anil's Ghost
- The English Patient
- Vintage Ondaatje

Orwell, George
- 1984
- Animal Farm

Palahniuk, Chuck
- Choke
- Diary
- Haunted
- Invisible Monsters
- Lullaby
- Snuff

Perrotta, Tom
- Bad Haircut
- Joe College
- Little Children

Plath, Sylvia
- The Bell Jar

Pollack, Neil
- Never Mind the Pollacks

Potok, Chaim
- The Chosen
- My Name is Asher Lev
- The Promise

Purcell, Sarahbeth
- Love is the Drug

Quindlen, Anna
- Rise and Shine

Rand, Ayn
- Atlas Shrugged

Redfield, James
- The Celestine Prophecy

Rigby, Kate
- The Fall of The Flamingo Circus

Robbins, Tom
- Villa Incognito

Rölvaag, O.E.
- Giants in the Earth

Rosenfeld, Lucinda
- What She Saw

Rossner, Judith
- Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Roth, Philip
- Portnoy's Complaint
- The Professor of Desire

Rougeau, Remy
- All We Know of Heaven

Roy, Arundhati
- The God of Small Things

Rushdie, Salman
- The Satanic Verses

Russo, Richard
- Bridge of Sighs
- Empire Falls
- Straight Man

Salinger, J.D.
- The Catcer in the Rye (2)

Schaefer, Jack
- Shane

Schickler, David
- Kissing in Manhattan
- Sweet and Vicious

Schlink, Berhard
- The Reader

Shteyngart, Gary
- The Russian Debutante's Handbook

Selby, Hubert Jr.
- Last Exit to Brooklyn

Seeley, Mabel
- The Chuckling Fingers

Sharma, Akhil
- An Obedient Father

Shaw, Irwin
- Rich Man, Poor Man

Shields, Carol
- Dressing Up for the CArnival
- Unless

Sinclair, Upton
- The Jungle

Sittenfeld, Curtis
- Prep

Spitz, Mark
- How Soon is Never?

Steinbeck, John
- The Grapes of Wrath
- In Dubious Battle
- Of Mice and Men (2)
- Tortilla Flat (2)
- The Winter of Our Discontent
- Travels with Charley

Stoker, Bram
- Dracula

Stone, Robert
- Dog Soldiers

Swift, Graham
- Tomorrow

Sullivan, Faith
- The Empress of One

Susann, Jacqueline
- Valley of the Dolls

Taylor, Peter
- A Summons to Memphis

Thompson, Jean
- Who Do You Love

Tinti, Hannah
- Animal Crackers

Tolkein, J.R.R.
- The Hobbit
- The Fellowship of the Ring
- The Tolkien Reader
- Unfinished Tales

Toole, John Kennedy
- A Confederacy of Dunces (2)

Tolstoy, Leo
- Anna Karenina
- Master and Man

Tropper, Jonathan
- The Book of Joe
- Everything Changes
- How to Talk to a Widower

Twain, Mark
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain
- Letters from the Earth
- Pudd'nhead Wilson

Turgenev, Ivan
- Fathers and Sons

Tyler, Anne
- The Amateur Marriage
- Back When We Were Grownups
- Breathing Lessons
- Ladder of Years
- A Patchwork Planet

Updike, John
- Rabbit, Run

Verne, Jules
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- Around the World in 80 Days

Voltaire
- The Best Known Works of Voltaire
- Candide

Vonnegut, Kurt
- Breakfast of Champions (2)
- Cat's Cradle (2)
- Deadeye Dick
- Slapstick
- Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons

Vonnegut, Mark
- The Eden Express

Waldman, Ayelet
- Daugher's Keeper

Wallace, David Foster
- Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Warren, Robert Penn
- All the King's Men

Wells, H.G.
- The Time Machine
- The War of the Worlds

Weisberger, Lauren
- The Devil Wears Prada

Wharton, Edith
- The Age of Innocence
- The Glimpses of the Moon
- The House of Mirth

Wharton, William
- Birdy

Wilde, Oscar
- The Best Known Works of Oscar Wilde
- Collins Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
- The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings

Wolfe, Thomas
- Look Homeward, Angel

Wolfe, Tom
- The Bonfire of the Vanities
- The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
- I Am Charlotte Simmons

Woliter, Meg
- The Position
- The Wife

Woolf, Virginia
- Mrs. Dalloway

So tonight as I think about camping out to get the new iPhone that comes out tomorrow, I have to keep imagining that device's place in my current lifestyle. And I absolutely cannot.

Most importantly, I don't have any way to carry it. My current phone fits neatly in my pants pocket. The iPhone is designed for women and for guys who carry a murse. I'm not going to carry a murse. Ever. Also I'm not going to walk around with an iPhone in my hand at all times. And I'm not going to start wearing cargo pants either.

Second, I don't spend that much time on the phone, nor do I spend that much time listening to headphones anymore. I used to have a job at a desk where I listened to headphones 8 hours a day, and the 3-G iPod's weak battery couldn't even keep up with me. Now I have a job around huge noisy machines that like to crush little electronic things into sand.

Third, I really don't want to become one of those people who checks their email in the elevator. Not that I ever ride elevators, but you get the idea. Having been internet-obsessed at various points in the past -- and still leaning in that direction in the present -- I've come to the conclusion that I'm much happier and healthier when I experience life in all three dimensions. There's no need to feed bad habits.

So the iPhone is not for me. Pardon me if this post was boring, but I didn't write it for you. I just wanted to make this point to myself.

I live in the kind of place where, during a free outdoor Martin Zellar concert on the Fourth of July, a couple of guys will just inexplicably portage canoes through the audience. Zellar thought it was pretty funny.

(Note: the park is really big and people were spread out. There's actually several hundred people behind me in this shot.)