Michael over at the Bass Blog posted this little game that’s making the blog rounds. With nothing else to do on a Monday night, I figured I’d play along.

Rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence on the page.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

I happened to be sitting by my bookcase, so I closed my eyes and randomly selected a title. As fate would have it, the book I chose was Nicholson Baker’s The Fermata, the most profane book I own. I turned to page 123, found the fifth sentence, and quickly concluded I can’t post what comes next. This is a family blog (supposedly), and the passage contains some colourful language that may not be suitable for all readers. In fact, the whole book is pretty smutty, so I doubt there are three sentences in the entire book that I could post here.

I went back to the bookcase and randomly selected Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. I turned to page 123, found the fifth sentence, and here’s what I found:

We wanted to be the best, we wanted to be different, but at the same time, correct. We yearned to bring honor to our clan, and in that vein, we came up with the looniest, most ambitious menu our super-heated, endorphin-overloaded brains could agree on, a sort of Greatest Hits of our Checkered Careers So Far collection. French classics sat side-by-side with Portugese squid stew, my Tante Jeanne’s humble salade de tomates, dishes we’d lifted out of cookbooks, stolen from other chefs, remembered seeing on TV.

So, it may not compare to Grand Theft Auto IV, but it’s not bad diversion for a Monday night. Anyone else want to play along? Friar Tuck? Kelly? Bueller?