Hmm. Well, I've been tagged by Bruce. It seems like kind of a silly game, really, but I'm sure it has interesting results sometimes. And it's not without some fun. Those who know me understand that this is how I appreciate virtually all games.

When you're tagged, you're supposed to

1. Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages. (How's that for an arbitrary number?)

2. Open to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence. I don't know what you'd do if you run out of text. Maybe keep turning pages, or even get the next book.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people.

6. Tag another. (Which seems completely unnecessary)

I don't think I'll tag five people. It reminds me too much of Amway.

However, the closest book was one I just bought from the book racks of a Goodwill in Portland. It's not even shelved properly. It says:

"Maybe we'll be able to hear the difference between alien phonemes, given enough practice, but it's possible our ears simply can't recognize the distinctions they consider meaningful. In that case we'd need a sound spectrograph to know what an alien is saying."

Colonel Weber asked, "Suppose I gave you an hour's worth of recordings; how long would it take you to determine if we need this sound spectrograph or not?"

For the curious, the book is The Best of SF 4 edited by David G. Hartwell, from 1999. Those lines are from "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang.

I tag the Abrahamsons. That counts for all my tags.