Upping the Intellectual Ante

I read Julie Bogart's blog every day. She is a pro and her writing style is simple and fluid. There seems to never be a wasted or unneccesary word as the phrases jump off the page and allow you to peer deep into her soul. I am interested in many of the same subjects Julie writes about, but more importantly, I want to become a better writer. And she provides excellent examples every day.

But today, she has ruined my planned day of football, fatty foods, robust ale, and commercials featuring monkeys in suits by enlisting me in a random game of tag. We are participating in a meme, some sort of random theoretical look into our culture. Here are the rules:

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

This is mine. Turning to page 123 of my nearest book, "The First American, The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin", I find sentences 6-8 are as follows:

Almanac makers may have placed more or less importance on planetary conjections and transits than almanac readers, who themselves varied greatly in the store they put in such things. But readers expected astrology with their equinoxes and eclipses, and publishers did not disappoint them. Readers expected other expert information as well.

I tag the following five people:
Old Pete, my new friend from England
Brian, a fellow universalist and former Vineyardian
Kevin, a restauranteur and watchman from Lincoln, Nebraska
Tom Stark, who wrote a great piece on a Fundamentalist Funeral Gone Bad
Stuart K. Hayashi, a fellow libertarian and Ayn Rand fan from Hawaii

I feel as if this violates my principle that all chain letters end with me. Sorry guys.