Men to be Phased Out by 2200?

CNN reports that women will beat men in sprinting by 2156. Meanwhile, the crafty Japanese have come out with a man pillow to simulate a man's arm for women to sleep on. Scientists have already fertilized eggs without sperm [at least in mice]. And the final straw: several months ago Volvo release a car designed just for women.

All these leads us to believe that Men are on the decline. We're slowly being phased out altogether. I'm okay conceding everything over to women just as long as they don't eat off my head.

A Poet's Blog

Maybe some of the readers of this site should be aware [this the equivilant of a graphic images warning just before something grizzly appears on network tv].

What's grizzly? Your future career choice:

Killdeer is a blog by a post writing program poet. He says the the teaching job market is not a particularly good one.

Ok, so we knew that.

He has some interesting musings, and some thoughts on writing.

Kyoto

Russia is set to ratify the most sweeping reforms to air quality control globally, setting in motion the Kyoto protocls. By some standards, these are really weak. The US is of course, not participating.

Meanwhile, California's sweeping regulations on exhaust has come under fire from the auto industry. Detroit is claiming that California does not have the right regulate miles per gallon on autos, and essentially they new exhaust standards can only be met with higher MPG. This of course at the same time Ford is ceasing production of its line of natural gas vehicles.

Hybrid vehicles are now acutally becoming popular with Honda's Civic and insight. SUV's are getting a facelift too wtih several hybrid models. These are of course misleading since the hybrid SUVs are still only getting about 25 mpg. The Civic hybrid on the other hand averages 50.

So what are we to do?

Detroit really dropped the ball with the encironmental movement. The gas crisis three decades ago should have clued them in, but instead they developed the SUV. With Russia signing onto Kyoto, and China expanding the auto market faster than they can import oil, a high fuel efficiency car could have saved detroit. Instead, they built a hotel and Autoworld.

The new economy, corporations claim, for the Unitd States, is to become a leader of design and outsource everything else. Computer programming will be done in India, but computer research will be done in the United States, and our ideas will be sold to the billions of the world.

This future of the United States Economy might work if we actually were in the business of developing technology. But Japan's automakers were the ones who introduced us to the hybrid auto. If the United States is going to be a leader in design and export techonology, we have to actually do some research and produce some products.

The Bloggen Canon

In the future, the Western Canon will be completely eliminated and replaced with the great works of literature known as Blogs. Perhaps not. But as it seems, I've been reading more of Gawker and New Yorkish and a few other prof-blogs, as well as some of those added under Linkywinks.

One might wonder where I have the time to read all this with a campaign just a matter of a few weeks away [33 days!]. Well perhaps we are reading the Times and CNN less frequently, or at least without as much depth.

But what blogs must I read--a similar question as to what books must an English major / graduate student read to be legitimate? With all the thousands of blogs begun each day its hard to root out the better ones. And of course, only maybe the ten best will ever be read consistantly.

Perhaps we have accidentally stumbled across the greatest challenge of the Information Age: how do we winnow away the information so we read the relevant information without missing crucial elements.

Well that's maybe why we have blogs. I think it seems a good portion of my blog has become a sort of quick link to interesting tidbits of information, with brief editorial commentary alongside it. But everytime someone does this, as bloggers, we are further adding to the information that readers must process. Imagine a chain of blog posts each linking to the next, each blogger adding their own commentary, and finally the original source. Its like a bad game of telephone.

So I propose eliminating novels, short fiction, poetry, and new editions of newspapers until we are entirely caught up with the last five years of the blog world. Good luck with that.


And a final side note, through no fault of our own, we have accidentally picked up the annoying habit of using "we" where we mean "I". Sometimes I float between these within a single post; sometimes it is days before I realize its even happened. But in either case, we can probably attribute this to reading Something Completely Similar with an unhealthy fervency.

More Tips on Writing

38 Steps for Improving Your writing, courtesy the University of Miss. I don't trust anything from the south. These tips are good for a particular style. Maybe the New Yorker will like it. But as I've said before, the stories aren't that good anymore, at least not since The Smoker.

Copyright Wars the New Drug Wars?

The out of touch, not quite all there House Of Representatives today passed legislation making it a crime to "knowingly" distribute files online. This does not yet mean it is law, but offers some serious problems to intellectual creativity and probably threatens small and independent music artists, and does nothing to put money in the pockets of the Recording Industry.

Laws prohibiting online distribution networks ultimately may reduce intellectual creativity because people will not develop that technology further. P2P networks have many uses beyond illegal file sharing, an unintended consequence of the abilities of the internet. Essentially though, strong digital rights management will destroy the qualities of the internet that make the internet a revolution rather than just another marketing ploy.

Also, independent artists are sure to be hurt even more. Many have credited P2P networks with generating the hype and following that major record labels simply buy. But even if these artists willingly allowed downloaders to to share their songs, making it a jail time crime to download songs from major labels may reduce the number of people sharing songs overall, and there for restrict the exposure of non-label artists to the public.

Record labels are probably also concerned tha the internet's inexpensive marketing, new emerging recording technologies, and the reduction of the cost of printing CD's, artwork, and distributing these things, may eliminate them entirely. But the solution to solve this is to shut down P2P. Without P2P, the only way to promote an album is by buying airtime on radios, television commercials, expensive music videos, and mass marketing that costs money, which the studios control.

Oh Canada.
Canadians are actually legally allowed to distribute Mp3's for free over the internet. They are simply taxes a little more (who'd notice in Canada anyway?) for things like blank CD's, and in turn this money offsets "losses" that record companies have through shared music. But there really isn't anything illegal about canadians uploading to songs that Americans are downloading.

Blind Date

Maybe I'm behind the times, but there is a book How to Attract Asian Women detailing ways men can attract asian women. Not to be outdone, there is an equally compelling book How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men.

Coming soon is the aptly titled, How to Date Raging Alcoholic Deadbeats: A Practical Guide for Whitetrash Women and its companion How to Attract Slutty White Girls.

New Rules As Bad as Old Ones

Presidential Debates are on their way to network Television. Broadcasters though are insisting they will not follow restrictions on their editorial choice of camera shots, as they should.

Indeed, presidential debates are absolute bullshit. From the day Kerry was the presumptive presidential nominee, both sides were formulating a plan to set debate rules that maximize their candidate. Master debaters of course want a lot debates, miserable failures want fewer.

Besides that, short candidates want to be seen sitting, bald candidates won't want their head shown. Dick Cheney for instance, unsure if he would be able to stand without looking like a hunched over troll, refused to debate Edwards standing up.

Anyway, the point is, for the last 4 months both sides have been negotiating rules for debates from everything from the color of the stage to the length and content of questions in an attempt to gain an advantage.

Bottom line is, its time federal law stated that anyone running for President would adhere to 5 debates, once a week for five weeks, with pre-determined rules, with mandatory broadcast by all the networks. Candidates who refuse to attend simply will not have their names on ballots. Simple.

Meanwhile the debates will be so rarefied nothing of substance will be said, and on top of that, the conservative media will simply call George Bush the winner and people too stupid to know anything will believe it.

Corrupt: Yes. Good For City: Sometimes.

Everyone knows that the city of New brunswick, NJ is perhaps one of the most corrupt in our state with former state senator John Lynch making it his seat of power, Assemblyman and Councilman Joe Eagan, and Mayor Cahill also leading the pack.

But then there is DEVCO, a public / private development company that has done wonders tearing down projects and old crappy buildings in New Brunswick and erecting nice, new luxury apartments. They've done a great job of removing the infestation of poverty in the city. Of course, the good they have done is tainted by the corruption within the city and DEVCO, and the well oiled political machine. Its ok. We accepted this a long time ago.

But now they are making some bad decisions. They have restricted new housing in development in New brunswick prohibiting new two family houses. They cite lack of parking and garbage caused by rutgers stuents as part of the problem.

Wait a second. Public Parking and shoddy trash collection are somehow the fault of residents? No Mr Cahill, that's your fault. Instead of devoting city tax dollars to your corrupt political machine, DEVCO, and your relatives on payroll, take some money and build public parking garages or at the very least, parking lots, where they are needed. And, I might suggest, trash pickup that is regular, on time, and that doesn't leave whole bags of garbage behind because the Union laborer has hit the day's maximum.

New Brunswick's only benefit as an urban area is dense housing. The new regulations are an attempt to suburbanize parts of the city.

And by the way, if you talk about dirty trash, why not come down to French street some time. There are good number of people who could use some redeveloping.

They Needed Research?

Stoners watch the Daily Show? Hahah, that's funny. But Fat Head Bill OReilly *giggle* kept calling the audience that. So The Daily show did research showing they had had more college educated viewers, and OReilly's farmer's show had more rural people.

I guess its safe to start calling OReilly's people Meth-heads.

But as Gakwer reports, OReilly might be right too. After all, stoners implies Mary Jane. Mary Jane is more likely to smoked by educated folks on college campuses, not to point fingers.

Adderall Please

After reading a review of a bunch of prescription drugs, I think I want some Adderall. Everyone in the article claims its their favorite and helps them concentrate for writing papers, ect.

To Cuba, for Cigars and Hemmingway

Another Hemmingway story surfaced. The estate refuses to allow its publication, so unless I or you or several of us can come up with with the $20,000 its expected to fetch at auction, we'll never see it.

Except of course, that a country like Cuba could publish the work, since the United States refuses to trade dollars for cigars or cleaning ladies, they have nothing to lose from printing the story. Indeed, the gray area of copyright law is always where the law does not exist [like the backwaters of China].

So print it in Cuba and let me buy black market copies on ebay, mofo. Buyakasha.

More Books

Despite my personal promise to stop buying books through the end of the election or until I finished reading the ones I have, whichever came first, I bought more. I'm addicted.

The breakdown:

After reading Steve Martin's The Pleasure of My Company, a short novel I thoroughly enjoyed, I bought his earlier work, Shopgirl. Shopgirl is a very short novel, a novella if such a work actually exists. His writing is acutally pretty good, I mean for a guy who stars in movies like Bringing Down the House. Dear God, stick to writing Steve, its something you are good at. Because of its length and his easy reader style, I hope its a great book to fill in some of the spare time I have--15 minutes a week--until E-Day.

The next selection I bought was The Complete Stories of Truman Capote. Other Ian has been raving about him and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Also, short stories are great for reading in small amounts of time.

Finally, I did something I rarely do. I bought a book by a woman. And she's Indian. Like East Indian, not Spokane Indian like the previous selection of short stories I read by Sherman Alexie. What caught my eye about Video was the title story, where a man's life is ruined by a porno video. At least one of the local blogmunity can relate to that. So that's ony my plate.

I'm also reading over The Latest Bombshell, now in paperback, and previously reviewed by me.

And then there is still Heavy Water by Martin Amis. I'm no farther than I was a week ago. At least I've put together two submission packets.

Do You Still Need Further Proof That George Bush is a Member of Nazi Conspiracy?

Walmart, the super chain that is too conservative to sell RU-486, has been selling "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", a book accepted as a forgery to propagate hatred towards the chosen people. Jewish leaders may not be thrilled about its sale in the first place, but even more offensive was Walmart's description:

"If ... The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs. So Walmart has ceased selling it.

Well this story piqued my interest and I wanted to check our online friends B&N and Amazon to see if they sold the book, and if so, if they had a disclaimer.

Barnes and Noble runs this disclaimer:


"The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, circulated by the Czarist secret police at the turn of the 20th century, is plainly and simply a plagiarized forgery. "The Protocols" has been a major weapon in the arsenals of anti-Semites around the world, republished and circulated by individuals, hate groups and governments to convince the gullible as well as the bigoted that Jews have schemed and plotted to take over the world."


Amazon had no disclaimer but the online reviwer community has condemned it, and even makes mention of the fact that the text can be obtained for free on the internet.

However, one reviewer had this to say:

A great read that details the Jewish grasp at power in America today. It details the origin of the Jewish faith and greed, and jewish involvement in marxism, communism - leading up to the fact that all the major media outlets are controlled, dominated and owned by people of jewish descent.

Also touches on John Kerry and his Jewish ancestors.

The reviewer has no other reviews in the Amazon database other than this one. So clearly, a biased post by a bigot and clearly, a Republican. But even more amazing 2 out of 12 people actually checked "Yes, this review was helpful".

Its fiction you fools!

Can anyone still argue with my earlier post???

Write It

Previously I've post about the writing a 50,000 word Novel in a month. Here it is. Keep in mind its a 30 day event beginning in November. Normally I am far too busy with elections, but since election day is November 2 (November 3 if you are a Republican), that still leaves me 28 Days to complete something. I think I'm gong to do it this year, and dare you too.

And I Thought it was The Smack

A new study has reported that depriving internet addicts of the net in as little as two weeks incapacitates people and reduces them to a wimpering pile of jibberish. Ok, maybe not quite, but almost.

A small sample of 13 families was used and members were barred from accessing the net for two weeks. But even more important than this, despite the allure of $950, the study had difficulty recruiting people to participate.

Now the results may be skewed since Yahoo! and an ad firm commissioned the study-- after all what better way to improve ad revenues then to tell buyers consumers are addicted to the product you want to sell advertising on. But on the other hand, I agree.

If I had been offered $950 I would have given the study some thought, but think I would have found it difficult to execute since more than half of my job requires that I spend some time online scouring photo archives, researching information, emailing, ect.ect.

The longest I've been disconnected in recent memory was the 5 days I spent at Cape Cod this summer. Of course, I missed out some good events like the Governor comming out of the closet, a moment I really would have liked to have read about on politicsnj.com. But that was only five days, and I was on the beach.

Other than several long weekends, 3 days at most really, in the last 5 years. the exception being the 2000 trip to Italy. Just shy of 4 weeks, I was in one of the most beautiful places I've ever traveled to. But as it turns out, I don't think I even went two weeks without the net while we were there. Before we left Rome, my cousin helped log us on to dial-up internet and we all feverishly checked out our email, weather, news, ect.ect.

Now if I were going back to Europe any time soon for an extended stay (2 - 5 weeks), I'd probably suck it up and spend a good bit of money on internet cafes. (After all, if nothing else, I would need to blog).

And finally, a few things that I don't understand how it worked before internet:

Finding a place you've never been to.
Figure out music you like.
Phone numbers.
Communicate with friends.
Work.
Rent an apartment.
Buy obscure products, like out of print books.
Learn about things in depth.
Define words you don't know.
Be entertained.
Breathe.

Print

Last night I settled on a story to submit to a literary journal. I printed it, stuffed the envelope, ect.ect. Afterward, I felt a great sense of relief. My biggest problem is I'm always worried that a story has a few more re-writes, a few more edits, or a few more additions before I'm actually finishd with it. But having an actual printed copy stuffed with a SASE and cover letter, sealed up, had the finite quality that was reassuring and relieving.

Basically what I'm saying is, I'm ready to let go and jump head first into this fall's submission season. There are another three stories I think might be ready for submitting, [two were in their early form in Belting Drunk].

There is a forth story that I'm debating if its finished, but mostly I think it needs a better title. Since I'm expecting to get several rejections before any one story is printed, I think persistance is important here. And there are plenty of literary journals out there for submitting.

The other issue I am coming across in my very limited free time is of course whether I should work on a story idea that I have vague plots for, or keep working on a story that is essentially in draft 1 stage. Working on the mostly finished (draft 1) story is more satisfying because I feel like I'm that much closer to a finished product [though Mandee didn't seem to feel it was anywhere close. of course, based on our conflicting Netflix selections, that isn't a bad thing].

On the other hand, working towards a draft 1 of these other story ideas will lead up to another story: basically my feeling is that after I complete draft 1 of any particular story, there is a certain aging process, like good wine perhaps, that I need to go through before I can come up with draft 2 and 3.

So the real conundrum is should I work on a second story with the expectation that I will set into motion the "aging" process sooner, or do I try and finish the first story I've been working on?

Sex Peddler Turns Bard

The publisher of Maxim has put out a book of poems,
A Glass Half Full. The book has an intial run of 25,000 in the US after selling 15,000 in the UK.

So will poetry be lowered to the level of soft porn? (and not even very good since none of Maxim's girls are nude). Perhaps it might surprise you that Playboy acutally prints Short Fiction and is recommended as a place to submit stories (if you are a young male author, writing for an audience of young male readers).

Perhaps Maxim will revive literature by bringing it back to mass audience. Har har, not likely. After all, the verse will dissappoint buyers looking for scantily clad women and I doubt it will be appearing in any classes taught by the readers of this blog. So will the volume (or future volumes) from the Maxim publisher do anything for poetry, other than cheapen the art and make a few dollars for a publishing millionaire?

Love Pains

The Chinese are teaching students about love, Bronte style at the same time that Chinese men and women are jumping off the Yangtze River Bridge. Coincidence? I think not.

Death & Being Dead

Norman Cantor died. He wrote The Civilization of the Middle Ages and Medieval World, among others. Its strange since these were text book from classes. Soon we will all be dead.

But not soon enough for some. In retrospect there were a great number of amazing professors in the Rutgers History department. Unfortunately for me, I don't think I had many of them [excepting of course, Lears, who was amazing]. Would I have been a better student of history if the lot I had wasn't so bad?

Can You Feel It?

Starting pay for English majors rose to $31,113, up 8.1 percent, and posted a 3.6 percent increase to $32,296 for political science majors. Psychology majors are enjoying a 2 percent increase with entry-level salaries averaging $28,230.[Source]

Of course, my first year out I didn't quite get there, but in year two I've best it plus last years 3.3 % raise. But does this change the fact that perhaps I rather have majored in English?

Finally

I finally completed Demonology by Rick Moody. I think the first few stories were really good, though a bit more traditional. By the final few though, the narratives broke down and he was getting experimental in a way I did not find a positive development, deconstructed into mutated growths I would hardly call prose let alone a story. Over all the first few stories definately make it worth reading, but more to pass the time then a must read.

But it was enough that now I want to read his other books like Garden State, but I don't think there is anything terribly new (at least, that is new in a positive way) or exciting about the more abstract stories.

Trouble is now I'm trying to decide what to begin reading. I have a text book-- The Story and Its Writer : An Introduction to Short Fiction that I got from Rutgers Bookstore over the summer. Its a great book to just pick up and read a story. It contains so many stories I feel no real obligation to read it from beginning to end as I would with a collection of short stories in a slimmer volume.

As a result I read a story by Martin Amis from the collection Einstein's Monsters entitled The Immortals. It was great, so I went ahead and read the first story from Heavy Water. This first story in the book was from the New Yorker, 1992 and focused on the poet as a rockstar and the screenwriter as a struggling artist, entitled Career Change. It was a nice little story, appropriate for the New Yorker.

But in either case, I'm still torn over what to read now. I still have a lot of Canterbury Tales left to read, and Heavy Water won't take more than a few days, hopefully, to finish off. I'm toying with the idea of starting Middlemarch, but I dont think I'll get through it before I temporarily give up reading for October. We will see.

Suggestions?

Bring on the Wrecking Ball

While most of the time I criticize my lesser counterparts in rural / not east coast United States, not all is happy in Eden.

"..she and others do not want the wrecking ball to destroy their homes or businesses to make way for what they say is an unprecedented level of development: the equivalent of 13 Empire State Buildings and 12,800 apartments envisioned in the city's ambitious master plan." [Source]

West Siders are skeptical of the city's redevelopment plans saying that the city doesn't need more highrises. That's bunk. The only problem I have with the city's master plan is that they are only calling for 12,800 apartments. A city of 8,000,000 million needs at least another 10 times as many apartments. Places like Jersey City and Brooklyn just don't cut it either, and let's not forget that housing here isn't too cheap either.

What I'm talking about is some serious Hong Kong Action. Five story pre-war tenements are not going to cut it in the new millenium. I'm talking towers upond towers of new residential buildings.

So please West Siders, don't be relegated to the status of mid-western housewives I've quoted in the past. Don't say such stupid things.

Don't Dislexic Texas

"By 2040, we'll have a population that's larger, poorer, less educated and more needy than today," Dietz said. "Who in Texas would choose this for our future?" [source].

Dietz actually meant was "2004" and by today, he actually meant "the rest of the United States".

But we shouldn't mock texas. After all, they gave us absurdly large belt buckles and cowboy hats.

The British New York

The crafty blokes have come up with a visual masterpiece. Featured in the times, New York: The Photo Atlas depicts the greatest city in the world from 5,000 feet up.

To me, what is even more, or at least almost as interesting as the atlas itself is the fact that the publishers / writers / graphic artists never left England and were still able to piece together this amazing photo book.

The hole book features images of NY from June of 2003. But wouldn't it be equally interesting to see the darker side of New York in a cold, barren winter day, or New York during a major snowfall when the fluffy white has highlighted some key areas?

I do look forward to at least flipping through this book at the store, but hopefully someone will consider purchasing it for me. Is there anything more exciting than a photographic map of New York?

Jury Duty

Maybe Jury duty isn't as bad as everyone claims it is: There is apparently no law against drinking while serving as a juror and deliberating the fate of a fellow New Yorker. [Source]

Bring on the crimminals.

Brown

A brown dropout gave the school $100 Million. He dropped out because he couldn't afford to go.

For every million, an average rate of return will yield $50 Thousand dollars a year. Brown costs roughly $31K for undergraduate work these days. With 6,000 undergrads, the $5M a year Brown can doll out without touching the principle amounts to a little more than beer money. This may be the intent of the donor; he made his millions importing Jager.

Quit Life

I calculated the length of time it will take for me to achieve Millionaire Status

RESULTS:
It will take you 36 years and 11 months to become a millionaire.

Remember, though, that a million bucks won't buy as much in the future as it does today. Assuming a 3.0% inflation rate, it will take you 51 years and 7 months to become a millionaire in today's dollars.

Wanker

Roe of the famous Roe V. Wade tried to have her famous supreme court case overturned. But more interesting is her story of how the devious Christians entrapped her in their cult (near the end of the article).

For a woman who did not have an abortion, and then in turn, gained celebrity and fortune publishing a book, she is rather in tough spot to now turn around and be against abortion. Of course, her conversion to the Christ crusaders is a whole different can of worms, but entirely expected considering the success of the Pet Rock, Tamagotchi, and Reality Television; given enough Advertising, you could sell seawater to Japan.

Starbuck Redux

So I've realized Ive become one of those crazy people who goes to starbucks more than once a week. During my last visit, one guy ordered simply a "tall". He didn't specify coffee or lattee or tea. To me, his casual aquaintence with calling for a coffee by saying just 'tall', indicates to me he has a problem. That and the full facial beard. The other person who ordered while I was there was a woman who the clerk behind the counter new exactly what she wanted before she even got there, and then joked with the clerk. This is the point where I began to think: You people drink too much Starbucks. Then I realized, I too, drink too much starbucks.

Arcadae Frenzy

We got Ms. Pacman for Xbox. That's right, Namco has bundled some of classic arcade games for the X. Ms. Pacman, Pacman, Pole Position (& PPII), the digging game from my dentists office, and a space invaders like flying game and a space flying game version of the classic 1943. I also have a 4th controller now, for ye old Halo. Anyhow, also I got fusion frenzy, a collection of 45 games each about a minute long, and good for 4 players. Its a party pack really.

Tenure

Shit like this is why it is important to maintain tenure for professors at university.

The Death of the Novel is Greatly...

A few weeks ago, Graphic Novels were declared the new literature of the masses. Maybe they were wrong. Urban "hip-hop" literature might be the next wave. Publishers like Triple Crown herald the mass market african american targeted books as just what was missing from the barnes and noble.

The NY Times last summer ran an article about another similar book that the author had been peddling on the subway until he signed a deal with another major publisher. But is Hip Hop lit going to become like Hip Hop music pushing out classics like Pop, Rock, and Alternative music, replacing authors like Criton, Grisham, and other mass market authors or simply become another genre like Chik lit and Sci Fi? This fanfare might just be the next big thing in a postcolonial world, and if it is, hip hop lit will be popping up at Princeton and NYU and Harvard. Buyakasha!

Miso

I've been eating a treamendous amount of sushi and Miso soup lately. I wonder how long I can keep this up.

Noah's Space Base

The ESA is suggesting they might be interested in setting up a space base to act like Noah's Ark in case the world was destroyed. Interesting, but who would populate it? Imagine a few hundred Frenchmen sitting around just waiting for the world to end so they could finally take over Germany? Or a few hundred Japanese, who would obviously want first dibs on Disney World.

The Name's the Thing

If I didn't blog about it before, this Random Name Generator is a great resource for creating character names in stories or for novels. Its based on census data and allows the user to find common, not so common, or obscure names.

New Friends

Since so many of my readers have taken off to their respective graduate schools, you might be interested in I-Neighbors, a geographic friend finder. Unlike say Friendster, it hooks people up based on locality rather than common interest.

More Books

I just finished reading Joe College by Tom Perrotta. This is the second book I've read by him, the first being Little Children. He is probably best known for Election with Reese Witherspoon.

Joe College was enjoyable enough that I read it completely in 24 hours. Its easy to read, and best of all features New Jersey as a main setting. Parts of the book border on some of those early 1980 college drinking movies, but otherwise the description of campus life was accurate. Joe college is not as humorous as Election was, but then again I only saw the movie. There are parts that certainly could make you laugh, but also parts that were utterly predictable. Perrotta must have recognized some of these plot points were going to be obvious to anyone except half blind grandmother's who aren't going to be reading the book, and as a result treats these 'twists' with the commonplace they deserve. In some cases though, his suggestive foreshadowing is more taking a baseball bat and hitting you with the future events of the book. Speaking of baseball bats, there is some use of bats in the book that are interesting even if it wreaks of James Gandolfini.

The Other Book:

I also finished earlier this week The Crying of Lot 49. I have to admit I bought the book three years ago on Patrick's recomendation, and started it, hated it, and stopped reading. Somewhere along the way, someone must have snagged my copy and read it because there was writing all over it and I think I bought it new. So anyway, after the book appeared on Cuny's Reading List for MFA's, I decided to commit myself to reading the thing. I enojoyed it much more this time around. I'm still digesting it.

Stupidity

I may not have mentioned recently, but the Chinese are heading to the moon. Yet there are people in this country that think George W. Bush has already made it to the $200 bill.

Ok, so maybe the rest of the country doesn't have the benefit of NJ Schools, but please, a $200 bill?

Just keep watching Fear Factor people. Don't worry. I'm sure when the Communists rule the earth, they will still let you watch it.

Brotherly Love

Philadelphia is considering offering citywide wireless coverage. This move might actually make it worth it to move out of the NJ.

Steamboat Willy

In 1928, Steamboat Willy made an appearence. 56 years later, (28 years of copyright + 28 year extension) would set him to expire in 1984. Eight years before he was set to expire, 1976, corporate copyrights were extended to 75 years. Hmm, Interesting. Steamboat Willy was then set to expire in 2003. But don't start making Steamboat Willy Dolls just yet! 1998, Congress extends corporate copyrights to 95. Steamboat is safe until 2025!!!