Preference Personnelle
Via
Metafilter, here are novels summarized in
25-words-or-less. Or is it 25 exactly? There's been some discussion. Two favorites, both from an author I enjoy very much:
Hitler got me tenure. Shit, what's that in the sky? Sure, we're all postmodern consumer whores, but the real question is: who's fucking my wife?
Consumerism sucks. But not as much as death. Actually it's not so bad. Unlike death. Also, the art of being funny by not being funny.
Also via mefi, a
Washington Post article about how Dean, fortunately, never wanted to win in the first place.
Here's a mefi (happily back after a brief absence) post about classic
games. The poster wonders whether Boggle and Monopoly will prove as long-lived as mancala and backgammon. People clamor to add
Settlers of Catan, Tetris and Mario
Kart to the list. As yet, no mention of
Scrabble and
Bomberman.
And here's a slashdot
post about
Linux livecd distributions.
Knoppix is just the tip of the iceberg. I want a diskless silent router, that boots from a CD and then runs in RAM. Ooh, yeah I do. And here are links to the
Ultimate Boot CD, and
KnoppiXMAME, both of which are just what they sound like.
Note to self for the future: compile a list of online PDF gauge guides. Here are
a few to start (the last folks do
parties). Ooh, and here's yet another jewelry
manufacturer. Nice-looking glass. And, while I'm at it, a few other jewelry manufacturers I like:
Organic,
Black Ivy Organics,
Zoomorphic ('organic' stuff);
Custom Steel,
Anatometal (mostly metal).
Law & Order
coloring book, heehee.
"I pull my checkbook out of my pocket, put it back and then pull it out again. Before signing a check over to the Science-based cult/religion, I tell the man with the accent how the founder of the Science-based cult once told fellow sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, “If you really want to make money, start your own religion.” Before I can sign my check, the man with the accent says I’m no longer invited to join their Science-based religion and I’m asked to leave the Science-based cult’s headquarters. Bah!"
Harmon Leon is a funny guy.
Mefi'ers know what's up.
Here's
Daniel Harris, who wrote '
Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic,' writing in
Harper's on the
Nike Air Max Deluxe. Good stuff. Good, Baffleresque stuff.
Here's a slashdot
discussion of
Mario Livio's
book about the
Golden Mean.
I am constantly asked by people who have made the trek over to my bar, which, perched on a forlorn industrial block is clearly a destination-only trip, where they should go next. I'll ask them what they're looking for and they can never define it. "I don't know, something happening, someplace where something's going on." I politely abstain from pointing out that, for self-sufficiently interesting people, something'sgoing on literally everywhere, and, conversely, that spoiled, unthinking, and drifting ameobalike in perpetually jaded urban malcontent, they wouldn't really consider there to be something "going on" if Queen Elizabeth's jubilee were slated in the bar that night. Instead I tell them, almost truthfully, that I don't really go out to other bars that terribly much. Busman's holiday and all.--from
Toby Cecchini's
Cosmopolitan, the best book I've ever read about owning a bar.
Data collection, privacy, instructions for requesting your personal information from data warehouses, the
Swipe Project rocks my socks. Via
slashdot. And while I'm at it,
technologies that refuse to die, and Linux-based
firmware for Linksys wireless routers.
Freaks and Geeks is scheduled to be released on DVD in April. Two different editions, even,
this one and the regular one (here's an
amazon link). I am very, very excited.
A lagniappe of cultural kitsch and B-movie claptrap
