Kevin->Write(thoughts, browser, time)

Here are half-assed twenty-word reviews of the books that I completed before 4/20/06, the official end of my book blog experiment, but have let stagnate for three months.

The Lion's Game, Nelson DeMille
Much like previous DeMille yarn, this was pretty dumb, but it's the sort of guilty pleasure I can't help sometimes.

Primary Colors, Anonymous
A big deal when it came out ten years ago. Feels a little dated today, like Bill Clinton himself. Whatever.

A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
Second time through. Funny. Bryson is kind of a whining sissyman. I liked this more when I was in highschool.

Red/Green/Blue Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Ultra-realistic colonization of Mars trilogy. My favorite sci-fi ever. Stunningly detailed characters and settings. Dialogue up to par. Highly recommended.

The Jordan Rules, Sam Smith
Michael Jordan is kind of a ultracompetitive selfish nasty gambling addict. News at 11. Only if you really like basketball.

Year Book Rankings, divided into three categories:

Enthusiastic Recommendations:
1. The Time Traveller's Wife, Niffenegger
2. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Clarke
3. The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Chabon
4. The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn
5. The Blind Assassin, Atwood
6-8. Red/Green/Blue Mars, Robinson
9. The Elementary Particles, Houellebecq
10. House of Leaves, Danielewski
11. Brideshead Revisted, Waugh

Meh:
12. Exploring New Ethics For Survival, Hardin
13. Blue Blood, Conlon
14. Gringos, Portis
15. the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, Haddon
16. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Rowling
17. The Hunt For Red October, Clancy (Umpteenth reading, could easily be higher)
18. A Walk in the Woods, Bryson (Second reading, could be higher)
19. Little Children, Perotta
20. Oracle Night, Auster
21. Into Thin Air, Krakauer
22. Primary Colors, Anonymous
23. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, Saunders
24. The Lions Den, DeMille
25. Plum Island, DeMille
26. Oryx and Crake, Atwood
27. Fermata, Baker
28. How To Be Alone, Franzen
29. A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Malkiel

Please Don't:
30. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Spark
31. Pattern Recognition, Gibson
32. Sphere, Crichton (fourth reading...could be five to ten spots higher if this were the first time)
33. The Book on Bush, Alterman and Brooks
34. The Jordan Rules, Smith
35. Savage Love, Savage
36. The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, Neal Pollack.
37. Design For The Real World, Papanek (technically unfinished)
38. Sports Guy, Pierce

Here's a little secret about getting a P.H.D. in any discipline that they don't tell you about: it's hard fucking WORK. It's not a romp through the idyllic twilight days of adolescence, and it's not a rose-tinted, Joan-Collins-vaseline-on-the-lens "coming of age". It's not about finding yourself. It's not about growing up. You kind of need to have taken care of that shit already.
posted by slatternus at 7:42 PM PST on July 25

Recently, when I get an IM from a spambot and I have some free time, I do something like this:

Bot:Hi
Me:OMG!!!!
Me:HI
Me:WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO VISIT YOUR WEBSITE??!?!
Me:OR LOOK AT YOUR PROFILE!!
Bot:I am Wet for you!
joscelinalveranoreanwlanaginevrakirsteniwsallylilamarabelwallegravonnisharleen
cybilfleurwanetaLocalSexySinglesberniceadrianpearl
neillazarlaannadianansabinebrynncorendaedelilahnatalieconstantinetadelleblondynichole
Me:YOU ARE WET FOR ME
Me:!!!1!
Me:IT JUST RAINED OUTSIDE IS THAT WHY YOU ARE WET?
Me:YOU WENT OUT IN THE RAIN FOR ME!!
Me:I APPRECIATE IT VERY MUCH, BUT PERHAPS YOU SHOULD GET A TOWEL
Me:AND DRY OFF
Me:WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW WHAT I HAD FOR BREAKFAST TODAY?
Me:TRICK QUESTION: NOTHING!
Me:I SKIPPED BREAKFAST
Me:I NEVER EAT BREAKFAST ON DAYS WHEN IT RAINS
Me:CALL ME SUPERSTITIOUS
Me:PERHAPS THAT IS WHY YOU GOT WET FOR ME!
Me:YOU ALSO HAVE SOME CRAZY SUPERSTITIONS
Me:THAT'S WEIRD THOUGH
Me:STAY AWAY!
Me:I'M AFRAID OF CRAZY SUPERSTIOUS PEOPLE
(2:30 PM)
Me:YOU DON'T TALK MUCH, DO YOU?
Me:THAT'S OK!
Me:I'LL TALK FOR BOTH OF US
Me:I DON'T LIKE TO TALK WHEN I'M WET EITHER
Me:UNLESS I'M SINGING IN THE SHOWER
Me:HEHEHE
Me:LOL
Me:ANABELLE IS A PRETTY NAME (ed. note: the bot's name is anabelle 50 vbn or something like that)
Me:VERY...PRETTY
Me:I'M LONELY, ANABELLE...SOO LONELY
Me:IS IT HARD TO GET THINGS DONE WITH ALL THESE MESSAGES COMING THOUGH
Me:EVERY SECOND?
Me:IS IT HARD TO MESSAGE PEOPLE AND TELL THEM THAT YOU'RE WET?
Me:PROBABLY YOU'RE JUST A BOT ANYWAY
(Bot signs off)

I have no idea whether this is irritating to the spammer or if they just start the program and go eat lunch or whatever so I'm typing at no one, but it makes me happy. This personality that I adopt doesn't understand anything about basic human social conventions and takes everything very literally, but he has a large vocabulary, reasons well, and types incredibly quickly and accurately; he is perhaps autistic. Although I'm disappointed in myself that I let a bit of reality seep into the character in the last few messages, I imagine that if there is your basic drooling vermin AIM spammer on the other end of the line, the experience is a little unsettling for them.

From an AskMeFi question: "What's the big deal about MySpace?"

MySpace has its own IM, blogs etc. Plus hot girls/guys talk to you, you can listen to music, and make your own stuff in a way that is so easy it's nuts. Teens DON'T care about the stuff that you and I might, like ads, obnoxious design and noise and the sheer volume of chatter happening there all the time. People like to tune in to see what's changed and to make short range plans and to upload goofy pictures of themselves.

Just tonight I helped a kid put a picture of himself up on MySpace and talked to him about it. He likes it because it's what everyone is up to now, he has some friends that he knows from other places there and he gets to sort of fake being a hipster badass when he's more of a suburban brainy dork.
posted by jessamyn at 9:08 PM PST on July 13