Yes, Harry Potter puppets. I thought it was funny at least.

Today is Towel Day!

“Towel Day,” you ask. “What is that?”

Long short, Towel Day is an annual holiday created in memory of the late Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Here is what Adams had to say about towels:

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta…wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat…wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes…any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it … win through, and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.

I like the cover.

Coming in at a staggering 4,032 pages, the complete works of Agatha Christie finally come bundled in one convenient package. Convenient of course if you don’t mind the spine which is over a foot long and probably weighs enough to come with a warning to not let children play on or around.

I imagine sitting in on the bus and pulling the tome out of my Mary Poppins-esq bottomless bag. For more information on purchasing this brick book, check out the official Agatha Christie web site.

Hey Portlanders! What’cha doin’ this weekend? You know it’s going to be raining regardless of what the weather man says. So why not check out Wordstock’s Book-To-Film Festival? They will be showing A Clockwork Orange, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Color Purple, Fahrenheit 451, James and the Giant Peach, Jaws, Midnight Cowboy, and Sometimes a Great Notion. Tickets are only $3. For more details check out the wordstock blog.

This sounds like a whole lot better than paying $9 to see Angels and Demons.

Oh political satire.. How conflicted I am towards you. On one hand you are funny and a joy to read, on the other you are preachy and like to point out flaws in the government that make me worry about my future.

Christopher Buckley (author of Thank You For Smoking) wrote Boomsday as a political satire whose main focus was the social security system in the US. The young people take to the streets when they realize that they are the one paying for the Baby Boomers to retire and spend the rest of their days playing golf and living in Florida. Led by Cassandra Devine, from a sinister PR firm, a campaign is launched in vain of Swift’s Modest Proposal that would offer incentives to the Baby Boomers who agree to “Voluntarily Transition” at an agree upon age. Cassandra then teams up with Senator Randolph Jepperson who plans on using “Voluntary Transition” as his agenda to become President.

Prior to this book (which I had to read for my Satire class), I had not read any of Buckley’s books. Boomsday is a clever satire that helps drive the point home about how young people are screwed. The book can be a little slow at times, but for the most part the pace is enjoyable. I would recommend checking out Buckley’s works if you are a fan of satire.

Came across this blog post and thought it was worth posting here.

How Many Spaces after a Period: One or Two?

Ignoring the fact that this is a blatant commercial, it is kind of neat to seat how a print on demand book is made.