- Need your recent literary adaptations info spoon-fed into infographs? USA Today is there for you!
- So if you’re like me, you’re probably contemplating which book recommendation came from the “distinguished” shrink. I certainly have a few ideas. Here’s a hint: When you’re down and out, you need a really funny read. Miguel Ruiz? Not exactly a laugh riot. Since I am an undistinguished litblogger, I have to say that, if you’re looking to titter, you can’t go wrong — off the top of my head — with Vonnegut, Wilde, Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker, Mark Twain, Jonathan Ames, Hunter S. Thompson, Martin Amis’s Money, David Lodge, Russo’s Straight Man, Terry Pratchett, and a good chunk of Christopher Moore. But what’s your funniest book or writer?
- Daniel Green replies to Jane Ciabattari’s hubris. And he’s right. If you’re using the words “business savvy” and “digested by the websites of larger newspapers” in relation to the litblogosphere, chances are you have as much joy and purpose as lima beans on a dinner plate.
- Orthofer finds wealthy writers in China.
- A showdown between the world’s largest and the smaller dogs. By my calculations, that big dog is about 3.5 feet tall. Let us hope, for the sake of Boo Boo the Toy Chihauhua’s happy existence, that Gibson the Great Dane does not adopt a cannibalistic appetite. (via Jenny D)
- Must all women who marry later be pigeonholed into “the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle” for these silly articles?
- The Champions is being turned into a film.
- Now here’s a strategy that should get Levi’s attention: Picador is planning to release new fiction in both hardcover and paperback form. This decision comes after hardcover sales have floundered. Is it possible that we’re at the end? Perhaps better book design and better paper might be an idea to consider.
- You know, for all their purported pro-capitalism, these neocon authors really don’t know how to mind the store. Kassia has more thoughts.
- Another reason why advertising and phone numbers in books are a bad idea. Although on the bright side, if this keeps up, this may allow some kids to confirm the veracity of Dumbledore’s sexual orientation. (via Bookshelves of Doom)
- It appears that the new Batman movie is causing problems in Hong Kong.
Author / Edward Champion
Some Perspective on the Dropping Dollar from Japan
And if you think that’s bad, you haven’t seen this (definitely NSFW and via Erin O’Brien, of course!).
I’m Done With Progresso Soup
I would like to kick the ass of the son of a bitch at General Mills who came up with the unsuitable and deadly metal can top for their Progresso Soup line. Progresso Soup, presumably in an effort to compete with the Campbell’s Chunky Soup counterpart, has recently swapped their standard metal can — which was previously normal and easily opened with a commonplace can opener — with one that has a metal ring. Like Chunky Soup, the idea here is to lift the ring up and peel off the top of the can and provide convenience to consumers. The problem, however, is that the apparent R&D genius — clearly unaware of the forces of gravity and settling upon a thinner and presumably cheaper tab than Chunky Soup’s version — hasn’t considered that the fatter and shorter cylinder offered by Progresso is less conducive to this immediate can-opening strategy than the thinner and taller counterpart offered by Chunky Soup.
What resulted, as I attempted to make myself a modest lunch this afternoon, was me pulling up the tab, applying no more puissance than anyone else in tearing off the lid, with the jagged top jeering dramatically upwards with a force incommensurate to what I had effected with my thumb and forefinger. The deadly elliptical edge then made its way deeply into my right thumb — metal particulates embedding themselves, hitting nerves, causing all manner of “You Progresso motherfuckers!” to emerge from my lips, thus sullying the divine silence of my apartment, and a ruddy Peckinpah geyser of blood spawned from a vicious cut that took almost two hours to clot.
I would like to find the bastard who came up with this design, whose idea of lunch is a Robespierrean homage, and I want to watch this man open up one hundred cans of Progresso Soup and watch his own hands be sliced by his abominable creation. I am not normally a vengeful monkey, but, in this case, I want to see the bastard cry after opening up Can #89 and then have to carry on opening eleven more cans, all of them causing additional cuts.
I present this episode to warn any and all consumers of Progresso Soup that these new cans are deathtraps. And that the forty cent difference between Progresso and Chunky Soup really isn’t worth it. Particularly when you have a shitload of deadlines to meet.
(This is the reason why, by the way, I’m not answering email today.)
The Chances of Franzen Growing Into This Guy’s Attitude Are Nil
Eat a Falafel At Your Own Peril!
CQ Politics: “The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.” (via MeFi)