Liar, Liar, Proust's on Fire

Via Kottke comes this list of books people lie about having read:

1. 1984 by George Orwell (42%)
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (31%)
3. Ulysses by James Joyce (25%)
4. The Bible (24%)
5. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (16%)
6. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (15%)
7. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (14%)
8. In Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (9%)
9. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (6%)
10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (6%)

Interestingly, I often lie about having read 1984. I've lied about it to multiple girlfriends! It's an awful book. I never plan to read it. But I plan to continue to lie about it.

I think I might occasionally lie about 2 & 3 as well, but only in circles where I'm pretty sure other people are lying about having read them as well.

I've only read parts of A Brief History of Time, but I've read enough to lie convincingly about having read it all. And right now "The Bomber" is realizing that entire conversations that we've had (that lasted hours!) were based on my ability to lie about having read Hawking.

I've read 80-90% of The Bible over the years and I can definitively state that 24% is way too low a number. Everyone lies about reading the Bible! It's a bad book. You'd have to be some kind of sick masochist to even get through Deuteronomy. And Christians are the biggest liars in the world, so when they say that they've read it, they almost certainly haven't. I know this, because I've read a lot of it, and it's easy to tell that they haven't. But Christians hate admitting that they lie almost as much as they like lying! So we'll never know how many people lie about having read the Bible, but it's got to be over 50%. Or, rather, everyone who says they've read the whole Bible is lying.

I have actually read Dreams From My Father (when Obama was just a Senate candidate in my humble state, no less), and there's no reason it should be on this list. It's an entertaining read written in easy language. So go read the book!

And number 10, The Selfish Gene, is possibly one of my favorite books that I've ever read. I read it all the way through, and I've read parts of it again for various projects that I've worked on, so I've probably read the whole thing twice. It's phenomenal! It offers a solution to almost every metaphysical problem in Ethics! Everyone should read it! Twice!

Or at least you should learn to be able to lie about having read it. That's almost as good!

Who's Year Is It?

Not even nominated, Beyoncé managed to steal the show last night at the Oscar's.

And yes, Cadillac Records was a much better movie than any of the Best Picture nominees last night, let alone the contrived "poverty porn" Slumdog Millionaire.

I loved Sean Penn's acceptance speech, though.

Iowa's Junior Senator

You know, I've always liked Tom Harkin.

Makes me feel better about the $25 I gave him back in '03.

What don't you fucking understand?

This is a thing of fucking beauty. You should listen to it at full blast in the office.

Acoustic Krypton

It truly is the year of Beyoncé.

ZOMG BEST DAY EVER

I feel like I've been waiting my whole lifetime for this moment. It's here.

Waterworld: Extended Edition

It's like they can read my freaking mind:

Superbowl Ads

Is it just me, or were GoDaddy's ads last night the most hateful and misogynistic things we've seen on TV since the Republican Campaign last fall? They really ought to inspire some backlash. GoDaddy's customer base can't be entirely composed of drunken frat boys, can it?

On the other hand, I really liked PETA's rejected ad.

I know people disagree with me about this, but I've always found PETA's use of sexuality to draw attention to the plight of animals to be legitimate.

Coates on Michelle Obama

Everything I know about black people I learn from Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new story in the Atlantic:

When Michelle Obama told a Milwaukee campaign rally last February, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country," critics derided her as another Angry Black Woman. But the only truly radical proposition put forth by Obama, born and raised in Chicago's storied South Side, is the idea of a black community fully vested in the country at large, and proud of the American dream.

EBONY

I, like many of you, have been waiting with baited breath, trying to guess who Ebony Magazine will name as its person of the year.

The suspense is over.

FDR

It appears that there's some controversy about Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal in certain conservative quarters. Amity Shlaes is an "intellectual" pundit who likes to go on TV and tell people that the New Deal didn't solve the great depression. George Will, despite being smacked around by Paul Krugman, gives movement and mainstream authenticity to her claims on Sunday mornings, on George Snuffleupagus's show. We need a simple response to this ludicrous claims that treats them with the seriousness that they deserve.

At the same time, we're actually having trouble figuring out "make work" projects for the new stimulus package. Since federal, state, and local agencies weren't anticipating the need or (political) ability to fund great works, we don't actually have a lot of sensible projects that are ready to go right now. They will come in time, as this recession will take years to work itself out, but we need ideas of things to do now.

Let me make a simple observation to deal with both issues: There's room on Mt. Rushmore for another face.

NaNoWriMo Victory

As you can now see on the right, I completed NaNoWriMo in the nick of time. I'm not actually finished with the novel at 50,000, and expect it to creep up a few thousand more words before I'm done with the first draft. Then I have a list of minor changes to make to it already, so I anticipate the first draft being finished sometime later this week.

After that, there are a few people who have offered to read and offer criticism, so they'll find a copy of it in their inboxes. I'm going to stick it in the proverbial drawer, and not worry about it for the next month and a half, as I finish applying to Law Schools. After that messy business is finished, I'll pull the thing back out and figure out what I want to do with it.

And, in case you were wondering, yes, I do feel like a viking.

Widgets

First things first, if you're reading this blog through an RSS feed, such as Google Reader (which is how I read most blogs), you miss two elements to this blog. The first is that I infrequently change the tagline at the top, just to see if people are paying attention, and the second are the widgets to the right of the main posts. If you're reading me through something else, then you'll need to click on over to the actual site to see what I'm talking about.

I have added two widgets to the blog. The first is the NaNoWriMo widget. I like this one because it tells you not only my daily progress, but it also calculates how much further I have to go. If you look over there, the first couple of lines are solid red. I didn't write much before, during, and right after the election, and the solid red lines are days when I didn't write at all. The length of the line is an approximation of how much I should have been writing, in order to keep pace to meet 50,000 words. Note how it lengthens. The Green/Red lines are when I did write, but not up to the pace that I should have. The Gray/Green lines are when I went beyond what I needed for a steady pace to win. In order to make up for my slow start, I've needed to have a few 3,000 word days. This has helped me catch up. Note how the gray portion recedes every time I beat the daily goal. And, finally the dark gray lines at the bottom are the future. Who knows what the future holds?

I don't, but I'm hoping for dinosaurs.

Moving right along down the widget lane, there's an ad. I basically put that there for testing purposes. Nobody clicks it. Don't worry about it.

Next up are my shared items! Most blogs have a blogroll, a list of blogs that people read daily. I think it's better to just link to the items in other blogs that I find interesting. This also keeps this blog from turning into a "Hey, look at this!" linkfest.

And finally, my second new widget, the follower feature. If you've ever felt a burning desire to have me e-mailed to you, or get frustrated when you check the blog daily and there's no new content, this is the place for you. Actually, I'd be tickled pink if people would sign up to follow me. It would be, like, validation and shit. It's google, so if you've got a gmail account, you're already registered, so what's to lose? Other than admitting to other people that you read my blog, that is...

And then archives and about me, blah blah blah.

And now, back to the novel-writing salt mines...

Nom Nom Nom Nom

You know, a year ago I would've been pretty entertained by a gigantic bank failure or two. But now that those are so common, it's becoming passe.

But you know what I'm really starting to get entertained by? Country failures.

Dear Switzerland, I suggest you place your head in between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

The Netherlands and Denmark look like they've got pretty bad situations too, but both of those countries are EU members, so Nicholas "St. Nick" Sarkozy's got their back.

Smells Like Socialism

A progressive income tax, despite what the McCain campaign liked to claim, is not socialism.

But the government owning facilities, paying doctors, and coordinating the health care of individuals is, like, the definition of socialized medicine.

I present to you, Marxist Hero Bobby Jindal, Republican Governor of Louisiana.

Research

In addittion to writing, I'm also doing a lot of research these days in order to make sure that my book about TERRORISM OMG is accurate. My Greatest find thus far.

I once saw Father Phillip Berrigan speak at SLU. He was giving a talk and on one side of him was an American Flag, and on the other side was a Vatican Flag. He got up to the podium and said "Ahh, just like Jesus, hung between two theives."

NANOWRIMO

I got a late start because of the election, but in the words of Samuel L. Jackson, I continue to kick ass.

ZOMG LULZ

Howard's other ride is your mom.

I can't WAIT for the Election Night interview with Dean...

4%

My NaNoWriMo.

I'm going to write a novel in November. My pace will pick up after the election. Blogging will slack.

Add me as a buddy if you're doing it. I work better with competition.

Barkley for Governor

Sir Charles is planning on running for Governor of Alabama in 2014.

Forty-five years ago, this was the Governor of Alabama.

What a country.

Casting Call

Seeing this made me realize that Bill Murray would play a perfect John McCain in the inevitable 2008 election movie.

Obama and Will Smith already have an understanding between themselves. I don't think anybody can argue with Kevin Spacey as Mike Huckabee or Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. And Samuel L. Jackson could lend the necessary GOD DAMN AMERICA gravitas to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

I have a hard time thinking of who to cast for Bill and Hillary, since John Travolta and Emma Thompson are stuck in my head from Primary Colors, maybe someone else has a better idea.

So, in the spirit of W., who do you guys think should play...

Bill and Hillary Clinton?
Mitt Romney?
John Edwards?
David Axelrod?
David Plouffe?
Howard "Sweater" Wolfson?
Tucker Barnes?

...feel free to add your own.