Items of Interest

OK, the book room is coming together. The fiction is all in the order I want it -- not strict alpha, but close enough, and with concessions to book shape/size and available shelf real estate. It was cool, because I was able to put my hands on all my Mickey Spillane books all at once. Tonight I moved The ♥G♥'s computer desk in there and put it in front of the window and hooked up her puter. Now she can look out the window and see Junior. Junior is this five-year-old Mexican kid who lives across the street and always walks up and asks what ****** is. Junior is then given a brief synopsis of the item in question. He then asks "Why?". Given an answer, he again asks "Why?", ad infinitum.

A few things:

• I got two books out of the library this week, and I'm quite excited about both. I got Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation by J.D. Lasica (who did the "You Humped Me All Night Long" video I liked so much) and The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Wired editor Chris Anderson. Lasica and Anderson are both on the blogroll. I'm starting with Darknet. One of the first big impressions I get is one of renewed distaste for Jack Valenti, LBJ insider and Hollywood lobbyist extraordinaire. This is the guy who created the absurdly outmoded MPAA (among other things), born of the same Great-Society controlfreakism that gave us housing projects and The Vietnam War.
• The Pew Internet & American Life Project has a new study out on bloggers and blogging, commented on by (for one) the San Francisco Chronicle. Here are a whole bunch of other stories on the report. I skimmed the report; I hope to read it in full this weekend.
• I haven't seen the new Al Gore movie yet, but here's some interesting evidence regarding global warming: