Random Thoughts

Polite Scott presents us with A Happy JLA Easter.

MangaBlog has noticed my Manga reviews. Thanks for the link! I'm getting through the next pile right now, and I'm still debating whether or not to subscribe to Shonen Jump... $2.50 an issue for over 300 pages seems like a good deal. On the other hand, how much of that is story, and how much is hype or ads?

Boing Boing discovers Blokus. Let me tell you about Blokus. We had hundreds of these last summer, and sold out in late October... and when we tried to get more the distributor was sold out. All through Christmas. Every single day in December we would get a person in who desperately needed a copy for Christmas. Every single freakin' day. The new shipments didn't arrive until early February. It was insane.

MetaFilter has a link to a Parent's Guide to Anime. Looks both useful and comprehensive.

Garrett points us to an amazing story about a guy whose brakes went out on the steep Seattle hills, and yet he managed to avoid hitting anyone.

A remarkable case of an identity theft victim getting the last laugh.

I don't want one of these, but they do look cool.

Johnny B posts a scary book meme. I'm not posting it for various reasons, not the least of which is that it reminds me of the time I decided to read "every classic novel that exists" and attempted to read every classic novel on a large list of novels that a high school teacher had given us at the beginning of my sophomore year. I had discovered by accident, earlier, that if I read the novel on my own instead of as part of a class assignment then I was far more likely to enjoy it. (The novel that taught me this was "The Red Badge of Courage", which I read in one sitting during a creative writing class. The girl sitting next to me had a copy she was reading for a class, and I asked if I could look at it. Before I knew it, the class was over and I had just finished the book.) What I didn't realize was that if I was pushing myself to read the books, it was just as bad as if they were assigned to me. I got through a huge number of them, but when I got to "Two Years Before The Mast" I gave up in disgust. It was, in fact, the first book I couldn't finish. But I learned that forcing yourself to read a book is almost as bad as being forced by a teacher to read a book. I also learned that just because I book is considered a "classic" doesn't mean that it's any good.