1. The new US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking feedback on how to make mortgage disclosure forms more understandable. If you have a few minutes, go and vote for the alternative you find easiest to understand.

2. I am seriously amused that Patrick Stump’s song This City, now free on iTunes, includes a lyric using the word “ ( Read more... )

( physics, Gen. Grant, happiness is a warm sweater )

( Books: The Many Lives of the Batman, Running with Scissors, Brand Warfare, Teach Yourself Cultural Studies, Do What I Say: Ms. Behavior's Guide to Gay & Lesbian Etiquette, and Shadow Divers )

Posting this frequently counts as spam from me, I'm sure. Anyway, ever since I read the highly amusing "Troy in Fifteen Minutes," I've felt a strange desire for an Odysseus icon that says "Hi, Boromir!" despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of either LoTR or Troy. I don't know why this should be true, but it is.

( As justification for this entry, John Keegan and David Sedaris )

Even if you don't usually read book reviews, if you or anyone you love gardens (or eats meat), read this.

Richard Rhodes, Deadly Feasts: The "Prion" Controversy and the Public's Health: This is possibly the scariest book I've ever read. Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which you've probably heard most about in its guise of mad cow disease ( Read more... )

Lots of nonfiction, much of it dancing around the theme of intellectual property and/or violent death:
( Read more... )

I had an amazing fannish day, including more promised cliche-fic and a reviewing of Pirates of the Carribean in which the greater-than-average-intelligence of the script was more clear than on first exposure. Unfortunately, I have yet to do anything about my faculty presentation on Tuesday, and I really need to circulate a paper first thing Monday ( Read more... )

John Keegan, Daniel Handler, Smallville tie-in, The Recruit, and Evanescence’s Fallen coming up. Then I get myself in trouble. If you want better-thought-out words, just stop reading after the reviews.

( Read more... )

What I've been reading, watching and liking ( Read more... )