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Why? Because I can and I like talking about Dave Barry. Who wouldn't? He's hysterically funny on his good days and fairly funny on his bad. I'm just putting in a plug for one of his inspired-by-one-or-two-columns books. This is his "Book of Bad Songs". (Yes I know hte period is ungrammatical, but I've always felt that rule makes no sense applied to titles)
Basically, in '92 he wrote a column in which he complained about Neil Diamond's ballads. He, naturally, got a flood of responses from his readers and wound up (I'm paraphrasing the series of events here) asking his readers to send him their most hated songs. Then he tabulated the votes and wrote a couple columns on the survey results. Thing is, there was apparently enough of a response to write a short book on, unsurprisingly, so he did.
I love this book. I mean, from the letter-writing reader quotes to his own pithy comments (although the wisecrack about the several thousand votes for a particular song being made by his secretary and research assistant not being counted towards the final tally never made it from the original column to the book, more's the pity) this book cracks me up.
Then again, all his columns based on reader surveys are usually fantastic. This is just a great extension.
And now for the penguin of the month. Eudyptes chrysocome, or the Rockhopper penguin, is 16-18" tall and weighs 5-6 pounds. It's a colourful penguin, sporting a yellow crest, orange bill and gets its name from a 'distinctive hopping motion'.
Who knew?
SCWLC
Basically, in '92 he wrote a column in which he complained about Neil Diamond's ballads. He, naturally, got a flood of responses from his readers and wound up (I'm paraphrasing the series of events here) asking his readers to send him their most hated songs. Then he tabulated the votes and wrote a couple columns on the survey results. Thing is, there was apparently enough of a response to write a short book on, unsurprisingly, so he did.
I love this book. I mean, from the letter-writing reader quotes to his own pithy comments (although the wisecrack about the several thousand votes for a particular song being made by his secretary and research assistant not being counted towards the final tally never made it from the original column to the book, more's the pity) this book cracks me up.
Then again, all his columns based on reader surveys are usually fantastic. This is just a great extension.
And now for the penguin of the month. Eudyptes chrysocome, or the Rockhopper penguin, is 16-18" tall and weighs 5-6 pounds. It's a colourful penguin, sporting a yellow crest, orange bill and gets its name from a 'distinctive hopping motion'.
Who knew?
SCWLC