Moi

I'm not a habitual reader. I usually read several books in one burst and then relapse into dvd box sets of American TV shows. While I don't consider this to be a bad thing (I have no intention of becoming scifi/fantasy addict or a whore to the best seller shelf) it does mean that I miss out on lots of interesting things in the literary world.

I burst of reading is usually provoked by a long train journey and a lengthy wait in the WH Smiths at Paddingon Station. Ergo Blink, Tipping Point and most recently: Freakonomics - a really cool book about applications of economics and statistics to esoteric corners of the human condition. Subjects range from cheating in Sumo wrestling, how a child's name reflects on their success in life and (most controversially) how legalised abortion lead to a decrease in violent crime in New York. By far the biggest surprise, however, is that the majority of the research and the supporting papers were produced by the authors (unlike Malcolm Gladwell - who produces a compelling series of borrowed ideas).

I checked out Freakonomics in the Blogsphere. They have an awesome blog which provides more perspective on the ideas explored in the book, as well as Freakonomics-esque ideas that are still in their infancy. Yesterday they linked to, and discussed, an article about blogging trends. Data was harvested from a random selection of blogs including some from Blogspot. Analysis showed that vast numbers of blogs were abandoned shortly after conception, most only receiving updates over eight distinct days. Obviously that reminded me that my own Blog was currently bit-rotting somewhere on Google's servers. So here we are...an update after about six months.

I'm unsure why I have been so unable to keep a blog going. I appear to have transcended my blog addiction phase, where everything I did prompted a desire to inform my minions about it in a witty, condescending and factual manner. I'm hardly a sophist and for someone as apathetic as me it seems quite arrogant and uncharacteristic to give so many unoriginal opinions to people who won't care anyway. I've revisited my Blog a couple of times over the past few months with an interesting nugget of information which after spending some time writing up couldn't bring myself to inflict on the world. I'm in dire need of a blog identity which doesn't involve regurgitating other websites, I tried talking about me, then technology, then movie reviews - none of which really worked, so fuck it I'm going to talk about me again.

And to continue with the trend of literary excellence, during last weekend's überfesticle my über-counterpart and I purchased a leather bound "über-tome" to archive the events hosted by the über-foundation and their associated quotes. Btw: currently the sole contender for the über-fest 2k6 official quote is "Rock on. Rock the FUCK on!"...we have to get t-shirts! Also I just brought a book called "I hope they serve Beer in Hell" purely because the quotes on the back (think a dichotomy of praise and unmitigated revulsion). I'll get back to y'all if it's any good.

10 mins Later:
Oh fuck yes - this book is awesome, some of it is online: maybe you could drop this anecdote at your next dinner party.