Late Afternoon Postings

So I've been busy today, and haven't had much time to write anything (What's that you say? Yes, yes this is my job...I just didn't have a whole lot of time between my lunch break, my coffee break, and the forty or so minutes I spent looking for my pen, to write much of anything...I don't have to answer to you). I wanted to pass along two quick things that are floating about out there today:


Joshua Ferris stopped by the store to sign some copies of his novel Then We Came to the End. Coincidentally, his book has made it to the finals of the Tournament of Books, where it will face The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao...or maybe it won't. Mr. Ferris was a very nice guy, and I have this feeling that his book will win. And now we have signed copies of it, so stop by and pick one up, won't you?


I read this article on Slate about the history of the hangover, mainly because I'm a Kingsley Amis fan, and I just assumed he would be mentioned (He was). On the second page of the article is this interesting bit of information:

The Scots, the Irish, the Welsh, and the English seem to have special relationships with the hangover. Why do societies drink? The answer is obvious, in a way, but not entirely. Several years ago, Nature, the science journal, published a report suggesting that drink was, from a biological point of view, engrained among the British. There are historical reasons for that. Fermented drinks contained none of the bugs that could be found in water. In Dublin in the 1940s, it wasn't unusual for people to give the young children Guinness when the water wasn't potable.

See. It's not that I have a "problem" as you say, but rather that there are bugs in the water. Bugs, I tell you!


Reasons NOT to Move to Indiana:

1. Corn allergy
2. Keith Smart
3. Bookstores must register as places that sell "sexually explicit materials."
4. John Mellencamp
5. Hatred of noble farm life as portrayed in pick-up truck commercials
6. Proximity to Illinois