The Early Years (2002-2005)

None of the major news sources have it, but the Drudge Report claims Christopher Reeve is dead. If so - RIP, Supes. Edit: yup, it’s now on CNN and the New York Times. Sad.

A police detective in Moxee, Washington used Google to identify a hit-and-run victim from 10 years ago. You know how they say with the advent of Google and its cache, everything is now public and you can never escape your identity? I guess sometimes that’s not a bad thing.

Jacques Derrida passes away. We may still debate the virtues and flaws of deconstructionist philosophy - but there’s no doubting the influence the man had on intellectual life. Here’s an old review I wrote of Derrida, the documentary.

[ Which OS are You?](http://bbspot.com/News/2003/01/os_quiz.php)

Basement jaxx: source details all of the Basement Jaxx vinyl releases, and includes an MP3 of the hard-as-nails (and hard to find) original version of “Where’s Your Head At”. Since I’m a Jaxx completist (I collect vinyl related to the Jaxx and to Masters at Work), this was a great find for me. Meanwhile, largeheartedboy has links to a White Stripes cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps” in some sort of Detroit meets New York nexus of cool.

Reviews of White Chicks and 13 Conversations About One Thing are up on Delta Sierra Arts, my film / music / arts review blog.

Blogger is conducting some user testing, apparently. Well, I’m a long way away from Mountain View - have a friend working at Google, but that’s about it - but I just thought I’d say:

Rocking Vicar has a collection of bad album covers. I’m trying to think of particularly egregious ones outside the ones nominated…

More stuff on blogging at work, this time from Fortune. That adds to the coverage from the New York Times and the Harvard Business Review. Seems like the use of blogs in enterprise is about to reach a tipping point. Here’s Jonathan Schwarz, president/COO of Sun:

So what if fortune cookies are peculiarly American, not authentic? I like them. Especially adding “in bed” to the end of whatever fortune you get.

$40,000 library mural misspells names. I thought the artist’s defence of the spelling mistakes was funny: “The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake’s concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words,” she said. “In their mind the words register correctly.”

Does this girl have anger issues? An 11-year-old attacked her baby sitter with a machete during a struggle that included attempts by the girl to grab a baseball bat, a shovel, and a BB gun, investigators said.

Who’ll win the next Nobel Prize in Economics?

Surely if you were Tiger Woods you can afford a better band at your wedding than Hootie and the Blowfish? I mean, what’re Hootie doing now besides cover versions of mawkish Bread songs for TNT specials?

TINEyboppin has the text of the Washington Post article on Greg Behrendt’s “He’s just not that into you” insight. Loyal Sex and the City watchers know, of course, that Jack Berger stunned Miranda with that blunt assessment - well, Behrendt was the show’s “straight male” advisor (can’t believe they had to work at finding one!), and he’s even made a book out of that philosophy. Although, of course, the show also had it right when Miranda’s date didn’t want to go up to her apartment not because he wasn’t into her, but because he had a violent reaction to the dinner…

The things you can find in Amazon’s Search Inside the book feature… as I’ve noted before, something I once wrote years ago ended up in The Friendly Jane Austen, so I dug up a scan. I like being quoted on the same page as Sir Walter Scott and Lionel Trilling. Illustrious company indeed. “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”

Google in 1960. Facetious, of course.

Daniel Gross debates whether Starbucks represents an addiction or simply an efficient means of caffeine delivery. I used to think it was 2 cans of Coke/Pepsi = 1 cup of coffee when it comes to caffeine content. But apparently, even on those days where I down 5 cans of Coke (160 mg of caffeine) I’m not even at half the caffeine in a tall Starbucks coffee (a whopping 375 mg).

I find Jon Katz’s columns on dogs for Slate profoundly wise, representing the even-tempered voice of a man trying to do right by his dogs and to understand the essential nature of dogs despite the frustration it can bring. (Check out this piece that encapsulates the value and difficulty of patience.) So I thought this extract from Katz’s newly-released Dogs of Bedlam Farm, where he gives away Homer, his border collie, was particularly moving. Homer sounds like a little heartbreaker of a dog:

I’m reading Q magazine on the “1010 songs you must own”. Yeah, Q has this obsession with lists, but it’s a good list - part Q’s own suggestions, part nominations from musicians - that points out quite a few new tunes to check out. It does end with a top 10 that’s not particularly controversial: