Everything I need to know I learned from Wikipedia

There's a lot going on. Lots of work, lots of running around, lots of biking in the rain, lots of fucking rain today. Not a whole lot of money, which so far has amounted to a metric shitton of stress.

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Finally finished a couple books.

First is Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang, which is a truly excellent novel, especially for the ecologically-minded reader who isn't particularly interested in the crunchy vegan PETA/Sierra Club-minded fluffy shit. (speaking of PETA, check out how unfortunate their blog name is!) These people want their wilderness back, so they're going to blow up the fucking dam. And then get drunk. And then destroy some more shit. It's awesome. While it may buy into the quasi-misogynistic stereotypical male gender roles of eatin' meat and slammin' beers and shootin' guns, I actually found it pretty refreshing and invigorating, given the tree-hugginess at the core of the book. Definitely required reading.

The other book I've read recently was Joseph O'Neill's Netherland. It was mostly about cricket and New Yorkers who were scared shitless after 9/11. But really, it was mostly about cricket, which drove me crazy because a) cricket is a totally incomprehensible game to begin with, and b) what the fuck is with otherwise great writers and sports? It drives me insane. Don DeLillo won't shut up about baseball, Nick Hornby, soccer, David Foster Wallace, tennis. Et cetera ad infinitem.

Anyway, Netherland was alright, but I don't know what James Wood was smoking when he called it a "postcolonial re-writing of The Great Gatsby", because seriously, it was all about cricket. Yeah, yeah, it's a metaphor or whatever, but still. It's cricket, and the only good thing that ever came out of cricket was one of the best/most ridiculous Bollywood flicks ever made.

Next up: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. [Edit: Years? Huh. Just noticed that.]

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But, of course, despite all business there's always time to dick around on Wikipedia (and write inarticulate book reviews nobody will read). Here's the best thing I've found this evening: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diner_lingo.

Check the ice.