In Russia, Ebooks Read You!

Ebooks have risen around 250 percent in Russia, according to this article.  And here I thought eBooks were American.

I guess Rocky was right when he said, "During this fight, I've seen a lot of changing, in the way you feel about me, and in the way I feel about you. In here, there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that's better than twenty million. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change."

I do not know how that applies to eBooks or the modern Russia in anyway, but I will be damned if I am still waiting on the novelization of Rocky IV on ebook.

Read the eArticle before eArticle reads you!

NOVO and NOVA Look a Lot Alike from the News Stream

I was looking through the news stream and saw "NOVO Ink Releases 'Crazy Love' as First Enhanced eBook" and thought, "Sweet! NOVA from PBS is making ebooks now?  That's gonna be some crazy space rompin fun!"  Then I read the article and find out it is just some religious thing.  Nothing against religion, but man, I wants my space interactive ebooks. 


To talk about this for a bit, though, where is my interactive Bible reading thing?  I want some real wrath of God Old Testament fire raining down on my Nook, people.  I wanna see 3D plagues of Egypt and stuff!  Flying Spaghetti Monster Almighty!


Here's the article.

Facebook Zero to Become Super Hero

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, subject of The Social Network, and person so rich he could buy me and everyone I know and sell us twice, is now getting to be a freaking comic book super hero.  Hey, I have another idea, lets shower him with gold rose petals while he has sex with all my old girlfriends and they tell me he is better than me at you know... stuff.  

Seriously?!  Why does this guy get to be a super hero?  There are firemen, policemen, hell, freaking crossing guards more deserving.  I need a drink and it is not even noon.

Get the full story here.

Truly Green Comics: Books that Grow

The website Sprout Home has started offering comics that no one will ever be able to add to their library collection:  two comics that grow real flowers.  The comics are infused with seeds right in the pages, wildflowers for April Showers and herbs for The Gardner.

Now I ask you, what the hell is this crap?  I am an avid comic collector.  I have read great comics and horrid comics, but none of them have I read that afterwards I thought, "This bastard belongs in the ground."  I think even if the pages of Spider-man could be planted and sprout web shooters and $10 bills, the comic would still be bagged and boarded and put in a box.  I cannot imaging giving a kid a comic and then saying, "Now lets bury it."  Even as an older brother that convinced his sister that burying her Cabbage Patch doll would grow more of them, I can honestly say this is a horrible idea.

Ipad 2 Coming Next Week?

Calendar's are made of Ipads!  Ipads!

Apple sent out a press release this morning with the above image in full view, reports Wired.  Is this the coming of the Ipad 2 or a clever marketing ploy as Apple takes over individual days of the year?  You decide.

Podcasts: The New Late Night

I only discovered podcasts within the last year.  Over this time, I have come to one conclusion:  podcasts are now what late night TV used to be.  I remember sneaking downstairs to see a movie star, band or comedian on The Tonight Show (with Johnny) or Letterman.  In college, some of my best memories were being with my friends late night and watching Conan goof around and have fun talks with celebrities.  SNL has always been a staple of my late night viewing, even before I could understand it.  The problem with these programs is as I grew up, I could not find myself in front of them when they were scheduled.  I tried to watch the new Conan show, and almost made it a full week, before life intervened.  Now I find these same experiences with podcasts.  Funny and fascinating people having interesting and hilarious conversations about topics I am interested in and that I can listen to when I choose.  Ah, techanologie.  

After the jump are several of my favorite audio podcasts that I never miss in no particular order.  Alert: most are comedy and get frequent explicit tags.  That's just how I roll.  I know there are many more (and I listen to twice this list probably), so throw down in the comments about your favorite podcasts.

WTF with Marc Maron

Maron was always I could count on to give at least one moment in his comedy routines for someone to say, "WFT did he just say?  Damn, that's messed up."  A great podcast recently covered in the New York Times, Marc Maron specializes in frank talk about his life and his always interesting guests.

Nerdist

Ever have one of those nerdy conversations with your friends when you looked at each other and said, "Man, no one else would understand what we just said." Chris Hardwick and friends have these type of conversations all the time, often bringing excellent guests along for the ride.

Doug Loves Movies

Like movies?  Well, Doug freaking loves them.  Comedian Doug Benson gets some truly spectacular guests together for a live show that discusses, well, movies.  Each show also ends with a fun challenge called "The Leonard Maltin Game" that will leave you yelling at celebrities through your Ipod.

This American Life

Ira Glass lets you into a theme of Americana each week.  Current events are often covered in a thoughtful and reverent way while off the wall subjects are introduced that make you think about the world around you.  For all the NPR fanatics around, you fellas already know what I am talking about.

Webcomics Weekly

Get some webcomic creators together and have them talk about the business and their lives.  That is the basic premise and it becomes truly enjoyable if you read the webcomics these folks write.  Very funny folks having great conversations.

Smodcast

This is the one that got me into podcasts.  I love Kevin Smith and his purely frank take on life.  Partnered with Scott Mosier (or anyone else on the now huge row of the Smodcast network) and you have excellent, funny conversation where two dudes that like to talk and have fun with each other.

The Moth

If there is one thing in this world that can stop me cold is a good story.  Presented in spoken word, various people get up and tell a story, often with a particular theme. The stories never fail to be engaging, to the point where I cannot listen to them in the car for fear of becoming lost in the narrative.

NSFW

Ever watch those Japanese game shows where you are not too sure what is going on but enjoying the hell out of it?  That's this show.  The New Show Full of Win features magician Brian Brushwood and funny man Justin Robert Young and various guests competing against themselves and their audiences for awesome.

WeirdThings

These are the smart kids in the back of the classroom that are planning the hunt for Bigfoot when they grow up.  Episodes generally consist of Andrew Mayne, Brian Brushwood and  Justin Robert Young throwing themselves into fake scenarios of "weird things" that often descend into madness.

The Onion Radio News

It is The Onion.  I should not have to describe these short, hilarious, fake radio announcements.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour

My newest and most favoritest podcast, The Thrilling Adventure Hour is a live show in Los Angeles done by various performers in the style of old timey radio.  Hilarious enough that I have to stop what I am doing, lie down and close my eyes away from others so as not to endanger them and me.

New Kindle Ad Shows People Doing a Lot of Random Stuff with a Kindle

A new ad for Amazon's Kindle popped up on Youtube this week (and at CNET)showing pretty people doing fun things.  This kind of ad takes me back to the good ole days, where my friends and I would grab a book and run around looking all goofy while we read.  And remember that time you and your best girl were in the malt shop and you corrected her for her poor choice in expensive reading materials?  Man, those were the times.

Check out the new video ad after the jump.



Is it also a little presumptious to just say, "The Book Lives On."  I mean, really?  Couldn't we just say, "The eBook Lives On Because We Took Down Our Competitors?"

Rest In Peace Dwayne McDuffie

Dwayne McDuffie passed away at age 49.  McDuffie was a mainstay at Marvel Comics, creating the character Static Shock and working on many renowned titles. 

As the Baltimore Sun quotes Dan Didio, McDuffie "left a lasting legacy on the world of comics that many writers can only aspire to. He will not only be remembered as the extremely gifted writer whose scripts have been realized as comic books, in television shows and on the silver screen, but as the creator or co-creator of so many of the much-loved Milestone characters, including Static Shock. The industry has lost a true talent." 

Well said, sir.  He will be missed.

Wall Street Journal Learns of "eBooks" and "Interwebs"

The Wall Street Journal published this article today, making it one of the last publications in America to put their two cents in about ebooks.  To show I am not here to bash the Wall Street Journal as being old and stodgy, a quick search of their digital domain network e-page site that is possibly hosted by Angelfire or Geocities shows that they have been reporting on ebooks as far back as NOVEMBER of 2010.  Yep, right on top of that, Rose.

Update: I had to review their convoluted search feature to find out the first reported mention of ebooks on the Wall Street Journal webberpagenets was MARCH of 2009 by using their "2 years" search button.

Continued Update:  Seems I have gone deeper into the online vestige of the WSJ online rabbit hole.  You can also set your own dates, which is independent of the whole "7 days," "30 Days," "90 DAYS" and the aforementioned "2 Years"  I set mine back to the turn of the century and received an article from December of 08.  At this point I stopped caring and went back to playing Dragon Age. 

Something Is Strange About This "Beloved" Librarian

Recently, the RiverDell Patch published an article about a librarian who was leaving her post.  Not too weird, until you look at the text of the article itself.  Twice, in the title and in the text, the writer of the article puts the word "beloved" in quotations.  Seriously, four paragraphs about how awesome this lady is and how the community will miss her, but there seems to be a subtle innuendo that the author is trying to pass on.  I think it is possible that the librarian has been holding this community hostage, much like the boy with the mind powers in that Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life."  This article is nothing more than a cry out to the next library of horrors she will inhabit. THE BOOKS ARE MADE OF PEOPLE!!!

Look here at the article.  She made them make idols to her!!!!

Update:  We hope Laura Grunwerg has a wonderful future as a "beloved" librarian.  She has a wonderful future in the field and helpsheshereinmyheadsomehowinmyheadsomeonehe-

Google's Mixed Media Might Murder MiTunes!

The Android Market, Google's current online application store, might be getting an upgrade of music and movies.  As the website thinq tells us, recent URL's for android music and movies have been showing up, directing for now to the Android Market.  One can only put two and two together to see that Google is going for four and taking it to the man, which in this case is Itunes.

If Google can do this right, they can be the first to trump that fruity company in mobile entertainment.  Honestly, I just can't look towards Microsoft for that anymore.  Microsoft and Apple are like divorced parents at this point, while Google seems like that cool older cousin that lives in a van in the driveway that knows Kung Fu.  At this point in my electronic endeavors, I wanna know Kung Fu.

Thomas Jefferson Books Found At Washington University Library

The Washington University rare books library in St Louis, MO made a discovery this past week:  Several of their items once belonged in the personal library of Thomas Jefferson.  As this article in the St Louis Business Journal states, this makes Wash University "the third-largest holder of Jefferson’s books, after the Library of Congress and the University of Virginia."


Man, Nicholas Cage must be so excited!  You can bet I am going to be there at the premier of National Treasure III: TeeJay and The Wash Have a Sleepover.  You just know that is how that library got its books.  Personally, I just like the image of Tom and George in pjs, braiding each other's wigs.

Cardiff Library Closes: Was a Doctor Involved?

A pane of glass fell in the Cardiff Central Library causing the building to close its doors, according to the Guardian.  The library opened in March 2009 to hopes that it would be distinctive in a land of already distinctive architecture.  No explanation has been put forth for why one of the glass panels shattered unexpectedly in the middle of the night.

No explanation until now.  While fighting a host of the Vashta Nerada that came through a wormhole from the The Library, The Doctor and his episode only companion The Perspective (an American reality TV star) escape the creatures by climbing on top of the Cardiff Central Library.  The pane of glass was broken when Perspective pressed his butt cheeks to the glass in an attempt to mock the creatures.  The Perspective is then killed and The Doctor then goes on to seal the Vashta Nerada into a volume of Encyclopedia Brittanica with a dead lock.  The Perspective's one time fling and fellow reality star Snacky then vows revenge and starts an organization called "Hardwood" to watch for The Doctor and other other-worldly threats.  We learn later that Snacky ate herself after she was locked in a sauna while slathered with coconut self tanning lotion and Hardwood was disbanded.

Westboro Baptist Church Claims Free Speech Group Threatening to Take Away Their Free Speech

The Westboro Baptist Church falsely claimed this week that the hacker group Anonymous had threatened to destroy their websites, reports The Escapist.  Really?  That much inbred crazy under one roof and all they could come up with is "those free speech people wanna... take away our free speech.  Yeah, that's the ticket!"  Sure, picketing the funeral of a nine year-old is all kinds of we-eat-jello-out-of-the-toilet messed up, but at least they had some reason behind it.  Did they even have a notion about what they were talking about?  I can only assume they believe any organization willing to cripple another is just as screwed up as they are and as willing to go to extremes.  What's even better is that people almost believed it because, hey, attack the crazy folk spewing hate.  I can only be lead to assume that they know they are crazy people spewing hate that deserve to be attacked.  That's even more worrisome cause at least genuinely crazy people do not know they are crazy.

PS3 Hackers Catching Up To Iphone Hackers

Weeks ago, owners of jailbroken PS3s were told that they were banned if they ran software or devices that Sony disagreed with.  These hackers have recently come back at Sony with the equivalent of a large middle finger.

While hacking and jailbreaking have always been a problem for technology manufacturers in one way or another (with Apple's Iphone being the most prominent example), this is one of the first and largest that allows users of the banned tech to ban others from the network.

Will Sony react with some crazy new way to block the pirates?  Will the pirates give up on hacking this sinking ship of a product?  Will I get my break?  We may never know the answers to these questions.

Thanks to TechRadar for the article.

Facebook Breakup Notifier: Why You Shouldn't Friend Your Patrons

A new website called the Breakup Notifier has launched that sends you an alert whenever someone you are "friends" with on Facebook changes their relationship status.  Remember the days when you had to get into awkward conversations when you wanted to know if someone was still dating that jerk from the Coffee Beanery?  Not anymore!  All you have to do now is wait patiently outside their house with a gallon of coffee and pray that fight going on leads to a change on Facebook, am I right?

I say hallelujah!  I love it when the Internet goes pure creepy, ya know?  Technology has allowed me to know when my friends are ditching me for an awesome party and when my ex is no longer dating that hunky slab of beef and can come back to my flabby, fatty fat arms.  Yay!

Breakup Notifier via Geekologie

"Internet Kill Switch" Is Really Fun to Say

Senator's Joseph Leiberman and Susan Collins introducted a bill last week that, among other things, will ban an "Internet Kill Switch."  The theorized "IKS" (as I will now call it, cause my cut and paste is on the fritz) would allow the president to effectively stop the Internet in the United States for some reason or another.  Reason for the bill has been stated with the formal argument that "the president can't be that much of a dick, even in times of crisis, the old red, white and blue needs itz internetz."  While I do like the idea of a button that can create global information blackouts, think of the ramifications if such a button.  When Twitter when down for a day last year, people nearly had shit fights in the street.  If Facebook were to go down, my grandma would believe the Germans were coming back to get her and had already gotten her grandson, Moosh-moosh.  So write your congressman to vote for the Cyber Security and Internet Freedom Act of 2011, for my grandma and her Moosh-moosh.

Borders Bookstore Bankrupt! I Have Nothing to Say About That!

Borders bookstore announced it was bankrupt earlier this week.   Here is a link to an article explaining the entire boring thing.  I have nothing new or interesting to say about this, so here's a story about a monkey:

There once lived a monkey named Barnaby Russell Betsbury III, or Barbet to the kindly elderly couple who kept him in their bookstore.  The only rule the couple had was that Barbet was to never eat the books.  One day, Barbet met a cockroach named Satin.  Satin convinced Barbet to eat a book called "Bannana's Make Your Feet Stink and 99 Other Lies" and gained all the knowledge therein.  When the elderly couple found Barbet with book breath, they punished him by killing Satin with a shoe.  When Barbet kept eating more books, they gave him to a zoo, where he was picked on by the other monkeys for now he was the smartest primate of them all and they thought he was weird and liked things that were "gay."  Barbet died alone in a fake cave after attempting a stand up comedy career.  Fin

Adrianne Palicki Reads Comics? This Water Tastes Like Gin...

I don't see no Supergirl tattoo...

Former Friday Night Lights star (although we loved her in Supernatural) Adrianne Palicki claims she reads comic books, Esquire reports.  But we have to ask:  Does she really?  I mean, look at that picture.  Now look back over here.  Hey! We're typing here!  Anyway, Palicki has been recently picked to play Wonder Woman in the new television show of the same name.  So we have to ask, is she just saying this so comic nerds like us will give her a better reception at ComicCon this year?  Think about that.  If that is true, then this lady is too silly to play Wonder Woman because every cute girl at ComicCon gets a good reception.

Of course, she could be telling the truth.  With awesome exhibits on both Smallville and that ill-fated but actually okay Aquaman pilot, this lady does have the superhero background to back up her wild statements.  Also, she name-dropped Alan Moore and claims to have a Supergirl tattoo, so why not?  It is not like this is the end of days or anything.  However you look at it though, if you get a standee of this lady in a Wonder Woman outfit at your library, you won't have to worry about pointing out the graphic novel section ever again.

Book-A-Librarian: Not a Stripper Thing

Crazy Cat Smell Sold Separately

The residents of Park Ridge now have the ability to book one-on-one time with their favorite librarian for some full on research action.  The new service aims to give patrons a more personal and complete use of the library, the Triblocal reports.  While offering supervised research, the librarians are also available to give computer tutorials and classes.  Each session is for a limited amount of time, so to get your time's worth know what you want and get to it!

I think it is nice that librarians are learning from strip clubs.  Once we would have serviced everybody equally, dancing around shaking our non-profits for all to see.  Now we can get more personal and up close in the Study Room, giving special attention.  Just remember, there is no Sex Education in the Study Room.  Oh, there's studying in the Study Room.  But there is no Sex Education in the Study Room.

Tax Season Got a Whole Lot More Interesting

Dat ain't my income tax...

How do you really mess with not just poor people but old people, too?  Try to fundamentally change anything.  How do you do that more effectively?  Change the taxes.  Hooooeeeeleeeeee Sheeeeeet!  This is the best tax season ever!

Here are two accounts, one from Library Journal and one from Tales from Library Land, about how the whole situation has gone down.  Personally, I am relatively young for my profession and in the 14ish years I have paid taxes I have never once done it with paper.  I either paid someone to do it or did it online.  Or just called it a wash when they raised the taxes on booze.  College was fun.

Anyway, this year Uncle Sam just stopped with all that "free paper" nonsense.  Those who started doing their taxes with a rock and chisel freaked out when they realized they had to do them on the space calculator now.  Those who could not afford to have someone else do it for them freaked out when they realized this may cut down on their Farmville time on the library's computer.  Then to top it all off, the damn forms were not sent out on time.  And who does the government, public and neighboring planets look at to solve this problem?  The freaking libraries.  This in a time when the government is cutting funding and grant money for libraries.  Oh, I got nothing to say on that, my hands do not type that fast and I am too mad.  I have the utmost respect for our president, but his budget cuts are ridiculous.  I would say more, but I am not dealing with the Secret Service again this year.  Fucking taxes.