You'd think a monumental discovery would get a bit more excitement

Here's the deal, loyal readers. Last week I was feeling the after-effects of too many brownies and cookies for a birthday thing at work, and then there was the headache from a birthday get-together at a local pub. Ye gods and little fishes... none of that went over well.

But--trooper that I am--I recovered, only to fall at the hands of rhinitis acuta catarrhalis, better known as the common cold. (Woe is me, eh?) Therefore it is with a cough and a sniffle that I type this out, and it is why this entry will be more brief than usual.

Initiating brevity... now.

-   Some scientists made an incredible discovery. So incredible, in fact, that even they don't believe it. It turns out that Einstein may have been wrong, and sub-atomic particles might travel faster than the speed of light. While further tests will be conducted before confirming this is true, the guys at CERN (where this all went down) sound downright sheepish. "We don't know what happened. All this time, research, and money went into conducting this test, and we're as surprised as anyone that something happend."*

*Not an actual quote.

-   Aspiring writers, take note: There is a right way to be a good Creative Writing student. Unless it's the other way, which seems to work out just as well. Yes, this makes more sense than you might think.

-   Some of the criticism leveled at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (the book) is that the situations don't seem believable. I'm not talking so much about Lisbeth Salander's super hacking skills as about Mikhail Blomkvist's string of conquests. The rationale goes that a middle-aged reporter (supposedly standing in for author Stieg Larsson) could not realistically bed so many women, seemingly without effort.*

*Then again, the James Bond series isn't exactly realistic, and not only for the way Bond seduces every woman in his path. People seem to have no problems with suspending disbelief when it comes to him. Coincidentally (maybe), the current Bond, Daniel Craig, is playing Blomkvist in the new Dragon Tattoo movie.

Then there's the violence, specifically violence against women. Is the work feminist or misogynist? (And here's some more on that.) Some of you may know that the original Swedish title is Men Who Hate Women, and it only got changed to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because the publisher of Penguin thought the original title would never fly in the UK and North America.

These are a couple of the reasons that have stopped me from reading the books. Now the latest trailer for the film and some of the press featuring Rooney Mara have me interested in them all over again. What to do...?



-   As long as we're on the subject of book-to-film adaptations, Joe Posnaski takes a good look at Moneyball and comes away impressed. And just like that, I want to read the book.

-   Want to get rid of your online profiles? That may not be an option forever, and the implications are kind of sinister. Deleting your Facebook could be a criminal act? What??

-   Song of the Week:

Local boys (men?) USS (whose name stands for Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker) have this catchy tune that's been stuck in my head for a bit. Considering the residential space in my head is currently stuffed with cold effects and medicine, this could be strange. But I'm on the record as liking rock and hip hop mixes, so... it's N/A OK.



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Gesundheit! Oh man. Thanks for putting up with this. *sniff*