irony unremarked upon

by the powers that handle the programming. i'm watching next stop wonderland, which is a clever little movie that deals, among other travails of regular people, with the pain that dating through personal ads appears to be.

most of the commercials at this time a night are for dating agencies.

book banning is alive and well

the ALA has released its list of "10 most challenged books in 2004" -- those books for which people offended by their contents have formally demanded that they be removed from a school or public library.

four of the 10 books on the list were cited for homosexual themes -- the highest number in a decade, *sigh*. what's most amazing to me is the fact that books which present racism as a pervasive problem are challenged for racism.

via jenett.

i think i'll give myself a new project. i'll buy and read a book a month from the list of 100 most challenged books of 1990-2000, and then release it via bookcrossing.

want!

Wacom Cintiq 21UX Touch Screen Flat-Panel.

via gizmodo.

sex and the city

being as i usually meander on the outer fringe of what's popular, i've just now watched a few episodes of this show.

and i am clearly not its target audience. i can appreciate the snark, and there is plenty of that to go around, both of the sarcastic and the cynical variety. but it gets overshadowed by the utter superficiality of the characters. do those women have nothing in their brains but men, sex with those men, angsting about romance, and shopping for designer clothes? oh, wait, charlotte now has baby obsession -- from competent gallery manager to breeder who times sex according to ovulation in the blink of an eye. at first i liked at least aidan, but then carrie cheated on him, he disappeared for a while, and in his new incarnation of fit-and-trim man of the world he too is disappointing me; i don't like the relationship carrie and he are having now. i think i probably like slutty samantha best, because at least she doesn't angst about total bullshit, but there's no depth to her either. there are story lines here, there is quirkiness, there are characters who could become real.

but apparently the writers don't care to make that happen.

overall, 1.5 thumbs down.