Ghey!

Russia agrees to shut down allofmp3.com.

This is just more whack-a-mole.
Because the business model will work anywhere that doesn't give a shit about copywrite.

I give it a couple of months before an allofmp3 analog is up and running somewhere in Asia.

I <3 Teh Internets

There's this movie Ivan and I are excited about, Pathfinder, which Ivan linked a while back. Vikings in prehistoric America...what's not to love right?

Well, while poking around IMDB for a release date I found an overly sensitive type in the comments who was upset about percieved Viking stereotyping:

well my ancestors were Vikings and i was a little affended by the trailer, not terribly much, but i dont think that they should have portrayed them as ten foot monsters that have no feelings and are bearly human. i mean they were real people too, but i will admit that in thier pagine years they were quite brutal. anyway i'm just rambling, but i do wish that they would put the vikings in better light like in the 13th warrior

Which gave us a laff.
But of course, this being the internet, any post of such dubious merit sows the seeds of its own humiliation, which came in the form of this reply:

well my ancestors were Vikings and i was a little affended by the trailer, not terribly much, but i dont think that they should have portrayed them as ten foot monsters that have no feelings and are bearly human."

Ah. You're Swedish.
Those of us that are descended from Norweigens and Danes actually ARE ten feet tall and more animal than man.
Sorry about your luck, Olaf.

Pardon me while I wipe away a tear to better appreciate the beauty of teh internet.

iPod Treats

All hail the iPod Lounge 2007 Buyer's Guide.

They separate the wheat from the chaff so I don't have to.

another cover blurb

It's nice to be informed that Four Walls by Vangelis Hatziyannidis is "probably the most atmospheric Greek novel of this year".

Stuff like this sticks in my head.
A lifetime's accumulation of these basically meaningless tidbits can create an illusion of depth, when it's really just knowing very little about a tremendously broad range of subjects.

Inevitably I'll find myself in a conversation where knowing that Four Walls is a Greek novel of some repute will dazzle my companion. It happens all the time.


/edit
as if on cue, in the very next stack of books The Economist informs me that Elif Shafak is "well set to challange Mr Pamuk as Turkey's formost contemporary novelist" on the strength of his novel The Gaze.

serendipity

Did a quality scan of Thirsty? Los Angeles: the lowdown on where the real people drink!

The first page I opened to was a review of Mister T's Bowl & Gutter Cafe, where I spent a fine evening with Bobo & Pelf.

A+!

Also, it gives the URL for Mr T's website, which I could not find with Google after our visit whetted my thirst for knowledge.
Extra credit!

more books

I'm pricing a big pile of stuff today, so you'll be getting a lot of observational book posts. Deal.

Promotional cover blurb for the mystery Moonblind:

Moonblind opens a reader's eyes- to relationships, to the complicated inner life of a woman in transition, to the role of four-legged creatures in our lives.

Even if I had an appetite for these gimmicky 'pet' mysteries, that treacle would put me off the genre until the end of time.

You learn something new every day

Ralf Konig, for instance, is "Europe's most popular gay cartoonist", according to cover banner of his book Roy & Al, which features an illustration of a fat gray dog sniffing a small white dog's ass.

They obviously set the bar pretty darn high on the other side of the pond...