Drowning In A Sea Of Words

Saw the Beastie Boys on Letterman last night. I’m not the biggest Beastie fan, but I like some of their songs; a few of which I’ve *cough* borrowed *cough* from friends on the Internet. They did an interesting trick last night with what appeared to be a SteadiCam rolling down the street in front of them. Would have made a good video.
This guy is on a mission to read 52 books in 52 weeks. I admire his resolve, but I’m not sure it’s the quantity of the reading as the quality of the experience that’s important. Is devouring a book in seven days more worthy than reading it at a more leisurely 14 days. I read at a pretty fast clip, but I’ll admit that the books keep piling up around my living room. Part of the problem is that I tend to read a lot of stuff on the internet. News aggregators and RSS are great inventions, but they can be like brain crack for someone like me. So lately I’ve been making a conscious effort to get away from the computer after a reasonable amount of time so that I can devote some to words on paper. And even then, I have to keep up with the five or six magazines I subscribe to. Sigh. Nancy Kress wrote a novel called Beggars in Spain about people who were genetically modified so that they didn’t require sleep. I wish someone would hurry up and design a pill that can delete the sleep function encoded in our brains. I’ve got stuff to do, damnit.
I had the opportunity to get a sneak peak ride on Minneapolis’s new light rail train today. Pictures are forthcoming.