Book Launch 2.0

This post's title is actually the title of a Youtube video by author Dennis Cass about the pain of an author trying to promote a book in a Web 2.0 world. It's very funny in a low-key way, and I'm tempted to buy his book as a show of support. Actually, if I were really with it online, I'd probably find a way to download the book for free, helping to make all his marketing work for naught. No wonder writers drink.

Happy Belated Birthday, Douglas Adams

I meant to post this yesterday, but, ironically, was tied up with deadlines. How can you not celebrate the birth of a man who said, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."

Check Wikipedia for a short biography of the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the name of which he apparently came up with while flat on his back, drunk in an Austrian field. Although many people are familiar with the book and movie, I think the ultimate form of the piece was the original BBC radio series, which was funny as all get out, although here's a tip of the hat to Alan Rickman's portrayal of Marvin, the miserable robot with a brain the size of a planet.

Government Eavesdropping in Collections

From the only-in-America department and a Department of Justice audit (via AP, in this case), we learn that the some telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps of suspects for lack of payment. Here's an interesting paragraph from the AP story:

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.

Out of 990 bills to five FBI field offices were not paid on time. One office had outstanding charges of $66,000.

This has me wondering about the collections process. Does the FBI getting reminders and dunning phone calls? Does the collections office have a ten most wanted field office list? And are suspects happily buying telco stock?

Stop (In the Name of the Law)

Apparently the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn has found that drivers are distracted these days, and not necessarily paying attention to the little things in life, like stop signs. So officials have added secondary humorous stop signs below the regulation ones at 50 intersections. The additional placards are shaped like traditional stop signs, but have different wordings, so the combination between the two might be "Stop Right There Pilgrim" or "Stop In The Name of Love." A blog called Neatorama has a fuller list of signage. The town's administration hopes that the attempts at humor will yield better attention. Then again, yielding is probably not what they really want in Oak Lawn.