Virtual Book Tour II

Wired News has discovered the Virtual Book Tour. In true Consolation Champs style, I’m not participating this time around. I made the short list, and even received the book, but it figures that when the spotlight of fame shines on the VBT, I’m nowhere to be found. I’m not bitter, much…

Actually, the book (Screening Party, by Dennis Hensley) is quite hilarious. I hope he sells boxloads (P.S. Buy It). The premise of the book is simple: Dennis gathers a group of his highly-opinionated friends together to watch (mostly-bad) movies, and then he records all their pithy, snarky bon mots. If you’ve ever been riffing along with a group of your closest friends, and wished somehow you could record it all for posterity, then this is a book for you. Since there is only one straight guy in the whole group of six, the choice of films is a bit skewed (Glitter? Flashdance? Pretty Woman?), but I guess that contributes to the overall hilarity.

Brooke and I have been holding our own “Screening Parties” for a couple of years now, but ours tend to be a little more serious. Not pretentious, just serious. But I think after reading this book, we ought to throw in a few crappy movies now and then just to spice things up.

Follow the tour at Allconsuming.net.

Blog Books

I just saw Salam Pax‘s book today. It’s the first time I’ve seen a paper book that is just a reprint of stuff that’s freely available online. I wondered when this would start to happen. Salam’s blog was the perfect vehicle to kick off this new publishing phenomenon. The book even has its own website, which strikes me as sort of weird.

Publishers, you know where to find me…(though if I were you, I’d publish only the early years. Everyone knows CC experienced a downturn in quality as soon as I stopped using Blogger).

Visit Mateusz

Mateusz was one of the more advanced students in our ESL camp in Katowice, Poland this summer. He’s been emailing us and commenting on our blogs since we’ve come home. And now he’s started blogging, in both Polish and English. I’d suggest you go, take a look, and encourage him. Yet another educational application for weblogs!