#Books
Japanese ‘SNOW CRASH’ book covers are totally 1337
Weird pop culture intersectionality today upside my head. While Googling for a Snow Crash cover to post over in my Sony vs. Oculus Rift post, I stumbled across these gorgeous covers for the Japanese edition of the novel. The weirdest part is that it was on also-personal-hero-alongside-Stephenson Brandon Graham’s…LiveJournal. The Internet is strange, man.
Check the covers after the jump.
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Monday Morning Commute: Vinegar & Wine.
Servin’ a life-sentence on Spaceship Earth is a tedious, painful, agonizing wonder.
Why’s that? For one thing, there’s the fact that everyone you love will die. Your best friend. Your kid sister. Your longtime mistress. Your high school math teacher.
Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.
Along the way you’re guaranteed to deal with inevitable body-breakdown. Maybe you’ll abuse your body. Maybe somebody else will fuck it up. Even if you think you’re unscathed, the sands of time are wearing away at your flesh-vehicle’s gears. Every single day. Every single moment. Until when, you ask?
Until they’re so smooth that they don’t move shit.
But alas! There’s hope! Even those of us who’re agin’ more like vinegar than wine have a fightin’ chance at experiencin’ glory! Not only are we fortunate enough to have been imbued with consciousnesses, but we get to live in a hyperreal future! Are things royally fucked up? Sure! But we live in times in which anything is possible!
So if you start to feel a chill as an existential shadow lurks over your shoulder, spin around and blast that motherfucker with a science fiction repulsor ray!
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Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! I’m goin’ to show off this week’s strategies for keeping me pleased with existence. I suggest you liven up the party by entering the dance circle that is the comments section.
J.K. Rowling: Hermione should have gotten with Harry. Oh word?
If you’re one of those people who was all “Hermione+Ron OTP for lyfe bruh!“, J.K. Rowling is shitting on your Potter existence. Years after the Potter Saga ended in a shit-confetti explosion of fan service in that god forsaken epilogue, Rowling is coming out and saying she got the Hermione relationship wrong.
Monday Morning Commute: A Most Glorious Death.
“Oh, I can’t possibly imagine that you’d consort with pigs,” chided Thelma the Bartender as she brought over two bottles and two shot glasses.
Over the months that saw Absalom writing at this bar, he’d grown fond of Thelma. She was busty and acerbic and two tax brackets below most of the clientele. More importantly, she was most attentive to Absalom, having memorized his preferred drink-sequence.
Serving the public ain’t easy, and doin’ it well is damn-near impossible.
“Thelma, goddess of libation that you are, how many times do I have to warn you against eavesdroppin’? It’s not becomin’ of a woman like you. If you want to experience a life-changin’ conversation, you mustn’t resort to NSA tactics,” Absalom gave a shot-in-the-dark wink that defied his age, “just ask me out to dinner.”
“Oh yes, ‘dinner,’ that lovely euphemism for those too cowardly to just come out ask for it. Sex. Even if it were my greatest desire to bed you – and believe me, it isn’t – I simply wouldn’t be able to go through with it.”
“And why not?”
“Are you serious?” Following Absalom’s implicit instructions, Thelma set down the two shot glasses. One for a formely-respected, now lying-in-the-gutter-but-lookin’-through-the-smog-hopin’-to-see-a-star Writer. The other for a stoned-on-booze-and-slowly-realizin’-that-my-careerist-aspirations-will-never-get-me-high-off-life Intern. Between them, she placed a bottle of bourbon.
And for Absalom, a fresh bottle of Pepsi.
“By the gods, of course I’m serious! Why wouldn’t you bed me?”
“Mr. Fabliaux-”
“It’s Señor Fabliaux, Thelma, and you know it!”
“Whatever! Even if I wanted to sleep with you, I wouldn’t. And the reason? Your ever-deteriorating old-man body couldn’t handle it! Having sex with me would literally kill you.”
“Ah, but it’d be a most glorious death.”
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Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! First, I give ya’ll a bit of fiction to get the mind warmed up! Then, I run through some of the ways I’ll be entertaining myself over the course of the workweek. After I’ve tired myself out, you hit up the comments section and share your strategies for fending off the Beasts of Boredom!
Yes, it’s basically the Spaceship OL way station.
Okay, let’s rock!
Best of 2013–Eduardo Pluto’s Long-Winded and Late Picks
A week ago, I went out to dinner with a group of my friends. It was a memorable time, but it brought my year into focus—or rather, brought out its relative indistinctness. One friend, whom I hadn’t seen for a year, sat next to me during this festive occasion, and of course, having not spoken much to each other in some time, we decided to catch up. The problem was I didn’t have much to offer, so we were close to being caught up from the get-go. (It’s a wonder how I have any friends to begin with.)
The most pertinent conversation went like this:
“Hey, Eduardo! It’s great seeing you! So what have you been up to?”
“Not much.”
“Really?
“Ya, same old, same old, really.”
“I haven’t seen you in a year and nothing new has happened? I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, I’m a year older than I was the last time I saw you, so I guess that’s something.”
Fin.
Best of 2013 – Nico The Intern’s Picks
Let’s get the apology out of the way first. To the crew and passengers aboard the ship, I’m sorry for being so unacceptably neglectful of my duties. However, I’ve been building you all a present. Come down any time you want and visit me just off the engine room in our brand-spanking new Dreamatorium. Not as technologically advanced as a Holodeck, but it works in an overly imaginative pinch.
Cold Blooded: EVERY SINGLE DEATH from George R.R. Martin’s ‘A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE’ TABBED.
Don’t let the jolly belly and the beard fool you. George R.R. Martin is one cold blooded motherfucker. Here is every single death from his A Song of Ice and Fire (it isn’t Game of Thrones, you illiterate swine!) tabbed. Two-hundred and eighty-four fallen souls. Shout out to I Heart Chaos for the find.
Amazon’s ‘KINDLE MATCHBOOK’ bundles PHYSICAL and DIGITAL COPIES. Frak yes.
Rad ass. Sort of. Amazon is going to begin offering a digital copy of physical books that you snag. For a teeny fee. Frankly, I’m there. Maybe it’s bullshit or whatever that they’re going to charge the extra dough, but I’m a sucker. For far too long I’ve groused that I couldn’t lend a friend a hard copy of a book that I snagged for my Kindle. Or add it to my physical library, as a monument to my literary materialism.
Five new J.D. SALINGER BOOKS coming; INCLUDING ‘CATHER IN THE RYE’ SEQUEL
Man, I don’t know how to feel about this. Starting in 2015, there are five new J.D. Salinger books coming down the pipeline. Apparently these fuckers are approved by the Recluse himself, but it still smacks of oddity to me. At best.
Monday Morning Commute: Never Better than Later
I used to believe in the `ole “Better late than never” adage.
But then there was that time that I was late in delivering that CD with the software update which told the Home Health Bots to not rape their clients. Boy oh boy, was Dr. Stephen J. Vunderlust upset with me! And he had good reason, too! The phone lines lit up like a Fifth of July hangover, with the receiver screeching out horrid details about old folks and invalids being robot-raped. Relentlessly. Until expiration.
So yeah, sometimes it’s not okay to be late.
But alas! This is the Monday Morning Commute and my tardiness ain’t resultin’ in any forced sodomy! This is the spot where I show you how I’ll be spending the next few days. Y’know, what I’ll be doin’ to kill time and avoid the type of boredom only available to First World Denizens of this Strange Future-Present. Anyways, then you hit up the comments section and share your upcoming activities.
Don’t be late to this ball — let’s dance!
