Mark Cuban reminds us that he’s a tech geek at heart by exploring the Bernie Madoff case from the angle of the computer system Madoff used to generate his fraudulent transactions. It’s a fun post, and hey, his thesis is more sensible and responsible than when Ron Rosenbaum went kinda bonkers after the Theresa Duncan [...]
Unrequired Reading: Jan. 30, 2009
Jan 30, ’09
5:00 AM
Why work? Read a bunch of links today instead!
Note hideous gridded paper
Jan 29, ’09
6:27 AM
I was going to put this Michael Bierut post among the week’s Unrequired Reading, but I thought it deserved its own entry. It’s all about the notebooks that Bierut has used for the past 26 years. He’s up to #85. As anyone who knows me can imagine, I find this sorta thing fascinating. I love [...]
0-fer, part 3
Jan 28, ’09
12:57 PM
I’ve never read anything by John Irving, either. (I could go on with this series forever! Esp. around Nobel time!)
0-fer, part 2
Jan 27, ’09
1:57 PM
I never read anything by John Updike — who died of lung cancer today at 76 — either. I hear those Rabbit novels are supposed to be good. Any recommendations?
Lost in the Supermarket: Amish Paradise
Jan 27, ’09
9:20 AM
It’s against the law here in NJ to sell alcohol in supermarkets, so this installment is technically a cheat. Still, the liquor store happens to be right next to the supermarket, and hey, it’s my blog. I saw this out of the corner of my eye – – and was impressed that someone would target [...]
0-fer
Jan 26, ’09
11:22 AM
I have not read a single one of these books. (I’m also convinced that no one’s actually read all of 2666, and that it’s going to be the Great Unread Novel On Everyone’s Coffeetable, Bookshelf or Nightstand of its era.)
Monday Morning Montaigne: Of coaches
Jan 26, ’09
5:30 AM
As near as I can tell, this is Montaigne’s progression in Of coaches (pp. 831-849): I don’t like riding in coaches; I’m much more comfortable on horseback. Some ancient kings and emperors sure used some strange and extravagant means of conveying their coaches. Kings and emperors tend to spend their subjects’ money liberally and ostentatiously. [...]
What It Is: 1/26/09
Jan 26, ’09
5:00 AM
What I’m reading: The Alcoholic, a boring comic book by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel, and The Hot Rock, by the late, lamented Donald Westlake. Otherwise, same as last week: Montaigne and Clive James. What I’m listening to: Bebel Gilberto records What I’m watching: The last episodes of Arrested Development. What I’m drinking: Plymouth & [...]
Location, Location, Location
Jan 24, ’09
5:06 PM
Why New Jersey rocks: New Jersey’s small size has a lot to do with both its much-inflated deficiencies and its virtues. A lot is packed into limited territory. Urban squalor is squeezed up against dairy farms; picturesque villages right out of a New England landscape are a sneeze away from sulfurous factories and malodorous highways. [...]
