Category Archives: Personal

For discussing things about my suck-ass life. As if you cared.

So Long, and Thanks for all the… Grief? (Updated)

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I have yet to see it on any news outlet in Houston, but the word at the office is that Director of Public Works and Engineering Michael Marcotte has tendered his resignation to Mayor Parker. The effective date is in two weeks. According to multiple sources, the Mayor was not happy with unspecified job performance issues and requested the Director vacate his position.

What prompted this action now? The City is embroiled in multiple controversies, as the new mayor puts her stamp on the city. A hefty water rate increase, a drainage “fee” initiative that has her tacit approval, upheavals at Metro; now would not seem to be the time to throw more fuel on the fire. All of those involve Public Works in some way. Yet the fact remains: Marcotte is out.

Several questions immediately occur:

  • Is Marcotte supposed to take the fall for the rate increase?
  • What was the mayor unhappy about?
  • Who else, if anyone, will be following, if the mayor is unhappy?
  • Did Marcotte balk at some demand involving the rates, cooperation with Metro, backing the initiative?

Taking the fall doesn’t make sense. There’s no way that Parker can shift the blame for needing the rate increase onto Marcotte; not while she was the controller and silently oversaw the vast expansion of debt funding from capital projects into everyday operations and maintenance. So what is going on?

Perhaps we’ll hear when the usual 3:48 pm Friday evening press release goes out, but I’m not holding my breath.

Update: My view of Marcotte is probably not that well informed; I don’t interact with him in any way. Still, my impression is that he’s an even-tempered administrator who doesn’t rush to judgment, isn’t prone to arrogance, and listens to his managers. He’s been a loyal soldier publicly, whatever he’s had to say privately. He’s tried, within budget constraints, to see to it that his employees are compensated as well as in the private sector.

If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say that the rift probably had to do with the rebate program, and/or contract administration and code enforcement. The latter areas have always given me a queasy feel when I’ve dealt with them; contract inspectors sometimes act like they’re working for the contractor, not the city. There’s nothing I can specifically point to as wrong-doing (or I’d be publishing it, screw OIG), but the creation of the rebate program risks letting the rot spread. Not to mention, it removes funding from the utility system and hands it to slumlords.

New Year’s Resolutions

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So, it’s the new year, which means I have to do resolutions. Actually, I don’t “have” to; in fact, I’ve skipped probably the last ten years or so. For whatever reason though, I feel like doing some this year. So here they are, for the hell of it.

  1. Write at least one post per week for Houblog or blogHOUSTON. (Government is more important than animé.)
  2. Remember to take my medicine like I ought to. (I’ve got a bad memory.)
  3. What was number 3 supposed to be again? (What a tired joke.)
  4. Eat a little healthier this year. (No way I’m going to turn into a vegetarian, but nobody says I have to eat all the bad stuff.).
  5. Watch more animé. (Because you can’t save the world without 16-year-old Japanese girls in sailor outfits. Wait, this could interfere with #1.)
  6. Do more work around the house. (Some things just need doing, and no one else is going to do them for me.)
  7. Resume the City Council Agenda reviews. (Preferably in addition to #1, rather than as #1.)
  8. Get a promotion, or leave the city for greener pastures. (Moo.)

Hey, I needed at least one gimmie, and one joke in there. “Get a promotion.” Hahaha. I kill me.

Is Cancer Next?

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OH MY F’ING GOD. Just found on Instapundit:

A CURE FOR DIABETES?

In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body’s nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.

Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. “Mice with diabetes suddenly didn’t have diabetes any more.”

Don’t get too excited yet, but let’s hope this pans out. If it does, we’ll have to wonder what else we’ve been missing in diseases we thought we understood.

My father died from complications of diabetes, and I am borderline diabetic myself. Several of my co-workers are diabetic and had to take early retirement. All suffered from complications. This could be huge, even if it were only diabetes. The kicker? It’s not–although the treament doesn’t directly have anything to do with other diseases, it marks a radical change in how we think neuropathic diseases work.

They also conclude that there are far more similarities than previously thought between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and that nerves likely play a role in other chronic inflammatory conditions, such as asthma and Crohn’s disease.

The “paradigm-changing” study opens “a novel, exciting door to address one of the diseases with large societal impact,” said Dr. Christian Stohler, a leading U.S. pain specialist and dean of dentistry at the University of Maryland, who has reviewed the work.

You see, all along, we’ve been thinking “the pancreas stops making insulin.” A while back it was discovered that it still makes insulin — it just isn’t releasing it because the tiny production “islets” are inflammed. By injecting a simple extract of chili peppers to kill the pain nerves in the pancreas, the inflamation went away, and the pancreas’ of the test mice started producing insulin again. Stranger still, insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes) dropped dramatically after the treatments.

Let’s hear it for lab mice. Next time someone says “animal testing is inhumane,” I suggest giving them a few chronic diseases.

Hiatus Update

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Just keeping everyone posted on the state of affairs. I did not get as much done yet as I’d hoped, largely because of Magic the Gathering Addiction. This was the weekend of the Time Spiral Pre-release, so I spent Saturday and Sunday (after doing a few things around the house) shopping and playing. I only bought a few packs of cards because I’m pretty tight right now (more about that later). Most of the money went for entry fees into two tourneys. I was late both days and that’s all I could get into. I went 2-2-drop in the sixth flight (sealed deck) on the first day, and then eliminated in the first round of a booster draft on the second day. (For the uninitiated, the contest was to open packs of random cards and assemble winning decks from them.) This performanceis about what I expected–maybe better, since I’m just getting back in after being mostly out since just after Fallen Empires (about 6 years?).

Last weekend was “work on the car weekend� during which I took care of some deferred maintenance, so I haven’t made much progress in splitting the blogs yet. Originally, I planned to just put the anime blog in a subdomain named Omoikane, after the ship on Nadescio. Then, while debating blog names with Steven Den Beste (no, I didn’t take any of his oddball suggestions on Chizumatic!) and getting some help in Japanese, one name occurred to me that I was sure had to be taken. I checked just to be certain—thinking I’d discover a new anime blog, and maybe it would have some cheesecake.

Boy, was I wrong – to my surprise, no one had registered “bridgebunnies.com.â€? But….but! I know I saw it somewhere! What an oversight! Impossible! Sacré bleu! (Ugh, time to go wash my mouth out, I spoke French.) Anyway, I immediately fixed that terrible, terrible error. The internet must have bridge bunnies! While I was at it, I also grabbed “bridgebunnies.netâ€? and “bridgebunnies.info,â€? for good measure, so copycats are going to have to settle for something else; “.tv” would be appropriate. (I finally remembered where I saw it: “Bridge Bunnies on My Mindâ€? is one of the rotating titles on Jason Miao’s site.)

This left me in a quandary, because I kind of liked one of the titles I’d worked out with the invaluable assistance of Steven DenBeste and his friend HC. Before I go any further, I want to extend warm thanks to both of them for their help with the Japanese language and blog name suggestions. Thanks a bunch guys!

I was looking for something just a bit silly and over the top involving anime genres, but Magical Battle-Android Maid Girls just didn’t flow too well in English or Japanese: “Mahou Sentou you Andoroido Meido Shoujoâ€? is a bit long and unwieldy. Trying to tack Meganekko onto that somewhere was just overkill. So at Steven’s suggestion, what I settled on is Mahou Medio Meganekko (Magical Maid ‘Glasses-Girl’) which will be appearing soon at bridgebunnies.com, .net, and info. I think Omoikane will survive as a subdirectory for screencaps or something. It’s going to be a bit of a complicated setup, because I’m going to try to strip all the anime posts from Houblog and move them over there. Fixing the screencap URL’s is going to be stone cold beyotch. I don’t see any way to easily do it (writing a script is beyond my pitiful PHP skills), and anyway, the database structure will be different, as I plan to start the new blog with WP 2.0.4. Unfortunately, this will probably cause me to lose most of the comments as well, since they’ll be as difficult to move as the posts. Still, it will finally split the politics from the anime/gaming/etc. It’s always been a touch bizarre as match-ups go–sort of like Fred Astaire and Anna Nicole Smith. It boggles the mind.

You know, I wonder…. Since I’m a government employee, can I get bridgebunnies.gov? I could claim to be the Emperor in an alternate dimension—how’s ICANN going to disprove it?

It could work….

UPDATE: Addon-domains don’t work like I thought they did. I thought it would appear to anyone from outside the site as a completely separate site; it would just use the same hosting account and resources as Houblog. Instead, it takes anyone typing in www.bridgebunnies.com and points them to the subdirectory and subdomain “bridgebunnies”; thus the viewer would see bridgebunnies.houblog.com. So I deleted it while I try to decide whether I’m going to spring for another account or not. Originally, that was my plan when I was going to go with omoikane.houblog.com, and I don’t suppose there’s any difference between that and bridgebunnies.houblog.com. And it would be much simpler if I didn’t have to move all the pictures from one site to another. But the reason I went with the domain name (outside of the fact that such a cool one was still available) was that Houblog and anime really don’t go together, and I wanted to separate the names, not just the blogs.

Sigh. Time to go look at hosting plans. Dammit, this hobby is starting to cost money. Correction: this hobby is also starting to cost money.

UPDATE 2:Ok, I am now totally confused. I purchased a new hosting plan to set up a second site, but when I log into the cpanel on it, the URL says bridgebunnies, but the cpanel says I’m in Houblog! All the databases, disk usage, stats, etc are from it. Jeez, that’s almost what I wanted in the first place…


UPDATE 3:Whatever the problem was, it’s fixed now. They’re seperated. Might have been an issue with my browser, or it might have been that they didn’t finish the setup until the invoice payment cleared. Weird. Edit: only now the placekeeper page has disappeared, and Fantastico won’t run; cpanel claims it can’t find it. And the move to a PHP 5+ server is still pending, but I can live with that; I don’t expect it to happen until tomorrow or later. I did want to get WP set up tonight though….


UPDATE 4: And they’ve got all three issues fixed by 11 am, when I only notified them of the last two just before 9 am. Hosting Matters just has great service, what can I say?

New Animé Terms and Concepts?

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Steven DenBeste discusses the arms race. The animé arms race that is, as he writes on the concept of simple plot or setting devices taken to their extreme. In honor of Gillette and Shick, he christens it “the five-bladed razor,” and then goes on to list what he feels are the “winners” (or perhaps, “worst offenders” would be a better term) in each of several catagories: Panty Shots, Harem, Maid, Combat Android Girls, catgirls, Girls With Guns, and so on. However he missed a category, for which he’s hardly at fault; I never realized it existed–and it may not have, prior to the series in which I found it.

I don’t watch a lot of robot shows, (Dual being only the 2nd one I’ve ever purchased, unless you count Nadesico), but the establisher and therefore hands-down winner in the category of Robot Fanservice has got to be Godannar. I mean, really, where else would you see something like this?

“Live, tonight, from Tokyo Bay, Robot Mud Wrestling!”

“Your diodes turn me on, baby!”

A “camel toe” on a giant robot? (These things are about 25 meters tall.) You know, after some thought, maybe it should be a five-bladed razor just for “Most Extreme and Ridiculous Fanservice.” It doesn’t even need a new category…

Edit 9/8: Well, I’m watching Dual, and the robots in it are also female in form and have high heels. However, none of them have obvious panties or tube tops. And they aren’t as…. uh, well-endowed.

Newtype = Old Media?

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Several weeks ago, I was browsing around my animé pusher’s blog when I ran across a post about the trials and tribulations Robert had gone through trying to get a simple advertisment placed. It seemed that Newtype, which bills itself as the USA’s premeire animé magazine, had a problem with how racy the original image was that he’d submitted for use.

This is the image:

Note the extremely skimpy panties. What you can’t see at this resolution is the tiny crease in their center. The “camel toe,” as it is called, shows up in the racier anime fanservice; Yumeria, Godannar, and DearS are three that I know have featured them, far more graphically. (In fact, I almost didn’t post this shot from DearS, because it’s borderline NSFW.)

Well, Newtype didn’t like it and demanded changes, only they weren’t really clear about what they wanted changed. After several back and forth e-mails and two revisions, Newtype finally agreed to run the revised picture. Note that the original is within their written policy on art. Robert was a bit frustrated with the unclear instructions and not very friendly/businesslike manner in Newtype’s e-mails, so he used them in a blog post expressing his annoyance. I read the post, and would have termed the e-mails from Newtype “very brusque, but not quite rude.” I definately didn’t think much of the customer service or friendly manners of their editor.

The change requested? I’d have guessed lengthening the skirt to hide the panties.

Nope.

Remove the crease?

Nope.

It was just to widen the panties to cover those little ass bulges to either side. That’s all. But the editor of NewType is apparently repressed, and he couldn’t say that outright.

On the other hand, he was apparently able to express himself on other matters. Specifically, he was not amused to see a customer publicly discussing frustration with his directives. So, if you visit the post now, all the e-mails and the altered versions of the art are gone. Instead there’s a note:

[UPDATE: As of Aug 14th, 2006 the remaining text and graphics of this post have been voluntarily removed by me at the request of the Editor of NewType USA. A final edit may be in order, I haven’t decided yet.]

In a further comment, replying to Steven DenBeste’s logical question “why do you have to cater to him?”, Robert remarks,

Indeed, especially considering the way I was asked. I’ll be making a seperate post soon about what happened and what we’re going to do about it.

Well, I think I can answer that question. Robert “has” to cater to the editor of NewType because NewType thinks it’s an Old Media Giant, one that can treat the customers any way it wants to. Well I’ve got news for them: Old Media Giants are dinosaurs. There isn’t anything between the covers of their magazine that I really care about. I’m not the type of person to read E! Magazine, TV Guide, People or any of the other gossipy rags going on about the entertainment industry or any niche thereof. And frankly, I hate having to put up with their stupid advertisement at the beginning of so many DVD’s.

I’m certain that not everyone shares my opinion on the uselessness of such media rags, and it has a lot of readers (for the niché, that is). And they do have at least some of the power to treat customers as rudely as they wish, muzzle their complaints, and suppress negative word of mouth if they want to. But that doesn’t make it right or engender good will in the community. The New York Times is no role model, and acting arrogant and unaccountable isn’t any way to do business.

(edited for clarity at 12:35)

Melancholy Mentioned in Newsweek?

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I kid you not. It’s an article about the insane popularity of YouTube, which now hosts over 2,000 clips on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimaya, whether from the series or parodies of it, such as the famous Gundam Robot ED. Of course, being an American news magazine, they had to get it wrong, calling Melancholy a “cartoon aired on a local TV station.” You’d think someone with the name of Akinko Kashiwagi would know better. This is supposedly a scan of the print article, but I’ve seen one claim it’s a fake (nothing to support it though.)

Baka.

Hat tip to Anime on My Mind.

Edit: it’s noted that 10,000 animé DVD’s sold is considered a smash hit in Japan, but MHS is running five to seven times that! I really think we’re going to see a second season come 2008….

Updating a Few Things

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I just added two more websites to the links at the left, and bumped three. Welcome aboard to Riuva and Baboon Pirates! Sayonara to OfftheKuff, Ann Coulter, and People’s Republic of Seabrook. Ann’s “crazy conservative lady” act has gotten old, OffTheKuff has fallen into total soc-lib moonbattery, not to mention supporting Carol Alvarado, and I’ve never been able to figure out PRoS — got bored with trying. Parody or serious? Enh. Who cares anymore?

The main thing that got an update is the Collected Anime Reviews page. I’ve done a number of articles that never got added to it, and entire sections of my collection were still missing. I added a lot of the AWOL series and more commentary on series that I haven’t done full reviews of, in addition to fixing a few other things. I also updated my animé order, seeing as I sent in a new one yesterday. Hopefully winging (or rather, rolling) its way too me soon will be:

Dual — Parallel Adventure (boxed set) — I checked out several reviews and all of them agree that it’s a cross between Tenchi Muyo and Neon Genesis Evangelion, yet one that could stand on its own. This tells me that either it’s obviously true, that the reviewers all copied each other, or they all took payoffs from Pioneer. If it’s the latter, am I too late to get in on that gig? It’s got a really cool OP theme; reminds me a bit of Neutron Dance from the first Beverly Hills Cop movie.

Godannar #6 & 7 — This will finally finish off this series. I’m not really expecting a lot besides fan service, but it would be nice if a mediocre series finished strong for once, instead of the pattern of crappy endings I’ve been running into lately with Scrapped Princess, Mars Daybreak, etc. Well, I wouldn’t argue that Divergence Eve ended badly. It was one of those shows that you reach the end and go “Whew! Oh my God, what a ride!” Don’t think I want to repeat it; in fact I haven’t brought myself to rewatch the first scene yet. Or seriously think about ordering Misaki Chronicles. I haven’t seen a horror movie this disturbing since Alien3. And this was much better.

Starship Operators #2 — Speaking of sub-par endings, this sure had one. Oh well, the middle of the series is pretty strong.

Anime Fansubs, Part VII

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Ok, today, lets take Inukami (literally, “dog-god”). Preferably someplace far away, because I found it to be quite aggravating. I had some expectations for it after seeing Riuva’s review, but this show just didn’t cut it. There’s simply no there, there. If you’d rather watch this series with no foreknowledge, beware, because I’m going to get into spoilers. Except they’re not really spoilers, because as of ep.11, not a damn thing has really happened, except Youko is getting along with Kouda’s ten inukami, and everyone despises Keita as a pervert when they aren’t appreciating him for his better qualities. Yawn. The opening song and animation advertises an action-adventure with magical girls, romance, and maybe a little fanservice. Perhaps it would be a nice show — if that’s what they had made. What the viewer gets is nothing like that.

Youko, from the opening credits. Lots of action scenes of her or Keita laying down rightous butt-kicking, or of Youko looking somberly at the moon.
Our first sight of Youko in the show itself. Isn’t she just the cutest thing?
And they seem to get along just grandly. Forget it. After about two more minutes of teasing, it’s going right downhill.

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Co-incidental Oddities

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Two of the several animé fansubs I’ve downloaded recently are Inukami and Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan. (The latter translates as “Beat-to-Death-Angel Dokuro-chan” and it’s about that bad after the first couple of episodes). What caught my attention was that Dokuro-chan sounded really cute, and that I liked Hikari, the theme song to Inukami. After some thought, I decided that the lyrics were nicely romantic at the start, but the tune, while above average for the medium, wasn’t that great. It was the soft voice that I liked, so I checked out who the singer was. Lo and behold, the singer of Hikari (and voice of Yoko/Youko), Horie Yui, was also the voice of Dokuro-chan. I kept reading, and it turns out she’s got a very long resumé, some of which I recognized.

Have checked out but not bought or seen:
Ayu Tsukimiya in “Kanon” (video game, special, and both series)
Bottle Fairy (TV) : Theme Song Performance (ED) (eps 7 – 9, 13), Theme Song Performance (OP), VA of Sarara.
Love Hina as Naru Narusegawa in all versions; OAV Theme Song Performance; X’mas Special – Silent Eve Theme Song Performance (ED)
Negima! Theme Song Performance (OP3, OP8, ED4) and VA of Makie Sasaki
Immortal Grand Prix (TV 2) as Fantine Valgeon (actually, I’ve seen parts on CN).

Stuff I really liked:
Sister Princess : Theme Song Performance (OP) & VA for Sakuya (she was the clothes-horse that kept coming on to Wataru.)
Mars Daybreak as Megumi Higashibara (the kid psychic).

And that’s just a fraction of her listings. She was even a minor character in a Cowboy Bebop episode.

I had really liked the OP for Sister Princess; it was one of the best things about the show. She’s definately someone to watch (or listen to, I suppose). I’m bumping Negima! up from a “maybe one day” to a “perhaps soon” just on her basis. I need to find out if her character’s minor, or has enough screen time amongst the 30 girls in that show.

And yeah, she’s cute.

I Know I’m Slacking…

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The last few weeks, I’ve been off my stride, and not producing much for either Houblog or blogHOUSTON. At first, I thought it was just work wearing me down, but lately, I have realized that I’m not sleeping well at all, and am extremely lethargic. Worse, when looking back at some of my older articles, I found myself thinking, “I wrote that? It’s good-well reasoned, covers all the bases, has smoother transitions — that was me?” I look at my recent stuff and I see disjointed thinking, abrupt transitions, and large gaps in logic chains. I’ve got two incomplete articles pending, and I need to write several more. White’s trying to overthrow Prop.2, and the Housing department needs digging out with a backhoe, but I can barely budge myself to fix supper when I get home. I don’t know what to make of it.

I’m struggling at work — rather unmotivated, getting things done only because I’d hate myself for not getting them done, but I don’t really feel any enthusiasm for it.

Does anime really rot your mind? Or am I not well? Sometimes I think I need a keeper. Maybe a cute little dog-girl.

This is Not A Meme

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Nope. Not a meme. Unh-uh. I just happened to feel like doing a list of my own.

Anyway, that’s my story. and I’m sticking to it.

  1. One book that changed your life: One? One? Crap. Pick anything by Robert A. Heinlein. To narrow it down: Stranger in a Strange Land. Time Enough for Love. Glory Road. Starship Troopers. Those are the four books that shaped my tender little teenaged mind. Even if I didn’t understand everything in them the first time, I did later.
  2. One book that you’ve read more than once: See above. Although the record is probably held by the Lord of the Rings Trilogy… I lost track around the 13th or 14th re-read.
  3. One book you’d want on a desert island: How To Get Off Desert Islands For Dummies.
  4. One book that made you laugh: Well, of course Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. Too ordinary an answer, but none else come to mind right now, aside from the sequel to The Mouse that Roared. What was it, The Mouse That Flew to the Moon? Or maybe any of the last ten or so Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler. I don’t think laughter was what he was aiming for, but it’s what I had. What a formula.
  5. One book that made you cry. Podkayne of Mars. God, that book had me depressed for two solid weeks. I have never re-read it, and have no desire to.
  6. One book that you wish had been written: The 2005 List of Winning Lottery Numbers, 2006-2010. One copy only, please.
  7. One book that you wish had never been written: Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying. Ok, seriously? The Chronicles of the Elders of Zion. That might not be exactly right — I can’t remember, but it’s that damned zionist conspiricy book the Tsar had written to help keep the lid on Russia by stirring up anti-Jewish sentiment. That p.o.s. keeps cropping up in one way or another as so-called “historical evidence.” If history is not true, what can we learn from it? Anyone that deliberately fucks up real history for his or her own purposes deserves to be shot. In the knee. (I’d say in the hands, but with voice-activated software, it’s not enough.)
  8. One book you’re currently reading: Well, if you mean currently as in “not finished”, amazingly my answer is the same as Shamus’ answer for #9: Baroque Cycle Except I’ll never finish it becasue it’s the most boring book I have ever been facinated by. Yes, I knowthat’s a contradiction. But that was exactly my reaction. The style, the characters, the world, all were facinating and incredibly well-written. I felt like I was right there with all those famous scientists of yore, making their discoveries alongside them. But nothing was happening. Well, unless you count history. Lots of that happening. Just very slowly and in tiny, incremental bits, the way it does in reality.
  9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: The Guaranteed Plan to Make Ubu Roi Filthy Rich Without Any Effort. Unfortunately, no one has written it yet.
  10. Tag 5 people: I don’t think I’ve read that book, so I will pass on commenting about it.