Posts Tagged ‘humor’
04
Mar
2010
Blog-Turned-Book Success Stories: Part Two
Charting happiness, why you should tip your waiter, and how to tug at heartstrings right.
Last week, we spotlighted five of our ten favorite blog-turned-book success stories. Today, we’re back with the sequel.
INDEXED
It’s no secret we have an infoviz fetish, fueling our longtime love affair with the wonderful Indexed blog — Jessica Hagy’s absolutely charming graph-and-chart-driven visual exploration of, well, everything. With brevity and brilliance, Indexed has captured everything from the secret formula of James Cameron’s biggest hits to the challenges of proposing to a virgin.
So we have no words to describe just how much we’re loving Indexed, the book — a wonderfully curated selection from what’s already a treasure trove of gems.
WAITER RANT
Since 2004, one veteran New York waiter has been dishing out delightfully cynical musings about the inner workings of the restaurant world in Waiter Rant — a hilariously candid and unfiltered account of life in the restaurant service industry.
Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip — Confessions of a Cynical Waiter captures the best, juiciest, most amusing of these stories, from chef scandals to patrons from hell, and promises a solid chuckle.
Thanks for the reminder, @femmmefatal
THE SECRET DIARY OF STEVE JOBS
He’s been worshiped and reviled, but what do we really know about the man who “invented the friggin iPhone”? Thanks to The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, a lot. Yeah, yeah, he may be fake, but we bet he’s a ton more fun than the real one.
The ensuing book, Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs — A Parody, is an absolute treat of humor, snark, and random rants against anyone from shareholders to Ray Kurzweil.
MRS. O
Some time ago, we interviewed Mary Tomer, who in 2008 launched Mrs-O.org — a blog chronicling Michelle Obama’s style.
That public fascination with the first lady’s fashion sense struck such a cultural chord that less than a year later, Mrs. O: The Face of Fashion Democracy hit the press. And it’s a must-read for anyone striving to understand the relationship between fashion, public persona, and popular taste.
1001 RULES FOR MY UNBORN SON
We have a strong aversion to cheesy heartstring-tuggers — cliche photos, contrived greeting cards, regurgitated quotes — of which the interwebs are full. But 1001 rules for my unborn son is positively the loveliest, most moving piece of universal-relevance-disguised-as-fatherly-advice. It combines precious nuggets of insight with just the right dose of quirk and randomness, producing powerful wisdom that doesn’t take itself too seriously — a priceless combination.
The book, Rules for My Unborn Son, is every bit as delightful.
BONUS
More recently, we were ecstatic to find out one of the smartest, most indulgent blogs out there, The Footnotes of Mad Men, got a book deal. The glossy tome, titled Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America, is out on July 20th, but is available for pre-order now.
We can’t wait.
Missed the first five? Catch up right here.
Psst, we’ve launched a fancy weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays, offers the week’s articles, and features five more tasty bites of web-wide interestingness. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.
24
Nov
2009
Buy Nothing: No, Really, It’s For Sale
What the hottest gift this holiday season is, or how to dodge your modern addictions.
Let’s face it, we live in a material world. And this week is its annual pinnacle, the frantic shopping bonanza known as Black Friday. But it’s also the 10th international Buy Nothing Day — Friday in the U.S. and Saturday everywhere else. It’s a chance to detox from the omnivorous toxicity of conspicuous consumption, to seek some brief redemption from our wasteful and unsustainable more-more-more modus operandi. (Come on, did you really need that Steve Jobs bobblehead?)
Our friends at Do The Green Thing are doing something quite ingenious — they’re selling nothing. Really. Their Buy Nothing campaign is a clever reminder that we all buy stuff, often just for the sake of buying, while sticking with what we’ve got can make more sense. So in their Amazero store, an Amazon mock-up, you can literally purchase Nothing, which costs, well, nothing — they’ve got the standard e-commerce checkout procedure, from the Buy It Now button to the email confirmation after your purchase. (We’ve worked out a special deal for Brain Pickings readers — you can purchase Nothing for 30% off using this link.)
The point, of course, isn’t to completely eradicate consumption — that would be absurd — but, rather, to help us be more mindful of what it is we actually need versus what we buy just for the new-stuff thrill of it.
The effort is a simple yet powerful reminder that, over the holidays, we often end up giving and getting lots of useless stuff. (Green Thing did a survey, which found — unsurprisingly — that 96% of people have gotten a useless gift at some point. We can attest with what’s now a vast collection of annual reindeer figurines from grandma.) That stuff takes energy and precious resources to make, creating unfortunate waste as it ends up in landfills.
And if you think you’re immune to the buybuybuy messaging of the ad industry, you can test just how stealthy its impact is in the All Spin No Substance game, where you get to guess the brand advertised based solely on its logoless visual communication — we bet you’d be surprised how many you get right.
Buy Nothing promotes one of Green Thing’s 7 green actions, stick with what you got, as an antidote to our reckless and thoughtless material habits. And with testimonials from an impressive line-up of celebrities (including one of our favorite British indie bands, The Noisettes) swearing by Nothing, it’s not hard to buy into it.
And if you still feel the compulsion to buy — because, let’s face it, we’ve been so powerfully conditioned for it by today’s media environment — Green Thing’s got your back. Dr. Will Powers, retail therapist, can help you dodge any temptation to buy with some grounded professional advice. You can email him for help in taming your shopaholic urges, or tweet your concerns to @DrWillPowers.
We love both the clever campaign and what it aims to achieve. (We’ve even offered Green Thing some ad space on Brain Pickings — look right — for the attractive price of Nothing.) So exorcise your shopping urges this weekend by buying yourself some Nothing — we vouch for it with a full money-back guarantee.
Psst, we’ve launched a fancy weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays, offers the week’s articles, and features five more tasty bites of web-wide interestingness. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.
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