Whew, huh? That's just the title of a book I was looking at in my local Borders a couple nights ago. It should count as chapter one. I don't usually go in for this kind of longhair literary stuff myself. I once made the mistake of subscribing to The New York Review of Books and they just stacked up in the corner and made me feel intellectually deficient. Ditto The London Review of Books and of course, The New Yorker. What're all these people talking about? I don't know, and it makes me feel bad. My therapist told me I shouldn't do things that make me feel bad -- I think he's going cognitive-behavioral on me. In which case, he'll have to be dispatched, of course. However, this could pose a problem, as I think he suspects me of suspecting. Why else would he instal a metal detector in the doorway to his consulting room?

Well, nevermind all that. But yes, it's that special time of day again: the middle of the night. A time when I often wonder to myself what manner of amusement I might afford the thronging masses of blogdom (not that they're exactly "thronging" CBO, mind you, but I do like to throw in a bit of poetry now and again). And I flashed on the book with the long name and thought perhaps I could get a laugh or two out of that.

No, you say? Don't be so hasty. We're not finished here yet. But before we get finished on that score, I'd like to interrupt this stream of consciousness to mention another book I saw that same night at Borders. Maybe it was last Friday. Who cares, right? Let's call it Thursday then. Anyway, this other book was about... no, go ahead and guess. I'll wait here for a few minutes while you think...

Um-de-dum-de-dum... [time passes]

Give up? Or did you figure it out? No, of course you didn't. How could you? You'd have to be Madame Blavatsky (for those of you who've been keeping up). OK, I'll tell you then. It was about BLOGGING. Can you beat that? An actual book about what I'm doing right here, right now, in the middle of the night, for no earthly reason I can think of other than megalomania and money. One of life's myriad mysteries.

But this fellow Hugh Hewitt -- he's the one who wrote the book, I guess I forgot to say that -- thinks there's something earth-shaking going on with all this. Don't you just hate these sorts of people who go around saying the Internet is going to change everything. Oh yeah, and business better wake up! And on and on with some boring jeremiad about how we'll all be damned to media obscurity if we don't drop everything right this second and get onboard some harebrained Casey-Joneslike train-themed business schema? The shame of it.

Uh... I guess I should also say that now we're on the blogging book, not the other one anymore (though we'll come back to that; don't worry; I know what I'm doing here; I think). And the blogging book, I suppose I should say, moreover, is called... nah, I won't make you guess this time... it's called

In great big capital letters, just like that. I even got the color right, as you can see unless your browser or newsreader overrides the FONT parameter I just specified there (#F06512, if you want to get technical). And it's subtitled "Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World." Well, I'll tell you what. It's changing my world right now.

Can you feel it changing yours too as you read about this silly crap? Put your hand on the radio! I mean, where do they find these people, under rocks? The cover even has the word

all bolded and highlighted so's ya won't miss it dat dis dude's got da goods. What, you don't believe me? Here...

Damn, if I'd known I was smashing the old media monopoly, I would've held up Murdoch for a lot more cash that time I kidnapped Anthea Disney.

"btw," if you "click on" that "link," as we say in the "blogosphere" (wink-wink, nudge-nudge), the first sentence you'll encounter there is now -- thanks to the magic of "hyperlinks" and "markup"-- also here:

How does one become chairman and CEO of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, one of the world's largest media conglomerates? If you ask Anthea Disney, she'd advise opting for the offbeat.

Oh right, offbeat. Anthea DISNEY??? Whose claim to fame was launching TV Guide? I am "ROFL" over here, people. Oh yes, I am having a good laugh about that one, you can be certain. As it turned out, I was ready to pay Rupert to take her off my hands. Meanwhile, back in "RL" (as we ultrahip bloggers called the real world before MTV trademarked the concept), I quit the ill-fated InternetMCI fiasco in 1995 -- mere weeks before it lost about a $quarter-bil and fired everyone on its bloated staff -- just at the thought of having to work with... this individual.

One man's opinion, to be sure. But isn't that, after all, what so great about the BLOGOSPHERE? And America for that matter? We have freedom here. The freedom...

<!-- Shoot, how does that darn EMBED tag work again? I always forget the syntax. Plus, is there some sort of javascript thingie I can stick in so when the page scrolls down to right here it starts playing The Battle Hymn of the Republic? You know, so it starts off so soft you hardly notice it, then builds to a deafening crescendo by the end of the paragraph: "...HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON!!!!" Like that. -->

...to speak our minds. To express our thoughts and ideas without fear. To say anything we feel like as long as it doesn't infringe on someone else's God-given right to rape, loot and pillage the rest of the world.

<!-- Noises off. -->

Again, just one man's opinion.

Wow. I seem to have gotten really carried away there for a second. And it's morning now, so I'm safe. The giant vampire bats have all gone home to sleep.

But one last thing about that Paris Review book. As if there was a first thing, but this is just a blog, right? Who's counting? Yes anyway, Kirkus Reviews reviewed it (what else would they do?) in the March 2003 issue, and said, among many other things, that it contains a bit wherein -- and I quote -- "John le Carré explains why a Russian arms dealer told him to 'fuck off.'"

Now that's more like it.

The New York Times is sponsoring the HighBeam Research Anniversary Open House event. Starting today and ending Friday, January 29, HighBeam Research is celebrating its first anniversary by offering free access to its premium sources and research tools.

• corporate blogging
• journalism and blogging
• internet and libraries
• Tim Berners-Lee
• Alexander Graham Bell (why not?)
• personality disorders (a personal favorite)
• artificial intelligence
• time travel (a nice bookend for the above)
• Digital Rights Management (check your blood pressure)
• Halliburton and Enron

officially endorsed by Frank Zappa. from the grave.

As you know if you've been following this blog at all, I like to include some form of graphical relief to all the verbiage. I suspect that many of you fire up CBO just for the pictures. In this case, however, I'm in a bit of a quandary. It's not that I don't have pictorial material -- I've got gigabytes of the stuff -- but I'm not sure any of it would be appropriate for a family blog. Nevermind. I'm just thinking out loud here. I'll come up with something. Meanwhile, it might be good if I shut up so you can read what this is all about...

When I saw Playboy magazine's nude pictorial called "Women of Enron Uncover Their Hidden Assets," I felt so proud to be an American.

In some countries, workers who lose their jobs when their employer goes belly up in a scandal-induced bankruptcy might hide their heads in shame. Or maybe march through the streets wearing angry sandwich boards. Or maybe just sit at home, weeping tears of despair.

But not in the good ol' U.S.A.! No way. Here in the land of the free these "Women of Enron" aren't hiding their faces -- or any other part of their bodies. They're not wearing signs -- or anything else. They're not weeping, they're smiling broadly, obviously delighted to be showing their (formerly) private parts to the kind of men who read Playboy.

Is this a great country or what?

from: Playboy's 'Women of Enron,' Cashing In on the Bare Market
by Peter Carlson
source: The Washington Post, 16 July 2002
via: HighBeam Research

But that's beside the point. The point seems to be that Americans will find a way to celebrate -- or better, celebritize -- any circumstance or event no matter how disastrous. If I make it through initial impact and the radiation, I'm eagerly looking forward to The Girls of WWIII. Given the state of the world today, I'm thinking I won't have long to wait.

Just a passing thought to cheer you through an otherwise humdrum Monday.

But back to the photo illustration problem for a moment. Looking for something apropos, I did find plenty. Turns out there's even a Women of Enron DVD. And more up to date, a 2004 Women of Wal-Mart DVD. Boy, have I been out of touch with the culture!