The Last Lecture

I’m reading a book right now that has really spoken to me (not literally of course or else I’d be taking the book on a tour of the US and make millions of dollars…but rest assured should it choose to speak I’ll post a video) but I digress.  The book is called ‘The Last Lecture’ by Randy Pausch and if you read no other book this year, take the time to read this one.

Carnegie-Melon has what they call a last lecture series.  Basically the speaker is supposed to ruminate on the end of their days and what would they tell the world with their last time.  The title of the series has been changed to Journey’s now but the theory is still the same.

And for those of you who have never heard of him, Randy Pausch was a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie-Melon University as well as a sufferer of pancreatic cancer.  He was slated to do the last lecture series and about a month before he was to speak was told that his cancer had spread to his liver and that it was terminal with only 6 months to live.  Where most people would give up and die Randy decided that instead he was truly going to give his last lecture.  Both as a message to the world but primarily as a message to his children.

I won’t give anything else on this except to say  you should go buy the book and watch the lecture today.  It’s very thought provoking and if you don’t take anything away from it after you’ve read it…then you’ve probably had a frontal lobotomy and should go back about your business of drooling all over your shoelaces.

Go see Randy’s last lecture here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

And go buy his book here:

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Lecture-Randy-Pausch/dp/1401323251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244518135&sr=8-1

Do it now! Because Frank said so!

13 Songs I’ve Had Stuck in my Head at Various Points in the Week

At almost any given moment I have a song stuck in my head, I picked the first 13 that came to mind when I was thinking about this week.

1. White Rabbits - Percussion Gun

2. The Decemberists – Mariner’s Revenge Song

3. The Decemberists – The Rake’s Song

4. Presidents of the United States - Kitty

5. Survivor – Eye of the Tiger

6. Rupert Holmes – Pina Colada

7. Crystal Waters – Destination Calambria

8. Ill Scarlett – Nothing Special

9. Flobots – Handlebars

10. Everclear – Volvo Driving Soccer Mom

11. Harvey Danger – Flagpole Sitta

12. Dropkick Murphys – Upstarts and Broken Hearts

13. Flogging Molly – What’s Left of the Flag

Short Attention Span Theater

I was looking at things on the Amazon Kindle Store and stumbled across an interesting short story.  I’d glanced at it at first and didn’t think much of it but I began reading the user reviews of others.  And many of them said it was a good story but horribly violent or “inappropriate” to be on Amazon's top listings.  So of course once I saw these I had to read it.  The explanation behind the story made me even more interested as well.

I’ll say a little about it but I don’t want to say too much and risk giving it away.  The saying is you should never hitch a ride with someone because that someone may be a psychopath.  Conversely, other saying goes that you shouldn’t pick up a hitchhiker on the road because the person you may be picking up may be a sociopath. So what would happen if a psychopath picked up a psychopath….and hilarity ensues.

Ok well maybe its just hilarity to me because I’m fucked in the head…don’t judge me.

The way the story was written is intriguing as well. The story was written by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch.  They’re both horror fiction writers and my impression is they do suspense and slasher kind of stuff.  The story was written by email over five hours, and was broken into three parts.  Part 1, was written by Kilborn, with Crouch writing the second part. Part 3 was written by both of them while going back and forth in email in 100 word messages.  Neither knew the other’s earlier writings so it gave a interesting dynamic to the whole story.

I found it here for the Kindle and spent some time looking for it for the rest of you and I found it!

Go to http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/books_9780446535939.htm

in the bottom right hand of the page is a section labeled ‘Book Extras’ that’s where you’ll find the story.

Go read it and let me know what you think, in the meantime I think I’m going to look into these two authors and see what all they have to offer.