I’m home after a mostly wasted day of someone trying to teach me how to do something I’ve been doing for thirteen years; in other words, the meeting I went to yesterday was largely redundant and unnecessary and so we left after the first two hours. Even the instructor appeared embarassed after if became clear that she had been completely misinformed about the purpose of the training session. I really felt badly for her. But it was a day out of the office, out of the city, and unfortunately without much sleep. But that I can make up.

Elsewhere I was pointed to this article talking about the perceived advantages to brick and mortar bookstores versus their internet counterparts. Among those quoted is David Sedaris (note ironic Amazon link) who notes that he’s never purchased a book online. I guess that such social problems don’t matter to the average author, but the fact is that people don’t read. I can rattle off a list of dozens of people I’ve met over the last year who could not be bothered to read any book that did not come from the impulse aisle at Wal Mart. This is bad. We don’t need more obstacles to finding and reading good books. And even though the article doesn’t directly state that there’s something “wrong” with buying books online, it certainly dances around it.

At my job I’m constantly crowing about “removing barriers to access”, which really just means “don’t keep people from getting to your stuff because you have some particular notion about how they should get it”. Authors seem to revel in this antiquarian notion of themselves, writing manuscripts in longhand and having panic attacks at the notion of being made to use computers. This is all well and good, but creating any sort of art means embracing a variety of channels through which you can connect with an audience. I don’t think it cheapens my reading experience to buy a book from an online reseller, certainly not any more than it would to buy it from a big box bookseller with a built-in coffee shop.

In other news there’s a strategy to win the war in Iraq now. That’s good, because we only invaded like three years ago. I’m glad someone’s thought of something.

Can you tell I need sleep dear readers? I promise to be less curmudgeonly in my next post.