Taken from Facebook, this graph showcases the predictable and humorous drinking patterns of the college-something American. Gotta love it:

It’s been viewed a few hundred thousands times, so it’s probably old news, but I thought the Lego Mario video was pretty cool. Here are a couple of the best ones in their entirety.

I caught this originally over at Fimoculous and knew I had to share it. Using a little fun math, Virgil Griffith at BooksThatMakeYouDumb has developed a cross section of the top books on Facebook and the correlating average SAT scores for the schools that make these their top books. The results are as follows. Make sure to stop by Virgil’s website to read the awesome story of his creation. Genius idea for using Facebook:

I’ve been reading a little blog over at indexed.blogspot.com for a few months now and apparently its author has a book coming out next month, which to me is a pretty amazing accomplishment, especially for a freelance writer with a Blogger blog. All the best to Jessica and her new book. If you haven’t checked out her incredible observations on the human condition via pie charts and bar graphs, you must visit her site - it is a beautiful thing.

What’s this? Another 3 week break from posting. I suppose I get a little lazy when Google dumps me from their listings for no actual reason. Plus, I was out of town for a few days and spent the last few days relaxing in lieu of celebrating any of the seasonal holidays.

But, forget my unbridled laziness for a second as this marks the 1 year birthday of this blog. Well, technically, yesterday was the 1 year mark, but because I did not think to look until earlier this afternoon, we can pretend otherwise - a year is actually a little longer than 365 days, right? Something like that.

Anyways, I wouldn’t have guessed a year ago everything that would happen to me. Here are just a few of the 2007 highlights that were at least a little awesome:

• I churned out almost 350 blog posts that have attracted occasional attention from a variety of semi-important sources.
• My freelance writing business went from a pile of self-interested goof-off articles to a serious and moderately successful business.
• What feels like 25 years of Presidential campaigning is finally going to give us a respite and a few concrete results on Thursday.

I’m sure there were some other cool accomplishments, but that would require more than 2 minutes of reflection and its getting woefully late. I just wanted to make sure I took a second and made a note of the one year mark in a career endeavor that I could not possibly have expected to last as long as it has - I feel lucky and here’s hoping for even more great successes in 2008.

When interviewed about Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code for the three hundredth time, Umberto Eco - the man who mastered and modernized the genre in which Brown became a millionaire - said:

“I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel, Foucault’s Pendulum.”

You can read the whole interview with Umberto Eco in the NYT Magazine.

A recent Forbes feature, asking some of the top science and science fiction writers of today to postulate on the same basic idea graced my inbox this morning, so I thought I would share it with you. The article starts with this premise:

What happened to the future? Weren’t things supposed to be cooler by now, smarter, safer? Raised on a steady diet of science fiction, overzealous politicians and corporate hype, Americans expected to be living in The Jetsons — but instead find themselves stuck in a scarier version of The Waltons.

The truth is that people simply aren’t very good at predicting the future. It was only two centuries ago that we began to think we could do it at all, and we’re still learning. Hindsight may be 20/20, but foresight remains largely blind.

The feature then goes on to include a collection of great, creative non-fiction, including a few articles by the likes of Arthur C. Clarke and Quentin Hardy, along with five short stories by writers like Cory Doctorow, Max Barry, and Warren Ellis - all impressive fiction writers in their own right. You can find the whole feature here.

Whoever said robots don’t have hearts…or lungs:

I understand that Harry Potter is essentially the biggest literary event since the first Bible rolled of Guteburg’s press in 1430, but I have yet to understand or come to terms with the shear amount of energy some people put into caring about their favorite little wizard. I understand that some books can be compelling, but the ravenous enegy with which millions have devoured every little detail is impressive if nothing else.

So, when J.K. Rowling announced that Dumbledore was gay, I was slightly amused at how much of a big deal it seems to have become. First off, it’s a book. Since when do authors come out and explain to their readers the motivations and sexual orientations of their characters. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s awesome that Dumbledore was gay - it adds yet another layer of flippancy to the Christian right that has so thoroughly denounced the books because they promoted witchcraft and the like. What better way to preach tolerance than make one of the most likable and interesting characters in the series gay.

I just thought it was amusing how many people have taken up detailed conversations about the gay old wizard. Yes, Dumbledore is gay, but how does that have any effect on how you read the book (unless, of course you’re Pat Robertson…then, well, who knows what horrible plots his repressed mind is cooking up already).

I am a huge fan of Kelly’s surrealistically twisted Donnie Darko. The theatrical cut was a trippy revelation in High School and he uncut edition a brilliant addition to my collection in college. It looks like Kelly’s new film, Southland Tales, is finally about to be released. It looks incredibly odd, complete with The Rock, Sean William Scott, and Sarah Michelle Gellar….the whole early 2000’s, B-movie crowd in one film - it looks interestingly trippy though and quite possibly as though the casting was a great big joke…which could be fun all by itself. November 9 looks to be the date on which we’ll all find out if this stunningly weird hodgepodge actually works. I hope so.  Here’s a link to the trailer.