The surfing, she is good

The surfing, she is good these days…

The time management, she is not.

Alas.

Just when I thought Neil Gaiman couldn’t get any cooler, he went and started writing a blog about American Gods.

Hugely gratifying: Literary critics ‘fess up at Slate about great books they haven’t read. This compilation of Amazon reader comments on the Modern Library’s top 20 novels of the 20th century was reasonably entertaining as well, though given that I’ve only read 4.5 of the 20 (The Great Gatsby, Brave New World, 1984, Slaughterhouse Five, half of To The Lighthouse), I suppose I’m not in a position to judge the accuracy (of lack thereof) of their commentary.

Slate performs an important public service with The Complete Bushisms. Some of my favourites:

“Keep good relations with the Grecians.”

“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”

“I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.”

“This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It’s what you do when you run for president. You gotta preserve.”— Speaking during “Perseverance Month”

“We want our teachers to be trained so they can meet the obligations, their obligations as teachers. We want them to know how to teach the science of reading. In order to make sure there’s not this kind of federal—federal cufflink.”

“Laura and I really don’t realize how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis.”

“It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.”

“The only things that I can tell you is that every case I have reviewed I have been comfortable with the innocence or guilt of the person that I’ve looked at. I do not believe we’ve put a guilty … I mean innocent person to death in the state of Texas.”

Oh God, I’m just halfway up the page!