The other day I was downtown and I saw this ad for the new Sony Reader, an electronic book reading device.

Sexier than a librarian? Really!?

As someone know used to work in a library and still knows a handful of librarians, I take offense to that. A hunk of plastic and metal is not sexier than a librarian.

Shame on you, Sony.

Can anyone else out there not get enough Josh? I didn't think so.

But just in case, today I offer three other outlets to get your Josh fix. Consider this an apology for all those days I didn't blog last week.

I Give Up, my article about giving up cable and internet in my house, in this months UR Chicago.

Tie-ing One On, my piece about the evolution of the necktie, in this weeks Newcity.

The Josh Speaks, my guest blog for the lovely Librarian Girl.

Some people don't know what I do (it's web design and freelance writing, btw). Others don't think I even have a job (so what if I'm on iChat at 1 in the afternoon!?). Well I assure you people that I do work, I just usually do it in coffee shops or on sofas.

As proof, I offer a photo taken yesterday of Byron and I working, courtesy of photographer Michele Wayman (whose website we also happened to design).

Yesterday Nik and I were at the Brown Elephant, looking for a desk for her apartment. As if out of nowhere, this jumped out at us:

What exactly is going on here? Is it a chair? Some shelves? Some odd first try and one of those old school chair/desks? (btw, I'm referring to those chair/desks that are found in schools and that are old, not a chair/desk that is "old school".) Or maybe this crazy piece is just the product of a bored furniture designer.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Yesterday, walking down Halsted, I passed a guy walking his three-legged dog. And I wasn't shocked, or sympathetic, or heart-warmed by the scene.

No, I simply thought to myself, "That guy must get laid all the time."

Lately I've been so busy with my "real" job that I haven't had time to write here. So in lieu of a real post I'm going to give you all some cheap filler in the form of...

On This Day In Berg With Fries History!

...As soon as I wrote that I went back through the archives and it turns out that in the past 6 years that I've been blogging I haven't written anything on a March 24th. Ever. So I thought I'd just pick a completely random day. Like, say, oh, I don't know, September 29th, 2003:

Scene: Jamba Juice at noon, listening to the woman in front of me order a smoothie.
Woman: Hi, do you have any smoothies that taste predominantly banana?
Cashier: What do you mean?
Woman: I want a smoothie that tastes predominantly banana.
Cashier: We got a Banana Berry.
Woman: And what's in that?
Cashier: Bananas, raspberry sherbet, and apple strawberry juice.
Woman: But can I taste the bananas?
Cashier: (giving up at this point) Yeah, you can taste them.
Woman: (audible hesitation in her voice) Alright, I'll have that.

Why doesn't this woman just go out and buy a banana for God sakes!

Last week, taking a train out to the suburbs, I started playing a little game. When the train would pull into a stop I'd frantically start searching for a wireless network to connect to. I'd check my email, send out any emails I'd written and saved, and about 10 seconds later the train would start moving again. I like to think that it was a game of both skill and luck.

Some of the crazy wireless networks I encountered while zipping through the suburbs?

- Fleeee
- The Mainard Family Wireless
- Greenblatts!
- Run's House
- Noriega
- Clean Machine
- harpomarxx
- the moose
- I Gotta Have More Cowbell Baby!

The more I think about it, I'm really going to have to say that what CB radio trucker names were to the 70s (Thanks Smokey and the Bandit!), wireless network names are to the 00s.

But on a more serious note: Noriega?! For real?

I really need to be better about re-reading old books. My apologies.

Christine writes a dating/relationship column, and as such she's always searching for ideas. "You should write something about types of couples as political parties and ideologies!" I told her one day. She liked the idea in general, but said she'd probably have to be desperate to use it.

...About three days later she posted this (and was nice enough to give me credit for #3). The ideas I gave her that she didn't use?

The Anarchist Relationship - These people hate everyone, including themselves and each other, and the only reason they stay together is because of their mutual hate. Avoid this couple at all costs.

Plutochrist Relationship - The two people in this relationship are as such: The old rich guy, and the young trophy woman. The old man's wealth and influence are the only reason that the woman is there, and he's only too happy for that to be the reason. Wait...you mean you people don't know what a Plutocracy is? Google up!

The Dictatorship Relationship - One person in this relationship is always going to be really happy, and the other is always going to be really miserable. The dictator in this relationship will get whatever they want, bossing the other around. "Fetch my slippers! Make my breakfast! I can't find my socks!" Those under the dictator's rule are less than thrilled to be there. Though, there can be certain circumstances and advantages that would compel someone to stay in this situation: Money, status, safety and security, and supplementation of father issues.

Seriously. I just can't seem to shake Katies.

Last night I was headed up Broadway and walked past Shirts Off Sheffield, a small shirt boutique. Casually looking in the window, I happened to notice this sign:

For serious? Free marshmallow Peeps? Is this supposed to help them sell more shirts or something?

Before going to see our tax accountant this morning, Byron and I meet up at a Starbucks around the corner from his office. As we're waiting in line a little girl points to us. "Look at those big kids," she says. "No, sweetie, those are adults," her mom says, correcting her. "They're grown-ups."

As if taking care of the taxes for my own business weren't proof enough, this woman has now solidified it: I am officially a grown-up.

Byron and I have a meeting with our tax guy tomorrow morning to go over all our business moolah stuff for Boys from Jupiter. In preparation, our tax guy (also named Josh!) has told us to itemize all our deductions in an Excel file. To make sure I've caught everything, I've spent the day going through old bank statements from all of 2007.

It's a bit odd looking at all my spending for the entire year, especially all at once. Of course there are the shocking charges ("I spent that much at some random tapas place I've never even heard of?! I don't even like tapas!"), the confusing ("What's this charge for Co*Int*Ble? Was I buying porn, or is this business just registered under an odd name?") and of course the happy memories that come flooding back ("Now I remember spending $70.13 at Duke of Perth that day! I can't believe I drank that much at 2:00 in the afternoon!").

But more than anything, looking over all my statements, I realized that I spend a lot of money at coffee shops. Which I may or may not be right now as I'm writing this post.

Ahem.

What happens when Nerdfighters find each other in the real world?

nerdfighters.com

The Vatican has released some new sins for the 21st century. For serious.

- Drug abuse
- Genetic manipulation
- Morally debatable experiments
- Environmental pollution
- Social inequalities and social injustice
- Causing poverty
- Accumulating excessive wealth

I mean, I guess making the whole environmental pollution thing a sin is cool. And of course no one wants social injustice. But 'genetic manipulation' and 'morally debatable experiments'? Are they talking about DNA stuff? Stem cell research? C'mon Pope, lighten up! It's 2008! Splice some genes and adopt a test tube baby! It's the future!

And as for accumulating excessive wealth...well that one is just silly. Are we saying Warren Buffet is a sinner now? Maybe it's because I'm Jewish, but I just can't get behind this one.

Today I start the Alphabetical Book Review List with, naturally, the letter A.

Again, Nik and I are at a coffee shop, on our respective laptops.

"Is it 'extol onto' or 'extol unto'?" she asks me.

"To Google!" I exclaim, raising my index finger into the air, and type both variations into the search bar to see which returns more results.

"Onto gives 3 results, while unto gives 31," I say. "Clearly it's unto." Nik sighs. "If anyone questions it I'll just blame Google."

"31 Google results can't be wrong!" I assert. Then, under my breath: "Or, they could be horribly wrong, actually."

"I hate Google," Nik announces the other day while we're out at a coffee shop, surfing the web on our laptops.

"Why is that?" I ask. She sighs and clicks something on her screen, staring intently. Then: "I searched for something on Google, and only a few responses came up. So Google is all, 'Oh, did you mean this?' and I'm like 'Ah! Yes!' So then I click on that and it comes back with zero responses!"

I nod in understanding. "I see the problem."

Nik rolls her eyes. "Google is such a tease."

I'm so ashamed.

The other night a bunch of us are over at Christine's, eating soup and drinking wine. Her roommate is a musician and has left The Intellitouch PT-2 Tuner sitting on the coffee table. It's a little gizmo that looks like an electronic thermometer, and we soon realize that if we hold it up to our mouths and sing it will display an LCD readout of what key we are singing in.

Christine is an A#. Byron is a C#. I take it and project: "La La La!" The LCD reads G#.

"That's a relief," Christine says. "I don't like guys who are under an F#."

Today I start my new podcast for UR Chicago, where I've gone from resident book reviewer for the magazine to resident book vlogger for the magazine. Really, it's kind of a lateral move, but whatareyagonnado?

Things a math nerd might yell in lieu of a swear word, if they were to get hit in the crotch:

"Hyperbola!"
"Rhombus!"
"Polynomial!"
"Fibonacci Sequence!"
"Quadratic!"
"Cosine!"

I'm up to my ears in both of them.

A few months ago I reviewed a book for UR Chicago called The Good Liar. My review went as such:

In a book with one notable extreme it's usually best to balance that extreme with a more plausible counterpart. A novel like The Time Travelers Wife, for example, balances the outrageousness of the main character and his genetic defect that allows him to time travel with the fact that he lives in a studio apartment and works in a library. Sadly, there's no attempt at this kind of balance in The Good Liar, Laura Caldwell latest novel that takes two extreme genres and mashes them together. One part of the book is a spy thriller, where organizations have names like The Trust, and where Russian mobsters named Trotsky are assassinated because they pose a threat to the U.S. The other part is eye-roll inducing chic-lit, where a character brings an orchid on a first date instead of flowers, and people lick Kahlua off each other in bed. Reading the book, one can't help but think that the story exists in a reality only suited for characters in a Lifetime movie. Beyond the subject matter, Caldwell's descriptions are cliché (she describes eye color as exotic), and boring (she describes a window as "white and coated with paint" - thrilling!) In Caldwell's defense, the story was crafted decently and held my attention, but really, when was the last time you told someone about a book you were reading just because it did that?

Done, right? That's what I thought. Then, Friday morning, I received this email:

Dear Josh,

So once a year, usually a few months after a book comes out, I like to sit down and really look over all those clips my publicist sends me. And every year, I like to contact the person who has panned me most resoundingly and offer them the chance to make it up to me by buying me a beer. Congrats, Josh, you won this year!

Seriously, I kept wondering why the publicist was mumbling every time she mentioned UR Chicago. I thought it was a pregnancy-induced Bell's Palsy. When she sent me all the reviews for THE GOOD LIAR, collected in a cute folder, I glanced at the printed flags she'd attached to most of them--Great review! Awesome coverage! You're the second coming of Christ!--so it was easy to miss the un-flagged UR Chicago review, tucked at the back and squashed toward the bottom of the cute folder, as if it were cowering.

Okay, so I read it. And in the grand tradition of the literary world, I am determined to turn this shitty review into sunshine and roses. I'm thinking the blurb I'll use in the future will read:
"Notable... Thrilling!"
--Josh Eisenberg, UR Chicago

Should you choose to accept your award and purchase a beer for a writer you have trashed so eloquently, let me know. I can also bring along Marcus Sakey, with whom I've been touring (and who should buy Kim Jeffries a beer for the kick-ass review of his novel). If not, power on. Like your blog.

Best,
Laura Caldwell

My first mail from an author I've wronged! I couldn't be more thrilled! I just had to share.

And also, you know, if I disappear, now you have a lead on where to start looking for my body.

I do.

Since yesterdays video blog was all about books, I was really excited when I saw this poster over at Capital City Desk. So excited, in fact, that I stole it for myself.

In addition to all those books I mentioned yesterday, I'll still be trying to get in some books for pleasure this month. Those are:

a) Oil! by Upton Sinclair. Yes, I'm only reading it now because I really loved There Will Be Blood. So sue me.

b) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Middlesex has been sitting on my shelf for a long time and I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. But recently I've become friends with a woman named Jordana on Nerdfighters, and we both realized we'd had the book for a long time and not read it. Somehow we decided to make start a book club situation, read it at the same time, and discuss amonst ourselves.

Basically what I'm trying to tell you is that there's going to be a lot of reading going on this month.