December, 4, 2003 archives

you will be called upon to help a friend in trouble.

wired - a romance by gary wolf is a history of wired magazine, from conception to the point of the buyout by condé nast and lycos. i never subscribed to wired in its heyday (and only have one now as a bonus from my salon subscription), but gary wolf was on the inside for much of the history he tells, and apparently had very good access to the principal players, so it seems to be a fairly rounded telling of the story.

it was funny mapping the personalities some of the people involved on to similar people i knew in the dotcom world, and i always find it funny to see the names of people i know in print. i was always surprised to see john battelle’s name pop up, since i had just recently added him to my blo.gs favorites and hadn’t realized his background.

i got a jump on things this month: my monthly charitable contribution is in the mail to operation give. the organization actually started from the blog of a member of the army national guard who is stationed in iraq. the spokesman for operation give is gail halverson, better known as the “candybomber” for dropping candy to german children during the berlin airlift.

two books i read a while back but neglected to mention until now were the first two jeeves and wooster novels by p.g. wodehouse: the inimitable jeeves and carry on, jeeves. the first is actually more like a collection of short stories, since each chapter is relatively unconnected with the previous. the last is even written from the point of view of jeeves, rather than bernie wooster. the second book tells a more continuous tale, although each chapter stands on its own, too. funny stuff.

i think i originally picked up the books because i noticed one of the jeeves books on rael’s currently-reading list.

here’s a random p.g. wodehouse quote generator.