Item: Looking for MJM?  You’ve seen her diary entries.  Now you’ll know Mary Jo’s entire story.  Muddlin’ Through has just been released and is available on Amazon.  (See below for more info.)

Item: Book bundles.  Some authors are releasing ebooks chapter by chapter.  Others are bundling several previous novels together in one ebook.  What’s going on?  What works?  Do readers want this?  I read an ebook recently that I thought was a full novel, but it turned out to be a novella.  Dumb me!  A reviewer warned about this, but I didn’t look at the reviews before I bought the book.  I rarely do.  I prefer to buy ebooks for my casual reading based on the blurb and the excerpt—that useful “peek inside” on Amazon.  I don’t care much what reviewers think, especially in those many reviews of only a few lines or so (see below for more on reviews); these are often written by family and friends.  Too many reviews are like endorsements on LinkedIn, i.e., mostly worthless.  (You might pay attention to only the number of reviews.  If so, I’ll warn you: that’s worthless too, for many of the same reasons.)

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Calvary.  Irish pathos…great acting.  Highly recommended.  We have at least two interpretations of this one, a film where John Le Carre’s noir intensity meets Catholic Irish angst.  Excellent and highly recommended, but not for the squeamish.  It will become a classic.

Land Ho!  Two old guys travel around Iceland.  You have to fill in the blanks here—a lot isn’t shown or seen—but it’s a pleasant little trek albeit much ado about nothing.  The irascible, old guys are lovable old curmudgeons, but it was all a bit tedious.  I can only recommend it if you want to see some beautiful scenery.  Iceland is the main protagonist here.  With that volcano acting up there now, I’d stay away from Iceland, though—safer to see it in a travelogue like this film.

One Hundred-Foot Journey.  Based on Richard Morais’ novel of the same name, this movie is a little delight.  The title coincides with the fact that Spielberg and Winfrey are American producers: France is metric (the home country of metric, in fact), but these two still think British (OK, that’s Morais’ fault, not theirs).  Beyond that, I had a few problems.  The plot is too predictable.  You’ll also be frustrated if you’re a purist about your ethnic cuisine.  (I’m not—that omelet even sounded yummy, and I walked out hungry.) (more…)

Recently the inventor of those pop-up ads apologized for creating them.  I guess he finds them annoying too.  Here’s my take: Many websites offer all kinds of “free services,” so they’ve decided to make money by convincing corporate advertisers that those pop-up ads, especially those targeted to a consumer’s interest, really are worth it.  I guess that’s progress.  We’ve progressed from the carnival quack screaming about his wondrous elixirs; to TV’s screaming used car salesmen (they’re invariably men—they scream the best, Toyota’s ever-present spokeslady notwithstanding); and finally to the internet’s pop-up ads, which now are often videos with people—you guessed it—screaming about some wonderful product they’re selling or recommending (streaming video’s inventor should also apologize!).

I can’t believe any sane person enjoys this.  Millennials love to scream—go to Central Park in the summer to any GMA concert, or to any popular protest event that’s a la mode.  GenXers love to scream at their kids—they have kids now, and the GenXers pandering to their every need has backfired for these paraents.  Baby boomers no longer scream—they lost their voices (and hearing, for that matter) screaming at protests (against the Vietnam War instead of against Wall Street or Israel), rock concerts (lots of dBs there), and their kids (the boomers overly permissive parents too).  I suppose turn-about is fair play.  The internet is so democratic that it screams at all of us, although it can tailor the content of the screams to the audience using all that info about ourselves that we give the data brokers.

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