Best Guess: Popular books I've heard about, but never read

Here's my best guesses:

Secret Life of Bees

Genre: Suspense/Thriller. Ben, a beekeeper from Vermont, stumbles upon an awful, awful secret when collecting honey from his bees one day. A baffling series of hexagonal symbols are found near the murdered body of Ben's life-partner, Jerry. Ben continues to follow these strange symbols through a bizarre set of riddles and brain-teasers to discover a trail of clues leading him to the works by Georgia O’Keeffe (American painter of vagina-like flowers). Ben finds these clues to be intimately connected to the mysterious figure Melchizedek, who is mentioned in the Bible in connection with giving communion to the patriarch Abraham. Melchizedek brought three gifts to earth from the planet Venus... one of which were... you guessed it, bees. The mystery unfolds.

The Alchemist

Genre: Sci-fi Romance. An android and an alchemist... the unlikeliest love story in this steam-punk futuristic world of wizard cyborgs and clerics with guns. Will this dark and menacing environment keep the love between the android and the alchemist from blooming? Will the Council ever allow androids to be accepted as humans, and more importantly allow the marriage of two lovers?

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Genre: Gay & Lesbian. A story of a young boy growing up with two fathers, one of whom is an oil tycoon and the other a lowly pottery maker. The poor dad cannot help but feel inadequate when compared to his rich partner, and most shameful in front of his son. But little does the poor dad know that he is actually the great grand nephew of Andrew Carnegie, American steel tycoon. Despite his new found wealth, the former poor dad realizes he was already wealthy with his love for his son.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Genre: Children's Book. The very colorful pop-up book teaches young tots some of the 7 habits of highly effective people, including eating, walking, pooping, and peeing.

The Paradox of Time Travel

"One stubborn problem with time travel is that it is riddled with several types of paradoxes. For example, there is the paradox of the man with no parents, i.e. what happens when you go back in time and kill your parents before you are born? Question: if your parents died before you were born, then how could you have been born to kill them in the first place?

There is also the paradox of the man with no past. For example, let’s say that a young inventor is trying futilely to build a time machine in his garage. Suddenly, an elderly man appears from nowhere and gives the youth the secret of building a time machine. The young man then becomes enormously rich playing the stock market, race tracks, and sporting events because he knows the future. Then, as an old man, he decides to make his final trip back to the past and give the secret of time travel to his youthful self. Question: where did the idea of the time machine come from?"

-- Dr. Michio Kaku, The Physics of Time Travel

This looks fun... let me try.

There is the paradox of the man with the ambiguous girlfriend. A man "Jack" gets in a fight with his girlfriend "Jane", get's pissed off, builds a time machine and goes back in time before he meets Jane. Then, from the past Jack sends Jane an e-mail saying he's breaking up with her. Jane is confused but highly turned on, since she hasn't gotten any ass in months. Jack and Jane start going out. Question: Should Jack offer to pay the whole bill on the "first date"?

There is the paradox of the man who friended himself on Facebook. A young man in college joins Facebook. He then receives a message from an elderly gentleman claiming he is actually him in the future. The young man is amused and drunk, so he decides to friend him. However, when he tries, a Facebook message pops up saying "You cannot be friends with yourself." Question: How did Facebook know?!!

There is the paradox of the man who is his son and his dog. A man "Jack" encounters an evil wizard who turns him into a dog "Rover". Rover then has sex with some bitch and out pops Rover Jr. A good wizard then turns Rover Jr. into a human "Jack Jr." who claims Rover as his pet. When Rover dies years later, Jack Jr. gets sad and builds a time machine and goes back in time. Jack Jr. then encounters an evil wizard. Question: Who cleans who's shit?

Brian Writes an e e cummings Poem... Using Recursion

The Algorithm:

function processEEPoem($words,$str){
if (count($words['objects'])<=1||strlen($str)>1000) {
return $str;
} else {
if (strlen($str)>20) $str = $str."
\n";
$key = array_rand($words,3);
$val = $words[ $key[0] ][ rand(0,count($words[ $key[0] ])-1) ];
$val2 = $words[ $key[1] ][ rand(0,count($words[ $key[1] ])-1) ];
$val3 = $words[ $key[2] ][ rand(0,count($words[ $key[2] ])-1) ];
$rand = rand(0,3);
switch( $rand ) {
case 0: $str .= "$val $val2 $val3 ";
case 1: $str .= "($val)$val2$val3";
case 2: $str .= "$val-$val3 ";
default: $str .= substr($val,0,2).", $val2 ";
}
if (rand(0,3)==0) $str .= "?";
unset($words['objects'][rand(0,count($words['objects'])-1)]);
unset($words['objects'][rand(0,count($words['objects'])-1)]);
return processEEPoem($words,$str);
}
}
$initWords['pronouns'] = array("thy","thee","o","mine","thou");
$initWords['verbs'] = array("pinched","poked","sprung","prodded","conceived","squeezed");
$initWords['adjectives'] = array("sweet","naughty","mighty","scraggy","rhythmic","spontaneous");
$initWords['objects'] = array("lover","fingers","death","gods","beauty","thumb");
echo processEEPoem( $initWords,"" );

and the results...

mighty rhythmic poked poked fingers prodded

(mine)fingerssweetmine-sweet mi, fingers
sprung thee lover (sprung)theeloversprung-lover sp, thee
th, squeezed ?
mine-scraggy mi, squeezed
thee pinched (thee)pinchedthee- th, pinched
prodded-thee pr,
-prodded , o ?
mighty thee (mighty)theemighty- mi, thee
, thy
pinched-thee pi,
thee rhythmic (thee)rhythmicthee- th, rhythmic
, poked
scraggy-prodded sc,
sweet- sw, thy
()sweetsqueezed-squeezed , sweet
th, pinched ?
thou poked sweet (thou)pokedsweetthou-sweet th, poked
th, ?
, sweet
o, squeezed
sprung mighty (sprung)mightysprung- sp, mighty
-conceived , o ?
thee-sweet th, prodded ?
scraggy conceived (scraggy)conceivedscraggy-conceived sc,
o, pinched
o-naughty o, pinched
thee rhythmic (thee)rhythmicthee- th, rhythmic
(thee)sprungthee- th, sprung
(thee)sweetthee- th, sweet
sp, mine
pinched thee ()pinchedthee-thee , pinched



try it out here!

The Power of Conforming and Distress

Don't get me wrong, radical and risky ideas and actions are necessary for real positive progress on the numerous and complex issues facing our planet today. Namely, radical ideas make kind-of-radical ideas sound not so bad and give perspective, breadth, and balance to our shared knowledge. Radical actions and images inspire thought, dialogue, and change. But I would like to take a moment to defend the conformists, sell-outs, and tools of our society- perhaps even argue that such individuals are actually the tools of positive change.

Now don't get me wrong again. Being a conformist, sell-out, or tool is bad... under certain conditions. In our capitalistic democracy, the dollar is the key to power. The machine is run by the man. You either work for the man, are the man, or are against the man. The man determines how the people should look, act, acquire wealth, lose wealth, what is moral, what is immoral. The man determines the rules. Play by the rules or go play somewhere else. But if you play by the rules, you are lending yourself to the machine. You will become a shiny gear and your work will dissipate into dollars and cents. Why would you ever want to conform?

First I would have to note the requirements of knowledge, education, and distress. Knowledge in the sense that you understand the issues that exist on a local and global level. Education in that you have acquired the tools to assess and implement ideas. And finally, distress would signify your uneasiness towards the fact that these issues exist and are not being sufficiently engaged.

Knowledge and education is a completely separate issue that I will not go into. I would briefly say that modern technologies like the World Wide Web can be a great tool for change in this area. But ultimately, a more structural change is needed to shake the root of this issue. So for the sake of argument, I will assume you, the conformist, is knowledgeable and educated.

So the variable here is distress. To be the right kind of conformist, you must be in a constant state of distress. Lose your distress, and become the wrong kind of conformist. The main idea here is in order to change the game, you must play the game without forgetting you're in the game. The man humors those against him, but listens to those with him.

And change from within will always be superior to change from without. Change caused by external forces will almost always be short-term change and will not address the root issues. Internal change is passive change and difficult to see immediate results, but the inches of progress is real progress and can be reaped over time. Remarkable individuals inspire and are remembered for change, but average individuals create the real change with small, cumulative actions. Just as great scientists are celebrated for breakthrough ideas, but it is the common engineer who materializes these ideas for the common citizen.

So I would say if you are a conformist, sell-out, or tool, stay on track and stay distressed. Strive for small, lasting changes. And when you become the man, help a brother out.

Brian's Web Development Rap

Yeah, fuck all you hatin mutha fuckas

To all the bitches on the 'net with Flash and applets,

I know you got shitty game cuz ya methods are lame

If you wanna roll with ME, you need compatabiliTEE

Yeah, I like my honeys hot, who generate objects on the spot

You heard me right, AJAX makes frontin bitches hide

I'm talkin javascript, css, xml, and scripts on the server-side

So if you fuck with the W-3-C, you FUCKIN with the W-3-ME

And your talks gettin old cuz u don't validate ya code

Uh-huh, I make my queries like I make my moneys

And my smooth Schemas freak all the honeys, playboy bunnies

And don't you think it's funny I go pee-pee on yo H-T-T-P?

Yeah, don't hate me, cuz I just SQL-Injected yo mom-MEE

And Open-Source of course is how I roll

I'm rockin Apache, PHP, and My-See-Quoll

All you propriety mutha-fuckas can suck my cock

Bill Gates? Steve Jobs? Nah son, Linus Torvalds is what I rock

Yeah I know my widgets be mad nasty

Your charsets fucked up, so you lookin up yo ASCII

So why don't you go home and play with yo WYSIWYG interface

And I'll continue to code this cyberspace with style and grace

Fuck all y'all, I'm out

Why Inconsistency is Sexy

I've been trying to pin point what I find the most attractive in the opposite sex. And I think I'm getting closer to the answer: inconsistency. I've found that if I can tell you why I like somebody without stuttering, cursing, or taking long confused pauses, then I would consider that a red flag.

I know this may sound confusing. Shouldn't I know what characteristics I like in others? And shouldn't those people consistently embody those qualities? Sure, on paper that would make the most sense. That would also certainly make things much easier. However, since I cannot consistently pinpoint what I like in other people, then naturally, those who are the most inconsistent I would be most attracted to.

But Brian, would that mean you would only be attracted to crazies and people with multiple personality disorders? Not really. These people are consistently inconsistent, which would fall in the realm of consistency. Always knowing what someone will do or say next is just as bad as never knowing. So maybe I need to use slightly different language: I think inconsistent inconsistency is sexy.

But to further look into this, I ask, what makes someone inconsistently inconsistent? I think this ties into another quality I find very attractive: Open-mindedness. I believe we are shaped by the ideas, experiences, and people that surround us. If you are not open minded, you would be more likely to surround yourself with the same kinds of ideas, experiences, and people; in turn, your actions and views will become more and more consistent with these ideas, experiences, and people. On the other hand, if you are open-minded, you are more likely to learn new things, try new things, and meet new people. That's sexy.

But that explanation still doesn't satisfy me. But I think that's the point. By definition, if I were able to easily define this perfectly inconsistent person, it would contradict her inherent inconsistent inconsistency. Make sense?

Brian's Answers to Difficult Questions

Q: Why does my life feel so empty?

A: You're probably not getting enough vitamin C. Most will suggest oranges, but I am an ardent advocate of the mango. High in antioxidants, vitamins A, C, and E, mangoes are definitely the superfruit you need to get from sad to glad. Also, did you know mangoes are the most consumed fruit in the world? Don't believe those banana propagandists (bananagandists).

Q: I don't think my significant other loves me anymore, how can I tell for sure?

Place a raisin in your belly button (only if you are an inney... if you're an outey, it's already obvious why your significant other doesn't love you anymore). If your significant other fails to find this raisin in a 48 hour period, he or she does not love you. If your significant other finds it then eats it, you have a winner my friend.

Q: I don't believe this is the life I'm supposed to be living. Am I crazy?

No, you are a superhero. You must now put yourself in life-threatening situations in order to find exactly your powers are. I suggest jumping off something high first.

Q: I am bored and unfulfilled at my job, what can I do?

If you have drawers or file cabinets at your work desk, try to raise small animals while at work. Start with turtles or hamsters and eventually work your way up to small marsupials or monkeys. Perhaps having the responsibility of caring for other lives while at work will give you the professional fulfillment you were always craving.

Q: I'm thinking about buying a Mac, should I feel shame?

A: You must be in a very scared and vulnerable point in your life. Don't panic or feel shameful. In fact many people choose to use Macs and continue to live mostly normal and drug-free lives. Just remember that this is a decision that has a real impact on the people that care about you.