With the lights out it's less dangerous

Before I begin, please allow me to send an emergency message. This post will push David Hasselhoff off the front page. I know, I know: This is hard to accept. You might want to keep a bag handy in case you start to hyperventilate from the panic. However, all is not lost. You can still see OOGA-CHAKA-CHAKA through the archives or (my personal choice) by bookmarking the page. That way, the Hassel is close at hand whenever you need him.

On to today's topic: I am a dirty, dirty girl in the bedroom.

Okay, that's not totally true, but "messy, messy girl" doesn't grab your attention in the same way. If you came in through a search engine, prepare to be very, very disappointed.

I cannot fall asleep without reading. When I'm done with my book or magazine, I leave it on the floor. And no, I do not pick it up again in the morning and place it carefully on the bookshelf. I have piles of reading material all over my house, and the messiest pile of all is the one next to my side of the bed. As my adoring fans, I thought you might be interested in seeing what I have been reading lately. (I am also auctioning off a coffee date, with the proceeds going to charity. I'm sure eBay is not set up to handle this type of massive celebrity auction, but it's for the CHILDREN, for Pete's sake.)

• Bad News, by Tom Fenton
• Six issues of Time Canada: Feb 5, Jan 29, Jan 22, Jan 15, Dec 25, Dec 18
• The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien
• Vinyl Cafe Unplugged, by Stuart McLean
• The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins
• Two issues of Vanity Fair: February, January
• One issue of Canadian Geographic: January/February
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by JK Rowling
• Why Darwin Matters, by Michael Shermer (click over to the philosopher king's blog for more from Dr. Shermer)
• Seven issues of The Wittenburg Door (that's not a typo): May/June 2003, July/August 2002, November/December 2001, May/June 2000, March/April 1994, September/October 1993, February/March 1984
• One issue of Discover: February
• The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins
• Mugglenet.com's What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7, by Emerson Spartz et al.
• Seven issues of Newsweek: Feb 5, Jan 29, Jan 22, Jan 15, Jan 8, Jan 1, Dec 18
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by JK Rowling

I really need to tidy up around here. This is worse than I thought. I didn't realize that I had so many magazines on the floor.

I love magazines, especially newsmagazines. They provide an in-depth look at an issue and are able to follow a story over several days. Space is precious, so they don't do stories just to fill a news hole.

Time and Newsweek come every week, and we have a few science and history magazines that come every month. Last week I got a free copy of Maclean's (the Canadian newsweekly) but wouldn't you know, it is the issue with a 12-year-old dressed like a prostitute on the cover. Naturally, the accompanying article has a lot of hand-wringing about this terrible, terrible phenomenon. Do they think I'm stupid?

I bought a subscription to Vanity Fair about six months ago, but am not sure if I will renew. They have excellent articles and have been breaking a lot of news lately (considering that they are a monthly, this is really good) but MAN, does their magazine ever stink. And when I say it stinks, I mean it literally stinks. And I am not one of those morons who uses the word "literally" to mean "figuratively". It smells like Cosmo or one of those trash magazines that has no purpose but to make women feel bad about themselves. And it has so many ads I can barely find the stories, especially after a few hits from the Bailey's bottle. I think I might have to go back to ripping out all of the pages that have ads on both sides: this has the effect of cutting the weight of the mag roughly in half, helps me find the stories, gets rid of the stinky pages and is very satisfying.