~Whimsical Reasoning~

Well, I cannot say I was exactly 'wowed' by Gladwell's writing, but I enjoyed it. His whole idea with the 80/20 though, seemed unthinkable to me. The fact that only 20 percent of the people in a epidemic do 20 percent of the work? While I find this reasonable to believe for diseases, fads are a whole different story. Maybe 70/30, but not 80/20. For those of you having no idea whatsoever I am talking about, you might want to pick up a copy of "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell.
I do have to agree with Melissa, Gladwell's writing was a bit bland, somewhat like how a matsa cracker tastes without salt, if you have any idea what I'm talking about. Then again, it is nonfiction, it is supposed to be bland, right? Ahh my friends, alas, this is not so. Contrary to popular belief, nonfiction can be wonderfully amusing, it just all depends on who writes it.
One thing that really interested me was the case concerning the babies with AIDs. I think this is completely true, I mean, so a days, we use so much antibacterial crap that germs are mutating out of control. Soon our immune systems won't be able to keep up. Personally, I think we just should let nature take its course, stop with all this 'dirt is bad for you' riffraff. God made dirt and dirt don't hurt, I say.
I never thought to compare fashion fads to medical epidemics or crime waves. I have heard that certain crimes become 'popular' over time, but I have never thought to parallel it to the fashion fad of Hush Puppies.


Not feeling well, more later tonight hopefully

Posted in: on Sunday, February 3, 2008 at at 9:21 PM 2 comments    

Now, I quite enjoy reading blogs, my only problem is I never take the time to favorite them, so I have never become a deducated blog reader. Today, I want to change that. I find reading about things I am disinterested in is quite a bore, so I decide to do a search for blogs on two of my favorite subjects, ancient history and cats. Quite a combo huh?

Ancient History- The first blog I came across was a some-what formal, although not completly stiff. It definitly had a professional edge to it. The author is a grad student, she obviously knows her stuff. This blog though would seem quite boring and uninteresting to those, well, uninterested in its topic. I'm not quite sure who the average reader would be, usually people don't think a blonde chick who wear flip-flops everywhere would be such a Latin geek. One of my favorite entries talks about the Lesser Quinquatrus, a holiday in the Roman calender. One of the reasons I love the Romans, were because they were crazy, completly mad, bonkers, off the wall even. On Lesser Quinquatrus, flautists (or flute players to those not musicly inclined), who had been exiled, were let back into the city. This was only for that one day though. This was a day to celebrate the goddess Minerva. Then, they were sent out again into exile, until the next year. Great system huh? I wonder what they would have done to oboe players huh Miriam?


Cats- This blog, comming from our own Blogspot, was about five cats and their family. This was not however as obbsessive as that creepy dog blog, with the countless pictures. What made this blog stand out more than the others I looked at, was the way in which it was written. The cats were all refered to by name, while the humans were FiveCatsChild, or FiveCatsMom. I think thats exactly how the cats would have wanted it to be written too. I would say 'lol' right not, but since I'm supposed to be speaking proper english, I'll just tell at this point to imagine me laughing. You got it? Good. The blog goes on to describe the daily lives of the five cats, own with their destinct personality. It reminded me of my own cats, my babies, truely. Cougar and Wallflower are my constant companions, and I love them very much, despite the fact that they sometimes pee on my favorite shirts.



Both of these blogs were very different, but I don't want to go into too much detail, read them yourselves!



Yawn, until next time

Posted in: on at at 5:30 PM 4 comments