The Smarmy Carny

Go ahead and buy the book "Potty Time With Elmo." Chances are, you'll receive a helpful, delightful little book that will encourage your youngster to start using the potty. Of course, there is that small chance that Elmo will threaten to kill you, instead.

Interestingly, the company that manufactures the book has said that there have been multiple complaints regarding this problem, so it's not just a single, isolated incident or a spoof.

The study results aren't yet in, but perhaps death threats are simply more effective than the "success-reward" method of potty training.

Then again, perhaps Elmo has snapped, and he'll finally get that court-ordered psychiatrist.

Be sure to keep reading . . . after all, who knows when they'll discover that the book "Elmo Wants a Bath" threatens to drown your child if they don't wash behind their ears?

I am a big fan of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and of the audiobooks read by Tim Curry.

I downloaded a free Daniel Handler interview via iTunes. If you're interested, just go to the iTunes Store in the program, search "Snicket," and look for the free listing. In the interview, he answers one question I have been wondering about some time regarding the switch between Tim Curry and himself reading the audio books.

Another piece of information that he divulges is that his friends had created an adult beverage called the Lemony Snicket Cocktail, due in part to the fact that his friends had an "overactive lemon tree."

What's in a Lemony Snicket?

• Plenty of lemons
• Powdered sugar
• White rum (Australian, when possible)
• Soda

Handler didn't give further details (such as how much of each item is used or which type of soda was generally used), but as I don't drink alcohol, it doesn't much matter to me. He did note that the drink generally evolved over time, and he invited others to figure out their own Lemony Snicket recipes.

War of the Worlds

Title: War of the Worlds
Opens in wide release: June 29.
Actors of consequence: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman (Narrator), Steven Spielberg (Director)
Plot/Summary: H.G. Wells' classic visits the silver screen yet again.
Trailer: Theatrical trailer and three teasers, all on one page.

Thoughts: As this is one of the "summer blockbuster" movies, part of me felt rebellious enough to instead discuss "Rebound", and part of me felt sensible enough to review the movie everyone else was reviewing. You can clearly see which part won out this time. Coming from Spielberg, I expect some spectacular special effects and touching plot points interspersed with various destruction and such. Spielberg knows how to please the masses, and he will doubtless keep to his usual formula. If the trailer is any indicator, it looks like I'm right.

H.G. Wells' book and radio presentation are once again reincarnated on the silver screen. No doubt, modern special effects will give the story a treatment that no previous version has accomplished. Still, such a classic story being retold by such a mass market director as Spielberg has sort of turned me off to this movie. That is, until it hits Video On Demand.

With all the mumbo jumbo with hidden codes and such, from the television show Numbers to The Da Vinci Code, I thought I would post
Assassinations Foretold in Moby Dick.

This has been in my favorites for years, and I enjoy coming back to it every so often. If you surf around on his webspace, you'll find some other such items from other works as well.

If Moby Dick doesn't interest you, you can also read about why Barney is evil.

Buy this book at Amazon

On May 31, the paperback version of Bill Clinton's My Lies was released. Instead of wasting your money on this fodder, why not get a hardcover book released on the same day. Instead of My Life, check out Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine.

The blurb for this book mentions following "the lives of eight women who crossed romantic paths with Bill Clinton" (including Hillary, I presume). So, that means that Slick Willy had some seven women, and those are just the publicly acknowledged ones.

Seven women? I'm not sure about you, but I was raised to think that two women were sort of too many for a married man. After Wilt Chamberlain heard this, he decided to run for Presidential office in 2008! There must be at least one woman we don't know about because there are only seven women and there were eight years. And don't try to tell me that one year was for Hillary. We don't buy into that here!

Candice E. Jackson's Their Lives chronicles how the Bill and Hillary Clinton's inner circle bribed, intimidated, and harassed seven women who had once been the objects of Bill's lustful desires. The author — a feminist libertarian — does not condemn Bill's philandering ways, but rather in great detail exposes how the Clintons' liberal politics allowed them to justify their attacks against these individuals.

Kathleen Willey calls Their Lives "the most accurate portrayal of…the true nightmare Bill and Hillary put me through."

What has really gotten my goat about all this is that, if you remember the campaigns during Bill's first run, a huge issue during debates was "family values." I'm quite interested in reading about Bill's family values. Buy it today!

Buy Freakonomics at Amazon

The subject of economics is boring as far as I'm concerned . . . unless, of course, the subject is being discussed by Steven D. Levitt.

The first few chapters deal with questions like "What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?" "How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real-estate agents?" and "Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?" Levitt's answers will surprise you.

Whereas the vast majority of economists look for the simple, obvious explanation or solution, Levitt has the ability to think so far out of the box that he's thinking in a separate, correct box. He also seems to have a knack for pulling out the truly interesting examples that tend to spark one's interest.

Levitt brings some refreshing creativity to an age where scientists are too focused on empirical results.

All that aside, I am attracted to anything that includes "Freak" in the title. So, when I heard about a book titled Freakonomics , I simply had to give it a chance.

Stay tuned, as I will be posting a follow-up to this regarding Freakonomics in a few days.