Thanks for sharing, excited to read this. I'm endlessly (morbidly) fascinated by tragedies at sea. For anyone who hasn't read it but is jonzing for more, William Langewiesche's story of the Airbus crash over the Atlantic, published in the same corner of the web (same favicon and everything!) is a great shot-chaser combo.

No. I have a $100 (analog) watch that has attracted more interest and compliments than I'd ever anticipated (not that I anticipated anything, because it's just a fucking watch). I've owned two of this exact same watch -- the leather band is of below-average quality, and it broke, so I bought another one. The band on this one is wearing to the point where I'll likely end up buying a third. It's become a signifier in some way. I can't imagine ever wearing another watch, or paying more than the $100 every 2.5 years it's cost to maintain this one. What a racket.

Hey hubski, been a while! To be honest I had completely forgotten this site existed until BLOB_CASTLE texted me today. Flood of memories. This place strikes such an excellent balance between other social sites--it's the best of Twitter (broad set of interests/content), Reddit (depth of discussion/comments), and Facebook (cordiality & familiarity) all in one.

About me, since then: happily (& newly) married, have a fun job in tourism marketing, working on some cool extracurricular projects, and doing a lot of woodshedding both solo and with a band.

Thanks! Yeah, my first thought was "Greek Lightning," but apparently it's got an even crispier history than I'd heard: according to the local historical society, the foundry company that put up a business on that spot way back in 1926 had their original building burn down that same year. May just be a hazard of the industry, but agree that it seems suspicious and insuring the place will be difficult.

matters to me, i fux with ableton. i've been posting videos of loops set to maxgifs to my instagram account lately, which is a decent way of avoiding, y'know, actually finishing anything.

http://instagram.com/p/dTSq-cDnUK/

http://instagram.com/p/duomfhDnaY/

http://instagram.com/p/dVrRfmDnQd/

you ever check out driven machine drums?

http://www.drivenmachinedrums.com/

local dude (at least he was as of a few years ago - he and i had a few red-eyed chats at dawn) puts this together, has saved me a lot of dough chasing gear over the years.

in in in in in

I've been away from the reading and the thread but I encourage people to stick with it while simultaneously knowing it's going to be a bummer. If we have enough in favor of speeding up the reading let's try and do that. We'll either all burn out or we won't, but we likely will.

Really well put on both points. Pelletier and Espinoza are Rosencranz and Guildenstern. They're also, as others have pointed out, mere archetypes. Their "character" as such doesn't matter. I'm a little sore that was so sorely missed, but I have the benefit of hindsight working in my favor as I've read the book once before, closer to its initial publication. Just know that P+E as depictions of specific, individual character-people don't matter as much as P+E as depictions of how, more generally, people are and/or can be. That's why it's so damn funny.

Nice idea. I'd join.

there's a little comic dialogue balloon in the lower right-most part of the component - click that and comments poof disappear.

I wasn't actually involved in the #hubskibookclub in its prior incarnation. We've reset with 2666, which might be an intimidating read but the discussion should be helpful and engaging, if early returns are to be counted. I don't think anything would be out of bounds for the book club, and anyone's welcome to submit suggestions.

You're welcome.

His books more or less predicted exactly that mentality you describe, or at least hook you in based on same. His characters are (beautiful) train wrecks, even (or especially) Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. As a result, Ellis has become sort of a go-to voice on celebrity / tabloid / Hollywood culture.

Glamorama is the penultimate book on that tip, but I've yet to read it. Perhaps a lighter suggestion for the #hubskibookclub?

Bret Easton Ellis' bread and butter is hip, rich twenty-somethings with too much free time. He wrote Less Than Zero and Rules Of Attraction, as well as American Psycho. Right up your alley if you felt at all cynical while reading The Devil Wears Prada.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Easton_Ellis

Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins (master of opening lines):

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, at a time when Western civilization was declining too rapidly for comfort and yet too slowly to be very exciting, much of the world sat on the edge of an increasingly expensive theater seat, waiting--with various combinations of dread, hope, and ennui--for something momentous to occur.

Also, I found this site in my hunt for the exact verbiage to that opening:

http://novelopenings.blogspot.com/

The unfortunately named "The Mindy Project" was actually pretty good. I'm a dude, so this is weird/biased, but I think she's got a pretty great perspective on relationships and femininity/womanhood/whatever you want to call it.

consumer goods have been expropriated

Without looking it up, does "expropriated" mean stolen and given away, like in a Robin Hood situation? If so, that's an excellent euphemism (no judgment). Should work it in to a word game...