BobHarris.com - Greetings to our readers from beyond the grave

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"

-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"

-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”

— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”

— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

Main

Buzzflash

Greetings to our readers from beyond the grave

Tag it now -

Wednesday, 30 November 2005

Since your IP now gets logged pretty much anytime you open the stove, visit the bathroom, or run the dishwasher, Sitemeter can slap together a nifty little graphic of the home countries of this site's last 100 visitors. It usually looks something like this:

It changes constantly, of course, as different countries wake up, go to sleep, and occasionally collapse in genocidal ruin. But it's fun to think about people from Vietnam and Croatia and Finland dropping in. And what I'm happiest about most of all are readers from the Unknown Country, who seem to be among the site's most loyal.

I'm not sure where this Unknown Country is. I've checked my atlases and poked around Google Maps. Nothing.

The phrase is, however, notably similar to the term Hamlet used to describe death.

Logically, then, I can only assume that Sitemeter is telling me that dead people are big fans of the site.

Yay! Dead people are always welcome here. A lot of people fear the dead, but if you think about it, dead people are responsible for most of the great art and culture we have, not to mention the only decent pop music in the last fifty years.

But since there's rarely more than one dead person online at a given time, I also conclude that internet access is poor in the Great Beyond, and they're probably sharing a computer. Possibly my last Mac, which died abruptly three years ago.

Still, what an opportunity. So many things to ask the dead. Like, are you still using Explorer, or has Firefox made it to the other side? Are pudus cute there, too? Who wins in a slap-fight, Jesus or Buddha? How many of you guys thought you were following the right leader, but now realize you were just part of getting a whole lot of people killed for no good reason? Does that suck forever, or can you, like, laugh about it once a few centuries go by? Those 72 virgins that every suicide bomber gets -- is there, like, a machine that makes those? Because that's a lot of virgins. And do they ever blow themselves up? Because if I was a virgin and the only hope for love I had for all eternity was an average of 20 minutes a day with a perpetually-exhausted maniac, I'd probably strap on an explosive belt myself and take my chances in the Great Even More Beyonder.

Whew. I have more questions, but that's a good start for now.

Anyhow, send me an email. Or just make Jon Edward belch the answers, one letter at a time. Thanks!