BobHarris.com - This post does not contain any particular insight

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

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Tuesday, 18 April 2006

But my goodness, judging from the TV ads, India looks like a fabulously itchy place.

I'm keeping myself company while working late (again) with the second cricket test between Oz and Bangladesh, this one from Chittagong. It seems to be the live Indian feed again, complete with commercials.

It seems like half the ads are for creams and powders to keep your body from spontaneously swelling, turning red, and driving you slowly insane with pain. This must happen a lot, apparently. Not being able to understand Hindi makes the whole thing a notch more delirious. Neat!

Now that I finally have that dang Dermi-Cool jingle out of my head (see earlier post, below, and praise Shiva for the relief), I'm giggling at a competing ad, depicting, in sequence: a fashionable young man in considerable discomfort, a cartoon of a bright red swollen crotch of ambiguous gender, and then the same guy dancing with a cute babe in a disco.

Oddly, a Hindi slogan begins the ad with a little arrow pointing at the guy's lower torso, but later, the words reappear with the arrow pointing at the cute girl's lower torso. I'm guessing that a phrase like "hot body" in Hindu is being remapped to refer to both a man's itchy groin and a woman's fantastic butt. Thus the humor.

Either that, or it just says "abnormally red and swollen genitals." Also funny.

(Rainy day? Make up your own!)

And now as I write this, the damn Dermi-Cool ad is back on! Crap! Thande Dermi-Cool ka! It's back in my head! Aaaaahhhhhrrrgggg!

Itchy itchy itchy, this India. At least judging from the cricket ads, which of course is no way to judge.

I must go there and see someday.