SuperFreak
February 4th, 2010 by larryRecently I finished the book SuperFreakonomics, the explosive follow up to the smash hit Freakonomics (that is actually what it says on the book cover). Though Freakonomics was highly recommended by several people, I didn’t read it until last year and thought it was pretty good. I figured the sequel would also be compelling.
I was sort of right. I don’t remember the original book’s structure that much but I do believe a major complaint was that the chapters don’t really work together. This is also a problem with SuperFreakonomics and the whole thing basically feels like a series of short essays on various topics. Of course some economics are applied to the writing so it remains interesting… but it didn’t really work for me a whole.
The chapters talk about about prostitution, whether people are altruistic, finding terrorists via equation with data about a person’s life (this was really disappointing because it started out super interesting, then they say they have a key factor that works great, but they can’t tell us what it is because of national security), why you should wash your hands often, car safety, and global warming.
Those topics are everywhere and so is the book. In the end, the thing was about 240 pages plus a lot of footnotes and sources, but the parts never added up to anything. Too bad. (I have the book and the original Freakonomics if anyone wants to borrow it)
Now I am reading Bridge to Terabithia. It is a fairly short (130 pages, with some drawings) kids book that people say is good. It’s also a recently made movie. After that, maybe Malcolm Gladwell’s newish book of his compiled New Yorker articles (I expect that to be as disjointed as SuperFreakonomics).
Recently I’ve taken an interest in my inability to smell things, and more importantly my reduced sense of taste that goes with it. After some research (including first hand accounts!) the cheapest thing to do right now is probably Neti Pot myself.
That means I stick a teapot looking thing filled with saline (salt water) up one nostril while my head is turned sideways, then the fluid works its way out the other nostril all the while clearing up my sinus cavity (I think). At the very minimum Oprah and other people say I’ll feel less congested so that will be nice. So that’s going to be soon because I’m really curious.