The King of Kong!

You can watch documentaries on South African villages, the making of microwave popcorn, and 30-minutes specials on "True Life: I Have Embarrassing Parents" (first aired 11/07/2002, according to Wikipedia). Because so many people out there just can't fathom what it is like to have parents who mortify you. But now you can see a different kind of documentary. In Seth Gordon's film The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters, you'll be able to check out the life of gamers in all of its glory. From all accounts, it looks like the film really doesn't suck, and is actually a refreshing look at people who actually care about something other than money and sex. Shocking! I know. I don't game, but I'm probably going to check this movie out anyhow. You can check out the pretty awesome website here, and pre-order a DVD for yourself.

Along those lines, might I also recommend Word Wars, a film about competitive Scrabble players and their loves and losses. This film I have seen, and think that its pretty enjoyable. But everyone knows that I'm a nerd already.

Spying on your neighbors just got easier.

Here's an interesting site to peruse. If you type in your zip, or any other zip in the United States, you can find out all the interesting information that the U.S Government collected on us in 2000. Mark Nash, some guy who likes statistics, launched this website, which gives you a easily-accessible version of all the pertinent stats. In my zip, 0% of people are in the farm/fishing/forestry field, while 39.8% are in the management/professional line of work. Oh, there go my hopes of becoming a sun-loving farm hand.

The neverending story of copyright

Wizards, and elves, and copyright law...
J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers are now suing a fan site about Harry Potter because of the site's plan to put out a book, citing copyright infringement. Tim Wu writes about the specatacle on Slate.com, and does a pretty good job of putting it in perspective. I didn't see any reference to lightening scars, though, so I'm only going to give it a 7 out of 10 points.