I was having a good sleep in my car

That's right, it's my birthday. Not such a bad one really. On the plus side, Da Vinci was born this day (which is why I'm so creative, and shit.) On the downside, the Titanic sank on this day (hit the berg on the 14th, sank in the early hours of the 15th.) More importantly, this is the birthday where I leave the coveted 18-34 demographic which means pop culture and advertising will make less and less sense to me as time goes on. I suppose I may as well start tuning into NPR's Performance Today.

On the plus side, birthdays mean books, one of which is American Theocracy. His Cousins Wars, which takes an alternative look at why Anglo-America came to dominate the world looks good too. I also received the Geographer's Tale, one of the puzzle-thrillers in the Da Vinci Code (you don't really need a link do you?) mode. Like horror fiction, reading literary thrillers is a frustrating experience. Too often they are neither really literary or thrilling. The overly hyped Rule of Four is a great example. As was once (unfairly) said of Oakland "There isn't any there, there." Anyway, Alan Furst, writer of some of the best literary thrillers blurbed the Geographer's Tale, so that is a good sign at least.