Random Thoughts on Saturday...Oh Wait!

What up, peeps? Don't you hate it when you wake up thinking it's a different day? I woke today thinking it's Saturday and it took seeing Mike Bettes on the Weather Channel to think, Uh, wait a minute...Sheesh.

It's been a good week for book releases, hasn't it? Pale Demon by Kim Harrison, Darkest Mercy by Melissa Marr, and How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper, just to name a few. I love big release weeks like this; it makes me feel like a kid in a candy store. (Or me in a candy store, bookstore, Crate & Barrel store...)

On Sunday, you'll want to head over to Book & Movie Reviews by Deanna to participate in a Sookie Stackhouse Read-Along she's co-hosting with the lovely Jen D. from Not Now...I'm Reading!. It's the first week, so naturally they'll be reading Dead Until Dark, the one that started it all. I still need to dig up my copy :)

I finally got around to watching The Social Network last night. I have to say, I was rather underwhelmed but I should have seen it coming. The litigious nature of society these days drives me crazy and the idea that two rich kids could sue for millions of dollars and win without a sturdy legal leg to stand on is preposterous. I liked what was quoted on the movie's wikipedia page:

Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig wrote in The New Republic that Sorkin's screenplay doesn’t acknowledge the "real villain" of the story:

The total and absolute absurdity of the world where the engines of a federal lawsuit get cranked up to adjudicate the hurt feelings (because "our idea was stolen!") of entitled Harvard undergraduates is completely missed by Sorkin. We can't know enough from the film to know whether there was actually any substantial legal claim here. Sorkin has been upfront about the fact that there are fabrications aplenty lacing the story. But from the story as told, we certainly know enough to know that any legal system that would allow these kids to extort $65 million from the most successful business this century should be ashamed of itself. Did Zuckerberg breach his contract? Maybe, for which the damages are more like $650, not $65 million. Did he steal a trade secret? Absolutely not. Did he steal any other "property"? Absolutely not—the code for Facebook was his, and the "idea" of a social network is not a patent. It wasn't justice that gave the twins $65 million; it was the fear of a random and inefficient system of law. That system is a tax on innovation and creativity. That tax is the real villain here, not the innovator it burdened.

I did feel that the lawsuit between Zuckerberg and Saverin was justified; what Zuckerberg did to his former best friend under Sean Parker's influence was crappy beyond belief. However, the movie was well done - how could it not with David Fincher directing and Aaron Sorkin writing the script - so the acting deserves some kudos but to win Best Picture at the Oscars? Don't think so.