Some random notes, while I'm here...

--If I haven't mentioned this yet, I finally found out why my entry about my bike adventue to the Loop garnered so much new supportive email; it got mentioned, as a matter of fact, on the listserv for Critical Mass (CM). Aha! For those who don't know, CM is pretty much the most political organization in America for bicycling enthusiasts; even their name comes from the political activity they're most known for, which is gathering en-masse once a month in urban areas and all of them riding their bikes around town in the middle of the street, forcing motorists to slow down to their speed.

I have complicated opinions about CM, surprisingly enough, and disagree with them about certain issues just as much I agree with them about certain others. In general, however, I'm very glad that an organization like CM exists, and happy that they found my little bike report entertaining enough to mention at their listserv. And boy, if you need any more evidence of just how seriously Chicago is taking bicycling, just look at the fate of our local CM branch: In New York, for example, the city government just passed a new law, making it illegal for two bikers to ride side-by-side, specifically to stop CM events from taking place, while in Chicago a CM event last year actually had 1,500 people in attendance, with many of their events actually being co-sponsored by the city government, and I believe with at least a couple of its members on the Mayor's special "Bike Plan 2010" committee.

--Okay, I'm watching Desperate Housewives this summer! Are you happy, motherfuckers? It is...more entertaining than I was expecting it to be, to tell the truth, sometimes much more entertaining than I was expecting. But my God, could the producers make the mystery behind that woman's death go more slowly? It takes an entire week for them to discover a mysterious note...then an entire other week to give it to her husband, who feigns surprise...then an entire other week to learn that he's not surprised by the note at all. Fuck me! It's an intriguing storyline to be sure, with characters that are much creepier than any hit show has a right to get away with (and especially that goddamn son, who gives me goosebumps every time he appears); but man, I am already sick of that storyline taking up only the last thirty seconds of every episode, and not being otherwise mentioned whatsoever.

--So yes, all you excited Friends of Jason out there, it's true - now that version 11.0 of my site is finally finished and official, we are a mere week or so from my latest travel book, Ach Du Heilige Scheisse!, being finished and delivered to you. Don't forget that for the first time, I'll be doing an active marketing campaign for this electronic book, and seeing if I can't get 100 copies of it sold altogether (to raise the $1,000 I need to finally run off the paper version); you can help! Once the book is finished, in fact, you can profoundly help just by mentioning it at your own website, linking to it, talking about it with your friends at cocktail parties, just getting out the word in any way you can. My sales goals are so small, to be truthful, that individuals can and do make a profound difference; if all my 20,000 readers, for example, were to only convince a total of 25 new readers to purchase the electronic book, that is literally a quarter of my entire goal for this campaign. Anyway, more on this in the next couple of weeks.

And as long as we're on the subject, I don't suppose you'd want to mention that the new version of my blog is now online, would you? One of the more frustrating things about my journal, both the length of time it's been around and all the various options for reading it, is that my grand total audience over the years tends to be pretty fractured; a typical reader will get all addicted to it for a year or two, maybe by coming across it at AvantGo.com or another way, then slowly get out of the habit for a year or two, then suddenly stumble across a mention of it again and become a daily reader again for awhile, then get out of the habit again for awhile, etc.

My point is that it can be surprising sometimes, exactly how old readers find out about major new updates of mine; you might be surprised, for example, to find out that a couple of my old readers (or even college buddies) happen to read your blog, but are no longer reading mine. Anyway, any help getting the word out actually goes a longer way than you might expect, and is of course highly appreciated by me. And I'll even make all of you the same deal I'm going to make all these litbloggers, when it comes time to start up the marketing campaign for my new travel book; if you do an entry at your own site about the new version of my blog, I would be happy to conduct an interview with you about it over phone or email, to give you a little exclusive content at your site to run with it; or I'll even write an original piece of content for your site if you want, maybe a beginning tutorial on moblogging, tips on maintaining a confessional journal without going crazy, how to break into travel writing, etc. Anyway, just drop me a line at ilikejason at hotmail dot com if you're interested in taking advantage of this offer.

--And finally I wanted to send a little shout-out to my old college friend Kurt Kaiser, out there in the Pacific Northwest, who's been patiently waiting to hear back from me for fucking months now. Yes, I really am that behind on my emails, Kurt! As a little salve, I thought I'd reprint the funniest joke I've ever heard in my life, taught to me by Kurt when we were 19 (and repeated officially one gazillion times since):

Q: How do you get a nun pregnant?

A: You fuck her!