Not Just Mommy-Blogging: Jenn Mann's "People I Want to Punch in the Throat"

I have to be honest – the author was never on my radar.

I am not in her demographic. Jenn Mann is a mommy-blogger of some sort. If I would have known that, I might never have picked up the book. Reading the book showed that she was from an area of Kansas I have some familiarity with. When I was in Grad School at Kansas State, we had kids from all over the state. There was a special breed of rich and entitled kids that we could talk about just by saying the name of the county they were from. The kids were the “Johnson County” kids. Mann writes about their mothers.

I only learned this because I picked it up. I only picked it up off the shelf at my library because of the title. Bravo to whomever came up with that one.

I’m glad I did pick it up tough. The stories are fresh and funny and real. Perhaps they are too real. I myself have never been a mother, or a parent for that matter, but the stories hit home in a way that produced just a bit of anxiety as I was reading them. It was a fun country to visit when you had Mann as a tourist guide, but I’m glad I’ll never have to live there.

Food: A Love Story - Gaffigan at his Dirtiest

Hey.  You wanna read a lot of stuff about food?

No. That’s the wrong question. Do you like Jim Gaffigan (and his wife/writing partner)?

If so, you will like this book. It is basically 300 pages of riffs on food. It can get a bit much at times, and you wonder why you’re reading a book about a comic’s take on different food products, but it made me laugh. Even if there is some duplication from his live shows, this is a good collection from Gaffigan. It’s basically a “greatest hits” collection. There’s even an extended meditation what Hot Pockets mean to him.

He owes his career to Hot Pockets. If you talk about him to someone and they don’t know who he is offhand, all you need to say is “Hot Pockets” in that voice and they will know. That’s awesome connectivity.

So do you like Jim Gaffigan AND food? Then buy this book.

I Just Discovered This Cool New Band. They're called "The Killers".

I bought the Killers greatest hits collection

I always kind of liked the Killers. I had heard a few songs that I knew were Killers songs, and I dug them I found them like some modern day version of Queen in how anthemic the songs were.

So I bought this CD as a gift for my wife for a road trip were we were taking. The car was a rental and we didn’t know the area so the terrestrial radio was out. This was the only CD we brought.

It turned out that I really like the Killers. I knew every song and knew them even better by the time the trip was over. I like them so much I just looked up this CD on a streaming music service so I could listen to it again.

I still don't get the boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend I had in....

But other than that, go. Buy it.

So, yeah.  This is a great collection