Novelist Is Street Wise but Ain't No Snitch

The best thing about Novelist is it has a search bar! It's a relatively sophisticated search bar too. Take that Author Yellowpages! You and your 'sort' function, how ridiculous.

So I used the recommended reads tab to browse the hip hop/rap memoir and biography pages. Immediately I found "From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens" the terribly uninteresting looking biography by 50 Cent. What's this? He came from the streets? Wow that is so unique for a rapper. Wha? He also abandoned the dangerous life of crime and faced off with a dangerous drug lord that nearly ended his life? Wow his music is so authentic to the streets he grew up on, especially that song "Candyshop" which was later reworked and featured on a Kidz Bop album.

I also found the biographies of dope slinger turned rapper Notorious B.I.G., former criminal turned rapper, turned back to criminal DMX, and an amazing book called "Bling Bling: Hip Hop's Crown Jewels." There was also the fantastic...

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm going to let you finish but first I just want to say Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!"

Thanks Kanye.

The Book Report Network does what exactly?

I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking at. The Book Report Network was right there in big bold letters but what is it? I'm still not sure. Then I just randomly clicked on links. The first "Author Yellowpages." I tried to search for an author but there's no search bar, only a sort function. Okay, Foer, Jonathan Safran. Nope. Let's try Franzen, Jonathan. Nope. How about Eggars, Dave. Finally an entry! 33% return rate is half bad, its appalling. I then noticed the top search list. No. 1 Sparks, Nicholas. This site is not for me.

The next page I landed on was "Book Reporter.com." Great, another sort list. Where is the search bar on these sites. At least here I found an interesting Q&A with Foer, circa 2002.

I don't get these sites. They are dated and hard to search. Adios! I'm off to Bing.com.

Second Minute or Hour

Weebly

Weebly is so easy that it makes sharing secret CIA safe house locations with the public a piece of cake! Check it out. I like how you really don't have to know any of that barbaric code garbage to create a page. The cavemen over at Dreamweaver should take note. Seriously.

Omega!

So I surfed my way over to MasterFile Premier and did a quick search for Omega watches and what I found was very suprising! I edited the search to show only photos. Expecting to see high fashion watch ads or Omega store fronts I was taken back by the number one image return: A picture of Anna Kournikova posing with Omega Ltd. President Stephen Urquhart. What the?

Both looked very happy sporting their $1,000 time piece, smiling for the cameras. It's the most believable I've seen Anna since she 'acted' in the Enrique Inglesis video a few years back. The next picture? Another former tennis hottie Martina Hingis riding through New York in a handsome cab.

Moving away from that maddness I popped over to the Biography Resource Center searched out my favorite author Raul Duke, aka Sebastian Owl aka, Dr. Gonzo aka, Hunter S. Thompson. Did you know that Sports Illustrated hired Thompson to cover a desert motorcycle race in Nevada? They never got their article but the trip inspired the Vegas book.

Thanks to earcos off of Flickr I've got this great photo! Creative Commons is great. I've used images for posters and ads before and it saves so much time. The tough thing about free downloads is that they usually suck but if you take the time to search a little bit you can find some great stuff!

PS - Thanks Trent and Thom for leading the charge in the fight against over priced music!

Tonight's Today