Friday Night Musings?

The local time is Friday late night/Saturday early morning. The only person awake in the household is me alone.

Obviously it is a time for yet another rant about the world. And boy do I have a lot to rant about this time.

So in the last couple of weeks I probably met more people that I have met in the last couple of months, and read more books for recreational reading than in the last couple of months also. Actually saying ``books'' is kind of a misnomer, since I only read one book sporadically over the last couple of weeks. It was, strangely enough, a concise description of philosophy through the use of jokes.

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar is a nice romp through the immensely complicated world of philosophy, one that I find myself returning to on vacation time and time again. Unlike most philosophy books, whose authors always take themselves too seriously, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar stays on the thin line between comedy and seriousness, using humour as a means of driving home a key understanding of the particular ideals that are associated with a particular branch of philosophy. It's an awesome book for a light read for those of us who can't separate our Heidegger and our Nietzsche, or get wholly existential about the lack thereof knowledge of the oft [mis-]quoted philosophers. I would love to take credit for discovering this book, but the truth is Joanne was the one who recommended it to me. A good read for those who want to have a sufficiently interesting yet pithy survey of philosophical thoughts up to the end of the twentieth century.

Urgh, I would write more, but I think I'm really drained for the day. So until next time.