Roshan V. - Let Me Crazy

I’ve got mad street cred now, fo’ shizzle!

Back when I went to UC Davis at the start of this decade, I worked at the campus box office with some crazy native Sacramentans, Yen and KT, which is how I ended up meeting Aaron Peckham. Aaron had just created a site called Urban Dictionary, a site that was filled with what we would now call user-generated content. And by “user” I mean “immature teenagers” We had a lot of fun submitting words to Urban Dictionary our second year of college. This was all before Wikipedia, Friendster, and Facebook, so it was new to us and a lot of fun to interact with others on the site.

Randomly and coincidentally, I ended up running into Aaron at Google a few years later and reconnecting. Urban Dictionary was (and still is) a big phenomenon and was even being turned into a book of selected entries. I think we can all obviously see the effects of my participation and early adoption in the huge success and fame of the site!

Anyways, I recently found out Aaron left Google so I messaged him about what he was up to now. A week later, I checked my mailbox and found a package from him containing the original book, Urban Dictionary: Fularious Street Slang Defined, and the follow-up, Mo’ Urban Dictionary: Ridonkulous Street Slang Defined! They were even signed! Thanks Aaron!

If you’re looking for a holiday gift this season, I highly recommend these books!

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Last summer I went to an Authors @ Google talk by Christopher Hitchens where he discussed his book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. The talk is entertaining and a good summary of the book.

I received a free copy of the book at the talk, which I got signed after he was done, and recommend it to others - atheists or not. Well, you’ll probably like it more if you’re an atheist. I found the writing to be pretty interesting, but not always completely engaging. It ended taking me a month to finish the book because I couldn’t read more than a chapter at a time. Still, I agreed with most of his points and found his arguments to be sound. This is in sharp contrast to when I’ve seen or read his views on foreign policy, which I completely disagree with.

Also, I recommend reading the book with a condescending tone and a British accent in your head. Religious skewering is entertaining as it is, but even more so like this.

I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to go to that talk, but the title of the book and the following clip from Fox News’s Hannity & Colmes peaked my interest:

After the talk when I was getting my book signed, I let him know that this clip was one of my favorite YouTube videos of the year.