TLanguage Log: The Dan Brown code

Language Log: The Dan Brown code

I'm not a big novel reader. I prefer non-fiction, or if fiction then humor. But every now and then I get into reading a book. I read all the Harry Potter books and enjoyed them.

Recently my wife pushed me to read The DaVinci Code. I gave it a shot. The beginning seemed slow to me. Later, I found all the additional pieces of information distracting, kind of like those little trivia pop-ups on DVDs. But as the plot progressed, I got a little more into it, and finally finished it yesterday.

And as I often do when ever I finish a movie or book, I went online to see what other people thought. (My father used to give me a hard time about reading movie reviews after I saw a movie, since I should have been able to make up my own mind at that point. But some habits born in insecurity are hard to break.) And I found this link. An interesting article taking the book apart for an entirely different reason than most other sites seemed to do.

If he can start a blog, then HE can start a blog! I mean I can start a blog!

Well, here goes nothing.

I'm not really sure why I'm doing this. It's not like I have time - I'm busy at work, I need to spend more time with my family, and I'm currently involved in getting our new shul of the ground and working in the local election campaign.

Plus I already have a website where I've been meaning to put stuff up for a long time and haven't.

But as good old Homer said in the title of this post (with a little paraphrasing), if others can do it, I guess I can too. I've seen friends and family and others write, and it seems cathartic, and even if nobody else bothers to look, at least I've tried.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression...

...except if you can delete it later. We'll see if that's necessary.

spoiler test

This is a test at posting spoilers.

If I include text between the brackets, let's see how it works:

[can you read this?]