Breakfast Links: Transformers, BookSwim & Big Cheese in NYC
Jalopnik is showing some more press shots of the soon to come Transformers live-action movie. It’s pretty cool that the ever mocked Bumblebee is going to look all badass, I hope he gets to be badass, too. I mean, if you’re a transformer how do you live down a beating by a VW Bug named Bumblebee? Yeah, you don’t. But as I see more shots of the movie, I worry that all the transformers are so HR Geigery and so complicated looking (for lack of a better word) that they’ve kinda stopped looking all that cool to me - there’s a sameyness to them all. Know what I’m saying?
Now check it - I just read a little bit about Bookswim. Here’s a site that wants to do for books what NetFlix does for movies. It seems like an interesting idea, but I remain unconvinced - a movie takes two hours to watch, books generally take longer - so the time between getting new books is a lot longer. And I’ve seen what dvd’s look like when coming from netflix, how well will books hold up to repeat use? There’s a couple cool features, like being able to buy books deeply discounted as well as keep ones you liked, but overall, I’m not sure how well this will work as a general appeal thing - I’m not clear how many people read more than 3-5 books a month and if they do, I suspect they may be the type that likes to own books. They also won’t be getting obscure books, so it kinda ruins any long tail aspirations they may have - but maybe that’ll come later. Ah well.. if books are your thing and you hate clutter, you might want to check it out.
Here’s the big news. The world’s largest wheel of cheese will be on display in Grand Central Terminal on May 16th (via gothamist). Yes, that’s today. Yes, that’s the biggest cheese on earth, most likely the biggest cheese in the galaxy, even! Apparently in addition to tastings there’ll be some cooking demos starting at 11:30 - not a bad lunch idea for those of you of the cheese eating persuasion.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I may be tempted in giving Bookswim a shot but $24/month is kinda steep. They’re not the first ones on the block to try this though but the previous book rental sites I’ve seen suffered from poor selections so we’ll see if they fare any better.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Yeah, it really only makes sense for hardcore book readers. Or medium core book readers who really don’t like clutter. You should do it and see how it is. :)
May 16th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Yeah, probably not anytime soon. =p I can’t even keep up with Netflix these days. I held onto Drumline and The Core for 3 and a half months before returning them. Drumline!!! And The Core!!! Curse my inability to just return shit without attempting to watch them first.