Sunday, August 12, 2007

ThumbThings For Free



A company a while ago was selling something they creatively called a ThumbThing (their website seems down as I post this). Which was a .000001¢ piece of plastic that you put on your thumb while you read a book which held it open for you freeing up your other hand for whatever you need it for while reading.

I was pretty astonished to see these things being sold for $2 or so in bookstores. There had to be something you could use that was readily available that did the same thing and wouldn't set you back $2 if you lost or broke it.



Yes, that's the cap to a drink bottle I had on my desk.

Why is a bottle cap better?
- Doesn't cause even more plastic to end up in our landfills.
- Flatter surface doesn't score a line into the pages of your book.
- Won't cost you a thing usually so you won't be bummed if you loose it.
- Convenient storage place at the top of your drink.

Choose Your Own Adventure Books

I LOVED Choose Your Own Adventure Books when I was a kid. Heck, I still do. In a more perfect world I'd have a complete collection. In fact I partially blame them for my obsession with writing because I think that when I was reading those books, and making my decisions and turning to those pages to see what happened I was trying to predict what would happen and many times what ended up happening just wasn't as exciting to me as what had already happened in my imagination.

However there are volumes that no one will ever collect because they're just for fun.

Some very funny people have retitled some familiar Choose Your Own Adventure Books and the results are hilarious. It was popular not too long ago to re-title scans of book covers. If you take the time to search around you'll find some very funny ones.

Coincidentally I did one myself for a friend just the other day: