Category Archives: Book

Do the math: Warren Beatty slept with a woman every 1.17 days

By web gangsta | Published: January 4, 2010


STAR: How Warren Beatty Seduced America

In Peter Biskind’s new book about Warren Beatty, STAR: HOW WARREN BEATTY SEDUCED AMERICA, we learn that Warren Beatty has allegedly slept with over 12,000 different women.

Approximately 12,775 - if you believe what the book says.

While there may be some Web Watch readers who will applaud Warren for coming anywhere close to even 1/4 of that number, there will be a large number of folks who will believe that Warren has completed all those conquests… and more… without question.

And that is where Web Watch can step in.  Because bedding 12,775 partners seems a bit over-achieving to us.

And apparently, we’re not alone in this thinking.

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Read This Book: William Poundstone’s PRICELESS – THE MYTH OF FAIR VALUE

By web gangsta | Published: January 1, 2010


Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value

William Poundstone is one of Web Watch’s favorite writers, having written many books around the same theme of exposing various ways that professionals (magicians, street crooks, carnies, casinos, etc) lie, cheat, and steal their way into your wallet.  

Some of Mr Poundstone’s books that you may already be aware of include:

All are great reads and lots of fun.

And now Mr Poundstone adds to his roster with PRICELESS – THE MYTH OF FAIR VALUE AND HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT.  

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Cramming in Year-End Healthcare, and other Stuff that Unemployed People Like

By web gangsta | Published: November 13, 2009


Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment OfficePreviously, Web Watch has pointed you in the direction of STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE and similar sites that point a satirical finger at stereotypes… and in the process, getting a book deal out of it.

STUFF UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE LIKE is yet another one of those sites, looking to cash in on other people’s misery, using the stereotype of the unemployed to find their humor.

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Halloween is over, so laugh at GOTHS IN HOT WEATHER

By web gangsta | Published: November 7, 2009


Goth BootsNow that Halloween is really over, Web Watch encourages everyone to take the time to laugh at those who still feel the need to rebel against society and dress in goth in their everyday lives during the most inopportune moment: in the heat of the day.

Everyone knows that dressing goth is best done in the cool of the night, preferably in the winter months when the extra layers provide appropriate protection from the weather.

Except for these folks – the GOTHS IN HOT WEATHER.

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All the good book ideas are taken: F* This Website

By web gangsta | Published: November 5, 2009


F* THE WORLDWeb Watch never tires of pointing out all the websites that have been able to profit by turning their online diatribes into massive book deals. The only issue we have is that we didn’t think of any of these ideas first.

These deals do prove one thing – that while having a great Internet-based idea is fine, the real money is still in traditional media, whether it be in books, TV, or movies.  You’ve seen Will Ferrell’s FUNNY OR DIE website?  It has its own HBO production deal, because being online only apparently wasn’t good enough for them.

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November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, for short)

By web gangsta | Published: November 1, 2009


legal padAs we’ve covered in Web Watch in previous years, November is NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo.

If you’ve had a hankering to get the Great American Novel written, but have had the most massive case of writer’s block ever seen, then NaNoWriMo is for you – because the only way to get out of writer’s block is to just start writing.

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How To Get Rid of Unwanted Books: Sell them Online!

By web gangsta | Published: October 1, 2009


bookshopIf you are like Web Watch, you probably have shelf upon shelf of books all around the house.

Books stacked in corners, piled away in boxes, placed on nightstands.

Books are good things to have around… but sometimes you end up with tons of books that you just don’t need anymore.  Maybe you’ve outgrown them, maybe you just don’t need to keep that series of Tom Clancy novels “just in case” you decide to read them again.

Sure you could sell them for $0.25 each at a neighborhood garage sale (if you’re lucky enough to get that much for them), or you could donate the books to a local library or assisted-living facility.

But Web Watch has a better idea:  try selling your books online.

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Paul Dickson: Drunk Writer

By web gangsta | Published: September 28, 2009


Drunk: The Definitive DictionaryPAUL DICKSON KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT BEING DRUNK.

He knows the difference between being “blotto” and simply being “in the weeds”.

He’s run the gamut from “Feng schwasted” to “eating dirt”.

No, he hasn’t actually been that drunk… at least, not as far as Web Watch is aware of… but Paul Dickson can say that he has written the authoritative book on the subject with DRUNK: THE DEFINITIVE DICTIONARY, listing 2,964 different terms for being wasted out of your mind on wine, beer, or liquor.

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Facts Behind the Social Media Revolution

By web gangsta | Published: August 30, 2009


Web Watch hopes that sometime over the past month, you have seen this video, entitled SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION, asking if social media (such as Twitter or Facebook) or other electronic transactions are here to stay, or just a fad.

Looking at the statistics we saw earlier, Twitter is still bordering on fad.

If you haven’t seen it, or simply want to watch it again, here it is:

httpv://www.youtube.com/v/sIFYPQjYhv8

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37 Things To Do If Captured by a Flying Saucer

By web gangsta | Published: July 28, 2009


Web Watch cares about its readers.

That’s why, as a public service announcement, Web Watch is proud to bring you this LIST OF THINGS TO DO IF CAPTURED BY ALIENS AND ABDUCTED ONTO A FLYING SAUCER OR UFO.

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Game: Here’s the Plot, Guess the Story

By web gangsta | Published: May 3, 2009


Post Modern Barney has compiled the WORST PLOT SUMMARIES EVER WRITTEN, and summed up a few dozen movies and books into bite-size nuggets.

The twist is that these are not your traditional plot summaries, but rather a synopsis of the more lurid details of the story.  Unfortunately, many of the hundreds of commenters on the original post think that the idea is to write about how the story ends.  This is not always the case.

I’ll give you the plot summary, all you have to do is guess the name of the story it came from.  Click the link for the answers.

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Foods That Help You Fall Asleep

By web gangsta | Published: April 27, 2009


The book SLEEP TO BE SEXY, SMART, and SLIM has all sorts of tips on things you need to do to help you fall asleep and stay asleep through the night.

One of the tips that they suggest is to watch what you eat in the hours before you go to sleep, eating only foods that digest quicker.

A study entitled High Glycemic Index Carbohydrate Meals May Shorten Sleep Onset published in the American Journal of Clincal Nutrition agrees with this philosphy, stating that eating a meal with a high glycemic index four hours before you go to sleep can cut your “falling to sleep” time in half by increasing the amount of tryptophan and seratonin your body produces.

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Why You Hate That Website

By web gangsta | Published: March 17, 2009


You hate that website because they came up with a way to make money off of their site and you haven’t figured out how to do the same thing with yours.

Two new book deals were announced today, both of them are based on websites previously featured here on Web Watch:

The BUSINESS INSIDER is reporting that Maxime Valette and Guillaume Passaglia’s website F*** MY LIFE, which is based on its own French website and book, is going into book form and will be published  in July 2009.  Not a bad way to turn someone else’s misery into dollars.

To top that off, another website that is based on reader’s submissions – THIS IS WHY YOU’RE FAT, is also getting the book treatment.  At the very least, they were upfront about saying that was what they were going to do — upfront to those who bothered to read the fine print, that is.

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Book Review: Family Words, the Secret Language of Families

By web gangsta | Published: March 11, 2009


Remember Rich Hall? 

He was the comedian known for the “Sniglets” he presented on Saturday Night Live.  A Sniglet is a made-up word that he used to describe something that didn’t already exist in the dictionary… but should.

An example:  “bugpedal” – the act of speeding up or slowing down your car in order to use the resulting passing wind to remove a dead bug from the windshield.

But Sniglets are made-up words. A comedy act.  Nobody expects to use those terms in the real world.

Except in the real world, people do make up words in their families for everyday use.  The remote control is a “clicker”, “remote”, “controller”, “switcher”.  A wheeled trash bin is a “herbie curbie”.  Some of these terms may be obvious to the casual bystander who overhears a family conversation, but other terms may need some explaining.

FAMILY WORDS: A DICTIONARY OF THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF FAMILIES is a compilation of all those terms that may be familiar to one family, but unheard of elsewhere.  Some examples include:

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JFK: A Question of Character

By web gangsta | Published: May 10, 1994



President Kennedy
President Kennedy

According to a new Nixon biography, a named Kennedy aide is quoted about the following event during the John F Kennedy/ Richard Nixon debates:

When JFK arrived at the hotel, he went to his hotel suite. In order to prepare for his upcoming televised debate with Nixon, he requested a prostitute to be sent up to his room. One of his aides set up the meeting in JFK’s hotel room. JFK came out 15 minutes later, looking flushed and relaxed. This was how he prepared for the debates, and supposedly all of his televised appearances. This is how the book explains that JFK looked so calm and relaxed on television.

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