David Foster Wallace

I don't know how many of you have heard of or read anything by David Foster Wallace. He has an enormous book called Infinite Jest that I have yet to read. All that I have read by him have been his essays. If you ever get a chance you should read the long essay called A Supposed Fun Thing I'll Never do Again. It's about a cruise a magazine sent him on hoping to get an article out of it. It's an amazing piece of writing. Whenever you read something by him you just could sense you were reading the writings of someone that saw the universe a little more clearly than you did. He could dig a little deeper and then do the hardest thing in the world, write about what he saw and make you understand. A lot of times he would do that and simultaneously make you laugh.

He was found dead on Friday. Supposedly he committed suicide. He truly was a great writer and it's too bad that, at 46, his output has ended. There is a good remembrance of him here. The quote used in the last paragraph is a good example of Wallace's writing.

Igoogle gets really cool

I don't know how many of you mess with the personalized google paged called Igoogle but they have some really awesome backgrounds available now. I got me a Bob Dylan one.

PLCMC Madden Tournament

This is going to be fun. The library now has Xbox 360's. We have multiple copies of Madden '09. We are having a tournament. We will be having a first round at 8 different branches and a final round with the 8 winners at the main library. The schedule is below. There are only 16 spots available at each branch so registration is required. There will be prizes awarded at each first round and the grand prize for whoever comes out on top at the finals is a $50 gift card for GameStop. Not a bad deal if you ask me. If you think you can beat 127 other Madden players call one of the branches listed below and get in the game.

Dates	Location	Event Time	Telephone
October 2nd	Independence Regional Library	6-8	704-416-4800
October 4th	Morrison Regional Library	12-4	704-416-5431
October 9th	Beatties Ford Road Library	5-9	704-416-3000
November 4th	South County Regional	1-4	704-416-6640
November 4th	Mint Hill Library	1-4	704-416-5200
November 10th	Freedom Regional Library	3-7	704-416-4221
November 15th	Main Library	12-4	704-416-0500
November 15th	Matthews Library	1-5	704-416-5000

Finals at the Main Library on November 22nd from 1-4.