The Great Japanese Cellphone Novel?

Check out this mind-boggling piece in today's New York Times about the rise of the "cellphone novel" in Japan! OMG!

And to think I was waxing nostalgic on the air a couple weeks ago about old-fashioned manual typewriters.

The story notes that one cellphone novel written by a high school senior was turned into a hardback book that's sold more than 400,000 copies. The monosyllabically named author, Rin, says traditional novels leave her cold:

“They don’t read works by professional writers because their sentences are too difficult to understand, their expressions are intentionally wordy, and the stories are not familiar to them,” she said.

Ow.

Famous for What, Again??

You may recall my little Gallery of Regrettable Punctuation. Here's another to add to the list: I was nosing around on eBay just now, and happened across this doozy.

Surely these Barnettes aren't related to ME????? (On the other hand, might I have long-lost relatives who are heirs to a huge brewing fortune? In which case, forget I ever quibbled about punctuation.)

Word Sandwich

Now here's a workout for your brain! Try to guess the five-letter word. If your guess starts too far down in the alphabet, the graphic lets you know. If it's too far up, it lets you know that, too. Trying to zero in on the right word is downright addictive -- not to mention maddening!