Book number four!
Firstly, I find this book hilarious. I've read aloud multiple passages to my friends/roommate (eventually they got annoyed I was reading so much) My favorite was the first paragraphs of the first chapter (Barrens, p. 5)
"After about three billion years of this sometimes zany, frequently tedious fugue of carnality and carnage, Godfrey Waterhouse IV was boring in Murdo, South Dakota...Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass"
excellent. that means the rest of us are stupendous badasses as well =)
I also found the passage starting on page 58 very funny. Randy spent a year and a half creating this RPG for a computer, and then is going to sell it to a company, but his friend who gave him some tips on aboriginal life demands 50% of the profit, etc. Soon, two giant court cases are filed, and Randy spends $5,000 on a lawyer, etc. "The software was never sold to anyone, and indeed could not have been; it was so legally encumbered by that point that it would have been like trying to sell someone a rusty Volkswagen that had been dismantled and its parts hidden in attack dog kennels all over the world" (62). The sad thing is this story sounds very much like present day- everyone suing everyone else for huge amounts of money. It reminds me of that story (true? I don't know...) in which the women sued McDonald's because she spilled her McCoffee on herself and got 3rd degree burns. it's just ridiculous! And poor Randy Waterhouse, spent all that time on a program that could never sell.
Yeah, I found both the scenes you mentioned hilarious as well. I also found the lawsuit scene a little sad; Randy spent so long on the program and then everyone got caught up in the money involved, not the program itself.
It was interesting that you mentioned McDonald's, because all the lawsuits reminded me of the people who ate like every meal at McDonalds and became obese and then sued McDonalds for making them obese, or something like that. So many frivolous lawsuits, so little time.
Actually, just one little comment to dispel a certain myth about lawsuits. The woman in the McDonald's lawsuit did spill coffee on herself and did get third degree burns. She was holding the coffee between her legs and got third degree burns all over her private areas. I believe she may have needed skin grafts for this certain vulnerable areas.People make this out to be one of those lawsuits where people are jus trying to give it to major coroporations, but from I way I heard it, she was legitimately hurt. Also, McDonald's purposely makes their coffee extra hot (like way hotter than anyone assume) so that it will last longer. I just wanted to put my two cents in, because people frequently use that case as an example of frivolous lawsuits.