Which is exactly what I think every time I see Jesse Eisenberg’s distinctively arrogant geek-hipster expression behind the neon-green GENIUS. PUNK. BILLIONAIRE. (really now?) on one of The Social Network movie posters. Followed closely by: Why is this not a made-for-tv movie on TBS?

Because don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of dramatic tech industry movies. I am, after all, a former Machead who popped popcorn and made a date to watch the Mac vs. PC epic Pirates of the Silicon Valley. But that featured Noah Wyle, Anthony Michael Hall and Bill Gates crashing rental-car Ferraris. As far as I can tell, The Social Network features Harvard underwear, Jesse Eisenberg being intense and full of himself, and Justin Timberlake.

It doesn’t help that I don’t like Facebook – it’s full of account choking games, connects me with people I would prefer to imagine had been vaporized in a hushed-up nuclear accident, and my parents are on it – or that (given that I live in New York) every new media outlet is shrieking with glee over it, but really: this is a tv movie. That they’re showing in theatres. Which means it’s a tv movie with a hilariously overdramatic soundtrack and line readings that make the actors sound like they’ve mistaken Facebook for the cure for cancer.

I’ll rent it. Maybe.

If I’m really bored.

Or just watch Pirates of the Silicon Valley again.

But the interesting this is that it resets when playing the same song.  And while that could just be a corrupted file, the choice of song is kinda…interesting.

The song? “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”

At first it was because the formatting frankly sucked (and still does for the most part) and because I couldn’t quite swallow the idea of reading an entire novel on my computer – never mind that, as an avid reader of fanfiction, I read extremely long stories on a regular basis on my computer screen. I used them in grad school a couple of times and once tried to read one of Cory Doctorow’s books that way, but didn’t get past the first 20 pages. In hindsight though, it may have been the book.

What’s gotten me into e-books, finally, is category romance novels. I’ve mentioned my addiction before but what I haven’t mentioned is the severe lack of book storage I have in my apartment. In short, I have one bookcase. And four boxes full of books, and several small piles sitting on the floor. We’re approaching crisis period, so clearly I needed to come up with a solution that would allow me to have my romance novels and not trip over them every morning when I got out of bed.

Clearly, I needed to try e-books again.

As with all things related to the computer, getting the software to work was the major hurdle. I don’t have a reader, so I was buying in pdf format. Which is fine, except that Adobe hasn’t updated their e-book software to work with the latest version of Mac OS X (abbreviated rant: Leopard has been out for six months and isn’t THAT serious a departure from the last version. Get with it.) so I had to pretend to be using 10.2, download an older version of Acrobat Reader, and use it with that one. Then I was in business, although its still wonky: it takes three times to successfully download a book. The first time I get a server error, the second time it crashes Acrobat, and the third time it finally works.

In any case, I currently have a collection of books on Acrobat Reader that include Australian diamond tycoons, six or seven sheiks, and overbearing Italians, and I’m not tripping over the books or providing any more of a hiding place for the cat then I already had.

Having said that, I really want a cobalt blue Nintendo DS Lite.  Part of it is undoubtedly because it’s pretty.  I mean, look at it.  It’s SHINY.  (This is probably why it’s sold out, too)

Shiny aside, I think I’d actually use it.  I have an almost two hour commute each way to work (thank you, Westchester Bus System), and the DS Lite would give me something to do other than read romance novels on the train.  In the long run, it’d probably be cheaper.  I could play Big Brain Academy (learned that on the Wii at Christmas) and Brain Age.

So that’s what I’ll be asking for as a birthday present this year.