Philadelphia Craft Beer Festival is back at the navy yards. I just got our tickets, and we're going on March 1st. w00t! Speaking of which, also, March 7th through 16th is Philly Beer Week where a host of restaurants and taverns are participating!

http://www.phillycraftbeerfest.com/

So, I've just finished Barbara Garson's book "The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past". I've recently been on a trend of socially critical books on technology and the modern western culture. From reading Neil Postman's "Technopoly" to rereading Philip Slater's "Earthwalk" last week. It all started about two months ago with Louis Uchitelle's "The Disposable American: Layoff and Their Consequences". With a brief break for some fiction W. E. Hazelgrove's "Ripples" and not-so-fiction but funny as all hell Danny Wallace's "Join Me" (It's a collective, not a cult!).

So I decided that I needed another break from those three most recent bleak commentary on society... alas, I tried to venture out and read about the world of Caffeine, but I hadn't even moved an inch away from the bookshelf before two Chomsky books leaped out at me and the caffeine book was back on the shelf. Slowly I meandered for Parenti... after all, Parenti had been on the shelf longer than the Chomsky books... and in a moment of utter weakness, I decided to grab another techno-spook book.

So now I am reading Reg Whitaker's "The End of Privacy". Well, I'll punish myself by reading just the intro, and watching an episode of Dr Who (Pertwee Years - 1974). That'll teach me to delve back into the very topic I wanted to stay away from! Nothing says postitive technological, social, and cultural advancement than Dr. Who and his T.A.R.D.I.S.