Would you like a free newspaper?

First off, let me tell you something about London that, if you haven't lived here, you probably won't know. Instead of the streets being full of homeless people asking you for money it is teeming with immigrants giving away free newspapers (hell, even the real homeless are trying to sell journalism!). Right around commute time is the worst and you can't go more than a block without three people trying to stick a paper under your arm. Megan's strategy is to take the first paper offered and use it as a shield to bash away all other offers. I try to use Jedi mind tricks to let them know I'm not interested without using words... but usually end up just saying "no thanks"... or just "thanks."

I actually do like to have a London Paper, the better of the two trashy papers, with me on the bus ride home. Sometimes reading about Paris Hilton getting booed somewhere or 150 words about how to fix global warming is just what I need to fill a bus ride. Reading a little trash is fun, right? Who's it going to hurt?

It turns out it's hurting ME! On Tuesday I was on the bus home and looking to grab a used London Paper from one of the seats. I sat next to the paper I'd spotted (so I could pick it up as inconspicuously as possible) yawned to look around and made a swipe for it. I started skimming the page it had been opened to and was shocked to see words, thousands of them, all over the page. There was only one picture, reasonably sized in the center of the page, and it wasn't even a celebrity. I flipped to the cover page, but was shocked to discover that I was reading a section of a paper, the Guardian.

At first I was delighted. "Finally!" I thought, "I can read a real newspaper for once and get a little real news on the ride home." But as I flipped through the pages filled with stories who's titles whet my intellectual appetite I found myself unable to read more than few sentences before scanning for something new, AND part of me was even hoping the next story I found would be about who Brittany Spears had hit and ran from lately. I was crushed. When was my brain ruined? Where is my appetite for interesting stories?

In other news, Megan and I picked up Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, and it is awesome. Megan finally found a game that she's motivated to play and it's cool watching her make huge strides in progress. I highly recommend this game to anyone who has a Wii. It is the total bomb.

And finally, I would like to acknowledge the irony in the fact that I can no longer read long stories, but I can only write long blogs. On a similar note if you notice any spelling errors near the end of this post please let me know in a short comment.