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Perhaps you could give us a little help? What books/movies/TV programs do you like/dislike? Which books have been recommended to you that you didn't like, especially those you thought were 'really dumb?'

And if you hate sarcasm, then Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide probably ISN'T for you....

Sorry, I was being sarcastic about the hating sarcasm.

Movies:
Nothing to Lose
Office Space
Boondock Saints

TV:
Simpsons
Family Guy

Books:
only book I've read that I've liked is Jackie Chan's Biography... but I was a huge Jackie Chan fan at the time. I also liked the Thesaurus, werid and twisted.

Al Franken puts out some really funny stuff. In Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, he outlines a conversation he had with God then calls Anne Coulter a nutcase on several occasions.

Anything by Dave Barry.

Yes. 

Fight Club(The book)  it is so cool and you are like ew but cool at the same time.  It is a great book IMHO.

Fight Club(The book)  it is so cool and you are like ew but cool at the same time.  It is a great book IMHO.

I saw the movie and loved it, will it ruin the book, or will reading the book ruin the movie if I watch it after the book?

The Hitchhiker's Guide series is phenomenal.  I recently reread all five of the inaccurately named trilogy, and loved each one of them (though I must admit the way he tied everything up at the end of the fifth book seemed a little too tidy and sudden, but whatever).  Then I got one of his other books, The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, (centering around Dirk Gently and his Holistic Detective Agency) and it was pretty good, as well, but not up to the par of the HG series. 

As for Dave Barry, his early stuff is really funny.  He wrote a novel (called Big Trouble [which is supposed to have been made into a movie, but I haven't seen it]) that I took with me on my honeymoon (hey, you can't be in the room all time when you're honeymooning in Aruba!) and I was laughing out loud so much that it pissed my new bride off!  Well, not pissed off, really, just irritated her.  Fortunately every time she was getting irritated the waiter came around with a fresh batch of rum-laden drinks (or an iguana would come near her and she'd be, umm, distracted). 

[snip]though I must admit the way he tied everything up at the end of the fifth book seemed a little too tidy and sudden, but whatever

I read an interview with Douglas Adams about that a few years ago. Apparently the fifth book was written just to shut people up who kept complaining that the, um, four-book trilogy didn't really have a satisfying conclusion.

I'd argue that SLaTFATF was amazingly weak, and Mostly Harmless was a great way to end the series strongly.

China Mi

I'm almost finished with Grunts, by Mary Gentle.

Here's a link to a good review of it: link

For you and you only - because I love you, Mac Daddy - I recommend Neal Stephenson - especially Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon.

Roger that.

Ooh! ooh!  I got to meet and talk with him last week!!!  Book signing for Quicksilver! 

Pretty nice guy, speaks well.

He's a Mac fan, particularly OS X.  Read "In the Beginning...Was the Command Line" by him, written several years ago (in 99...?).  it's about the platform wars, very, very funny.  Obviously outdated and good only for historical stuff, but loads of fun to read. He was surprised that I had read it recently.

Consider this a second endorsement for Terry Pratchett. I recently finished Small Gods and it was great. I just randomly picked one up because I couldn't see an order to the series, and it was indeed a stand-alone. It's a satire of tortoises, lettuce, and organized religion. Ok, mostly the latter.

Hitchhikers kicks all kinds of ass.