Sometimes, I think when I am itching for a fight and want someone to argue with, I like to read the bad customer reviews of books that I enjoy over at Amazon.com. They all read roughly the same — full of grammatical errors, misspellings, angry rants and ill-informed opinions — and because I disagree with them, this makes me feel better about myself. I feel smarter, better read, and although I’m not, I can’t help but derive some amusement from the whole endeavor. Today, I share some of these comments about some of my favorite books. It might be interesting to see why other readers hated them so much.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner: “Like being on a three-week drunken spree,” says a reader from Illinois. “Yuck.”

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “I dont like any of the characters,” writes a reader from Alabama. “They should all be destroyed b/c they are all awful people who would rather party than actually face their lives. I dont think that teachers should force students to read it b/c just because it happens to be by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Big whoop.”

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway: “I could not understand what the author was trying to convey,” says, a reader from USA, “except that all the characters in the book are drunks fighting over a woman on a picnic.”

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: “O.K., I read it,” admits a reader from Maryland, “but I literally have no idea what this book is about. And I’m not reading it again to find out either. Apparently, people like almost anything in life, which is really a sad commentary on the human condition.”

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: “An ugly novel,” proclaims a reader from America, “not the less ugly for the undeniable talent with which it is executed. I do not recommend it.”

Pnin by Vladamir Nabokov: “In my opinion,” says a Michigan reader, “it should go out of print and stay there.”

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino: “I give this book a big ol’ ZZZZzzzzzz….” offers a reader from New York City.

Leviathan by Paul Auster: “Mr. Auster’s probably a great writer,” concedes a reader from Georgia. “He just depresses me.”

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving: “Ugh, if burning books weren’t frowned upon, guess which one would be roasting right now?” asks a reader from Toronto. “Go on, guess.”

Some photographs, no commentary. Nothing to say. Today, we have been promised brilliant sunshine and warm weather, perfect, they say, for an afternoon stroll. Perhaps I will take more pictures at lunch. Perhaps they will be better than these.

Identify your key assets. Is your back worth showing off? Want to expose a little shoulder? Is the low-cut look for you? Do your legs deserve the spotlight?

And how! Oh, I’m so glad I registered with eHow.com. I might not otherwise know how to buy a perfect little black dress. I might to this very day be wallowing in unfashionable ignorance. God bless the internet.

Weight lifted. Problem solved. Much better now. Except that archive. Damn that archive. Moving on.

My September posts, for what it’s worth, are still archived here. I just can’t seem to make that accessible from the drop down menu. Does this mean that October will disappear, too, at the end of the month? Hmm. This bodes not well.

Nor, for that matter, does this. The truth is, I lead a fairly uninteresting life, and most anything I write here is going to be relatively innocuous, but if I knew that my boss, or my family, was reading this, I might choose my words differently. I might consider not voicing opinions, or revealing emotions, or writing embarrassing details like, oh yeah, I protested to have the lion shrine’s balls cut off. However bland or tedious this weblog might seem right now, imagine how much more so it would be if I was constantly second-guessing myself.

Now this is interesting, if a bit odd. “I’ve been collecting photos that look like the work of famous artists,” writes Mighty Girl. I guess everybody needs a hobby. I especially like her strange take on Caravaggio.

And finally, for now, and for those of you dismayed that as a country we are once again at war, I share these words from Michael Moore: “And please, let’s look at the bright side for once: The last time a Bush took us to war and got a 90 percent approval rating, he was toast and a ghost the following year. You can’t get better than that.”

My archive for September seems to have vanished overnight (or earlier, when I wasn’t looking), and I get nothing but error messages from Blogger when I try to change my archive’s template. ‘Tis passing strange, that. And I’m starting to think that maybe today would have been a better day to call in sick, all things considered. It occurs to me, perhaps a month too late, that I have not really been trained on how to process payments and fees for services, and the program that’s apparently supposed to help me do this has decided, no, on second thought, it doesn’t want to let me in. So I’ve got a couple thousand dollars that needs paid from four separate funds, a boss who’s out of town for three weeks and isn’t exactly helpful when he’s here, and a considerable dearth of training material available to me. And that damn archive won’t work on top of it all. Some mornings it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.