Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I just learned today that the entire volume is available for free on-line!

http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/

A note: I'd heard this book recommended many times and was always skeptical I'd like it because I was not interested in motorcycles (except in the sense of going out on dates with hot guys who rode them) and wasn't much more interested in Zen. But I ended up reading it, and now my opinion is that it's a great philosophical treatise on Quality and touches on a lot of topics I'm interested in, including, "What makes a piece of writing good?"

Rubber humans and happy pickles

Animania, the Japanese Animation Film Society's movie festival schedule page contains some unusual synopses. The Japanese have an odd sense of humor. My favorites were:

-There was a young boy who admired the pirates. His name was Luffy. One day, he mistakenly eats the
devil's fruit and turns himself into a rubber human being.

-Yuuri Shibuya was just a normal high school kid until he got flushed down a toilet to an alternate world, where he is now the Demon King.

-It is said that at the top of the high mountain, there is an enormous monster called Megaro-Dragon, and that this monster possesses magical pickles called Happy-pickles, which can make any dream come true. Nike and Kukuri go to the mountain. Having heard a prophesy, a shrine maiden named Juju also goes there in search of the pickles.

Any movie description that includes the phrase "Happy-pickles" is inherently funny.