I wrote two articles today (I guess yesterday, thursday), phew — and I took a break to head downtown to see John Hodgman read from his new book The Areas of My Expertise at Cody’s Books — I took photos and video. The videos are as follows. Here is his introduction; this is his explanation of the hobo uprising after the Great Depression and Roosevelt’s hobocidal germ warfare (after Hodgman tagged the inside of Cody’s with his hobo *gang signs*); this is his recital of a hobo poem. It was hilarious, and Hodgman is whipsmart and adorable; musical accompaniment was provided by his partner. I had been invited to see and meet him in person after being discussed by Hodgman and a friend at a party last week (!), emails about my attendance were exchanged with the man, and I was sort of supposed to be a ‘plant’ of sorts in the audence to ask him a very specific question after his reading but it was an overflow crowd and there were tons of ‘legit’ questions. Still, how cool — very flattering, and mentions of SRL came up in reference to me as well. That he knows what SRL is means he is as cool as I’d hoped him to be.

But I actually ended up with three questions I wish Hodgman could have answered for me. They are:

* If Superman can leap tall buldings in a single bound, why does everyone think he’s gay?
* You play a PC on TV. Why did you read at the bookstore directly across the street from our holiest-of-holy Apple store?
* Once and for all: how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

I may never know the answers. More photos are in my Metblogs post. Now I have to go to sleep; tomorrow I tour a local dildo factory, then meet with Technorati, and then see an evening showing of Shortbus with Mistress Morgana!