theMediaman.com

One activity I’ve started during my hour+ commute every day is looking at what other people are reading. It’s my own little way of being nosy. Unfortunately for me, most (>80%) of people are just reading The Metro. Even if they were reading a non-free newspaper, it would glean more about them than I get from looking at the same headline-news tabloid.

The other day I was blessed with a very interesting collection of readers. The first, a pudgy guy, with buzzed haircut and about 15 lbs. overweight, was reading some historical fiction taking place during some Roman war. At least, that’s what I understood from the artwork on the cover. This guy will probably go home tonight to a game of Age of Empires.

The next was a woman. She was sort of like the “bookworm girl” in 80’s teen movies who the hero ultimately falls for. She was reading “Life of Pi“. My guess: Single (alone), and waiting for her “John Cusack”.

Second to the Metro readers, the most common readers I see are of both genders, and all races, reading technical whitepapers. Printed on eight-and-a-half-by-eleven by a laser printer and stapled at the top left. These are the engineers who share the bus with me since IBM is one block East.

However, the last person I saw yesterday was the most interesting. Reading the classic self-help literature, How to Win Friends & Influence People was an attractive, blonde woman (This is the part of the blog that might get me in trouble). She wasn’t a 10, but certainly an 8 or above. Spending my high school life with the unpopular crowd, you always imagine that the attractive ones - and hence, the popular ones - can easily “Win Friends & Influence People (to do their math homework for them)”.

The other people were easy to judge by the materials they were reading, but this woman was a bit more challenging. Does she have a bad attitude? Low self-esteem? Does she find it difficult to speak publicly? Did she just move here and leave her friends and family behind? Or is she just honing her near-perfect skills of manipulating others? The last one is my guess, but that’s probably the bitter, unpopular-in-high-school nerd in me talking.

I went back to my book on Quantum Mechanics.

One final side note. Reading the following in a few months will be irrelevant, but for now go to www.Indigo.Chapters.ca (stupid URL) and search for just about any book at all. Everything you search for will list the shipping details, publication date, dimensions, synopsis and reviews. BUT BEFORE ALL THAT is a paragraph promoting the pre-sale of the new Harry Potter book. ON EVERY PAGE FOR EVERY BOOK!

I understand how hype works just as well as the next media-geek. There’s still something wrong when the first paragraph of information below the title, “Sex For Dummies” is;

Muggles rejoice! The 7th and final instalment in J.K. Rowling’s celebrated boy wizard series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows arrives on bookshelves July 21st. Pre-order your copy today, and save 46%.