The Litrovert

For those who study history, there are a few fundamental questions that come up over and over again.  Why do people keep on repeating the same mistakes?  Why do some civilizations succeed where others fail?  What really happened to Gandalf when he fell into the pit of Khazad-dum?  If these are the kinds of questions that keep you up at night, I know how you feel: I, too, have lost sleep on more than one occasion wondering about Gandalf. But of all the big historical questions, probably the most important is Who invented taquitos and why didn't she/he receive the Nobel Prize?   Ha ha - just kidding!  We know that Gandalf invented taquitos in 1493 and received the Nobel Prize in that same year, narrowly beating out the guy who invented "2000 Flushes" (originally "2000 Chamber Pots").  The reason?  Taquitos taste way better than chamber pots and you don't need 2000 of them in order to feel good about life - but that would certainly be awesome. ...

Those of you reading this post might wonder why it takes me so long to generate new content for this blog.  Or maybe you're just wondering why I just used the phrase "generate new content" when I could have just said "write stuff."  Exactly! (Also, I literally just corrected one of my grade 8 students on the use of double negatives while I was writing that paragraph.  And then I warned him not to drop his chicken burger which he was carrying in an inadvisably risky way involving tupperware.  And you wonder why I have no time to write.) Anyway, I have decided to lower my own standards for this blog (yes, they can go even lower), and rather than exposing myself to public ridicule on account of my juvenile literary tastes , composing a magnificent essay involving memes that took me way too long to track down, or viciously tearing apart some poor, struggling author's life work, I will simply tell you about the history book I'm currently reading (which, ...