Interesting Stuff

1) The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's new novel featuring another Robert Langdon adventure now has a cover, released by the publisher last Tuesday. If we must judge a book by its cover, the new novel is set in the United States capital, “though it’s a Washington few will recognize,” said editor Jason Kaufman. Is this Dan Brown's version of National Treasure? See the new cover through the New York Times website.

2) A Sacramento, California schoolteacher gave fifth grade students a birds-and-bees orientation when a DVD she distributed to them contained a sex video starring herself. The DVD was supposed to only contain footage of the school's events during the past year, and the sensitive material snuck in reportedly by mistake. Seems like lotsa people have lately been making mistakes with their sex videos. Read the rest on the Snafu-ed blog.

3) Matthew Vaughn's big-screen adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.'s ultra-violent comic book Kick-Ass is well under way, even though the final issues of the limited-run comic book haven't been released. In a July 8 entry over at the MTV Splash Page blog, Romita Jr. revealed that he still has to get started on the 8th issue, which concludes the series. So now we have a book and a film adaptation being produced at the same time--I hope it doesn't start a trend.