I'm currently reading Microserfs by Douglas Coupland, about twentysomething Microsoft employees in the mid-90s wishing they had lives. It's basically every Douglas Coupland book (twentysomething [insert unique qualifier here] wishing they had lives), but I'm finding it truly fascinating. Yes, I'm a nerd, so it appeals to that side of my brain that recognizes "grok" as more than a potential caveman name.

What's especially intriguing about reading this book now is how a story that takes place only eight years ago (and written in 1995) can already seem so quaint and notalgic. The book is constantly referring to stock options and job security and technological gold-rushery, yet whining about the futility of it all; all the time, I'm thinking, "If only they knew." They'd whine a whole lot less, considering most of the characters in the book would now be unemployed.

But less than a decade later, the setting of this book seems so distant, like reading about the "Cars of the Future" as published in the 1950s. Is it due to the accelerated culture of the "mass-age" that Marshal McLuhan theorized? Is it the massively culture-changing events of the past few years (I'm including the dot.bomb and all the other corporate shennanigans)? Or is it because I'm fast approaching 30?

I'll post a full review -- and perhaps answer that question -- when I've finished the book ...like you really care...

Anyway, I bring this book up now because of my recent rant on vegetarians and vegans (we're the top of the food chain -- deal with it). The book very eloquently addresses a facet of vegetarianism that I overlooked -- fake meat. This is the character of Morris referring to the veggie burger he ate at a McDonald's in Amsterdam:

"I tried one and they're not very good, so don't romanticize them. They have a curry taste, and they're full of frozen *peas* (of all things). More importantly, by eating 'burgers,' aren't you just still buying into the 'meat concept.' Tofu got dogs are merely an isotope of meat.

"If you yourself are a vegetarian, but still dream of burgers, then all you really are is a cryptocarnivore.

True dat.