If you were a kid during the 80’s, then you are probably a huge fan of Nintendo’s Mario Bros. If not, then you probably won’t understand the following video, but for the rest of us it is just great. Grant it, the quality isn’t superb, but you will get the jist of it.

Mario Bros. video

If you ever wondered or imagined what the founder of the infamous (hopefully I used this word correctly) gang known as “The Crips,” then you certainly will not be disappointed. Sometimes you try to think what someone who is so bad must look like, and they disappoint, but the founder of the crips fits the image perfectly. I am not going to say he is bad now, but back in the day, this was a mean looking fella.

Here is an article about him and his plight on death row: Article on Stanley “Tookie” Williams

Image of “Tookie” back in the day:

Now this was an audiobook that I hadn’t heard anything about, and decided to just go for it. I read the reviews on both audible.com and amazon.com which were both positive, plus the fact that I like “true” stories, so I decided to give it a try. The book is about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and how a crazy man named W.C. Minor, who just happened to be a Doctor, along with an American Civil War veteran, so greatly helped to contribute to it. Minor was an expatriate living in England, and one night woke up believing that someone had just been in his room. He rushed outside and ended up shooting a perfectly innocent man thinking him the person in his room. Obviously, there was no person that had entered his room, so he was charged with murder, and ended up pleading insanity and spending the rest of his days in an insane asylum. During his stay there, he came across a paper asking for volunteers to read through books and contribute words to what would become known as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Since he was an avvid reader, and had hoards of time, he began to systematically collect words, write down where they were found, and the sentence they were used in. This was the requirement for submitting words, and is what makes the OED such a success, as you can determine a words meaning, along with when it was first used, and also see an example of its use.

Dr. Minor would end up contributing literally thousands of words, but no one knew he was a certified lunatic. The people of the OED knew that he was a doctor based on his letters to them, but simply did not know he had been committed. Obviously the editor of the OED eventually found out as Dr. Minor never visited when invitations were sent, but most people of the OED at that time never found out.

Overall I enjoyed the book, as I have most non-fiction stories. The only problem I had with it was the audio quality of the recording, but the story was good. So, if you are looking to find out a little history about how the Oxford English Dictionary came to be, and how a one time Civil War medic turned Doctor turned lunatic was able to contribute, then give this book a read (or a listen).