====== State of the LOLs ======
[[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159240409X?ie=UTF8&tag=recomme-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=159240409X|{{http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61MZBG2KM5L._SL500_AA240_.jpg |I Can Has Cheezburger? at amazon.com}}]]
It's been a while since I did a roundup of the memes, and there's some news to spread, so I may as well get down to it. 

I recently received a pre-release version of the much talked-about LOLCats book. I learned that it was in production back at [[http://roflcon.org/|ROFLCon]], and the team who originated [[http://icanhascheezburger.com/|ICHC]] created it as a labor of love. It's really cleverly compiled. In addition to the cat macros we all know and love, there are numerous, cute, effective illustrations that help stitch things together. The illustrations also serve, in some cases, to mask the poor image resolution of the originals where higher-res images couldn't be found. In this way, some classics (e.g., ceiling cat & monorail cat) are able to make it into the book when they might have been excluded.

The book is a nice keepsake for those of us who are deeply into the LOLs, but where it really shines is as a gift to those relatives who are not so much into online culture. I know I have to get a copy for my cat-crazy aunt. The LOLCats in the book are fairly dominated by the "Tofuburger" end of things: popular, cute, and not too obscure. Geek classics are also in there (passing it around to officemates got a lot of guffaws from quantum cat), so you can use the book as a gateway drug for the LOLs. It's really well produced, with full-color, full-bleed printing throughout. 

You can check out the book's [[http://www.lulzftw.com/|website]] or [[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159240409X?ie=UTF8&tag=recomme-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=159240409X|order it from Amazon.com]] (affiliate link).

//Secondly//, Ben Huh, the CEO of the ICHC empire, gave a presentation at [[http://www.gnomedex.com/|Gnomedex]] this year (which was an expansion of his well-received SXSW 2007 talk), and Chris Pirillo [[http://chris.pirillo.com/2008/09/30/ben-huh-icanhascheezburger/|documented]] the talk, which begins with a decent history of LOLCats and continues to an interesting discussion of running a business based on memes. The [[http://l0ckergn0me.blip.tv/file/1310815/|video of the talk]] and [[http://icanlol.com/gdex-ichc.pdf|PDF of the slides]] are both available and worth your while.

//Finally//, if you're a fan of medical dramas like my family is, you should get a good chuckle out of [[http://keepyourreceipt.blogspot.com/search?q=LOLHouse|LOLHouse]], which gives a [[http://granades.com/2007/05/02/loltrek/|LOLTrek]]-style treatment to recent episodes of House.