Book Review: The Areas of My Expertise

Having just now at this very moment (or at least within the past several millenia) completed digesting Mr. Hodgman's epic compendium, I now offer my thoughts on the experience and conditional recommendation, as is the custom in this historical moment and also as is required per the by-laws of the Opinion Entitlement Act of 1998 (1).
"The Areas of My Expertise" (John Hodgman, author, ninja) represents an important addition to the sum of human knowledge, and is likely to supplant lesser sources of information in the near future, especially if the screeching owl outside my window and the obese boy on the lawn whose face is smeared with butter and stray corn kernels are to be believed. While nothing Mr. Hodgman narrates here (I say "narrates" because it is obvious that these are not so much his own words and thoughts so much as those of the spectral reincarnation of hobo king Joey "Stink-Eye" Smiles) can be considered to be actual "truth", the metaphorical resonance of the material cannot be denied. And that is just what lies on the surface; careful readers who plot the various footnotes throughout the book on a world map (circa 1592) will be pleased to discover a helpful plotting of various sea-monsters and bottomless pits that they will then be able to avoid. Also of note is that if one were to translate the list of 700 hobo names into their Smurf equivalents and then convert them to binary, the result would be the calculation of pi to the 9,999th digit (2).
One should both read and discuss this book in hushed tones (reading it thusly will remind you perhaps of sitting near the beach as the water gracefully laps against the shore and will calm your mind in such a way as to allow full concentration) and never, ever, leave it unattended amongst the mentally infirm or ultra-conservatives (the Lycanthropic Transformation Timetables alone, in the wrong hands, could be the death of us all).
After reading this book, if you feel that I have been wrong in encouraging you to do so, I will be inclined to strongly protest for at least five minutes before feebly breaking down and offering to make it up to you through the performance of various soul-crushing chores and/or donning a hamster outfit and scurrying through pipes for your amusement.
Rating: full house

1. The Opinion Entitlement Act, Article II.b: Everyone is entitled to your opinion, even if nobody asks for it.
2. 7