Freakonomics - A half-read book

I started reading this much-hyped book a couple of days ago. Currently I'm halfway through the book and I found it to be a mixture of interesting, absurd and downright boring. The book starts with explaining the importance of asking the right questions. But to me the questions asked in the book are strange.

Strange? Yes.
Useful? No.

Judging from the title of the book, I guess it isn't meant to be a serious study in the field of economics (again, is it economics or just plain statistics?) and the society. Just a freak correlation between unlikely to be related events. Some of the explanations given are worth thinking about, like the part on asymmetric knowledge or the part on conventional wisdom:-

But they cannot deceive on their own. Journalists need experts as badly as experts need journalists. Every day there are newspaper pages and television newscasts to be filled, and an expert who can deliver a jarring piece of wisdom is always welcome. Working together, journalists and experts are the architects of much conventional wisdom (not necessarily a positive term).

while some of it is just plain commonsense. Like the question 'Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?' The answer is simple. The small fish in the gang are bound to earn much less than the average. It is only the leader of the gang and his few trusted cronies who would earn good enough to get their bling bling and their low-riders. This certainly didn't warrant living six years with crack dealers or getting hold of the financial transactions of a crack gang.

At one point (the description of the KKK) I felt it so boring that I wanted to abandon reading this book. But it was sleepiness which was making its effect felt (again due to the book?), and so I started reading it again. I hope to learn something by the time I finish it.

Update (9th April 07): I'm done with this book. No I haven't finished it. I have kept it aside. I couldn't take more of these strange comparisons if they were not going to be useful in any way. While reading this book, I was reminded of another writer of the same genre, Malcolm Gladwell. His book, Blink had made the presses and had got many raves. The same feeling had accompanied me while reading Blink and The Tipping Point. I felt the book to be empty of spirit (There I go again). Just a collection of numbers and statistics. While both this writers have gone against the norm and brought out innovative ways of thinking, I just can't digest their writing. So I'm keeping this book back in its shelf. In the future when I'm getting bored in the CEO's chair, I'll pick up this book and make up some nice Dilbertian theories to irritate my employees, while at the same time, impressing the Board of Directors.