tag/media
2002.01.05
Movies at the Cinema: (16)
Snatch, In the Mood for Love, O Brother Where Art Thou, State and Main, O Brother Where Art Thou, Bridget Jone's Diary, Bridget Jone's Diary, Moulin Rouge , Memento, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, K-PAX, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Amélie , Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Movies on Video/DVD (48)
American Beauty, La Blue Girl 1+2, La Blue Girl 3 + 4, La Blue Girl 5+6, The Pornographer, Gladiator, Bound, Fight Club, American Psycho, Cecil B. Demented, Better Than Chocolate, Quills, Shaft, Shaft, American Pie, Big Kahuna, Charlie's Angels, Six String Samurai, Slayers 1 , The Usual Suspects, Hamlet (2000/Ethan Hawke), AntiTrust, Idle Hands, Evil Video, Battle Queen 2020, Unbreakable, Pecker, Hannibal, Traffic, Snatch, High Fidelity, Chocolat, La Blue Girl 1+2, Crash, Evil Video, Cool Devices, The Mummy Returns, Cool Devices (6-11), shrek, Tank Girl, Green, Planet of the Apes, Star Crash, BackBeat, Henry & June, The Castle of Cagliostro, Tron, The Killer
Movies on TV (55)
Passion Fish, Meaning of Life, Virtual Sexuality, Flirt, Glengerry Glen Ross, Mother, Juggs, and Speed, Canadian Bacon, Wild Wild West, Armed and Dangerous, Terminator 2, House on Haunted Hill, Boys Don't Cry, Bang, Oxygen, Another Stakeout, Batman: The Movie, The Replacements, Time Code, Robocop 2, Scenes from a Mall, Pushing Tin, Ed Wood, I Love You to Death, Bringing Out the Dead , Loser, The Prophecy, All the Right Moves, Hollow Man , Steal this Movie, Whiteboyz, Welcome to Hollywood, Tommy, Space Cowboys, Birdy, Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker, 28 Days, The Lesser Evil, Bill Cosby, Himself, Star Trek Generations, Batman Returns, Mermaid Chronicles Part 1: She Creature , Moscow on the Hudson, sex,lies,and videotape, Love & Sex, The Dao of Steve, Blood and Wine , Center Stage, Me,Myself and Irene, Blaze, Almost Famous, Arthur, Bootmen, Sparkler, The Fly
Video Games (14)
Driver, Mario Kart 64, Yoshi's Story, Mega Man: The Power Battles, Quake 2, Turok Ragewars, NFL Blitz 2000, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Unreal Tournament, Battle Tanx, Metal Slug, Warhammer, Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader, Super Smash Bros Melee
Books (47)
What It Felt Like, The Meme Machine, Uncle John's Bathroom Reder Vol 11, 24 Hours in Cyberspace, Chaos, Machine Beauty, When I'm Dead All This Will Be Yours!, Prozac Nation, The Difference Engine, Game Over press start to continue, My World and Welcome To It, How to heal the hurt by hating, Bridget Jones' Diary, Pursuit of Happiness, X-Men, penn & teller's cruel tricks for dear friends, The Great Fires, The Domination Trilogy, The One Minute Manager, Owning It: Zen and the Art of Facing Life, Just For Fun, Rendezvous With Rama, Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason, Feet of Clay, Andy Kaufman Revealed: Best Friend Tells All, The Cuckoo's Egg, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Four Blondes, Soul of a New Machine, Perv - A Love Story, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Drakon, Zen Computer, Interesting Times, We Are Still Married, Nine Crazy Ideas in Science: A Few Might Even Be True, The Truth, got milk?, Carpe Jugulum, Small Gods, Hogfather, Fight Club, The Fifth Elephant, Jingo, The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death
Comics/ Graphic Novels (20)
X-Presidents, Astro City: Life in the Big City, Astro City: The Varnished Angel, Dykes to Watch Out For, Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For, Love and Rockets 3, DreamToons, Whack Your Porcupine, The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book, JLA earth 2, Old Boot's Private Papers , Seven Years of Highly Defective People, Jar of Fools, All About the Mayas, Perfect Summer, What Is This Thing Called Sex, DC vs Marvel, The Dark Knight Strikes Again (1 of 3), Ethel and Ernest
2003.01.11
"And we're not allowed to watch spoilers here..."A bit long, but laugh-out-loud funny...hardcore Star Wars fans (especially the ones in costume) are easy pickings. Some of the other videos in that archive are pretty good too.
"Uhh..I've got some spoilers Who wants to hear a spoiler? ... here's a spoiler... YOU WILL DIE ALONE."
Pot Calling the Kettle Black
Oh wait...I'm a geek too. And as if to prove it, here's my annual review of the Media I consumed last year: movies, books, video games. I did the same thing last year, for 2001. Interesting to see how the lists compare. I think I'm a little less consistent in recording this stuff, so this list might not be quite as complete.
Movies at the Cinema: (11)
Amelie, Attack of the Clones, Bourne Identity, Men in Black II, XXX, feardotcom, Barbershop, Spirited Away, K-19: The Widowmaker, Bowling for Columbine, Standing in the Shadow of Motown
Movies on Video/DVD: (50)
Fritz the Cat, Ghostbusters, Bruce Campbell vs Army of Darkness, Black Mask, Hard Boiled, Dracula 2000, Jin-Roh (the wolf brigade), M*A*S*H, Sugar & Spice, Interview with the Vampire, Holy Smoke!, Heathers, Rat Race, Sexy Beast, Metropolis, Revenge of the Pink Panther, Training Day, Mullholland Dr., ocean's eleven, Groundhog Day, bamboozled, Groundhog Day, Vanilla Sky, Haiku Tunnel, Ali, Pitch Black, American Pie 2, zoolander, Showgirls, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Orange Country, Strange Days, Cool Devices, O, Freddy Got Fingered, LotR: Fellowship of the Rings, Resident Evil, Cool Devices, Wet Hot American Summer, Cool Devices, Vanilla Sky, Making of Tron, Tron, Friday, Crash, 12 Chairs, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Queen of the Damned, The One, The Cell
Movies on TV (34)
Bedazzled, Demolition Man, Perfect, But I'm a Cheerleader, The Perfect Storm, Three To Tango, Black Sheep, The Last Supper, Saving Silverman, Meet the Parents, Rising Sun, Lethal Weapon, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Sister Act 2, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes , Big Kahuna, best of show, The Tailor of Panama, True Lies, If Looks Could Kill, A Very Brady Sequel, 2010, 2001, Joe Dirt, X-Files Series Finale, Pollock, Girlfight, It Came From Hollywood, Fever Pitch, 8 Heads in a Duffle Bag, Porky's, Snatch
Video Games (12)
Luigi's Mansion, Luigi's Mansion, Smashing Drive, Rogue Squadron, Super Mario 64, Doom 64, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Gold Coins, Bangai-O, Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident, Bangai-O, Metroid Prime, Blitz 20-02
Books (39)
How To Be Good (a novel), Galatea 2.2, True Names and the opening of the cyberspace frontier, Dispatches From The Tenth Circle, Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now, Rosencrantz & Guilderstern Are Dead, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Arcade Fever, Conquest, Mastering Enterprise JavaBeans, The Meaning of it All -- thoughts of a citizen-scientist, Globalhead, Leash, Sex and the City, Our Dumb Century, Tuf Voyaging, Crystal Express, Mort, Amusing Musings, The Great Gatsby, The Joke, Equal Rites, Fever Pitch, Lake Wobegon Summer 1956, Still Life With Woodpecker, Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Episode 1, The Modern Man's Guide To Life, Garfield Food for Thought, All Families are Psychotic, Lipshtick, Pulp Fiction Screenplay, The Simplicity Reader, Good Poems, Permutation City, On The Road, Geeks, The 100 Happy Secrets of Happy People, From Clouds to Code, Struts Practical Guide
Comics/Graphic Novels (16)
The Dark Knight Strikes Again (2 of 3), James Kochalka's The Sketchbook Diaries, 9-11 Emergency Relief, Star Wars Infinities: A New Hope, Wake Up and Smell the Cartoons of Shannon Wheeler, Big Book of Hell, Tank Girl, Caricature, Batman The Ultimate Guide to the Dark Knight, Dori Stories, Dark Knight Strikes Back, The Cartoon Guide to Sex , How To Know When You've Got It, Forty Years, Kingdom Come, Watchmen
FOLLOWUP: I went ahead and compiled the 2000 list of Kirk's media consumption into the same format. Incidentally, all of these lists are only things I see through more-or-less their entirity, I don't bother with HBO films I see half of, or video games I play with friends (as opposed to 'completing' in some sense.)
2004.01.03
- I've lately become interested in "intranets", companies' internal websites and what not for sharing documents and other information...they're the kind of project I've historically had a lot of fun with. Here's 34 ideas for promoting your intranet.
- Old news, a while back Santorum (the senator, not the infamously disgusting "frothy mix" that has been named after him) trotted out the old line about how he wasn't anti-gay, just anti-gay acts. It struck me that there was a parallel between that and reviled-by-conservatives moderate viewpoint that we can support the troops and despise the war...
- IT-HE Software has some videogame oddness, including custom levels for DOOM. Maybe it's time to fire up the old software for a round or two... (also, Salon reviewed the book Masters of Doom, which turned out to be a good read about the guys who brought it into being. Man, have I been posting too much about this game lately?)
- A few Situation Puzzles. Doesn't work too well online, without someone there to answer yes or no questions about it...
- I keep meaning to read through Designjerk's collection of quotes, most applying to the art of visual design in one way or another.
Self-Absorbed Geekery of the Moment
Once again, I spent the past year recording the media I consumed: the movies I saw, the video games I (mostly) finished, the books I read. The results were surpisingly similar to the previous year: a few more books, a few more video games, fewer movies on tv.
Yes, I do realize that this is of very little interest to anyone except me (and not even much of that...I just hate the idea of utterly forgetting what I've experienced) and some hypothetical set of hardcore Kirk Israel groupies. And those theoretical groupies probably already know that you can also see the list for 2002, 2001, and 2000.
Just to make it more interesting, I've emphasized things I thought were really, really good, and you should think about seeing. (Well, stuff that's really good, and everyone hasn't neccesarily heard of.)
Sigh. I am geek. Hear me obsess.
Movies at the Cinema: (8)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Drumline, Matrix Reloaded, Yellow Asphalt, Spellbound, American Splendor, Matrix: Revolutions, Kill Bill Vol. 1
Movies on Video/DVD: (51)
Mallrats, Spiderman, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Princess Mononoke, Citizen Kane, South Park, Lost and Delirous, Casablanca, Artificial Intelligence, Evil Toons, Reign: The Conqueror, Final Stab, Time Bandits, Can't Hardly Wait, Thumb Wars, True Romance, Spirited Away, Roger Dodger, The Black Ninja, The Princess Bride, Henry and June, The Matrix, How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days, Do You Wanna Know A Secret, Office Space, Slums of Beverly Hills, Kissing Jessica Stein, Bend It Like Becham, Punch Drunk Love, The Ring, Sex and Lucia, Jackass: The Movie, Dark City, Young Frankenstein, Ice Age, Dragonfly, Hero, Ladyhawke, Yellowbeard, Duets, Kentucky Fried Movie, They Live, Old School, One Hour Photo, Monster's Ball, Terminator 3, Christmas Vacation, Life & Adventures of Santa Claus, The New Legend of Shao Lin, X2, The Hours
Movies on TV (20)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Passing Glory, Cable Guy, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, Shallow Hal, Saving Silverman, Behind Enemy Lines, My Cousin Vinnie, White Men Can't Jump, Swingers, Waterworld, Crazy/Beautiful, Bourne Identity, Monsters, Inc., About A Boy, Jackie Chan: My Stunts, Robocop 3, Foul Play, The Last Starfighter, Scorpion King
Video Games (20)
Seek & Destroy, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Grand Theft Auto 3, Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader, Starcraft, Wario Ware, Metroid Fusion, Advance Wars 2, Timesplitters, Half Life, Diddy Kong Racing, Battletanx Global Assault, Luigi's Mansion, Rocket: Robot on Wheels, Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike, Halo, Bangai-O, Jet Set Radio Future, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Books (45)
The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down To Size, The Sky Road, Skipping Towards Gomorrah, Lucky Wander Boy, The Floating World, Extreme Encounters, Masters of Doom, Pure Drivel, Norwegian Wood, The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, Kavalier & Clay, Lords and Ladies, Carry on, Jeeves, If on a winter's night a traveller, The Salmon of Doubt, Into The Woods, Sourcery, The Diary of Adam and Eve, A Galaxy Not So Far Away, Creation: Life and How to Make It, Stupid Cupid, 101 Philosophy Problems, Insights, Vast, The Ultimate History of Video Games, Time Enough For Love, War Autobiography/Rememberance, Bodies In Motion And At Rest, The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think, Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About, Love Me, Villa Incognito, Good Omens, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Night Watch, Men At Arms, The Introvert Advantage, Eric, The Tao of Pooh, The Te of Piglet, American Gods, Maskerade, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Deep Thoughts, Alpha Beta
Comics/Graphic Novels (9)
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, Abe: Right for all the Wrong Reasons, Clumsy:A Novel, Star Wars Infinities: The Empire Strikes Back, Too Much Coffee Man's Parade of Tirade, Hellblazer: Haunted, Astro City "Pastoral" (Local Heroes #3), Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth, National Lampoon's Truly Tasteless Cartoons: The Best of the Worst
2005.01.05
Compared to last year, I watched more movies at the cinema (I think this is a Evil B. influence, often our darts night would get changed into darts plus movie night), around the same amount of videos (fewer at Jim and Sam's movie night, more with Ksenia), far fewer movies on TV (I think those were a bit of a Mo thing), completed only half as many video games (who has the time...) read somewhat fewer books (which concerns me a bit, though I guess 32 isn't that bad) and a few more Graphic Novels (thanks to a reinvigorated friendship with FoSO and the FoSOSO and a bit from Evil B.)
Anyway, without further ado: the Media Kirk Consumed in 2004...as previously, the really good stuff I put in italics:
Movies at the Cinema: (18)
LOTR: Return of the King, Lost in Translation, 21 grams, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, You Oughta Be In Pictures (5), Kill Bill Vol 2, Troy, Life of Brian, Spiderman 2, The Bourne Supremacy, The Corporation, Without a Paddle, Napolean Dynamite, Nicotina, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Incredibles, Meet the Fockers
Movies on Video/DVD: (42)
Donnie Darko, Frida, Better Than Sex, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Happy Gillmore, Super Troopers, Conan the Barbarian, Fletch, The Animatrix, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, Perfect Fit, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Day of the Dead, Horror Hotel, Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar, Voices of a Distant Star, Lilo and Stitch, Kill Bill Vol. 1, This Is Spinal Tap, Resevior Dogs, Blown Away, Spirited Away, Club Dread, Cybercity (Shepherd), Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso, Kill Bill Vol. 2, The Back Lot Murders, The Ice Pirates, Star Wars, Henry and June, You Got Served, Drop Dead Gorgous, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Nausicaa, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 9 1/2 Weeks, Clerks, Fish Called Wanda, Run, Lola, Run, Dirty Pretty Things
Movies on TV (5)
About Schmidt , Groundhog's Day, Revenge of the Nerds, Finding Nemo, She's All That
Video Games (9)
Crimson Skies, Grand Theft Auto:Vice City, GTA3, Mega Man, Mega Man 2, Gigawing, Katamari Damacy, Katamari Damacy, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,
Books (32)
Moving Pictures, Beowulf, Farewell Campo 12, 101 Poems to Get You Through The Day And Night, Effective Java, How to Heal the Hurt by Hating, The Shifting Realities of Phillip K. Dick, How Can I Get Through To You?, After the Quake, Let's Pave The Stupid Rainforests & Give School Teachers Stun Guns, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, C.L.U.T.Z., Stardust, The World According to Mister Rogers, Einstein's Dreams, Notes from a Small Island, Mark Twain On the Damned Human Race, Complete Idiot's Guide To The Art Of Seduction, Starfish, Maelstrom, They Have A Word For It, Hey, Nostradamus (on CD), Tex and Molly in the Afterlife, The Dictionary of Failed Relationships, God Debris, A Certain Chemistry, Patriot Reign, The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge, The Bug, Isaac Newton, The Tenacity of the Cockroach, Why God Won't Go Away
Comics/Graphic Novels (16)
Sandman: Brief Lives, Kingdom Come, American Splendor, Fury, Too Much Coffee Man's Guide for the Perplexed, The Kingdom, Surpreme: the story of the year, Hellblazer: Freezes Over, Hellbalzer: Highwater, Ronin, Zot!, Red Son, Get Your War On II, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #13, Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, The Man Who Grew Young
2006.01.01
this year it seems like I read a bit more than the year previous, and watch a lot more videos (probably the influence of having a steady girlfriend, and then getting Netflix) so I'm happy about that. (And I continue to hardly ever watch movies on TV, probably because I no longer have the movie stations, and that was kind of Mo's thing anyway.) As the last few years, "strong recommends" are in italics, and you can go and see 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004.
I'm getting enough data that it might be interesting to plot it all on some kind of time chart, see if I can find annual patterns, or just crossreference peaks and valleys with different times in my life.
Without further ado:
Movies at the Cinema: (14)
Finding Neverland, Sin City, Fever Pitch, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Wizard, Revenge of the Sith, Robots, Revenge of the Sith, War of the Worlds, Wedding Crashers, Howl's Flying Castle, 40 Year Old Virgin, Serenity, MirrorMask
Movies on Video/DVD (81)
Better Than Chocolate, Labyrinth, The Watcher in the Woods, Shrek 2, Tommy Boy, Napolean Dynamite, Run Lola Run, Pushing Tin, O Brother Where Are Thou?, Shaun of the Dead, Garden State, Men with Brooms, Secretary, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, Cannonball Run, Six Flishman Superman Cartoons, Backbeat, Voices of a Distant Star, What the bleep do we know?, Harold and Khumar go to White Castle, Closer, Clone Wars, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Carrie, Cryptz, Vampiyaz, Ali G Indahouse, Sideways, Street Fighter, Secrets du Kama Sutra, C.I.A. Codename Alexa, Easy Rider, Waking Life, Demolition Man, Shall We Dance?, Better Than Sex, Mallrats, Bound, Body Count, Red Sonja, Mystery Men, Bloody Birthday, Happy Birthday to Me, Sex and the City Season 3, Napolean Dynamite, Sex And The City Seasion 4, Sex and the City Season 5, Y tu mama tambien, Sex and the City Season 6, Road Trip, Miss Congeality 2, Team America World Please, Last Tango in Paris, Muppet Movie, Fisher King, Spiderman, Yojimbo, The Cell, Tales of the Kama Sutra, L.A. Story, Himatsuri, The New Devil In Miss Jones, Chasing Amy, Princess Mononoke, Throne of Blood, The Princess Bride, Ai no corrida (In the Realm of the Senses), Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, Infinity, The Dreamers, Blazing Saddles, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Ugetsu, Suicide Girls: The First Tour, Bad(der) Santa, Made, Anastasia, Clone Wars Volume 1, Clone Wars Volume 2, The Jerk, The Princess and the Warrior
Movies on TV (2)
Matrix: Reloaded, Diamonds Are Forever
Video Games (10)
Mario vs Donkey Kong, Star Fox: Assault, Bangai-O, Star Wars Lego, WarioWare Twisted, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Halo 2, Ico, Timesplitters: Future Imperfect, Mercenaries
Books (44)
Trigger Happy, Gig, Homegrown Democrat, Entering a New Culture, Stoned, Naked, and Looking in my Neighbor's Windows, Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Greatest Physicists, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, My Grandfather's Blessing, half of "The Varities of Religous Experience", Painters and Hackers, Getting Things Done -- The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, The Book of Ratings, What It Feels Like, Vox, Joel on Software, The Da Vinci Code, Kevin Smith Speaks, Pilgrim at TInker Creek, War of the Worlds, Notes from a Big Country, Mother Tongue, Pattern Recognition, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, The Ultimate Cyberpunk, An American Childhood, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Feel This Book, Prince Caspian, The Saga of Baby Divine, Power+Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life, Wigfield : The Can-Do Town That Just May Not, Memoirs of a Mangy Lover, Word of Mouth, Hunted, A Theory of Fun For Game Design, Truckers, Jump The Shark, Diggers, Wings, The Wizard of Oz, A Box of Matches, Holidays on Ice, Thousand Cranes, The Ultimate Visual Guide to Star Wars
Comics/Graphic Novels (24)
JLA: American Dreams, Star Wars Tales Vol. 2, Clumsy: A Novel, Unlikely, Diesel Sweeties Vol 1, I Never Liked You, Best of American Splendor, Star Wars Infinities: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Tales Vol 3, Star Wars Tales Vol 1, The Art of Discworld, Star Wars Tales 5, Egg Story, Star Wars Tales Vol. 4, Transformers: All Fall Down, Transformers: End of the Road, American Splendour: Our Movie Year, How To Be Happy, Empire Vol. 2: Darklighter, True Porn 2, Rising Stars : Born In Fire, Quitter, The Courtyard
2007.01.07
FoSO and FoSOSO actually suggested I should have a permanent part of the front page dedicated to microreviews of this stuff, with a thumbnail, etc. I can't believe it would be interesting enough (or generate enough Amazon kickback) to make it worth while, but I did decide to write a little bit about the titles I put into italics, the "Strong Recommends". I mean, what's personal website like this for if not to try and plug things found to be worth plugging?
Movies at the Cinema: (9)
Night Watch, Block Party, The DaVinci Code, Prairie Home Companion, Click, Clerks II, The Devil Wore Prada, Superman Returns 2D/3D, Ant Bully
Ugh... no strong recommends. This seems to confirm my theory that going out the movies is usually more hassle than it's worth (especially if you've forked out for a happy A/V setup at home.) Prairie Home Companion was decent enough, but even that was at the second-run place.
Movies on DVD (85)
Triumph of the Will, 9 1/2 Weeks, Story of O, Baraka, Daredevil, The First 9 1/2 Weeks, Another 9 1/2 Weeks, Friday Night Lights, Dodgeball, The Island, Jeffrey, Mother Night, Spun, Jersey Girl, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Visions of Light, True Romance, Bonnie and Clyde, Drawn Together Season 1, Sleeper, From Here To Eternity, Saturday Night Fever, Flashdance, Blues Brothers, Clerks: Animated Series, Batman Begins, Say Anything, The Pillow Book, The Wiz, American Pie: Band Camp, Raging Bull, Sliding Doors, Toy Story, Drumline, Ally on Sex and the Single Life, Hellboy, Tank Girl, Love, Actually, Con Air, The Aristocrats, Kentucky Fried Movie, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, City of Angels, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Shakespeare in Love, Poison Ivy, Without a Clue, 40 Days and 40 Nights, Aeon Flux, Good of Cookery, The Moral Tales (1+2), Where the Heart Is, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Paris, Texas, Pretty in Pink, Eraserhead, Poison Ivy 2, Walk the Line, Death Race 2000, Everything is Illuminated, Little Voice, 4 Weddings and a Funeral, Long Kiss Goodnight, Pirates, Green Card, Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles: The Pluto Campaign, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, V for Vendetta, The Way We Were, Hulk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Stick It, Deliverance, Sophie's Choice, Delta of Venus, Boys on the Side, King Kong, Backbeat, The Baxter, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, If these walls could talk 2, Boxing Helena, The Break-Up, The Break-Up, Robot Chicken
I just realized that most of the videos I really enjoyed this year (some are repeats from previous years) are things I reviewed for the Blender, I'll put in the Blender review link when I have it, instead of going straight to Amazon: Backbeat is all that and some great musical performances, Sliding Doors and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind both put forth some terrific philosophical ideas in highly engaging and emotional ways. True Romance is, in my opinion, great, but violent for some of the folks I watched it with. Love, Actually was very sweet. The Way We Were was of course a bittersweet classic, and The Baxter was a recent find, a formalistic comedy that I really loved and in some ways identified with.
Non-Blendered videos: the classic Raging Bull, the quirky but poignant Ukrainian joint Everything is Illuminated, and of course Blues Brothers has been the inspiration for bad jazz bands for decades. Finally there was Delta of Venus, like the other Blender-ish favorite Henry and June but with more sex and a bit less art.
Movies on TV (8)
Criminal, I, Robot, Dodgeball, Murder by Numbers, Postcards from the Edge, Wimbeldon, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Hide and Seek
Bleh. Movies on TV were about as worth while as the trips to the cinema.
Video Games (7)
Alien Syndrome, The Punisher, Yoshi's Island, GTA: Liberty City Stories, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy, Rayman Raving Rabids
These are the games I played all the way through, and not multiplayer games I enjoy so much with friends, but still; I don't think I'm as much of a gamer as my reputation implies. Of what I played The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction was the clear standout, a sandbox-y, mayhem-filled romp that really gave the sense of being this enormously strong, tremendously leaping monster at loose in city and desert settings.
Books (36)
The Cyberiad, The Book of Ratings, What Just Happened, Room Temperature, Smartbomb, Storm Front, Thud, Gun, with Occasional Music, Mortal Engines, Faith Without Certainty, Postsecret, The Discoveries, Be My Guest, Love and Other Near-Death Experiences, JPod, Ask the Pilot, The Minority Report and other classic stories, Robot Visions, Lockpick Pornography, The Polysyllabic Spree, Dungeons and Dreamers, Big Lonesome, Nothing's Sacred, Fool Moon, A Wild Sheep Chase, Living with Books, Anansi Boys, A History of The World in 6 Glasses, Paris in the Twentieth Century, Giggling into the Pillow, Monstrous Regiment, How I Became Stupid, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, The Hours, Sex and Other Sacred Games, Sex, Drink, and Fast Cars
The Cyberiad was an amazing blend of thought, scifi, and fantasy... Stanislaw Lem was really amazing. Room Temperature is... well, it's very Nicholson Baker; an intensely detailed, almost fetishistic, study in the minutiae of this life-- for this book, the details of caring for an infant. Gun, with Occasional Music was some nifty scifi noir. Love and Other Near-Death Experiences is by my favorite Mil Millington... I dig his books but the people I give them to (mostly women) don't seem to like the blend of relationship observation and embarrassment comedy. Anansi Boys was mythically brilliant. A History of The World in 6 Glasses and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again are the only bits of non-fiction here; the former is a great study of how you can match phases of human history with what beverages folk had to drink, and the latter are essays so smart that it makes me intensely jealous. Finally, The Hours was a recommend from FoSO, and I liked it... and it had been so long since I'd seen the movie it still seemed pretty new .
Comics/Graphic Novels (26)
Any Easy Intimacy, Be A Man, JLA: New World Order, Mail Order Bride, The Golem's Mighty Swing, Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl?, Lone Wolf 2100 3: Pattern Storm, Transformers Generation 1: War and Peace, Penny Arcade 1: Attack of the Bacon Robots, Star Wars Empire 5: Allies and Adversaries, Strangers In Paradise, Star Wars Tales Vol 6, 99 Ways to Tell a Story : Exercises in Style, Miniature Sulk, Superman: Birthright, The Golem's Mighty Swing, I Am Going to Be Small, Reporter / Little Back, Every Girl is the End of the World for Me, Penny Arcade 2: Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings, Lost Girls, WE3, Will You Still Love Me If I Wet The Bed?, The Invisibles: Say You Want a Revolution, League of Extraordinary Gentleman Vol 1, League of Extraordinary Gentleman Vol 2
(Some nice preview links here...) I've always liked Jeffrey Brown, though Any Easy Intimacy is kind of going over some well-worn territory, but I Am Going to Be Small, a series of single panels, was really funny. Will You Still Love Me If I Wet The Bed? by Liz Prince was a bit like some of the Brown stuff, but maybe even sweeter. The Golem's Mighty Swing is a stylistic bit of genius, about a novelty all-Jewish baseball squad from back when baseball leagues were very different. Finally, at the end of the year with two things by Alan Moore: The Lost Girls, which is some of the most interesting and thoughtfully literate pornography I've ever seen, and then League of Extraordinary Gentleman makes me understand why the movie is held in such poor regard. (I thought the movie was dumb, but ok for what it was... but it didn't hold a candle to the graphic novel.)
2008.01.02
Movies at the Cinema: (16)
Night at the Museum, Smokin' Aces, Pan's Labyrinth, Grindhouse, Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Carribean 3 : At World's End, Ocean's 13, Fantastic Four, Transformers, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hot Fuzz, Superbad, Simpsons, Good Luck Chuck, 2 Days in Paris, Lust, Caution
Pan's Labyrinth was dark and weird and scary and lovely. Hot Fuzz was a funny British mocking and honoring cop movies, 2 Days in Paris was kind of a Parisian Woody Allen neurotic comedy, and Lust, Caution and its story in occupied China was sensual but absolutely disturbing.
Movies on DVD (52)
History of the World Part I, Brick, Dukes of Hazzard, Natural Born Killers, Lie With Me, Dr. Katz Season 1, Voices of a Distant Star, Supernatural Season 1, Birthday Girl, Red Dawn, Sports Night Season 1, The Place Promised in Our Early Days , Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic, Saw, Little Miss Sunshine, Pumping Iron, The OH! in Ohio, Foxfire, This Film Is Not Rated, i heart huckabees, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Waiting..., Kung Fu Hustle, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan , Eurotrip, Gizmo, Smoke, Strangers with Candy Season 1, Dirty Shame, Flyboys, Shaun of the Dead, Volver, Lord of War, Johnny Mnemonic, Killing Zoe, Girl Play, Children of Men, Marie Antoinette, Spaced Season 1, Kalifornia, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Black Snake Moan, Reno 911!: Miami, 300, Save the Green Planet!, The Fountain, Dasepo Naughty Girls, Pirates of the Carribean 2: Dead Man's Chest, Blood Diamond, Live Free or Die Hard, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy, A Scanner Darkly
Brick was nior Encyclopedia Brown. Lie With Me was sexy arthouse. I've already said a lot about Voices of a Distant Star and its spiritual successor The Place Promised in Our Early Days didn't disappoint. Kung Fu Hustle was just plain fun. Gizmo! is worth tracking down for its take on inventions and feats in the 30s 40s and 50s. The dystopia of Children of Men was a little heavy handed but it was still a great video. Spaced Season 1... I think it's where the folks from Hot Fuzz / Shaun of the Dead got it going. Save the Green Planet was a Korean film, very hard to parse, and with some ambiguity about its crazy hero. Finally, A Scanner Darkly used that rotoscope effect in a great way.
Movies on TV (2)
Seabiscuit, Beer League
Not much to say, though Arty Lang's Beer League was a bit better than I expected
Books (78)
On A Pale Horse, Bearing an Hourglass, The Ancestor's Tale, The Unix-Haters Handbook, A Short History of Myth, The Alien Years, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Blink, An Anthropologist On Mars:, Grave Peril, The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own, The Civilized Engineer, Dave Gorman's Googlewhack! Adventure, Virtual Organisms: The Startling World of Artificial Life, The Game-Players of Titan, Magical Thinking, Sellevision, Running with Scissors, Friday Night Lights, Ruining It for Everybody, Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the Selfish Gene, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eight Dimension, The Sixteen Pleasures, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Dork Whore, Investigating Sex: Surrealist Discussions 1928-1932, Recue from Domestic Perfection, A Year in the Merde, Timequake, Steppenwolf, Kennedy and his Women, Solaris, The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, The Average American Male: A Novel, Overclocked, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Tuesdays with Morrie, What's Your Dangerous Idea?, Mind & Emergence: from quantum to consciousness, The Fountainhead, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Zen Living , The Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill, The Dharma Bums, The Perks of Being a Wallflower., One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw, Eleanor Rigby, The Complete Saki, It's Too Late to Say I'm Sorry, Everyday Life in Early America, One-Night Stands with American History, Country Stores in Early New England, The Education of a Coach, The Planiverse, Possible Side Effects, Invisible Cities, America (The Book) A Citizen's Guide to Democracy in Inaction, We, Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism, Consider the Lobster, David Rakoff, Edge presents The 100 Best Videogames, Comedy by the Numbers: The 169 Secrets of Humor and Popularity , The Planets, Pro-Wicket, CODE The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, The Man In The High Castle, New York Sawed in Half, The Golden Compass, Good Poems for Hard Times, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass, The Selfish Gene, The Dharma of Star Wars, The Maltese Falcon, Riding Rockets, Fierce People, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Schulz and Peanuts
You can get an e-text of The Unix-Haters Handbook for free now. It's dated but opened my eyes to a world beyond Unix as the optimal OS- especially the reminder that the Clipboard has overlap with Unix pipes but does stuff pipes never could. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time tried to give insight into the inner life of autistics. Magical Thinking: True Stories made me think that Augusten Burroughs is David Sedaris turned up to 11. The Sixteen Pleasures was a lovely work; "The Hours" crossed with "Cinema Paradiso", with a thoughtful look at the craft of book preservation. I reread Timequake, Vonnegut's swansong, and it was still fantastic. Tuesdays with Morrie was a tearjerker, but not without wisdom What Is Your Dangerous Idea? had some neat thoughts, there might be a web version to hunt down. Kerouac's The Dharma Bums had some real insights in to the challenges of an American applying Zen Bhuddism to real life. One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw was geektastically wonderful. The Complete Saki- the guy is the Thurber of Edwardian Fops! Comedy by the Numbers: The 169 Secrets of Humor and Popularity was funny in a meta kind of way. CODE The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software is Petzold building a computer from the ground up, conceptually; great layman reading. His Dark Materials Trilogy had some ideas that I'm sure millions will find blasphemous, it's too bad they shied away from that in the first movie. The Dharma of Star Wars pointed out how much of that California version of Zen leaked into all the films. The Maltese Falcon was hardboiled and great. Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut lived up to its subtitle.
Comics/Graphic Novels (29)
Transformers Evolutions: Hearts of Steel, 32 Stories, Filth, Goddess, Swamp Thing: A Murder of Crows, Swamp Thing: Love and Death, Swamp Thing: The Curse, Swamp Thing: Earth to Earth, The New American Splendor Anthology, Feeble Attempts, Bighead, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomedy, Houdini: The Handcuff King, Star Wars Rogue Squadron Omnibus Vol 1, Demo, Action Philosophers, Sequential, Truth and Beauty Bombs, How to Make Money Like a Porn Star, Incredible Change-Bots, Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness, Pet Noir, Clumsy, Will You Still Love Me If I Wet The Bed?, I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!, Ministry of Space, Planetary - All Over the World and Other Stories, Planetary 2, Planetary 3
32 Stories was the very earliest Optic Nerve, great stuff writ small. Fans of "Dykes to Watch Out For" should check out the autobiographical Fun Home: A Family Tragicomedy, it struck home in a few weird ways. Demo was a nice take on "real world superpowers". Action Philosophers was a goofy review of some deep thinkers. I enjoyed rereading old Softer World comics Truth and Beauty Bombs; deeply weird stuff. Will You Still Love Me If I Wet The Bed? was a reread of some great sweet short comics. Fletcher Hanks' I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets! is just so deeply old school and weird... Finally Ministry of Space had a nice "Dan Dare" vibe as it recast the space race as something where the Brits got ahead.
Games (17)
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Crackdown, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, StarFox 64, Chibi-Robo!, Toy Story, Gears of War, Crackdown, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Trax, Bioshock, Robot Gardening, Raiden 2, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxies, flywrench, Portal
Wow... I didn't play too too many games but there were some great ones. Chibi-Robo was a lost gem on the GC; very sweet tale of a little robot helping a disfunctional family. It took me a while to get used to Gears of War's "duck and cover" mentality, but it has its charms. Crackdown was a super-powered take on the GTA formula, but Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is THE superhero game par excellence. Trax was a recommendation from a friend, a tiny little gem for the old Gameboy. Bioshock was underwater Ayn Rand gone all wrong (but at least it had three dimensional characters! ZING!) Super Mario Galaxies was a collection of brilliant little gameplay microcosms, and Portal, with its simple idea of "what happens if you could connect any two parts of a room with a door?, along with its psychotic computer was just a great way to end the year. Favorite quote:
Good news. I figured out what that thing you just incinerated did. It was a Morality Core they installed after I flooded the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin to make me stop flooding the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin. So get comfortable while I warm up the Neurotoxin Emitters.That made me laugh...
2009.01.02
For a brief time, I was almost feeling badly about how much I was listening to the 30 or 60 day list, like I was somehow being unfair to the time-test goodness of the other 1600 odd songs I had rated as worthy enough to carry around (about 1 in 5 of my whole ripped collection.) Then I realized I had it backwards, that of COURSE "now" is the correct time to kind of get acquainted with the new stuff, that any song I like in the long run probably needs some kind of honeymoon period where it's in my head a lot, before it gets just a 1 in 1600 chance of shuffling up.
Sometimes I think I overthink things a bit. (hey, I think there might be my epitaph there!)
Media of the Year
So, my annual tradition of Media in Review! Italics for the stuff I noted as "recommendation worthy" with a few words on each recommend after.
Next year will mark 10 years of doing this media journaling. I want to make a chart. I already know that T-commutes are better for # of books, and girlfriends are better for videos.
Movies at the Cinema (9)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Hulk, Wanted, Hancock, The Dark Knight, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, Clockwork Orange, Milk
Surprisingly, Hancock was the only bit of summer fare I noted as a recommend (I guess I thought Dark Knight was a bit overplayed, and long...). If nothing else, the flying sequences of Hancock, a real sense of barely-controled power and gracelessness, made it worthwhile. I counted Clockwork Orange as "cinema", even though it was just the MIT film series. And lately, Milk was worthwhile, if a bit of a tearjerker; you wonder if the people who think a pre-election release could have helped stop CA's Prop 8 are right.
Movies on DVD (35)
Hostel, Akira, Starship Troopers, I Am Legend, Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted: Full Frontal, Heat, Run Lola Run, Strange Days, Wonder Boys, A Beautiful Mind, Lost in Translation, Shopgirl, Kevin Smith Speaks Part 1, Borat, The Matrix, Atonement, Walking My Life, Juno, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Darjeeling Limited, Mean Girls, My Neighbor Tortoro, A Clockwork Orange, Bad News Bears, Bourne Ultimatum, Kill Bill Vol.1, Kill Bill Vol.2, Stick It, Iron Man, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Casino Royale, The Fall, Hellboy 2, The Stangers
It's amazing how well Anime great Akira has aged; that motorcycle still looks 15 minutes into the future 20 years later. Run Lola Run was a visit with an old favorite. A Beautiful Mind and Shopgirl were both thoughtful and poignant movies. Walking my Life was a Japanese tearjerker I watched on the way back from Japan, a 48-year-old executive finds he has 6 months to live, and tries to make peace with all the people in his life. Juno and The Darjeeling Limited both deserve their place as quirky, indy-ish stuff making its way into the mainstream. Stick It is teen athelete training montage fodder utterly redeemed by some amazing and playful artsy cinematography... also a kicking sountrack. Iron Man might have edged out Hancock had I seen it at the cinema, but whatever. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind remains as, quite possibly, my favorite movie. The Fall looks quite a bit like the director's previous work The Cell; all super saturated dreamworld. It doesn't quite hang together, but it's still a moving and worthwhile experience.
Books (64)
Cherry The Mind's I, The Lathe of Heaven, A Poem for Autumn, Haunted, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Etiquette Guide to Japan, Men and Cartoons, House on Boulevard St., Ubik, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Sesame Street Unpaved: Scripts, Stories, Secrets, and Songs, The Kite Runner, Tuf Voyaging, Thank You and OK! An American Zen Failure in Japan, The Armageddon Rag, After Dark, The Portable Dorothy Parker, Why Do Men Have Nipples?, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence, Dead Witch Walking, Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, Eyewitness Testimonies: Appeals from the A-Bomb Survivors (3rd rd), The Haunted Smile, The Screwtape Letters, Small Things Considered, The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology, Meeting with Japan, Agile Project Management with Scrum, Freedom Evolves, Be Sweet: A Conditional Love Story, Ascending Peculiarity, Slowness: A Novel, I Love You, Beth Cooper, Starship Troopers, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions, How to Succeed in a Japanese Company, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, How Are Things?, In Our Time, Confederates in the Attic, On Intelligence, Tender is the Night, The Tao Is Silent, The Science of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Tao of Pooh, The Te of Piglet, Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic, Passing for Thin, Ender's Shadow, Naked Pictures of Famous People, Postman Always Rings Twice, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I Am a Strange Loop, Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, A Clockwork Orange, Game Design Workshop, Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain, Future Weapons of War, Word of Mouth, , The Encyclopdia of Immaturity, Word of Mouth 2
I got my reading group to tackle The Mind's I, and it remains my favorite introduction to thinking about thinking and being. The Lathe of Heaven is a terrific bit of parallel-universe sci-fi thought experimenting, a meditation on Daoism. Bryon's A Short History of Nearly Everything had some sketchy science here and there, but was a good layman introduction to the universe. Men and Cartoons was "like wild sheep chase guy meets superhero comics, lovely". My mom got me House on Boulevard St., some poems, and it was worthwhile. Phillip K Dick's Ubik seemed to be a big influence on "Lathe of Heaven", actually. The most disturbing part of The Kite Runner probably wasn't the rape, but the betrayal of the friend. Tuf Voyaging makes me wish George R.R Martin was more known for his sci-fi than his fantasy. Thank You and OK! An American Zen Failure in Japan was a bit long, but an interesting study in "West Coast" Zen and its more traditinal practice. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence is high on the list of my favorite books, can't believe it took me so long to get to it. Meeting with Japan was the perfect post-trip gift from EB, in the 1960s an Italian who had once been prisoner there revisits the "New Japan". Starship Troopers deserves a better movie. Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions had some very cool bits. Sedaris was pretty much back in form with When You Are Engulfed in Flames. Confederates in the Attic was a kind of fascinating take on how the current South feels about the War almost a century and a half later. On Intelligence has, I think, THE correct model for how the brain works, even if the author gets Searle's Chinese Room all wrong. Postman Always Rings Twice is some tight little noir - I loved the idea that it was Banned in Boston. I Am a Strange Loop was good thinking about consciousness. A Clockwork Orange was a better book than I expected, I was worried about parsing its made up language, but learning it was really a delight. I started skimming Game Design Workshop but read all the great interviews with industry veterans. Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain! shows there's more to Scott Adams than Dilbert. I've already deeply praised Word of Mouth, and finally, The Yiddish Policeman's Union is great Yiddish Noir/Alternate History.
Comics (28)
All Star Superman Vol. 1, The Warsun Prophecies, Astonishing X-Men: Gifted, Catwoman: The Life and Times of a Feline Fatale, Scheherazade: Comics About Love, Treachery, Mothers, and Monsters, Another Day, Amphigorey, I was a Teenage Comic Nerd, whatever, Wanted, Little Things: A Memoir in Slices, It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken, Postage stamp funnies, We Eat Tonight, Action Philosophers Giant Size Thing Vol 2, The Fart Party, The Boondocks - Because I Know You Don't Read the Newspaper, How to Love, Binky's Guide to Love, Red Eye, Black Eye, Weapon Brown, Introducing Noam Chomsky, Grrl Scouts Volume 1, Guilty, The Man Who Loved Breasts, Zhuangzi Speaks: The Music of Nature, Rent Girl, The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker
All-Star Superman Vol.1 is this lovely take on the iconic figure; just this refreshing kind of whitespace approach. Amphigorey remains dark and disturbing and wonderful. Whatever, by Boston local Karl Stevens, is fantastic. His realistic style and mundane "Allston Brighton Life" subject matter makes him my new favorite. It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken is an intriguing cartoonist detective story. The Boondocks - Because I Know You Don't Read the Newspaper... amazed with what he got away with in the newspapers, very cutting and smart. Weapon Brown is hard to get but worth it... Mad Max meets Peanuts via Clockwork Orange. Zhuangzi Speaks: The Music of Nature were some charmingly illustrated Daoist lessons. Rent Girl uses words and pictures to show you just how sexy and glamorous prostitution isn't. And the Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker with 2 CDs was the best value I'd gotten my Uncle ever.
Video Games (15)
Raiden 2, Earth Defense Force 2017, Earth Defense Force 2017, Blood Ties, Earth Defense Force 2017, Gears of War, GTA IV, Portal, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Contraption, Karoshi 2, Mercenaries 2, Gears of War 2, Star Fox: Assault, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
I played Earth Defense Force 2017 three times this year, and man was it fun... B-movie sci fi run and gun epic brilliance. Gears of War is pretty well known. The sequel I also played through with JZ this year was worthy, but the hamfisted attempts at characterization make appreciate the original more. I'm kind of surprised GTA IV didn't make my "reccomend list", because I did think it was good. Portal I just watched JZ play after enjoying it the year before. I've already sang the praises of Fantastic Contraption, and I'm glad I ponied up the small registration fee -- we need to support stuff like this! Auntie Pixelante introduced me to Karoshi 2, suicidal indy puzzling. Mercenaries 2 was flawed but very, very satisfying, and may be the only game I enjoy driving a tank in this generation. Finally, I mentioned how much I loved the Lego-dream of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
Pure physical comedy in Halo 3; Ivan and I startle each other in corridor, fumbling weapons, as I die I deploy hopeless, useless shield, ZUM
Trying to place Ivan's new facial hair, and realized the mustache/muttonchops (no goatee) look is Lemmy from Motorhead - no warts though
Oy, dating. One asks: what AM I looking for? Counter: Of all my failed romances (technically all past ones) how many would I undo? Very few.
New favorite pen: Pilot Precise V7 RT, a nice-feeling retractable continuation of the line... who says there's no such thing as progress?
CNN: mullah to boy 'Now that you have finished the Quran, you need to go and commit a suicide attack' - meaner than MY sunday school, fo'sho
http://tinyurl.com/8r67ez - NPR asks "when did you see trouble coming?" I wanted OUT of homeowning in '04-- and-maybe- the boom felt "wrong"
2010.01.02
Last year I mentioned I wanted to graph this stuff out, and so here it is:
(adding to the geekery, this is a screenshot from a homemade java processing program, not an Excel thing like a sane nerd might've done.)
As I predicted my commute change led to a decrease in books read, though I didn't know that was a trend. I'm surprised to see that I haven't, in fact, been playing as far fewer video games through as I had thought. I think the early 2000s amount of movies-on-tv was from having a tv in my home office and the mid-2000s spike in videos was the discovery of Netflix.
I also made a permanent features page for this stuff, with links to all the previous years.
I always feel he need to apologize for this, and I'm not sure if anyone reads my recommendations all that closely. Still, if nothing else these are notes to my future self, who I hope will always be at least a little bit interested.
Movies at the Cinema (18)
Slumdog Millionaire, Watchmen, Star Trek, Xmen Origins: Wolverine, Terminator: Salvation, Up, Angels and Demons, The Hangover, Transformers 2, Funny People, Whatever Works, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, Zombieland, Where the Wild Things Are, 2012, Avatar, Sherlock Holmes
Watchmen was a solid translation of the comic, and I liked the change they made to the ending. I was delighted to see the return of Kirk as the pre-eminent Captain with Star Trek. Up was beautiful and touching. IMAX Transformers 2 made it just a terrific spectacle, and if you take it for what it was it was pretty great. Funny People and Whatever Works were both kind of sweet-nature comedies. I love the way Where the Wild Things Are didn' try to prefectly map the realm with the monsters to their parallels in the "real world". Finally Avatar was stupendous, especially in IMAX 3D.
Movies on DVD (37)
Idiocracy, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Jumper, Ali G Indahouse, Shaun of the Dead, Sex Drive, Better than Chocolate, Blues Brothers, Burn After Reading, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Seven Pounds, In Bruges, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Repo: the generic opera, Wall-E, The Big Lebowski, American Beauty, Rosencrantz + Guldernstern are Dead, Henry and June, Pushing Tin, Bender's Big Score, Ponyo, The Butterfly Effect, (500) Days of Summer, Transformers, The Station Agent, Stick It, Drumline, Robocop, Caprica, Better Than Chocolate, Barb Wire, Indepdence Day, Chasing Amy, Across the Universe, Backbeat, Kama Sutra
I got the chance to revisit a lot of favorite videos with JZ and Amber. Vicky Cristina Barcelona was new to me, but, you know, it's still Woody Allen. Shaun of the Dead is still my favorite Zombie flick. Better than Chocolate is still a great and sexy without being tawdry young lesbians in love flick. Everyone needs to see Blues Brothers. I watched Burn After Reading and In Bruges with cmg, and both were funny but dark. The Big Lebowski, American Beauty, Rosencrantz + Guldernstern are Dead are all classics. As is Henry and June, and I'm still irritated NC-17 isn't a legitimate film category or movie makers. Pushing Tin is fun. Ponyo had a Disney release but we caught it on bootleg. I'm not sure how I missed The Butterfly Effect - maybe I was scared of Ashton Kutcher, but it's really a thoughtful sci-fi piece. (500) Days of Summer was romantic and lovely. Stick It and Drumline are two great teens-over-adversary montge flicks with great visual moments. Robocop is Robocop. Chasing Amy is Chasing Amy - a bit awkward but still nifty. Across the Universe is a lovely rework of so many Beatles pieces, and Backbeat is their story in Hamburg - very sweet and romantic. Finally Kama Sutra is not as sex-crazed as you might hope, but it's a simple story well-told.
Things on Television
The Invasion, Resident Evil: Extinction, Alice, VH1's 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs, Wizard of Oz
Wizard of Oz is great, if sleepy. Amber and I watched through all five hours of VH1's 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs and it was pretty cool, even if some of the choices are baffling, and man... does TV really need that many reality shows with washed up hiphop performers?
Books (40)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Uniforms, Inventing Modern, Like You'd Understand, Anyway, Magic for Beginners, Battle Stations, The Shangri-La Diet, Effective Java, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, Racing the Beam, Holy Cow: an Indian Adveture, The 10,000 Year Explosion, Diary of Indignities, The Great Fires, The Book of Totally Useless Information, Old Age Comes at a Bad Time, (book of George Washington selected letters), Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, The Love Poems of James Laughlin, Amerika: Russian Writers view the United States, Me and You, His Excellency George Washington, A Home at the End of the World, Everything is Illuminated, Going Postal, The Adventure Capitalist, He's Just Not That Into You, Interpreter of Maladies, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, And Another Thing*, A Catalogue of Unfindable Objects, The Case for God*, You Better Not Cry*, 9 Stories, 1,001 Things They Won't Tell You, Word Myths, Nothing to be Frightened Of, Ounce, Dice, Trice, Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes, Franny and Zooey * (audiobook)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - nostalgic but not sickly sweet look back to the 50s. Uniforms was a surprisingly cool read, though the author was a bit of an elitest. Like You'd Understand, Anyway were some brilliant and well-searched short pieces on people surviving extremely difficult circumstances. The Shangri-La Diet has an awesome idea thouh I'm not proof positive it works. Effective Java should be read by every Java programmers. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives was like "Einstein Dreams" but about various incarnations of the afterlife and God. Racing the Beam was a cool in-depth look into programming for the Atari 2600. Holy Cow: an Indian Adveture showed me just what amazing diversity India sports. The Great Fires is the best book of romantic poetry ever. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal was like a funny and pop-culture remake of the Last Temptation of Christ. Me and You is a superbly sensual story I first read in college. His Excellency George Washington pointed out what a toweing figure this guy was. A Home at the End of the World made me wonder why all books can't be this sensual. Everything is Illuminated is also good as a movie. And Another Thing was a worthy Hitchhiker's Guide sequel. A Catalogue of Unfindable Objects was referenced in "The Design of Everyday Things" and is a brilliant bit of design fantasy and social commentary, though a bit French. The Case for God was a profound survey of religion, and makes me wonder if people really were that good at seperating the "mythos" from the "logos". You Better Not Cry was classic Augusten Burroughs but hearing him read his own stuff was terrible until I listened to it at double speed. Nothing to be Frightened Of is an interesting musing on mortality. Ounce, Dice, Trice is a fun kid-friendly book about words, meant to be read aloud. Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes had some neat thoughts about the attempt to capture humor in writing. Franny and Zooey told me that I was wrong to dislike Salinger so immensly after "Catcher in the Rye".
Comics (23)
The Boys Vol 1, The Boys Vol 2, The Boys Vol 3, Secret Identity, Emperor Joker, Help is on the Way, Astonishing X-men: Dangerous, Astonishing X-men: Gifted, The Watchmen, All-Star Superman #2, Funny Misshapen Body, Star Trek: Countdown, Blankets, Another Dollar, 32 Stories, The Man Who Loved Breasts, Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed?, Empowered, Empowered #2, Empowered #3, Empowered #4, Empowered #5, What it Feels Like to be a Building
Secret Identity started kind of corny but turned into a decent Superman tale. I loved the insanity of Emperor Joker Help is on the Way is a compilation of the web comic "Basic Instructions". I reread The Watchmen in preperation for the movie, and I thought the movie held up. Funny Misshapen Body might be Jeffrey Brown's most informative work. Blankets is a great graphic novel, sweet, romantic, a great study into growing up among bible thumpers - Amber's first Pekar remains strong in Another Dollar, 32 Stories is Optic Nerve. The Man Who Loved Breasts is funny, and Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed? is the sweetest thing ever. Empowered 1-5 are these really weird mashups of superhero and B+D comics - light hearted and not TOO too porny for all of that. What it Feels Like to be a Building is just a neat book about the pressures walls and ceilings face every day.
Video Games (11)
EDF 2017, EDF 2017, EDF 2017, GTA4: Thoe Lost + Damned, Wario World, Gears of War, Game-a-Day, Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen, Portal, Flower, GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Guess I still love me some EDF 2017, maybe the best B-movie game ever, and hecka fun for two people. Gears of War is still a definitive classic. Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen is a competent little reward-driven shooter. Portal is of course brilliant. Flower is poetic and beautiful, and GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony is probably the ulitmate little GTA4 game, with mission select, a tank, and skydiving.
Overall I'm a little sad I'm not playing more games. I got into but didn't finish Retro Challenge, Scribblenauts, and GTA: Chinatown Wars. on DS -- I guess I don't find it the most compelling system.
I also saw the stage show "The Buddha In His Own Words" which was pretty decent.
"I'm a virgin by choice."
"Not YOUR choice."
2010.01.06
Many of these books were written before 2000... this is just a subjective list based on me first encountering them at some point over the last decade. But I'd heartily recommend any of them to nearly anyone.
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig. The way this book tries to reconcile the Engineer's View (detailed, analytic) and the Romantic View (general, emotional) and come up with a sense of Quality that is really the heart of Daoism is astounding. It's also a nice and very human and readable story.
Consciousness Explained, Daniel Dennett. This book I cited again and again. It's a tough read, but I'm still amazed at the solid Western, academic structure it uses to get around to an idea that's fundamentally Buddhist; that there's not as much of a "there there" when it comes to consciousness as we think. (Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence is similarly thought provoking, and it's idea that the core idea of the mind is "predict and test" is actually more relevant to AI than this, but hey, I can only put ten books on this list... while I'm cheating like this I'd point out that The Mind's I remains the best easy introduction to this kind of thinking.)
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The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I admit that in high school I ducked reading this book and Cliff Noted my way through it. I came back to it, thanks in part to reading about Charles Schulz' love of it. Now I'm convinced that it might not make sense until you've had a big unrequited love.
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The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker. One of my favorite books of the previous decade was Tom Robbins' Still Life with Woodpecker, which taught me to stop disrespecting objects just because they're inanimate. This book combines some of that feeling with the thoughtful analysis of Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things, and maybe just a hint of "Rainman". Famously it takes place entirely during one man's journey across a mezzanine and up an escalator, but mostly in flashback over the few days prior.
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Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, Mil Millington. In some ways not quite as pointed as the website that started it all, this is still one of the funniest books I've ever read. Admittedly men seem to dig this book more than women (even though some of the joy is the male unreliable narrator) and it is that "comedy of embarrassment" that some people don't dig.
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Feet of Clay, Terry Pratchett. This book is a stand-in for all the Pratchett I discovered and devoured over this decade. In many ways Pratchett is a more thoughtful and emotionally in-tune Douglas Adams. And I think this book is one of the best of the "City Watch" novels; the scene of Vimes defending the Golem was heroism at its most beautiful.
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How Can I Get Through to You?, Terrence Real. Recommended by the couples therapist Mo and I went to after the die had already been cast. What I most took away from it is the pattern that happens over and over, where a woman is unhappy with the growth of a relationship but doesn't want to nag, so doesn't say much, and the man is blissfully unaware and satiated, and the woman's discontent build and builds until it explodes, leaving the man stunned and bewildered.
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The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac. I guess a small theme on this list is Westerners discovering some of the ideas of the spirituality of the East; and this book has that in spades. It introduced me to the concept that "Comparisons are Odious" - a thought that sounds profoundly unsustainable until you think about it, and realize that it does represent a positive thought, and points to a different way of being in the world.
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Jar of Fools, Jason Lutes. I read a lot of Graphic Novels this past decade, and this is quite likely the finest; a very human and warm story, written with a compassionate eye and illustrated with a nicely restrained and clean, formal style.
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A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge. The lone sci-fi book to make the list...
I actually prefer the same series'
A Fire Upon the Deep and how it stretched my mind about possible idea for alien consciousness, but I guess I read that last decade.
(Similarly Permutation City is a decent story that plays with the "what ifs" of putting consciousnesses into VR worlds, but I guess I read it farther back than I thought.)
someone should do Video Game Hero: you pretend to play games with no real skill in using a rubbish plastic joystick and set to cheesy music
2010.01.07
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - this movie never fails to knock me over. Such a great fantasy/sci-fi exploration that poses some really important questions about loss and heartbreak.
- Vanilla Sky This movie plays with some of the same themes of broken romance and untrustworthy memory and alternate realities as does Eternal Sunshine... not quite as satisfying,
and the Spanish original might be a tad better, but this is the one I saw first.
- Amélie - I might just be rewatching this tonight, or at least soon. Such a visually rich movie, and such a pretty idea...
- The Cell - another super-saturated, visually stunning work of art, and I'm not just talking J-Lo's backside in a weird muscle-y bodysuit.
- True Romance - I admit from here on in, my choices get more uncertain and arbitrary. This film had a lot of sweetness and swagger. My Blender review mentioned how "You're so cool" may just be the modern substitute for "I love you".
- Shaun of the Dead - jeez, how doesn't love a good zombie comedy?
- Secretary - another romantic film, albeit with some kink thrown in. There's a real tenderness here though.
- Voices of a Distant Star an amazing but little-known piece of anime, written, directed and produced entirely by one person. Full of that peculiary Japanese sense of empty space and desolation - despite, or because of, the giant robots.
- Juno - alright, I'm running out of truly great films here, but Juno was sweet, quirky, and a lot of fun, with the highschool girlfriend everyone wishes they had had.
- Matrix Reloaded and
Matrix Revolutions - alright, I'm cheating and putting in two, but they were basically one movie, and not as crappy as everyone says. Once upon a time there was a great piece "Matrix: Resolutions" that pointed out how unworkable most of the fan boy preferred explanations were (like, "the Matrix is actually in another Matrix, and so on and so on") but all I can find is this site that takes it all too seriously.
Caffeine is the healthiest substance on Earth. Not only will it not kill you, it'll make ME not kill you.
Cool, hip editors (Notepad++, IntelliJ IDEA) prefer "ctrl-w" to "ctrl-f4" to close windows. Is it more a multiplatform or browser thing?
Hello, Samaritans ... I've had enough, I'm going to end it all ... I'm going to overdose on these homeopathic painkillers ... I'm going to take one fiftieth of the recommended dose.
2010.01.08
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - the series is getting a little repetitive, but I think for sheer hours of enjoyment, these games top the list. GTA4 is in most ways a better game, but Vice City was my first, plus it had helicopters, and captured that 80s "Miami Vice" feel in spades. Man, I love any game with a helicopter. Anyway, the way this series put fun missions over something very like a "living breathing world" that was fun just to tool around in, playing with cars, cycles, and guns... it's hardly topped in all of game-dom. (Also neat how your character is basically the same at the end of the game- it's the player that knows where all the guns and cool things are.)
- Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader - I've always been a huge Star Wars fan boy, and honestly it's mostly because of the space ship stuff. This game that came out with the GameCube put you inside an X-wing... and that's all it had to do. The "Battle for Endor" level finale was the first time I saw anything of that scale, with just swarms of TIEs - the classic "There's too many of them!" line came home for the first time.
- Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction HULK SMASH!!! Captured the crazy kinetic energy of being a superpowered being like nothing I've seen.
- Earth Defense Force 2017 - best B-movie game ever, and probably the one I've beaten the most often, usually pairing up with JZ to take on the vast hoards of supersized ants, giant leaping spiders, and walkers straight out of War of the Worlds. I don't know what was more awesome - taking on this absolutely vast AT-AT behemoth (you come to about its little tow) or just destroying one of the more "normal" humanoid (but huge) walkers, only to see its brother trudging through the fiery smoke, guns blazing.
- Bangai-O - one of the last hurrahs for the Dreamcast, a game I wrote a full Walkthrough FAQ for, and the pinnacle of what can be done with many, many, many tiny sprites. Plus the whole "wait 'til you're on the verge of lazery death, THEN bust out the massive devastating-offense-is-the-best-defense superweapon" mechanic is superb.
- Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts - the most recent game on this list. The format is pretty typical, Mario-64 hub world challenges, but the ability to build your own car, copter, boat, plane, hovercraft, jet, bulldozer... and have the mechanics of what you put together really matter, in a cartoon-physics-y kind of way... honestly, it kind of blows LEGO out of the water.
- Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident - an online LEGO tie-in, actually, by the sadly shut-down Gamelab. Lego seems to be dropping the game, but it still lives on, like at that link. Another one I made a Walkthrough for - (Junkbot is another great gamelab/LLEGOteamup, that arguably as a lot more to do with actual building, but it didn't grab me quite as much as the SNAFU-meets-turn based strategy of this one)
- Fantastic Contraption - another Flash game, this one with a great clever building and physics element. Challenging puzzles, plus the way they made it community based, allowing people to see how others took on the challenges, was great.
- WarioWare: Twisted! - the original game introduced the world to microgames, the tiniest bits of gameplay pleasure imaginable, wrapped into continuous trail of challenging fun. Twisted kept up the tradition, with a unique gyro-sensor used in all kinds of imaginative ways - plus the toys and minigames they gave you to unlock were a serious inspiration for my Java Advent Calendar
- Jet Set Radio Future - some people still prefer the ground-breaking Dreamcast that basically showed the gaming world what Cel-shading could be. The xbox version raised the bar, making it more kinetic, and (IMO) wisely dumped the fiddly graffiti minigame. The soundtrack was also fantastic, probably more songs from here made it into my iPod than even DDR.
- Jet Set Radio Future - some people still prefer the ground-breaking Dreamcast that basically showed the gaming world what Cel-shading could be. The xbox version raised the bar, making it more kinetic, and (IMO) wisely dumped the fiddly graffiti minigame. The soundtrack was also fantastic, probably more songs from here made it into my iPod than even DDR.
Honorable Mentions:
Two categories of honorable mentoins: also-rans, and multiplayer...
Multiplayer games provide me with many hours of bonding fun with my buds and family - Dr. Mario has risen to prominence, though it's pretty old at this point- but in terms of play this weekend, it plus "Puzzle League" were the go-to games.. Super Monkey Ball 2's Monkey Target is brilliant, the Dogfight is fantastic, Monkey Punch is just pure mayhem, and even the race was a good holdover 'til Mario Kart came out. (Mario Kart being another series not to be sneezed at.) Finally Super Smash Bros Melee took the brilliant middle-school "What if X fought Y" of the orignal and made it kinetic.
Also-Rans: Mercenaries 2 may be the only game to really let me enjoy driving a tank around this generation - lots of little tactical "figure out how to get through this" options with lots of weapons, vehicles, and huge explosions. Crimson Skies was a good prelude to Rogue Squadron, flying an old combat fighter around in an stylish alternate history, where the time between the World Wars was quite different... Super Mario Galaxies was just plain cool Gears of War and Halo both get props for their Co-op modes, one of my favorite forms of gaming.
Finally, how can I forget my own labor of love , JoustPong for the Atari 2600???
Off to see Monster Trucks in New Hampshire... for real.
Man, monster trucks are LOUD. I like when they use 'em like bulldozers to adjust the rows of car before they roll over them.
2011.01.07
I realized I changed the meaning of one of my categorizations. This year marked a continuation of me not really watching movies on broadcast or cable TV along with the rediscovery of Netflix streaming, and the ability it provides to catch up on entire tv series. So my "tv" category switched from "movie on HBO or Pay-Per-View" to "one season of an entire series".
Also, rather than using my old "recommended" checkbox, I switched to a rating of 1-4 stars. 1 means I resent the time it took from me (marked here in gray), 2 is pleasantly neutral, 3 is I'd recommend it (marked with italics), 4 is it should count as one of my favorites of this and any year (marked in red).
Movies at the Cinema (14)
It's Complicated, Alice in Wonderland, An Education, More Joel on Software, Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason, How to Train Your Dragon, Iron Man 2, Inception, Despicable Me, The Other Guys, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, The Social Network, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Tron: Legacy
No 4-stars in theaters, but some decent films. "Scott Pilgrim" was probably the standout.
Movies on Video (57)
Year One, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Amelie, The Brothers Bloom, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen:, Paper Heart, Better Than Sex, Boogie Nights, Meaning of Life, Voices of a Distant Star , Sex and Lucia, Clerks, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Temple Grandin, Tron, Whip It, Adam, Twilight, Push, Kinsey, Cashback, Fired Up, The Girlfriend Experience, Mary and Max, The Fifth Element, Intimate Strangers, Annie Hall, 9 Songs, Secretary, XXY, Wall*E, Saved!, Coraline, Leon:The Professional, The Big Chill, Spirited Away, Strictly Sexual, Mean Girls, Sculpture, Chloe, Hard Candy, Clash of the Titans, 300, Twilight: New Moon (RiffTrax), Superstar, Delta of Venus, Dead Snow, TiMER, Eyes Wide Shut, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Valmont, The Italian Job, The Fast and the Furious, Match Point, Speed Racer, Real Genius, Ten Things I Hate About You
"The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Amelie" were well-known favorites. "Temple Grandin" was an awesome HBO documentary about an amazing woman. "Cashback" was sweet and sexy if a tad creepy, a fun and romantic "what if" about science fictional powers. "Speed Racer" was just a perfect kinetic visual feast. (Thanks for recommending it Bill!
TV Shows (11)
Caprica, Lost Season 6, Office Season 1, The Office: Season 2, Futurama Season 1, Top Chef Season 7, The IT Crowd: Season 2, The Office Season 3, The Office Season 4, The Office Season 5, Tipping the Velvet
Again no 4-stars, but I've really been enjoying catching up with "The Office" with Amber.
Books (59)
How to be Idle, A Long Way Down, F My Life, Made in America, The Gospel According to Science Fiction, Me of Little Faith, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, Mindscan, The World I Live In, Fluke, Coders at Work, The Ape in Me, Look Me in the Eye, Born Standing Up, Tough, Tough Toys For Tough, Tough Boys, Intimate Adventures of an Office Girl, Peterman Rides Again, You Are Not a Gadget, Waiting, Come to Me, In the Merde for Love, Buddhism Without Beliefs, Little Brother, Time: Secret Societies, 100 Best Beatles Song, I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This, The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes, The Glen Rock Book of the Dead, Too Cool to Get Married, Permutation City, Danny: The Champion of the World, Designing Interactions, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, HTML5 for Web Designers, Anathem, Disquiet, Please!, The Playboy Book, No One Belongs Here More Than You, How the Mind Works, Guys & Dolls, The Subterraneans, One-Night Stands with American History, Look at the Birdie, Sh*t My Dad Says, Pontoon, Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in ALL of Us, Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me, Retro Gamer Collection Vol.4, jQuery Cookbok, How To Be Inappropriate, Predictably Irrational, Constellation Games, A Guide To The Good Life. {the ancient art of stoic joy), Self-Therapy, Dr. C. Wacko's Miracle Guide to Designing and Programming Atari Computer Arcade Games, Dr. C. Wacko Presents: Atari BASIC & The Whiz-Bang Miracle Machine, Vintage Games, Room, Dear Friends: American Photographs of Men Together, 1840-1918
"Permutation City" is an old favorite, an out of print but brilliant set of thought experiments about what a virtual life could really mean... "How To Be Inappropriate" is just plain funny, "Constellation Games" is a book by Leonard I got the rare privilege or reviewing a draft of and making suggestions on. I've already expounded on the stoic treatise "A Guide to the Good Life" and my love of "Atari BASIC & The Whiz-Bang Miracle Machine".
Comics (21)
Exit Wounds, The Fart Party Vol. 2, Y: The Last Man, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Delayed Replays, 1001 Mad Pages You Must Read Before You Die, Students for a democratic Society: a graphic history, XXXenophile Vol.5, Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary, GI Joe vs The Transformers, Logicomix, The Force Unleashed, MAD about Star Wars, Memories, It Is Folly To Assume My Awesome Lies Dormant, The Three Paradoxes, Empowered 6, The Lodger, Tron: Betrayal, Inbound 4: History of Boston, Inbound 5: The Food Issue
"It Is Folly To Assume My Awesome Lies Dormant", Mincing Mockingbird's odd juxtaposition of well-done bird paintings and odd captions, was something I found at The Decordova. "The Lodger" is by Karl Stevens - I love his realistic style and slice-of-life approach, even if his way of drawing thought balloons makes me think people are farting.
Video Game (11)
Redder, Redder, eBoy FixPix, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Red Remover, Tron, Starfox 64, Tron, Peggle, Peggle Nights, Super Scribblenauts
I got to playtest Auntie Pixelante's Redder and it is great retro play with intriguing philosophical overtones. "Tron" for the iPhone is the best tank game I've played in a long while. "Super Scribblenauts" is just crazily empowering... being able to write almost anything you can think of and have it appear, adjectives and all, is just a pinnacle of gaming.
Honorable Mention: Since we only play like one level at a time, I never offically record Left for Dead 2 but I'm pretty sure I've gotten through all the levels with my buds online...
http://www.slate.com/id/2280249/ -it's easier to wrap yourself in the Constitution when you get to pick and choose which parts you like, eh?
A static document is a fossil of thought.
Just learned shift-Win-M reverses Win-M ('M'inimize All). But I was using Win-D (Show 'D'esktop) which doesn't shift reverse. Grr. (That's one of the fewish UI things OSX does better - its "Show Desktop" key is a toggle, just hit it again to get your windows back.)
2012.01.02
Compared to last year, few of the numbers moved that much.
Like last year I rated things, though I found my scale has changed. Nothing received the lowest 1 star rating. 2 starts, marked here in gray, were disappointments. 3 star things matched my expectations for them. 4 stars, marked in red, I'd recommend freely and enthusiastically, and 5 star things are in red and ALL CAPS and are just terrific.
Movies at the Cinema (13)
Battle: Los Angeles, Sucker Punch, The Adjustment Bureau, Hanna, Source Code, X-Men: First Class, Midnight in Paris, Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2, Real Steel, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Hugo, The Artist
"The Adjustment Bureau" was some great sci-fi in the mold of Inception. "Hugo" was simple fun with a nice bit of homage to the earliest films, and "The Artist"'s fun with the form and content of the silent movie was just terrific, I'm happy it exists.
Movies on Video (50)
Jeffrey, Mystery Men, Salt, Dinner for Shmucks, Sunshine Cleaning, SHORT BUS, Chasing Amy, Lars and the Real Girl, Silent Running, FRIDA, Killing Me Softly, Waiting for Superman, Family Guy Star Wars Trilogy, Sliding Doors, Arthur, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Havoc, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Starz Inside: Comic Books Unbound, Gulliver's Travels, Karate Kid, Snatch, MirrorMask, Confederate States of America, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Hot Tub Time Machine, True Grit, Cinema Paradiso, Almost Famous, Wild Target, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Trainspotting, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Megamind, The Departed, All the Real Girls, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Wonder Woman, Bridesmaids, Saving Silverman, Superbad, Star Wars: A New Hope, Beavis and Butthead Do America, Best in Show, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Party Girl, Catch-22, WILT
Shortbus was crazy sexy fun, Frida is artistically terrific, and Wilt, a short from German, is the best horror short I've ever seen, more on that as I find out ways to direct people to it.
TV Shows (15)
The Office: Season 6, Modern Family Season 1, Caprica Season 1.5, Mad Men Season 4, Archer, BETTER OFF TED SEASON 1, Game of Thrones Season 1, BETTER OFF TED SEASON 2, GREEN WING SEASON 1, GREEN WING SEASON 2, Parks and Recreation Season 1, Parks and Recreation Season 2, Parks and Recreation Season 3, Shameless Season 1, Shameless Season 2
What can I say, there's so much TV out there that we're able to stick with really good series for the most part. "Better Off Ted" and "Green Wing" are funny, funny, funny.
Books (60)
Extra Lives, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Elements, Why We Suck, Book of Secrets, Bathroom Book of Canadian Quotes, Afterzen, Auntie Mame, JavaScript; The Good Parts, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, Everything Explained Through Flowcharts, Adjustment Team, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World , The Girl Who Couldn't Come , Kill Screen Issue 3: Intimacy, Two Is Enough, World War II: Extraordinary Facts and Stories, Man's Search for Meaning, ACCELERANDO, The Final Hours of Portal 2, Strangeland, The Pregnant Widow, L.A. Noire, Worldwar: In the Balance, The Big Book of American Humor, Kill Screen Volume 4: Shared Play, The Wee Free Men, Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me, Farewell, My Lovely, Gender Advertisements, Fletch, The War Nerd, CONSTELLATION GAMES, Rule 34, Ready Player One, THE ADVANCED GENIUS THEORY, Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives, Eating the Dinosaur, 50 Religious Ideas You Really Need to Know, Life Among the Lutherans, Nude in the Tub, Snuff, Pilgrim in the Microworld, The Soloflex Story: An American Parable, Richard Matheson, The Making of Prince of Persia, Videogames Hardware Handbook Vol.2, RetroGamer Collection Vol. 5, Sex at Dawn, Steve Jobs, Monster Island, Retro Micro Games Action Vol 4, Designing for Emotion, Kill Screen 1.5, 50 Physics Ideas You Really Need to Know, Star Wars vs Star Trek, 11/22/63, Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries, American Nerd, The Cleanest Race
"The Advanced Genius Theory" was smart pop-culture analysis. "Accelerando" and "Constellation Games" are both terrific pieces of sci-fi... I read early drafts for my friend Leonard Richardson... you can (and SHOULD) check out the current e-book serialization of it at Candlemark and Gleam.
Comics (29)
Dread & Superficiality: Woody Allen as Comic Strip, Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!, Ignition City, The Killing Joke, Alien Legion: Grimrod, Henry & Glenn Forever, Aetheric Mechanics, I Swallowed the Key to my Heart 2, THE GOLEM'S MIGHTY SWING, Portal 2: Lab Rat, I swallowed the Key to my Heart, Interplanetary Spy 7: Rebel Spy, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, Market Day, Love, Loss, and What I Wore, Huntington, West Virginia "On the Fly" , The Punisher: Barracuda, Black Orchid, Star Wars Empire Vol. 7, Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection: 1987-1991, Save Yourself, Mammal, Zot! Book One, M.F.A., Boston Security Officer 1, Hark! A Vagrant, Oglaf, The Most Dangerous Game, Local Heroes, A Long Day of Mr. James Teacher, The Best of the Rejection Collection
Again, a lot of good stuff, but "The Golem's Mighty Swing is a majestic and moving piece of art, an old favorite. I'd also like to add how impressed I am with Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, maker of "Save Yourself Mammal!" and "The Most Dangerous Game" -- it is a funny, daily comic that gives xkcd a run for its money.
Video Games(13)
Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja, Sly Spy: Secret Agent, Portal 2, Portal 2 Co-op, Earth Defense Force Insect Armegeddon, Earth Defense Force Insect Armegeddon, ENDI Tank Battle, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Gears of War 3, Saints Row the Third, Yahtzee Adventures, Star Fox 64 3D, Mario Kart 7
I think the strongest recommendation here is actually "Saints Row the Third", a refreshingly unpretentious and exuberantly violent funfest in the GTA-ish open world genre.
2013.01.14
I think I ended up giving out too many 4 stars to talk about them sensibly. So, 5 Stars: No movies in the theate, but I found out "i ♥ huckabees", indeed... great existential playfulness. TV-wise, "Pulling" is this terrific show, like a grungy british anti-Sex in the Season. Unfortunately the first 2 or 3 episodes aren't great, but then it hits its stride, and the second season is just brilliance, so worth the Netflix streaming... I'm still not playing many games but I was reminded how much I loved "BattleTanx: Global Assault" on the N64. Bookwise, Egan's "Zendegi" was a maturation of his sc-fi "what would uploading people be like" themes (as seen in "Permuation City".) "The Last Policeman" was also sci-fi; it's what I wish the movie "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" would have been. On the geeky side, "10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10" was a deep study on old computers and even older concepts of randomness and labyrinths, and on the comic-geeky side "MetaMaus" provided deep insight into Spiegelman's art and his relationship with his father, and being so many people's insight into the atrocities of WW2.
Anyway, stuff in Red was 4 stars or more, stuff in gray was disappointing...
Movies at the Cinema (14)
The Hunger Games, The Dictator, The Avengers, Men in Black III, Casablanca, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, Resident Evil: Retribution, Looper, Sinister, Rise of the Guardians, Django, Argo,
Movies on Video(43)
The Kids Are All Right, Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Cowboys and Aliens, Another Earth, Borat, The Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Hangover Part 2, Gone with the Wind, The Help, Be Kind Rewind, My Week with Marilyn, The Descendants, Fantasia, Zoolander, Emmanuelle Through Time: Emmanuelle's Sexy Bite, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, My Dinner with Andre, Knocked Up, The Royal Tenenbaums, Caged Heat, Postcards from the Edge, Paper Heart, The Men Who Stare at Goats, My Neighbor Tortoro, Brick, Thelma & Louise, I HEART HUCKABEES, Tiny Furniture, i heart huckabees, Perfect Sense, 3 Idiots, Art Of 16 Bars, Before Sunrise, Moonrise Kingdom, Primer, Exotica, Goodfellas, Marjoe, Clue, 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Swingers
TV Shows (19)
Pulling Season 1, PULLING SEASON 2, Spaced Season 1, Party Down Season 1, Spaced Season 2, Sherlock Holmes (BBC), Enterprise Season 1, New Girl, The Office: Season 8, Parks and Recreation Season 4, Modern Family Season 3, Girls Season 1, Mad Men Season 5, Portlandia, Archer Season 2, Portlandia, Enterprise Season 2, Archer Season 3, Sherlock Holmes Season 2,
Books (65)
The Fat Man on Game Audio: Tasty Morsels of Sonic Goodness, 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know, Closing Time, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), Distrust That Particular Flavor, 200 Brain Filling Curves: A Fractal Bestiary, The Illuminatus! Trilogy , 50 Mathematical Ideas You Reallly Need to Know, The Beginning of Infinity, Dragon's Egg, The Anthologist, Enter, The Most Human Human, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, How to Be Black, Letters from Hawaii, Down from the Top of its Game: The Story of Infocom, Basic Training, Love And Sex With Robots, The Magicians, Jacked, The Mirage, The Visible Man, Confessions of the Game Doctor, How to Do Things with Videogames (Electronic Mediations), Insanely Simple, The Postmortal, I Suck at Girls, Things my Girlfriend and I have argued about , Driving with Plato: The Meaning of Life's Milestones, Free Will, Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule our World, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, The Brain That Changes Itself, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, Alien Phenomenology,or What It's Like to Be a Thing ..., The Children of the Sky, The Happiness Hypothesis, The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge, Bird by Bird, B is for Beer, Why is the Penis Shaped Like That, Constellation Game Extras, Guy Noir and the Straight Skinny, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong, 77 Love Sonnets, Whiter Shades of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast to Coast , The Kobayashi Maru, Mortality, This Will Make You Smarter, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, ZENDEGI, The Last Lecture, God is Not Great, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality 1-35, The Size of Thoughts, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, The Last Testament: A Memoir, THE LAST POLICEMAN, 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10, I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears, METAMAUS, Mr g, Motorcyclus and Other Extremely Scary Stories,
Comics (21)
Supergod, Drinking at the Movies, Time and The Batman, Too Much Coffee Man: Cutie Island, The Zen of Steve Jobs, X-Men Days of Future Past, Hulk: Broken Worlds, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge, All Hail Megatron 1, Are You My Mother?, Fun Home, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, The Indelible Alison Bechdel, Too Much Adventure, Smut Peddler, Poorcraft, Black Summer, Brunhilda, School of Hard Knock Knock Jokes, Empowered 7
Video Games (9)
BattleTanx, BATTLETANX: GLOBAL ASSAULT, GTA3, Intec G5405 InterAct Complete Video Game Entertainment System, Grand Theft Auto III, Just Cause 2, Mansions of Madness, GTA: Vice City, Karateka
Day 1 of a Couch to 5K. Need: goofy reflective vest. Want: iPhone holster, app w/o ads, reassurance about my knee.
Guy working the alewife dunkies- at first I thought he might Belushi with less talent, but maybe it's Belushi without the cocaine
SMBC is so smart.
You have to understand, princess-- Prince Charming exists only in fairytales. In real life, there are only frogs.
2014.01.04
Better than expected stuff in red, All time favorite in bold, not so good stuff in grey.
So, "all time favorites": Gravity 3D, but in IMAX. It's a bit hokey, but the majestic expanse of Earth are half the key to placating my inner child astronaut.
Bookwise, "Cloud Atlas" was a stylistic tour de force, I love how it built and then deconstructed itself. "Spell of the Sensuous" talks about what we lost with the rise of phonetic alphabets and more. "Dirk Gently" is just amazing in how well it holds up, how fresh it still seems.
In Comics, Harvey Pekar's Cleveland is a beautiful tale of a city I love, James Sturm's America: God, Gold, and Golems includes "The Golem", maybe the best baseball story every told, The Infinite Wait is a great and very personal set of autobiographical tales by Jula Wertz
In video games, Saints Row IV was an astounding melange of super heroism and goofy action, and GTA: San Andreas on iPad was what I wanted GTAV to be more like.
Movies at the Cinema (14)
Oscar Shorts Nominations Live Action, Oscar Shorts Nominations Animated, Lincoln, Iron Man 3, Star Trek: Into Darkness, World War Z, Man of Steel, Pacific Rim, The World's End, Riddick, Texts from Bennett, Gravity, Blue is the Warmest Color, Gravity
Movies on Video (26)
Chungking Express, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, Melvin Goes to Dinner, Role Models, Porco Rosso, The Cabin in the Woods, Girls Season 2, Total Recall, Zero Dark Thirty, Wreck-It Ralph, The Big Lebowski, Good Will Hunting, The Fountainhead, Guilt Trip, A River Runs Through It, Safety Not Guaranteed, YPF, Scarface, Cloud Atlas, John Carter, Sick & Tired, Hangover 3, The Way, Way Back, Frances Ha, The To Do List, National Lampoon Christmas Vacation
TV Seasons (7)
Parks and Recreation Season 5, The Office Season 9, New Girl Season 2, Modern Family Season 4, Game of Thrones Season 3, The Mindy Project Season 1, Enterprise Season 4
Books (60)
Squirrel seeks Chipmunk, How Music Works, How to Think More About Sex, My Heart Is an Idiot, Seductive Interaction Design, Sacred Hoops, An Unexpected Twist, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, What French Women Know, Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms, My Mother's Bible: A Son Discovers Clues to God, Star Wench, Love Is Not Constantly Wondering If You Are Making the Biggest Mistake of Your Life, Can a Robot be Human?, Rules for Virgins, When I Say No, I Feel Guilty, Life is Elsewhere, The Dude and the Zen Master, Off to Be the Wizard, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bible, You, Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, Intuition Pumps, Higher Than The Hawk, Unmastered: A book on desire, most difficult to tell, Cloud Atlas, You're Not Doing It Right, Half-Life: Reflections from Jerusalem on a Broken Neck, And Baby Makes More, A Cynic's Guide to a Rich and Full Life, Consider Phlebas, Among Murderers: Life after Prison, Very Short Stories: 300 Bite-Size Works of Fiction, Into the Wild, The 7 Secrets of the Prolific, The Spell of the Sensuous, Faith of Cranes, Terrible Nerd, The Old Man and the Sea, Dry, Magical Thinking, Dreamcast Worlds: A Design History, Michrochondria, The Stench of Honolulu: A Tropical Adventure, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, Salmon of Doubt, Quarantine, Hardwiring Happiness, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy, The Art of Loving, Oh Myy, MindSets, Collected Poems (Jack Gilbert), The Relaxation Response, The Art of Lying Down, The FastDiet, Dogfight, A Slow Year, EarthBound
Comics (26)
Tiny Art Director, Kiki de Montparnasse, Beg the Question, Kingdom Come, "Failure"@Boston Phoenix, Harvey Pekar's Cleveland, Wizzywig, Feyman, Habibi, Empire State, I Thought You'd Be Funnier, All Over the World and other stories, James Sturm's America: God, Gold, and Golems, An Elegy for Amelia Johnson, Be a man, Clumsy, Unlikely, Failure, Asterios Polyp, xkcd time, Siverbow's Basin, Mush: Sled Dogs with Issues, xkcd: time, Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me, The Infinite Wait and other stories, Tag and Blink Were Here
Video Games (11)
New Super Mario Bros U, GTA: Vice City, 400 Years, Driver, Gears of War: Judgement, Bioshock Infinite, Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader, Saints Row IV, GTAV, Peggle Nights, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
"'NO NO NO NO' - the guy who invented folding chairs watching a wrestling match"
--http://twitter.com/famouscrab
2015.01.03
Movies at the Cinema (14)
Robocop (Remake), Lego Movie, The Wind Rises, Her, Speed Racer, Godzilla, Chef, Edge of Tomorrow, Snowpiercer, Boyhood, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Book of Life, Anywhere Else, Action Jackson
"Her" was fantastic: romantic, a deftly subtle vision of future fashions and technology, and some deep thoughts about the Singularity. I played "Speed Racer" at my birthday party, "Anywhere Else" was a touching film I saw at the Jewish Film Festival, "Action Jackson" was a fun bit of Bollywood, though my Indian coworkers weren't too impressed.Movies on Video (23)
Broken Flowers, Elf, Iron Sky, Tokyo Godfathers, About Last Night, Backbeat, Run Lola Run, The Way Things Go, 9, Indie Game: The Movie, Nymphomaniac Pt 1, Nymphomaniac Pt 2, Breath of the Gods, Pulp Fiction, Grosse Pointe Blank, Say Anything, The Thieves, Orange is the New Black Season 2, Buried Alive, The Sunset Limited, Wolf of Wall Street, Jim Gaffigan: Mr. Universe, Nick Offerman: American Ham
"Iron Sky" is a crazy good, or maybe just good, Finnish-Australian-German comic book of a film, Nazis on the moon. I love the Beatles story in Backbeat, and the alternate realities of "Run Lola Run"... "The Sunset Limited" was a an intriguing one-set film with Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel Jackson arguing theology. The Nick Offerman special was a great blend of sweet and absolutely filthy.
TV Shows (12)
Life's Too Short, Extras Season 1, Extras Season 2, The Office (UK) Season 1, The Office (UK) Season 2, Sopranos Season 1, Girls Season 3, Parks and Recreation Season 6,New Girl, The Mindy Project, Modern Family, Game of Thrones Season 4, Orange is the New Black Season 1
The first two were Ricky Gervais comedies I liked. Mindy Project and New Girl just make me laugh.
Books (61)
Stuck in the Middle with You, I Wear the Black Hat, A Working Theory of Love, Expanded Universe, Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us , The Uncle Book, Everything That Remains, One More Thing, Breathing Machines - a Memoir of Computers, Desert Days (Meat + Greet), March of the Morons, RESTful Web APIs, Axiomatic, Design Crazy, Luminous, Oceanic, This Is How You Say Goodbye: A Daughter's Memoir, Raising Steam, Flatland, One Summer: America, 1927, Stories of your Life and Others, God is Disappointed in You, The Lifecycle of Software Objects, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate, The Weirdness, NAVMC 2616 Unit Leaders Personal Response Handbook, How About Never--Is Never Good for You?: My Life in Cartoons, We Are Still Married, ZZT, Think Like a Freak, The Word Exchange, Mapping Our Salvationist DNA, Defining the World, Galaga, Will Rogers: Wise and Witty Sayings of the Great American Humorist, Tibetan Peach Pie, Weird Al Yankovic Interviews, If This Isn't Nice, What Is?, Sex from Scratch, Hardcore Zen, Jagged Alliance 2, I Murdered My Library, Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception, Wetlands, A Man Without a Country, Chubster: A Hipster's Guide to Losing Weight While Staying Cool, An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, The Mysterious Stranger, Midpoint and Other Poems, Super Mario Bros 2, Why Does the World Exist?, Mindfulness, How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane, Wishful Drinking, The Two Cultures, Not That Kind of Girl, The Secret History of Star Wars, A Sense of the Mysterious, The Way the World Works, The Meaning of Human Existence, what if?
"Axiomatic" by Greg Egan and "Stories of your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang are two awesome sci-fi short story collections; giant ideas in concise packages. "God is Disappointed in You" is my new favorite Bible translation and "NAVMC 2616 Unit Leaders Personal Response Handbook" is an interesting historical document of the smarter and kinder side of USMC.
Comics (6)
The Beats, Alone Forver, We Are Become Pals, The Adventures of Mrs. Jesus, Andre the Giant: Life and Legend, Tomboy
Bleh, shoulda gone through more of my shelf of "comics to read". "Alone Forever" by Liz Price is just short and sweet (I love the heart candy "AT LEAST U HAVE CATS") "We Are Become Pals" (Comeau/Fink) is a sweet tale for friendship, and doesn't devolve from best friends into girlfriends.
Video Games (14)
Mario Party Advance, Earth Defense Force 2025, Thirty Flights of Loving, EDF 2025: all 3 mission packs, Saints Row the Third, Saints Row IV, How The Saints Save Christmas, 99 Bricks Wizard Academy, Just Cause 2, Idleplex, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Far Cry 3, Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader, Far Cry 4
You know, a too many of these are either games I played before or sequels! I guess some of that was comfort food gaming... I was delighted by the new Earth Defense Force though, and Far Crys are a bit Bro-tastic, but it's nice to have another open world series. One that's probably going to make a buttload of sequels.
Live Shows (2)
Our Town, Spamalot
Finally saw "Our Town", a local theater in Montpelier... hadn't seen it before.
LOL Conservatives. "States' Rights! States' Rights! TOO MUCH STATES' RIGHTS! TOO MUCH STATES' RIGHTS!" (ditto "Personal Liberty")
Calories are so counter intuitive. I'm consistently startled at Panera where pastries easily top the number of calories in their really big salads. Like, this cookie should not have twice the calories of a Snickers. (My standard unit for caloric indulgence)
2016.01.06
This year I added the trick of showing if the total for the category was higher or lower than 2014 year, and by how much. Fewer books than last year which is a bit worrisome, but meh.
As always, 4 star stuff in red, 5 star stuff in red AND bold, gray stuff I didn't like so much.
Movies at the Cinema (10 (-4))
Big Hero Six, Theory of Everything, Whiplash, Ex Machina,
Mad Max: Fury Road, Wild Tales, Minions, Trainwrecks,
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The new "Star Wars" was solid despite me not understanding how time and space now works in that galaxy.
Movies on Video (33 (+10))
The Interview, Bill Burr: I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, Dredd,
Star Trek Into Darkness, Bruno, Jackass Number Two,
Blowin' Smoke, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Get Lamp,
Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Enders Game,
Liberal Arts, happythankyoumoreplease, Hot Tub Time Machine 2,
Judging Your Life, Ted, Road Trip,
The Fall, The Last Unicorn, Wetlands,
Get On Up, Transformers: Age of Extinction, 20 Feet from Stardom,
Moon, Mad Max: Fury Road, Short Bus,
Trainspotting, Kama Sutra, House on Haunted Hill,
The Court Jester, Inception, A Christmas Carol (1938)
"Liberal Arts" had the brilliant quote "You think it's cool to hate things. And it's not. It's boring. Talk about what you love, keep quiet about what you don't."
The James Brown bio "Get On Up" had some truly delectable 4th wall breaking. "Birdman" was a terrific bit of stunt filmmaking.
TV Show Seasons (14 (+2))
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 1, Broad City Season 1, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 2,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 3, Parks and Recreation Season 7, Broad City Season 2,
Girls Season 4, Modern Family Season 6, New Girl Season 4,
The Mindy Project Season 3, Game of Thrones Season 5, Orange is the New Black Season 3,
It's Always Sunny in Philadephia Season 4, Rick and Morty Season 1
"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Broad City" are both darkly brilliant... and "Rick and Morty" keeps going back to that 'alternate reality/timeline' well, but it's such a deep damn well... and man I so miss "Parks and Rec"
Books (46 (-15))
As You Wish, Continue? The Boss Fight Books Anthology, Whatever,
Codename Revolutoin: The Nintendo Wii Platform, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, The Classic-Gaming Bookcast,
Thinking, Fast and Slow, The Housekeeper and the Professor, SMB3: Brick by Brick,
The Science of Discworld, The Globe: The Science of Discworld II, It's Not All About "Me",
Bible Adventures, Becoming Steve Jobs, A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Nonfiction,
How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable about Anything: Yes Anything!, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, After the Fall,
Girl with Curious Hair, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, The Three-Body Problem,
Blue Truth, 30-Second Religion, Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack,
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Maestro Mario, The Festival of Insignificance,
Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls, Baldur's Gate II (Boss Fight Books), The Not Terribly Good Book of Heroic Failures,
Afternoon Men, Metal Gear Solid 2, A Blink of the Screen,
Mindstorms, H is for Hawk, Reinventing the Sacred,
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Invasion of the Space Invaders, Everything That Remains,
The Thinkertoy Computer and other machinations, The Once and Future King, How I Lost 50 Pounds in 6 Months: The Story of My May-November Diet,
How to Talk about Videogames, House of Wigs, The Book of Merlyn,
Shadow of the Colussus
"How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable about Anything: Yes Anything!" is some great self help. "Girl with Curious Hair" made me really miss David Foster Wallace.
"Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls" was an astonishing fantasy about Multiple Personality Disorder. "The Antidote" wasn't brilliant per se but it was one book that covered so many introspective topics I had just found out about the past 5 years so that it got my highest rating.
Comics (9 (+3))
Shrek, Run, Robot, Run, Amazingly Stupid MAD,
Beaucoup Arlo + Janis, The Complete Everything Dies, That Was Awkard,
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol 1, Up and Out, Darth Vader and Friends
"Arlo + Janis" is totally underrated. "The Complete Everything Dies" did a great retelling of so many actually believed creation and apocalypse myths...
Video Games (7 (-7))
Desert Golfing, Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell, To Be or Not To be,
GTA V, Mario Kart Wii, Just Cause 3,
Small Worlds
So few games this year it kind of makes me sad. Still, my heart is with the wide open sandbox franchises... Saints Row, GTA, Just Cause... heh, looking back I guess Far Cry missed being on this list by like a day.
Oh dear. Something called the "Scoop and Scootery" with a sign on the door saying "we deliver sundaes til 2am... yup" is moving in about half a block from me.
2017.01.02
As always, something that I enjoyed and meets expectations is "3 star", something that I really liked is listed in red for 4 stars, potential all-time-favorite material, 5 star, is listed in red and bolded. Stuff in gray was below all that.
Movies at the Cinema (6 (-4))
Star Wars: The Force Awakens,
Spotlight,
Deadpool,
RiffTrax Live: MST3K Reunion,
Ghostbusters: Heed the Call,
Rogue One
The MST3K really made me laugh. More and more I think that should be what I favor in media.
Movies on Video or Streaming (33 (--))
RocknRolla,
Interstellar,
What,
Hannah and her Sisters,
Fish Called Wanda,
Donnie Darko,
Spirited Away,
Chinatown,
8 1/2,
Down Periscope,
Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan,
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,
Mystery Men,
Hail Caesar,
The Graduate,
Captain America: The First Avenger,
Captain America: Civil War,
Captain America: The Winter Soldier,
Face-Off: Gates vs Jobs,
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask ,
Voices of a Distant Star,
Kentucky Fried Movie,
Age of Ultron,
Inside Out,
Streetcar Named Desire,
Absolutely Fabulous,
Star Trek Beyond,
The Martian,
Tropic of Cancer,
The Jerk,
Look Who's Back / Er ist wieder da,
Drumline: A New Beat
Heh, exactly as many videos as in 2015... some of that was catching up on Marvel stuff on the flights to and from Malaysia. No real standouts here.
TV Show Seasons (26 (+12))
Rick and Morty Season 2,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 5,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 6,
Girls Season 5,
Broad City Season 3,
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,
Modern Family Season 7,
New Girl Season 5,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 7,
Extras Season 1,
Extras Season 2,
Game of Thrones Season 6,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 8,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 9,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 10,
Silicon Valley Season 1,
The Expanse Season 1,
Orange is the New Black Season 4,
Silicon Valley Season 2,
Lady Dynamite,
Scrubs Season #1,
Silicon Valley season three,
Scrubs Season #2,
Pulling Season 1,
Pulling Seasons 2,
Black Mirror Season 1
I guess it's not surprising that "Rick + Morty" and "Black Mirror" were the highpoints, both interesting scifi lenses on alternate versions of our own world.
"Scrubs" deserves a special nod given how LONG is seasons were - I watched it while doing a giant scan-o-thon. And you know, Episode 4 of the first season made me weep; it's a goofy comedy but grounded both in real hospital life and in real emotion.
Books (56 (+10))
The Atari Book,
The Enthusiast,
The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture,
Trump Temptations: The Billionaire and the Bellboy,
Dreaming in Code,
Egghead,
The War of Art,
Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One,
Existentialism for Beginners,
When Nietzsche Wept,
Speak,
The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History,
Fear of Flying,
Spelunky,
How I Conquered Your Planet,
The Violet Hour: Great Writers at The End,
Couples,
The Psychology of Romantic Love,
Sleights of Mind,
Constellation Games,
Travels with Epicurus,
is it evil not to be sure?,
Shader,
A Game Design Vocabulary,
World of Warcraft (Bossfight Books),
Dead Presidents,
The Birds,
Still Life with Woodpecker,
Super Mario Brothers 3,
Save the Cat,
Don Quixote,
The End of White Christian America,
Letter to a Christian Nation,
10:04,
Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialog,
The Joy of Leaving Your Shit All Over the Place,
Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales,
Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion,
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,
Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals,
Instructions for Living Someone Else's Life,
Zen in the Art of Archery,
Rules for a Knight,
Kiss Me Like a Stranger ,
The Neurotic’s Guide to Avoiding Enlightenment: How the Left-brain Plays Unending Games of Self-improvement ,
How They Were Found,
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,
Boss Fight Books: Mega Man 3,
The Fermata,
Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates,
How to Save Your Own Life,
The Shephard's Crown,
Aqua and Bondi: The Road to OS X & The Computer That Saved Apple,
The Princess Diarist,
Anthonology,
Four Reincarnations
I'm always wary about how keeping this kind of log (for like 17 years now!) threatens to be "gamification", where I'm doing stuff just to add to the year tally - not the way I want to be. But the dip in "books" in 2015 (which had been down 15 from 2014) was on the back of my mind. Somewhat corrected this year. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" was a reread, and still one of my favorites. "is it evil not to be sure" by Lena Dunham was a great little read - interesting thinking of the parallels with Carrie Fisher's. (You can see a minireview with quotes I made on it. "Fear of Flying" was excellent in general. (Interesting how all of the stuff I rated 5 stars were in the form of first person storytelling.)
Comic / Graphic Novel (9 (--))
Mastermen,
Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus,
Zap Comix 16,
Paying for It,
Anatomy of Melancholy: The Best of A Softer World,
Mauretania,
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol 2: Squirrel You Know It's True,
Frog and Toad (series),
Hyperbole and a Half
Chester Brown's sparsely drawn works ("Mary Wept..." and "Paying for It"), with their thoughts about sexwork, probably stood out the most.
Video Games (1 (-6))
Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell
I guess what's most striking is how little I'm playing. Some of my friends have disdain for video games, and some regret over the time they themselves put into 'em over the years. I don't really - I liked 'em, I like physically interacting with and exploring virtual worlds. But- I guess I don't as much as I used to? Have games changed, or have I? Or is it just a busier schedule? (There's some games I played but didn't finish, like Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, and GTA: San Andreas, both repeats.)
Deacon: I think we drink virgin blood because it sounds cool.
Vladislav: I think of it like this. If you are going to eat a sandwich, you would just enjoy it more if you knew... no one had f***ed it.
--"What We Do in the Shadows", a funny "reality tv" movie about vampires sharing a flat. This quote is such a funny take on that usual "true love waits" line...
Watching the rose bowl parade on ABC. Good lord how I hate those tweets blatted to the screen. Just let us watch the damn bands and floats, please?
While I'm in my cranky old blogger man mode...
FB begging us to make Live a thing. Share the moment. But the examples they show are like, startling events? Big plays at the game etc.
The thing is, if it was a really good time, maybe you were watching the game, without your device up, and then maybe you were taken surprise by a big play? So they're offering to share, like, the moment after the moment? Or encouraging us to go further down the path of devices up for recording/broadcast all the damn time.
2018.01.03
Movies at the Cinema (4 (-2))
Wonder Woman,
The Dark Crystal,
Blade Runner 2049,
The Last Jedi
Always surprised to see how rarely I get to the cinema. Seeing "The Dark Crystal" on one of the last 2 70MM prints was amazing,
hadn't seen it before.
Movies on Video or Streaming (33 (--))
What We Do in the Shadows,
Raise the Red Lantern,
Mistress America,
There Will Be Blood,
Make Happy,
Backbeat,
The Third Man,
Henry and June,
The Commitments,
Dave Chapelle: Age of Spin,
Louis CK 2017,
The Matrix,
Old Baby,
Get Out,
Rory Scovel Tries Standup for the First Time,
Ladyhawke,
Enter the Dragon,
Immigrant,
Whisky Tango Foxtrot,
Quest for Fire,
Bringing Up Baby,
Ghostbusters,
Iron Sky,
Blade Runner,
Baby Driver,
Arrival,
Trolls,
Chappie,
Atomic Blonde,
Dr. Strange,
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2,
The Maltese Falcon,
Stooger Things
"What We Do in the Shadows" and "Baby Driver" are stronger than average 4s, and it was nice seeing some of my all time favorites "Backbeat" and "Henry and June" with Melissa.
TV Show Seasons (10 (-2))
Black Mirror Season 2,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,
Better Off Ted Season 2,
Girls Season 6,
Better Off Ted Season 2,
Drawn Together Season 1,
Difficult People Season 1,
Black Mirror Season 3,
Game of Thrones Season 7,
Rick and Morty Season 3
"Black Mirror" is the real standout here; it's like the twilight zone for our time. Rick and Morty has some greatness too it as well, and for similar reasons.
Books (32 (-24))
Dangerous Visions,
The Alchemist,
This Is It,
Predisposed,
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City,
Norse Mythology,
Front-End Developer Handbook 2017,
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness,
Capek: 4 Plays,
Master and Commander,
Giggling Into the Pillow.,
The Doors of Perception,
Taking Care of Red,
eat pray love,
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids,
Consciousness Explained,
Bull,
Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design,
Priestdaddy,
Kingdom Hearts II,
Soft & Cuddly ,
Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002),
The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death,
Breakout: How Atari 8-bit Computers Defined a Generation,
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry,
Disrupted,
Men Without Women,
Essays After 80,
The Old Soak and Hail and Farwell,
Insanely Great,
Bhagavad Gita,
Quotes Every Man Should Know
Less reading done this year, though I made up for it a little with the new Audiobook section... I reread "Consciousness Explained" - it wasn't as jaw dropping as it was in 2000 or so, but it still gets nod as one of my top 5 ever books... "Bull" is a great retelling of the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth, worth checking out. "Priestdaddy" was excellent as well, and Sedaris' "Theft by Finding" stuck with me.
Audibooks (12 (+12))
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking,
Staring at the Sun,
From Bacteria to Bach: The Evolutions of Minds,
The Righteous Mind,
Nothing to be Frightened Of,
Talking It Over,
Making Money,
Love, Etc,
Malagash,
The Brothers Karamazov (abridged),
Vacationland,
Down and Out in Paris and London
So here's where I made up for my lack of books - and I actually think the format led me to take on some heavier tomes than I might have otherwise.
"Staring at the Sun", with it's tales of therapy and dealing with mortality, really reintroduced me to the "theraputic hour".
I'm going to lead a discussion group on "The Righeous Mind".
Speaking of mortality, "Nothing to Be Frightened Of" and its dealing with the subject keeps it as one of my top 5 books and me fall in love with Julian Barnes' writing, which lead to "Talking It Over" (and its sequel "Love, Etc".
"Malagash" by Joe Comeau, about a precocious coder teen coping with the impending death of her father by trying to write a computer virus that can act as his virtual ghost really stuck home.
Comic / Graphic Novel (10 (+1))
Vision 1: Little Worse Than a Man,
Vision 2: Little Better Than a Beast,
Deadpool Killiistrated,
Deadpool Kills Marvel Universe,
Punisher Kills Marvel Universe,
Misc Star Trek comics,
Mouth Baby,
Boy's Club,
Michael Rosen's Sad Book,
Great Lego Sets: A Visual History
James Harvey's "Mouth Baby" is disturbing and genius and great.
Video Games (9 (+8))
Lady killer in a Bind,
Star Fox Zero,
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves,
GTA: VC,
Ghostbusters (2009),
Super Mario Odyssey,
Desert Golfing,
Mario Party: The Top 100,
Blaster Master Zero
I made a deliberate effort to play more games this year.
It was great showing Smooth Moves to Melissa. Super Mario Odyssey was brilliant- really getting into the physical kinetics of stuff, which is why I play games. Blaster Master Zero was a satisfying retroromp during Christmas break.
Turns out Intel Inside is a threat, not a promise...
2019.01.02
Disappointing stuff in gray, great stuff in red, really great stuff in red and bold. The +- after the number is how it compared to 2017.
Still feels weird to think about how I am sort of gamifying my media consumption - plowing through a book I'm not digging just so I can put in a notch as "done", but hey.
Movies at the Cinema (8 (+4))
Black Panther,
The Princess Bride,
The Avengers: Infinity War,
Deadpool 2,
Ocean's Eight,
Solo: A Star Wars Story,
Bohemian Rhapsody,
Aquaman
Not much to say here, though "Into the Spider-Verse" would probably have been a better bet than Aquaman, which was way too "lets make sure we hit every trope, hard". I guess I tend to go for big spectacle films in the theater.
Movies on Video or Streaming (37 (+4))
Dave Chappelle: Equanimity,
Dave Chapelle: The Bird Revelation,
Sarah Silverman: Speck of Dust,
Thor,
The Avengers,
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,
Slaughterhouse-Five,
Snatch,
Lady Bird,
MST3K: Prince of Space,
Thor: Ragnarok,
Kingsmen: The Secret Service,
Dr. Strange,
Captain America: The First Avenger,
Ant-Man,
Breakfast at Tiffany’s ,
Jupiter Ascending,
Top Gun,
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2,
Blazing Saddles,
The Disaster Artist,
2:22,
The Little Hours,
The Shape of Water,
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels,
Touch of Evil,
Stick It,
Life of Brian,
Pirate Radio,
From Russia with Love,
The Big Lebowski,
Bad Moms,
Seven Samurai,
Apocalypse Now,
Ready Player One,
O Brother Where Art Thou?,
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Looking back, "Dr. Strange" has really stuck with me - the reality warping is similar to "Inception", and the way Dr. Strange wins the final battle is quite striking. "Pirate Radio" would have been better if it hadn't been expurgated. "Bad Moms" had a surprisingly kicking soundtrack. Towards the end of the list, I start getting into films I'm watching because of that "100 Films You Should See" scratch-off poster I bought; I was sort of gratified that I was already 2/3 done when I got it - the ones remaining all seem worthy, though some are challenging.
TV Show Seasons (8 (-2))
Black Mirror Season 4,
Wild Wild Country,
Archer Danger Island (Season 9),
Marching Orders,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 12,
Monty Python Season 1,
Disenchantment,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 13
When "Black Mirror" hits, it really nails it, finding the philosophical implications that good sci-fi has always drawn out.
It's been interesting seeing "Archer" reinvent itself and play with the "characters as tropes/characters" bit.
I was hoping "Marching Orders" would be a bit more like "Drumline" but it was kind of reality TV.
Books (32 (--))
Life, God, and Other Small Topics,
Slaughterhouse Five,
Lagom (not too little, not too much),
Truly Tasteless Jokes,
Letters (Kurt Vonnegut),
100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design,
Pastoralia,
The Orange Girl,
The Compassionate Mind Guide to Overcoming Anxiety,
How to Survive the End of the World (when it's in your own head),
12 Rules for Life: an antidote for chaos ,
Breakfast at Tiffany's,
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine,
In Cold Blood,
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern,
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet,
Yearnings,
A Closed and Common Orbit,
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again),
Of Mules and Men,
My Favorite Shorts,
Callahan's Crosstime Saloon,
Katamari Damacy (Bossfight Books),
Creative Quest,
The Complete Fables (Aesop),
Envisioning Information,
Brief Answers to the Big Questions,
Cherry,
Time's Arrow,
Play Anything,
YT-1300 Milleniim Falcon Owners’ Workshop Manual,
Fire Sermon
Slaughterhouse Five suggestion of what time might be puts it as my second favorite Vonnegut book, behind only the incomparable "Cats Cradle". "The Swerve" introducing me to classical Epicureanism - the idea that maybe seeking personal gentle happiness and pleasure can be a moral good (especially if you have a baseline of 'I'm happier when I act in accordance with solid principles of morality I was taught") might end up being very important to me in the long run.
Bell hooks' "Yearnings" broadened by mind on American racism, and with "My Favorite Shorts" I was glad to discover Spider Robinson.
Martin Amis' "Time's Arrow" exercise in a life felt and observed (but not lived) in reverse, with poetic swaps of cause and effect, was also striking.
Audiobooks (11 (-1))
Watership Down,
So My Dad Wrote a Porno Season 1,
So My Dad Wrote a Porno Season 2,
Consciousness and the Brain,
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,
So My Dad Wrote a Porno Season 3,
The River of Consciousness
So My Dad Wrote a Porno Season 4,
Retronauts,
The Talk Show,
Waking Up with Sam Harris
I guess I moved away from Audiobooks, preferring podcasts
(and deciding to mention the Podcast I consistently listen to).
"So My Dad Wrote a Porno " makes me laugh more than almost anything else I listen to.
Comic / Graphic Novel (9 (-1))
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire,
Star Wars: Dark Force Rising,
Star Wars: The Last Command,
Mooncop,
Step Aside, Pops,
I Never Liked You,
The Hic & Hoc Illustrated Journal of Humor,
Batman: White Knight,
Woman World
Discovered "comics on large iPad" which is kind of pleasant.
Video Games (15 (+6))
Florence,
Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild,
Zelda Breath of the Wild: The Champions' Ballad,
WarioWare Gold,
Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars,
Crackdown,
Monument Valley,
Forgotten Shores,
Ida's Dream,
Picture Cross,
Monument Valley 2,
I'm Ping Pong King,
Just Cause 4,
It Is As If You Were Making Love,
The Farmer's Daughter
It's kind of funny that "Florence", a delightful little poem
of a mobile game, gets the same rating as the new "Zelda", a truly sprawling and amazing epic, but such is gaming life! Ditto replays of games from a few year back, "Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars" Wizard of Wor like handcrafted gaming fun with "Crackdown", a truly stupid and violent yet engaging adolescent empowerment fantasy. Monument Valley is a lovely little IOS puzzle game I finally got to finish, and "I'm Ping Pong King" was a study in the small. "Just Cause 4" should probably be a little higher, since it's assuredly a more fun game than Crackdown, but since it was somewhat inferior to 3, eh.
Olives are the perfect snack for anyone who loves the taste of drowning at sea
Jerry Falwell Jr:
There's two kingdoms. There's the earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom. In the heavenly kingdom the responsibility is to treat others as you'd like to be treated. In the earthly kingdom, the responsibility is to choose leaders who will do what's best for your country. Think about it. Why have Americans been able to do more to help people in need around the world than any other country in history? It's because of free enterprise, freedom, ingenuity, entrepreneurism and wealth. A poor person never gave anyone a job. A poor person never gave anybody charity, not of any real volume. It's just common sense to me.Jesus:
You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!
A Hippo is faster than a human both on land and in water, so the bicycle is your only chance to beat it in triathlon
2020.01.01
Movies at the Cinema (11 (+3))
Into the Spider-Verse,
A Tuba to Cuba,
Muppet Movie Singalong,
The Great Muppet Caper,
Avengers: Endgame,
The Man Who Kill Don Quixote,
Toy Story 4,
Where'd You Go, Bernadette,
Purple,
The Rise of Skywalker,
Little Women
"Into the Spider-Verse" sticks out as being so fantastic and representing the diversity of Spider-Man...
Muppets are sentimental favorites seen at the Brattle... "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" was a nice adaption of
a book I had recently read.
Movies on Video or Streaming (39 (+2))
Coco,
Return of the Jedi,
Bandersnatch,
Empire Strikes Back,
The Godfather,
Big Trouble,
Oldboy,
Roma,
Fyre,
Casablanca,
12 Angry Men,
Won't You Be My Neighbor,
The Big Short,
Nanette,
Rocky,
Drive,
Tron: Legacy,
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,
Vertigo,
Austin Powers,
Brokeback Mountain,
Raging Bull,
The Deer Hunter,
Her,
Airplane!,
Captain Marvel,
Harold and Maude,
Louis C.K. 2017,
Not Nornal,
48 Hrs.,
Rushmore,
Always Be My Baby,
Brick,
John Wick,
Ant-Man and the Wasp,
Step Brothers,
Girls Trip,
Drumline ,
Die Hard
Coco was just visually lovely! Bandersnatch was technically a 5, but I think it was more because
of the gimmick of "choose your own adventure" in video form - but the attention to retro-computer detail
as well as the mediation on free will was appreciated as well. "Drive" stuck with me, of only for that
awesome scorpion jacket. It was cool finally seeing "Harold and Maude" (and the manic pixie dream older woman) and its
probably influence on the book "Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death" and Wes Anderson films in general.
And both "Rushmore" and "Brick" had that cool noir-movie dialog in modern setting vibe.
TV Show Seasons (23 (+15))
One Punch Man,
Broad City Season 4,
Russian Doll,
Workin' Moms,
Catastrophe Season 1,
Catastrophe Season 2,
Catastrophe Season 3,
Love, Death & Robots,
Catastrophe Season 4,
Game of Thrones Season 8,
Black Mirror Season 5,
Silicon Valley Season 4,
Good Omens,
Superstore Season 1,
Tuca and Bertie,
Derry Girls Season 1,
The Office (All Seasons, But Sleeping),
One Punch Man Season 2,
Derry Girls Season 2,
Superstore Season 2,
What We Do in the Shadows Season 1,
Big Mouth,
Superstore Season 3
"One Punch Man" really stands out for the fun anime spectacle. "Catastrophe" was really funny, swinging from disaster
to disaster (not to mention being Carrie Fisher's last cameo) - I'd still put in a plug for looking up "Pulling", also
produced/starring Sharon Hogan. It's a shame "Tuca and Bertie" didn't get a second season- especially the first part
of the series, the energy is fantastic. "Superstore" is proving to be a competent carrier of the old Office/Parks and Rec
energy. "Big Mouth" is both super funny, and also really thoughtful in parts, about what so many of us went through
as we tried to figure things out in adolesence.
Books (30 (-2))
The Beatles Lyrics,
Sapiens,
Love and Limerence,
Luke Skywalker Can't Read and Other Geeky Truths,
The Drama of the Gifted Child,
F*ck Whales,
I, Robot,
I Am Spock,
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,
Sing To It,
WLT:A Radio Romance,
Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life,They Change It,
Elastic: Unlocking Your Brain's Ability to Embrace Change,
Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI,
The Prodigal Tongue,
Married to a Cave Man,
Normal People,
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running Book,
Conversations with Friends,
Conscious: a brief guide to the fundamental mystery of mind,
The World According to Garp,
Station Eleven,
Today Will Be Different,
Tell the Wolves I'm Home,
Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal,
Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought,
Medallion Status,
The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts,
Normal People,
The Yin and Yang of American Culture: A Paradox
At the time "Love and Limerence" seemed incredibly important - just this take on if some people are more or less
prone to head-over-heels'ness -- and maybe just going over how if you're not, you're not necceesarily broken.
Ted Chiang (here represented by "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" will be showing up on my decade best list).
"Normal People" was a "low"-five, but really stirred something in - something about romance amoung the young intelligensia-
not that I was there myself but I recognized accidentally hurting or being hurt by other people.
Audiobooks/Podcast (17 (+6))
House of the Spirits,
getting-started-with-redux,
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Original Radio Series (Seasons 1 and 2),
99% Invisible,
Baby Geniuses,
Beef and Dairy Network,
Everything is Alive,
Hidden Brain,
Judge John Hodgman,
Jump the Snark,
Making Sense,
My Date Wrote a Porno,
Retronauts,
The Allusionist,
The Grandma's Virginity Podcast,
The Talk Show,
Watch Out for Fireballs!
I think this is the year podcasts really started clicking for me. I'll probably most remember
the older "Grandma's Virginity Podcast" made by the inventor of Rick and Morty. Also it was good
coming back to "House of the Spirts" after reading it in college
Comic / Graphic Novel (9 (+-0))
Be Your Own Backing Band,
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness,
James Brown: Black and Proud,
The Midas Flesh,
The Bot Folio,
My Dirty Dumb Eyes,
Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaption,
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery",
DOOM
"My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness" was a fascinating read from cultures I'm not a part of.
"My Dirty Dumb Eyes" by Lisa Hanawalt who made "Tuca and Bertie" was very good. And I think
"Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaption" really made that tragic story come alive.
Video Games (17 (+2))
Minit,
Picture Cross Summer Pack,
Just Cause 3,
Just Cause 3: Mech Land Assault,
Just Cause 3: Sky Fortress,
Just Cause 3: Bavarium Sea Heist,
The Oregon Trail,
Just Cause 3,
Ape Out,
Katamari Damacy ,
Mr. Bullet,
NES Remix 1,
aquapark.io,
Just Causeâ„¢ 4: Los Demonios,
Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader
Archero
I think of all the hobbies I used to pour more time into (maybe because I wasn't playing tuba then)
videogames I sort of miss the most - a lot of nostalgia here including replaying Katamari Damacy and
Rogue Leader (still my favorite Star Wars game - I guess here I didn't list the single VR X-wing misison
on Star Wars Battlefront - not sure if that was worth the cost of admission, frankly.)
"Archero" on iOS I'm still messing with- it's one of the
few grind/ad-laden things I've put up with, but its control mechanic (you are automatically firing
at the nearest enemy all the time, but stop firing when you have to move) is compelling. Probably the biggest
story here was "Just Cause 3" - in particular the DLC "Sky Fortress", which basically makes you a soaring
Iron Man attacking the Helicarrier (but instead of Iron Man's armor you have Wolverine's healing abilities...)
Just Cause is probably the most enjoyably visceral kinetic series I've played
I think this is a pretty good description of why people who don't like Atlas Shrugged don't like Atlas Shrugged. I know some people find that "making things happen via sheer force of will and integrity" inspiring but damn is it a bad book.
2020.01.06
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Mr g: A Novel About the Creation, Alan Lightman. The author of "Einstein's Dreams" returns with this beautiful, sparse short novel that does an amazing job of creating a beautiful creation myth that can be reconciled with both science and morality as we understand it: yes, the god presented in it loves his creation (one try of many of the universes he experimented in making, advised by his Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva and their tie-ins with science and religion) but because of chaos and complexity, despite his omnipotence even He won't know how it turns out until the experiment is run.
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Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang. One my top three favorite sci-fi authors, easily. I read this collection's "Tower of Babylon" in 1990 and it stuck with me since - his signature is to take an outlandish fiction (the Tower of Babylon, human developmental biology as seen by the Victorians, the works of Vonnegut) and richly develop them as the truths they would make, coloring in the sketches of the concepts and making them hefty and real.
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Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson - disclaimer, I acted as kind of a consultant on retro video games for my friend Leonard on this one - but every since, I am legitimately heartbroken that that campy, Marty-Stu-author-self-insertion, 80's-Slather-Bath "Ready Player One" got tons of accolades and made into a huge movie while this one just puttered along - the story of an alien first contact as seen through a burnt-out game developer and blogger who decides to explore the history of this federation by trying the video games they were making when they were at roughly our Nintendo Entertainment System level of technological development - a space that Leonard brilliantly fleshes out as alien and weird while being familiar enough to be comprehensible.
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A Guide To The Good Life. {the ancient art of stoic joy}, William B. Irvine. I read this earlier in the decade, and it was the first book about the various philosophies designed to get people to a state of ataraxia - a state of lucid equanimity and imperturbability.
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The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt. Ostensibly an introduction to the earliest of atomic theories, it also served to open my eyes to the possibilities of Epicureanism - not gastronomic or otherwise sensual self-indulgence, but a wiser path of satisfaction and contentment to pick through this existentially open world, and another way to ataraxia.
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When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel Of Obsession, Irvin D. Yalom. Suggested by my therapist. Obviously Nietzsche sometimes presents ideas that are either wrong or horribly misused, but I am grateful that he set me to thinking in terms of "Tempus Fugit", not just putting up with the fate we find ourselves in but loving it, because there is no other, despite our ability to make ourselves miserable imagining "like the current condition but a bit better please". This book posits an early practitioner of psychotherapy trying to help the genius as he worked through his griefs and also his debilitating migraines.
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The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman - not a five star read by itself but it covered so many other topic ( Irvine stoic, Ellis rationality, Dennett's view of consciousness.... Dweck fixed mindset, mortality in general...) that maybe it could have saved me some time.
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Fear of Flying, Erica Jong-- so relatable, and so distant in terms of time and culture. i just enjoyed reading it (during a vacation in Malaysia) in a way i hadn't enjoyed reading things in a while.
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Normal People, Sally Rooney. A brisk read by a young Irish author, the first time I read it its story of a difficult on-again off-again romance among some young intelligentsia just resonated so deeply with me, with things I'd been a part of or wanted to have been a part of.
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Is it evil not to be sure?, Lena Dunham. Like I wrote at the time (drawing many great little quotes from it) I'm really fond of this genre... young and precocious and observant, mostly in the present tense, and usually romantically longing, so often written to an absent "you".
Other good reads
(in roughly chronological order)
First Half of Decade:
Julian Barnes' Nothing to Be Frightened Of might have snuck in between decades almost - really thoughtful musings on mortality. The Last Policeman - awesome classic noir in a just-per-apocalyptic setting. 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 was covering a tiny computer program from very many angles. Art Spiegelman's MetaMaus is great for anyone who wants an inside look in the craft of comics. David Byrne's How Music Work introduced me to many ideas including how musical forms tend to be shaped by their acoustic environments, the dance hall vs the drawing room. The Advanced Genius Theory gave such a good reason to enjoy things Advancedly not scorn them Overtly... The Spell of the Sensuous explores what we lost when we took on the phonetic alphabet, and how indigenous people weave their environment into their stories. I loved the multitude of styles in the scoff book Cloud Atlas - the movie was decent too, if a bit weirdly "yellowface".
Second Half of the Decade:
Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls was a fascinating psychological study - won't give away spoilers here. Axiomaticwas more sci-fi short stories: I've loved Egan's work ever since "Permutation City", explorations and extrapolations on quantum physics and consciousness and biotech. Bull Was a great sympathetic retelling of the story of the minotaur. Priestdaddy - I could resonate with the tale of being a preacher's kid, albeit not a catholic (!) one, by poet Patricia Lockwood. The Orange Girl - this book has an odd number of parallels with my life, from the late-revealed name of the titular character ("Veronika"), to a boy coping with the early death of his father, to a tendency to write letters for future reading of young people... Time's Arrow was a homonculus who rides along witnessing a Nazi doctor's life but played in reverse.... Love and Limerence taught me a lot about "infatuated love" and maybe not to sweat not feeling it so often, that it might just be a personality-based likelihood...
According to reports assassinating Soleimani was presented as the obviously too extreme throw-away option to make the other options look reasonable. Note to Pentagon officials: do NOT put in a "throw-away option" of using nukes, please.
And drones, man. Remember that Mirror, Mirror episode of Star Trek, where the evil universe Captain Kirk had a viewscreen in his quarters that could just make anyone it displayed stop existing? Drones are kind of like that, a tool that Obama started using (most infamously to kill a 16 year old US Citizen) and now it's in the hands of Trump.
2020.01.07
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Her - really great, low-key Scifi about the future of Siri, with a semi-serious attempt to think about what it might be like for a virtual person. Also I love the speculation on what future fashion might be, how Joaquin Phoenix isn't a nerd-y dweeb, he's a hot dude of his era!
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Mad Max: Fury Road - the intense spectacle of it all, and the bad-ass heroine who always holds her own. Plus a great blend of mostly practical effects with just a dab of CGI.
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I ♥ Huckabees - from the previous decade but new to me, I just love the patter of competing philosophies. "How am I not myself?"
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Inception - the decade kicked off amazingly, the surreal image of the earth being folded into itself - overall this movie really represents an excellent maturation of directors being able to do whatever the hell they want with CGI.
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Doctor Strange - I think the "Inception"-like alternate reality vision of this film made it my favorite Marvel film (just edging out that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse cartoon)
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Gravity - between this film in IMAX and treating myself to one of those zero-G "vomit-comet" flights, I don't feel so bad about not making it up to orbit.
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Black Mirror: Bandersnatch - a beautiful sci-fi musing on free-will, along with some amazing experimentation with letting the audience make choices about the narrative. Technically not even my favorite episode of Black Mirror (The "Eternal Sunshine"-like "Hang the DJ") but still, great, and with a weird attention to UK 80s home computer detail!
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Speed Racer - another from the previous decade, but I rented a small cinema and played it at my 40th Birthday - it's just so vibrant and kinetic
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Perfect Sense - sad and scary and melancholy romantic epidemic horror, I'm sort of afraid to ever watch it again.
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - I'm going to say this is my most favorite of the post-Lucas Star Wars films; doomed but beautiful.
Things are so much smaller and bigger than we can really grasp...
Ooh, and this came up as a recommendation:
the title is a little misleading, it's more a deep dive into the practical FX of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back (and some RotJ)
Isis is a fascist death cult that sought to genocide Shias. The group was an existential threat to the region. Soleimani is viewed as a superhero for leading the fight against the Middle East version of Nazis. That's who Trump assassinated. https://t.co/AEy2lsvj7z
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) January 5, 2020
2020.01.08
- Just Cause Series - especially 3, and especially the "Sky Fortress" DLC that turns you into early, clumsy Iron Man attacking the Helicarrier, except instead of armor you have Wolverine's ridiculous healing ability. But overall, this series has such a beautiful sense of motion and physics - the whole gliding with your "flying squirrel" wingsuit, starting to lose steam, reaching out with a grappling hook then yanking yourself along to get an extra boost... so kinetically poetic.
- Saints Row - especially 4, where they use a Matrix-y world to excuse giving the player crazy superhero abilities, but also 3 that was just a fantastic over-the-top parody of GTA but with better music.
- Grand Theft Auto V - the scale of this game is just amazing, no other game I know does such a good facisimile of a living breathing city but is still fun to drive at break neck speeds or fly a plane around... the 3 protagonist story was hip as well.
- Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild I'm less a fan of fantasy or of games that are about gradual levling up, the whole from chump to champ path, but what a compelling world they made here.
- Super Mario Odyssey Great return to form, and a heavy dose of what I'm into games for - experience new methods of movement and control, which Mario gains with that (kind of creepy if you think about it as posession) hat mechanic...
- Earth Defense Force 2025 - limited and grind-y, but still some of the coolest B-movie material to make it into games, and an awesome buddy game. "Insect Armegeddon" was a fun westernized version as well.
- Blaster Master Zero - such a lovely return to my NES childhood. using your weheeld tank's leap to deftly get to a platform, then switching the other way to cut momentum is a lovely bit of classic game physics.
- Portal 2 - smart and funny puzzle - so well written - and with a great two player mode.
- Redder - really thoughtful indie retro-style exploration game, with just a hint of growing menace.
- iOS games in general: Desert Golfing / I'm Ping Pong King / Archero / ENDI Tank Battle / Tron / Picross / Scribblenauts have all had me spending a bit too much time staring at a tiny screen....
Thinking a little about taboos and sometimes violent reactions to protect that what's considered sacred - pictures of the prophet Mohammed for example, or the N-word from the mouth of anyone not African-American themselves.
On the one hand, there's the obvious free speech issue - how should people whose group doesn't see something as forbidden be compelled to respect the limits laid out by some other group? But I don't think it's too convoluted to view the free speech issue the other way: shouldn't groups have limited authority to declare some taboos that are universally respected, especially ones in the wheelhouse of that group and its history?
The most correct answer is probably not at the absolutes. And this isn't meant to justify, say, the killings at Charlie Hebdo after the Mohammed comics were published - I'm not going down the Onion's "ACLU Defends Nazis' Right To Burn Down ACLU Headquarters" rabbithole, nor expressing a willingness to live in de-secularized society where the restrictions all abide by have an overt Theocratic justification. But the fact remains, even when you steer clear of the taboos, the remaining possibility-space of conversation and thought remains vast.
2020.01.09
2010: F**k You - Cee Lo Green:
(I love the lyric video that I first saw more than the one they finally got to)
Runner-up: Back To Me - Kathleen Edwards
2011: Might Like You Better - Amanda Blank:
Runner-up: Satellite - Lena Meyer-Landrut
2012: Golddust - DJ Fresh
Man, this is one of my favorite videos of all time.
Runners-up:
2012 All The Rowboats - Regina Spektor
2012 1 Thing - Amerie
2013: So Fast, So Maybe - K. Flay
Runner-up: Werkin' Girls - Angel Haze
2014: Safe and Sound - Capital Cities
Runners-up:
Graciously - Chandler Travis Philharmonic
Tightrope (Wondamix) - Janelle Monáe
2015: Feel Right - Mark Ronson
Runner-up: Trouble - Iggy Azalea
2016: Black or White - Dick Brave and the Backbeats
2017 Immigrants (We Get The Job Done) - The Hamilton Mixtape
2018: All This Money - Injury Reserve
Runners-up:
Love You So - Bleu
Touch It- Busta Rhymes
Faith - Ariana Grande / Stevie Wonder
2019: Think (About It) - Lyn Collins
Do you remember the movie "Space Balls" when Mel Brooks' character denies selling the planet's atmosphere, then takes a big huff from a can labeled "Perri-air Salt Free Air"? Supposedly $700 Air Filters "raise a class's test scores by as much as cutting class size by a third." Add that to the idea that maybe Rising CO2 levels might (or might not) be linked to rising obesity levels- even in lab animals on controlled diets... and I really wonder if I should be thinking about better air filters at home. (And then my dentist expressing concern that a relative small sinus cavity might make be prone to snoring, and then how that means my body would is less oxygenated than it should be...) .
Hmmm! None of the science is super-definite on this but it is really getting me thinking.
2020.01.10
Most of the songs here have had a moment of moving me greatly - they catch something in my wistful, melancholy self, a lovely ache that I cherish in life.
2010: Sea of Love - Cat Power
Runner-up: The Girl You Lost to Cocaine - Sia
2011: As It Comes - The Exploding Voids
Runners-up:
Addicted to Love - Florence + The Machine
Knockin - Carolina Chocolate Drops and the Luminescent Orchestrii
(Small shout out to my friend Kjersten who made a mix "Tilkirke" (to church, in Norwegian - Knockin and a bunch of other great songs came from there, and I'm a tough person to make a mix for...)
2012: The District Sleeps Tonight - The Postal Service
Runners-up:
Socrates - The Lisps
Concrete Wall - Zee Avi
2013: Valentine - Fiona Apple
Runners-up:
Needing/Getting - OK Go
Something About You - Cary Brothers (feat. Laura Jansen)
I Need My Girl - The National
2014: Coffee - Sylva Esso
Runner-up: The Writing's on the Wall - OK GO
2015: My Favorite Picture of You - Guy Clarke
Runner-up: How Naked Are We Gonna Get - The Blow
2016: A Cimma - Fanfare Invisible
2017: Make Out - Julia Nunes:
Runner-up: Los Ageless - St. Vincent
2018: Til It's Over - Anderson .Paak
Runner-up: Take on Me (MTV Unplugged) - a-ha
2019: To Turn You On - Nataly Dawn + Ryan Lerman
Runner-up: Curse of the I-5 Corridor - Neko Case
Who cares if the horse is blind? Just keep loading the wagon.
The Boy Who Wears Shorts All Winter. For a very very brief moment way back when, I thought about becoming that, and I don't have a clear idea as to why. (Besides some snip of it being "an attention thing")
2021.01.10
Movies at the Cinema(2 (-9))
WBCN and The American Revolution, Stop Making Sense
So... not too many movies in person in 2020 for obvious reasons. The background of "WBCN and The American Revolution" was cool to see at the Somerville Theater... (The concert film Stop Making Sense was pretty cool as well)
Movies on Video or Streaming(53 (+14))
Booksmart, Fortune Feimster: Sweet & Salty, Hustlers, Brittany Runs a Martathon, Parasite, Logan Lucky, End of Envagelion, Homecoming, End Times Fun, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Astartes, Event Horizon, React for Beginners, Maria Bamford: Weakness is the Brand, The Shawshank Redemption, Sincerely, Boyz N The Hood, Modern Times, Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future, Patton Oswald: I Love Everything, Beyond, UHF, It Happened One Night, Just Mercy, Dave Attell : Captain Miserable, Moonlight, Eric Andre Legalize Everything, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Knives Out, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, Jim Jeffries Intolerant, School of Rock, Dolemite is my Name, Sam Jay: 3 in the Morning, The Beastie Boys Story, Shazam, Rob Schneider: Asian Momma, Mexican Kids, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, The Science of Sleep, What Happened Was, Zach Galifianakis Live at the Purple Onion, The Machinist, Halloween, On The Waterfront, American History X, Lewis Black: Thanks for Risking Your Life, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Oath, Uncle Frank, The Witches of Eastwick, The Great Dictator
Alot of live comedy on Netflix. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" was my social birthday flick, early in quarantine. "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" has stuck with me, and I liked the otherwordliness of "The Science of Sleep".
TV Show Seasons(16 (-7))
Big Mouth Season 2,
Star Trek The Next Generation Season 1, Big Mouth Season 3, Superstore Season 4, Star Trek The Next Generation Season 2, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, LEGO Masters, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 14, What We Do In the Shadows Season 2, Travel Man Season 1, Workaholics, 90 Days The Other Way, The Eric Andre Show, Chapelle Show Season 2, Rick and Morty Season 4, Veep (Random Seasons), Big Mouth Season 4
"Big Mouth" is such an interesting thing - it's hard to tell who it's aimed at - like it's stuff you think teens (and maybe younger) should know, but too raunchy to feel ok with showing them - but the way it personifies things like anxiety and depression is so dead on. It was good going exercising my geekdom with "Neon Genesis Evangelion"
Books(30 (+/- 0))
Checkpoint, The Society of Mind, Getting Over Homer, Exhalation, milk and honey, In Defense of Elitism: Why I'm Better Than You and You are Better Than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book, The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationship, My Digital Generation 2.0, The Complete Cosmicomics, How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, When Einstein Walked With Goedel, Atomic Design, aha! Insight, Existentialism Is a Humanism, Instantiation, aha! Gotcha: Paradoxes to puzzle and delight, Art of Atari, How to Be an Antiracist, Daddy: A Memoir, James Acaster's Classic Scrapes, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, My Tank Is Fight!, Homegoing, Making Sense, Planet Funny: How Comedy Took Over Our Culture, Majora's Mask (Bossfight Books), Dreams from my Father, Garner's Quotations, Such a Fun Age, Home Buying Kit for Dummies
Ted Chiang (of "Exhalation" - I pull quotes from it here) makes such good, thought-provoking sci-fi. A lot of Black literature, thanks in part to a reading group at Belmont UU I joined.
Audiobooks/Podcast(16 (-1))
Poetry Unbound, No Stupid Questions, Retronauts, The Talk Show with John Gruber, Watch Out for Fireballs!, Triple Click, My Brother, My Brother And Me, St Elwick's Neighbourhood Association Newsletter Podcast, Making Sense, The Allusionist, 99% Invisible, The Anthropocene Reviewed, The Argument, Baby Geniuses, Beef and Dairy Network, McGST Podcast
"Poetry Unbound" has seriously moved me at times. And I'm happy to be part of the community that helps with "McGST", a spin off of a small tech blog I've liked for a long while
Comic / Graphic Novel(14 (+5))
Atari Force (1-5), Bucko, Stuck Rubber Baby, The Invisibles Book One, The Invisibles Book Two, The Invisibles Book Three, The Invisibles Book Four, Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street, DC Meets Looney Tunes, Let's All Shut Up and Make Money!, The New Yorker Album of Drawings 1925-1975, WE3, Creating a Champion, The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy
"Stuck Rubber Baby" was an excellent semi-autobiographical piece from the Civil Rights movement in the South, from the point of view of a white man also coming to terms with is homosexuality.
Video Games(12 (-5))
Luigi’s Mansion 3, DOOM: Knee-Deep in the Dead, The Nightfall Incident, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Woebot, What The Golf, Animal Crossing: New Horizons,Minecraft, Star Wars: Squadrons, Star Wars: Squadrons, Red Dead Redemption 2, Saints Row IV
I played "Animal Crossing" at behest of my super niece. In retrospect I'm not sure how I feel about it- charming though. "Red Dead Redemption 2" was seriously moving - took me a while to really groove on its mechanics (a few too many systems for my liking) but it emotionally engaged in a way few games have. "Star Wars: Squadrons" is the game I thought I wanted. Also I think it proved to me that VR helmets just aren't my thing.
2022.01.04
Movies at the Cinema (0 (-2))
Movies on Video or Streaming (49 (-4))
Death to 2020, The Social Dilemna, Clue: Highschool Edition, Rosemary's Baby, Oh Hello On Broadway, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Saving Private Ryan, We're the Millers, Life is Beautiful, The Intouchables, City of God, The Notebook, The Prestige, Run Lola Run, Bad Trip, The Comeback Kid, Kid Gorgeous, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, St. Vincent, Bo Burnham: Inside, Back to the Future, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Summer of Soul, Bottle Rocket, Tenet, Joker, Real Steel, The Big Lebowski, The Suicide Squad, Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone, Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance, Loving Vincent, Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo, Nobody, Hamilton, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, Hocus pocus, Smoke Signals, The Closer, Indie Game: The Movie, , Crisis on Two Earths, , Poltergeist, The Death of Stalin, Vader Immortal Episode 1, The Matrix: Resurrections, Jim Gaffigan: Comedy Monster, Death to 2021, The Animatrix
I finished off a "100 movies you must see"
scratch-off poster, which led me stuff like "Life is Beautiful" and "The Intouchables". Glad to have finally seen "Hamilton", which was more emotionally resonant than I expected. I'm sad to see the new Matrix isn't more highly regarded: while it lacked some of the visual punch of the original trilogy, I thought it made up for it in really fleshing out some of the ideas the earlier movies set up.
TV Show Seasons (11 (-5))
Those Who Can't (random episodes), Pretend It's a City, Party Down Season 1, Party Down Season 2, Love, Death & Robots Season 2, Fleabag Season 1, Fleabag Season 2, Ted Lasso Season 1, Ted Lasso Season 2, Squid Game, Loki Season 1
It's funny what a bigger investment in time tv shows are than movies. Anyway, "Fleabag" was the real standout here - such good dark comedy, with the themes of sex and relationships.
Books (31 (+1))
Why Buddhism is True, Tao Te Ching, Situation Normal, The Water Dancer, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain, The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning, Don Giovanni, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Probably Impossibilities, The Vanishing Half, The Big U, When They Call You a Terrorist, Tuck Everlasting, No One Is Talking About This., Deacon King Kong, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It, The Master and His Emissary, The Body Is Not an Apology, The Decameron Project, Frankenstein, How to Change Your Mind, More Die of Heartbreak, Quiet Pine Trees, God Human Animal Machine, Several People are Typing, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Rationality, Jumpers: A Play, A Carnival of Snackery, Ishmael
Hm. Not sure how I feel about how so much of my reading was for my Science and Spirituality or my Anti-Racism reading group, but to be fair a LOT of my reading time for the year was sunk into "The Master and his Emissary", a book about the two hemispheres of the brain that took me like 5 months. (And rereading Garrison Keillor's short story "Don Giovanni" - I snuck a copy online or check the great audiobook reading.)
Audiobooks/Podcast (10 (-6))
How Did This Get Played,
My Brother My Brother and Me, Retronauts, Daring Fireball, Baby Geniuses, Poetry Unbound, Three Bean Salad, McGST Podcast, The Talk Show with John Gruber, Oh Hello
So podcasts aren't usually "finished" in the way other media are. "How Did This Get Played" is by far and away my favorite this year... I binged the whole backlog, it's just the perfect mix of funny people and video games. Actually it's so good that the time it took to binge it makes me less tolerant of other podcasts.
Comic / Graphic Novel (14 (+/- 0)
Slaughterhouse Five, Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, Bird & Squirrel: All or Nothing, The Secret to Superhuman Strength, Lucy & Andy: Neanderthal, Clumsy: A Novel, Be A Man, The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Unlikely, Any Easy Intimacy, Hell Was Full, No More Shaves, Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide, Tonoharu
Ryan North's graphic novel adaption of "Slaughterhouse Five" is truly first rate. I always love Alison Bechdel and "The Secret to Superhuman Strength" was all about her relationship with exercise and her body. A lot of the other 4-stars are me rereading Jeff Brown, I do love his autobiographical stuff.
Video Games(13 (+1))
Save Them All, GTA V, Bird Alone, Bowser's Fury, Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist,
Golf on Mars,
Warioware: Get It Together, Carrion, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Definitive Edition),
Smashy Road: Wanted 2,
BOTW: The Champions Ballad, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Boy half of these are repeats - I "had" to replay Breath of the Wild to rebuild my character after accidentally losing the save. I guess sometimes I get bummed I don't engage with games the way I used to. Smashy Road: Wanted 2 and Golf on Mars are both great diversions on mobile.
Live Concert
2023.01.03
Movies at the Cinema (2 (+2))
Everything Everywhere All at Once, Star Wars
"Everything Everywhere All at Once" is the obvious stand out here - such a beautiful intensity, a great take on the multiverse "what might have been theme", wistful undertones. (Star Wars was my buddy Elio's birthday party, renting a local cinema)
Movies on Video or Streaming (30 (-19))
Matrix Reloaded, Inside Out, Hercules, Uncut Gems, Pixels, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, It (2017), Long Weekend, Nine Days, Logan, Everything Everwhere All At Once, Walking My Life, Modern Romance, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time, Call Me By Your Name, Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell (live action), End of Evangelion, Sheng Wang: Sweet + Juicy, This is 40, Hocus Pocus 2, Perfectly Stupid, Weird, Little Big Boy, Barbarian, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, It's a Wonderful Heist, The Muppet Christmas Carol, Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Murder Mystery
Wow, big drop in the number of these from 2021!
I loved how the 4th Matrix films wrapped things up, but it lacked the visual scene making of the trilogy.
"Inside Out" is a great introduction to parts-type models of psychology, and "Hercules" was solid as well. "Walking My Life" is a lovely movie I first saw on the way back from Japan, about a man facing his imminent death with grace. Sheng Wang is the Mitch Hedberg for our time, and kudos to "Weird" (the Weird Al biopic for being laugh out loud funny, not just heh funny.)
TV Show Seasons (19 (+8))
Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 15, What We Do on the Shadows Season 3, Space Force, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens Season 2, The Beatles: Get Back, Inventing Anna, Murderville, Dicktown Season 2, Ink Masters Season 3, Righteous Gemstones Season 1, Normal People, Love Death and Robots Season 3, Big Mouth Season 5, Star Wars: Visions, Lego Masters Seasons 2, Ink Master Season 4, Cyberpunk: Edge Runners, Lego Masters Season 3, Conversations with Friends,
Chainsaw Man Season 1
I really love "Normal People" and "Conversations with Friends", the Hulu/BBC joint miniseries of the Sally Rooney novels I've read; sex and talk among the young intelligentsia. "Chainsaw Man" is just a delight of anime excess, and not holding back plot-wise.
Books (37 (+6))
Pharmako AI, Zen of Palm, Genius at Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway, Beautiful World, Where Are You, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Words at the Threshold, Creative Selection, Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon, Permutation City, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Helgoland, How To Hide An Empire, A History of God, Man's Search for Meaning, Basic Training, Ishmael, Another Roadside Attraction, Vaster Than Empires and More Slow, Whore of New York, The Works of His Hands, Cat's Cradle, Braiding Sweetgrass, The Joy Machine, Sick in the Head, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, The Age of AI, Mother Night, Slaughterhouse Five, Sirens of Titan, The Art of Money Getting, Manna, The Phantom Tollbooth, Breakfast of Champions, The Genealogical Adam & Eve, Deadeye Dick, Your Head is a Houseboat, Bluebeard: A Novel
"Gödel, Escher, Bach", "Permutation City" and "Man's Search for Meaning" were all rereads of favorites of mine for the Science and Spirituality group I co-run.
(let me know if you want to join!) "Helgoland" was for the group as well; a great book on quantum stuff, and really jives with my idea that interactions are the defining element of EVERYTHING in the most fundamental way possible.
And on my "read all Vonnegut novels" kick, "Cat's Cradle" has always stood out, though Slaughterhouse Five's vision of time has been in my mind lately, and I was impressed with the maturity and thoughtfulness of Bluebeard.
"Your Head is a Houseboat" is good enough (and well illustrated enough to have been filed under "comic") that it makes me entry, because its coverage of "parts" psychology is probably better than the book I've been thinking about trying to cobble together.
Audiobooks/Podcast (11 (+1))
Imperfect Messenger, The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red
Get Played,
My Brother My Brother And Me,
Retronauts,
Get Anime'd,
The Talk Show,
Baby Geniuses,
Poetry Unbound,
Three Bean Salad,
Articles of Interest: Take Ivy
"Get Played" managed to reinvent itself so it wasn't so torturous for its hosts, and remains head and shoulders the best and funniest premier video game podcast. And listening to its Patreon spinoff "Get Anime'd" cover Neon Genesis Evangelion was great.
Comic / Graphic Novel (2 (-12))
MAD Stocking Stuffer, Slaughterhouse Five
Boy, not much here this year.
Video Games (9 (-4))
The Matrix Awakens, Just Cause 3: Sky Fortress, Just Cause 3: Mech Land Assault, Just Cause 3: Bavarian Sea Heist, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Knotwords, Wordle, Bangai-O, Atari 50
the DLC for Just Cause 3 that turns you into Iron Man but w/ Wolverine's healing powers was worth the replay. Bangai-O was an old Dreamcast favorite- I used my own 2002 walkthough for it
2024.01.03
Movies at the Cinema (5 (+3))
A Fish Called Wanda, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Barbie, Oppenheimer, Clue
The 2 4 stars are 80s classics at birthday parties...
Movies on Video or Streaming (28 (-2))
Swiss Army Man, Glass Onion, Jackass Forever, Baby J, Bio-Dome, Dazed & Confused, The Fault in Our Stars, Cocktail, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Clue, American Beauty, Annihilation, Police Academy, Backbeat, The Naked Gun, Across the Spider-Verse, Interstella 5555, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, The Mummy, The Princess Bride, Assembled: Making of Loki (1+2), The Nice Guys, Pete Holmes: I Am Not for Everyone, Marriage Story, It's a Wonderful Life, 12:01, Monty Pythons's The Life of Brian, The Secret Life of Brian
Backbeat has long been one of my favorite movies - the early Beatles in Hamburg and the love triangle of John Lennon, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Astrid Kirchherr.
TV Show Seasons (18 (-1))
What We Do in the Shadows Season 4, White Lotus Season 1, Rick and Morty Season 1, Derry Girls Season 3, Documental Season 1, Documental Season 2, Documental Season 3, Crashing, The Mandalorian Season 1, Ted Lasso Season 3, Rick and Morty Season 5, FLCL, Rick and Morty Season 6, Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, What We Do in the Shadows Season 5, Loki Season 2, Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Lego Masters Season 4
A lot of animation here. "Crashing" by Phoebe "Fleabag" Waller-Bridge was fun.
Books (35 (-2))
Wisdom for the Way, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories, Galapagos, Answering the Atheists, The Uncontrolling Love of God, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, The Good Life:, The Giver, Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy, Jailbird, Life, The Universe and Everything, Ask Iwata, Starting Small and Making It Big, God Soul Mind Brain, So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish, Player Piano, Young Zaphod Plays It Safe, Mostly Harmless, Why Gender Matters, Timequake, The Fault in Our Stars, The Anthropocene Reviewed, The Brandy of the Damned, The Information, Eifelheim, A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, Available: A Memoir of Heartbreak, Hookups, Love, and Brunch, Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel, Installing Linux on a Dead Badger, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, What I Mean When I Say I'm Autistic, The Aviary, How Pac-Man Eats, The Power of Myth
I finished up my "all Vonnegut" novels kick and a reread of Douglas Adams. Of that, Vonnegut's "Player Piano" really lept out as prescient in a year where ChatGPT and its ilk are poised to reshape many information worker landscapes. "Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories" was some great scifi - "Lena" really did a haunting outline of a future of uploaded workers. "The Fault in Our Stars" was really lovely, precocious teens grappling with way serious issues of mortality and other challenges. "The Brandy of the Damned" was an obscure book with some Dyscordion vibes - a bit of Vonnegut and Tom Robbins and Douglas Adams all in there. "The Power of Myth" was a great intro into thinking about what different religions and cultures have in common and why, and is making me thinking about what stories I do or should tell myself.
Podcast (12 (+1))
2.0, Baby Geniuses, Poetry Unbound, Beef and Dairy Network Podcast, Making Sense, Into the Vertical Blank, Strong Songs, Get Played / Get Anime'd, My Brother My Brother My Brother And Me, Complementary, Retronauts, The Talk Show
"2.0" is the interesting find here, where two brothers riff on how to improve some things that are fine. (Real flights of fancy, plausibility is no stopping point.)
Comic / Graphic Novel (14 (+12))
UK in a Bad Way (Part One), This One Summer, Chainsaw Man (Public Safety Arc) Vol 1-11, Rusty Brown, Rusty Brown, Giraffes on Horseback Salad, Adams Family: The Bodies Issue, Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron, Gender Queer: A Memoir, The Illustrated Happiness Trap, Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds, Chainsaw Man Vol 12, The Guy I Almost Was, In a Bad Way
I had to construct a crude mirror for "The Guy I Almost Was", but the tale of techno-optimism and jobless despair hit home this year.
Video Games (6 (-3))
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass 1, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, Desk Job, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Earth Defense Force 5, WarioWare: Move It!
Tears of the Kingdom's idea of building was just brilliant.