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Media I consumed last year... 4 star in red, 5 star red and bolded...

Media I consumed last year... 4 star in red, 5 star red and bolded...

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My favorite photos from 2021.

I've tried to be more mindful about not letting my "One Second Everyday" video clips interfere too much with my regular photography... so this year I started doing a regular reminder to check my phone for interesting images from the week that I might want to post.


As usual I've noticed a two-axis aspect; images that are striking for me visually, in an abstract or objective way, and images that are more emotionally resonate, with the "best" images hitting high in both. But for my "second best" galleries, I realized I could use that split as an excuse to make two galleries, the first more purely visual:


And the other gallery of more personal ones. (But I guess all of these have a pretty decent visual aspect as well)

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Barista: Would you like to try a cappuccino muffin?
Customer: No, thanks. I don't want to start my appetite yet.

–Starbucks, 45th & Broadway

I saw this probably much closer to when it was posted, like 2014 or so. I think it was posted as something funny, the paradox of avoiding eating to avoid hunger, but I think it's dead-on for me!

Trying to figure out if I should keep up the daily breakfast of banana in a wrap with nutella. Its a nice breakfast treat but I think it just gets me looking for other food in the late morning.

Sometimes understanding the ultimate source of your suffering doesn't, by itself, help very much.

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Feelings are designed to encode judgments about things in our environment.

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The cost of survival of the lineage may be a lifetime of discomfort.

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It is possible to argue that the primary evolutionary function of the self is to be the organ of impression management (rather than, as our folk psychology would have it, a decision-maker).

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Every thought has a propellant, and that propellant is emotional.

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"Reason alone," Hume argued, "can never oppose passion in the direction of the will." Nothing "can oppose or retard the impulse of passion but a contrary impulse."

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There are probably very few perceptions and cognitions in everyday life that do not have a significant affective component, that aren't hot, or in the very least tepid. And perhaps all perceptions contain some affect. We do not just see 'a house': we see 'a handsome house,' 'an ugly house,' or 'a pretentious house.' We do not just read an article on attitude change, on cognitive dissonance, or on herbicides. We read an 'exciting' article on attitude change, an 'important' article on cognitive dissonance, or a 'trivial' article on herbicides. And the same goes for a sunset, a lightning flash, a flower, a dimple, a hangnail, a cockroach, the taste of quinine, Saumur, the color of earth in Umbria, the sound of traffic on 42nd Street, and equally for the sound of a 1000-Hz tone and the sight of the letter Q.

Man, I have really been wondering how most people (myself included but maybe less so than most people) attachment value judgements to EVERYTHING. It's like we're incapable of categorizing anything without assigning ourselves to "I am on team for this" or "I am on team against this".

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It can let you experience your feelings--anger, love, sorrow, joy--with new sensitivity, seeing their texture, even feeling their texture, as never before. And the reason this is possible is that you are, in a sense, not making judgments--that is, you are not mindlessly labeling your feelings as bad or good, not fleeing from them or rushing to embrace them. So you can stay close to them yet not be lost in them; you can pay attention to what they actually feel like. Still, you do this not in order to abandon your rational faculties but rather to engage them: you can now subject your feelings to a kind of reasoned analysis that will let you judiciously decide which ones are good guiding lights.

This is the heart of the book. But despite this, I don't feel particularly drawn to try and start a meditation practice. I might be full of myself, but I think because I am CONSTANTLY applying a sense of "if I don't know the God's Eye View of This" I should withhold judgement -- really living the 'judge not lest ye be judged" I picked up as a kid.

Also I wonder if a mind wandering during meditation gets a bad rap?? Yeah, if it constantly spurs emotional reactions, that's bad, but what's wrong with intellectual play and meandering if you don't end up getting buffeted by emotions from it?

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Einstein became famous by asking a similar question in the realm of physics. He acknowledged that our intuitions about the physical world--about how fast objects move, for example--work fine for the purpose of steering each of us through that world. After all, for practical purposes, what matters is how fast things are moving in *relation to us.* But, he said, if you want a deeper understanding of physics, you need to detach yourself from your particular perspective--from any particular perspective--and ask: Suppose I occupied no vantage point? Since I wouldn't be able to ask how fast things are moving relative to me, what exactly would it mean to ask how fast things are moving? Questions like this led him to the theory of relativity and the realization that E=mc2.

I do wonder if Einstein's thought has a meaningful parallel to my current idea of the impossible "God's Eye View" - not a particular perspective, but every perspective, or no perspective (or is every perspective and no perspective as opposite as they sound?)

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Yesterday I hung out with Cora and her Mama C in their backyard - we picked out faces etc in the clouds, which were amazingly turbulent. This video is a time lapse, so it's a bit exaggerated, but even without the speed up it was fascinating seeing the edges of the clouds curl back in on themselves... (top of my head peeks in at around :03)

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Astounding audio of Trump trying to pressure Georgia Secretary of State into "finding" 11,780 votes.

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To know and to serve God, of course, is why we're here, a clear truth that, like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernable but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard. But a little faith will see you through. What else will do except faith in such cynical, corrupt time? When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word. Time to shut up and be beautiful and wait for the morning. Yahooism, when in power, is deaf, and neither satire nor the Gospel will stay its brutal hand, but hang on, another chapter follows. Our brave hopes for changing the world all sank within view of their home port, and we become the very people we used to make fun of, the old and hesitant, but never mind, that's not the whole story either. So, hang on. What keeps our faith cheerful is the extreme persistence of gentleness and humor. Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that the faith rules through ordinary things; through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music and book, raising kids- all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in times of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. Lacking any other purposes in life, it would be good enough for their sake.

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and the whole year one second per day:
4-star in red.

• Take Your Mama (Radio Edit) (Scissor Sisters) Like with "The Killers" I'm kind of amazed at how this 2010 song sounds like a different era - in this case a lot of George Michael (for the guitar intro) and Elton John (vocals)
• HUMBLE. (Kendrick Lamar) Like the last one ran into this at a pub jukebox... like the sound, less crazy about the chorus.
• Schüttel deinen Speck (Peter Fox) Super fun dance hall stuff, forget what soundtrack it's from - very hard to track down, I had to have a German friend buy me the mp3.
• Blank Frank (2004 Remaster) (Brian Eno) For a long time Bill the Splut's comments page has been titled "Blank Frank is the Siren, He's the Air-raid, He's the Crater" which is a hell of a lyric.
• Bella Ciao (Marc Ribot & Tom Waits) Honk bands play this song, but I think sometimes we don't take it seriously enough.
• come out and play (Billie Eilish) Apple ads have some of the finest musical selections
• You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby (Megan Lynch) From a great collection of covers "Songs The Brothers Warner Taught Me" - pieces Lynch was introduced to via the cartoons.
• The Latin Quarter (Megan Lynch) For some reason a few years ago I started singing this but with the lyrics "Come along with me / We'll go to gay Pa-ree / Which is why I perspire when we polka / Come on and take a chance / Don't wait for circumstance! / Which is why I perspire when we polka!"
• Viva Las Vegas (Elvis Presley & The Jordanaires) I had Shawn Colvin's cover but never the original - great energy.
• Baby It's Me (Diana Ross) Random youtube recommendation was Raquel Welch dancing to this on the Muppet Show...
• Someone Just Like You (Beni) Found this when I was searching for the previous song artist - turns out the video has been mislabeled. Kind of neat dance hall stuff.
• Hard Time Killing Floor Blues (Chris Thomas King) Rewatched "O Brother Where Are Thou" - realized I had been too miserly with what songs I had ripped from my CD of the soundtrack
• O Death (Ralph Stanley) In "O Brother Where Art Thou" it's kind of of weird that they put such a deep song into the mouth of the KKK leader / politician.
• I'll Fly Away (Gillian Welch & Alison Krauss) Finally from "O Brother" -- I think it caught my eye because some Honk bands play it.
• Baby, It's Cold Outside (Four Point Restraints) I think in general I am of the "the singers are collaborating to get to what they both what despite social conventions" explanation for this song, but this minor-key interpretation is a bit darker than that...
• Another One Bites the Dust (Queen) Another catch-up after watching the biopic.
• Memphis Mail (Scott Dunbar) Not sure where I ran into this bit, still some slapping folk music.
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (feat. Billy F Gibbons) (William Shatner) Shat keeps the spoken word cover genre alive.
• Snoopy's Christmas (The Royal Guardsmen) I grew up with this on a album single.
• I Am Santa Claus (Bob Rivers & Twisted Radio) Parody Holiday song... kind of a staple of 80s/90s morning zoo radio, I think.

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"Coco" is a really fun Día de Muertos film. Always remember: hide in the tuba. My annual Media Wrapup, mostly all the media I consumed fully during the year. Disappointing stuff in grey, Stuff that met expectations in black, really good stuff in red, really great stuff in red and bold. (Each category name has the count and then how the count differed from the year before.)

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Turns out Intel Inside is a threat, not a promise... Respectable month for new music. 4 or 5 star songs in red.

• Marching Band Medley (Drumline Soundtrack) I had this song but lost it in the Apple Radio Crapfest; putting it at 5 stars which is a bit high but I really like marching band music horns and drums, especially mixing it up with hiphop. (Incidentally, "Drumline: A New Beat" was a made for TV movie I watched that, unsurprisingly, wasn't great.)
• I Told Y'all [Explicit] (Petey Pablo) I finally looked up the hiphop song in the middle of the Drumline Medley, it's this, and I think it stands on its own...
• Why Can't We Be Friends? (War) From 1975, this song sounds way ahead of its time.
• Wind Your Neck In (Lily Allen) I like how Lily Allen uses UK vernacular (like a dinner proposal to "get a chinese"). Also nice clean drums.
• The Blue Danube (Spike Jones & His City Slickers) Novelty Song. My Mom and Aunt confirm from their recent trip that inspired me to find this - as the song says, the Danube is in fact not blue but green.
• Time After Time (feat. Sarah McLachlan) (Cyndi Lauper) Interesting duet, how their vocal styles contrast.
• Everyday (Single) (Buddy Holly) Someone posted that you can google this song via the query "buddy holly song that sounds like a dude jacking it"
• Sippin Cider Through a Straw (Susie Tallman) A Piers Anthony novel mentioned this campfire song that was new to me. (I swear in finding this I heard a raunchy parody of it that I haven't been able to locate since.)
• Everyday People (Sly & The Family Stone) A new addition to the Porch-i-Oke/Protest-i-Oke set. And so on, and so on, and scooby dooby doo.
• Sweet Georgia Brown (Teddy Riley Remix) (Brother Bones) Melissa kind of hates the "All Around the World!" shout but its grown on me.
• Hot Knife (Fiona Apple) Intriguing multilayering in this song.
• Blue Funk (Blue Mitchell) Heard this guy at Marie's soup party...
• Did I Shave My Legs for This? (Deana Carter) Melissa mentioned this song. But she points out that it's a little odd it's "you want me to go back to school", you think the problem might be tuition money.
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (The Temptations) Heard this at the supermarket, bought a cheap "Motown does Christmas" compilation for it.
• Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (Jackson 5) From that compilation

On my devblog Thoughts on a good presentation by Maciej Ceglowski

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Also remember: anything is a napkin if you try hard enough, all right? It'll come to you. When you need it.

Brilliant series of Bellassai downing a giant glass of wine and then pontificating brilliantly at his desk at work.

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Wanted to include my "Just December" One Second Everyday - I loved the giant Climate rally on the 12th, and the final (for now) candle for me and UU Covenant Groups on the 15th... plus seeing my comic on the counter at Million Year Picnic on the next day...the squirrel on the 18th was pretty cool as well. And the year ended with a Jersey Shore Party... guess you had to be there!
The media I consumed in 2014... It's kind of weird how consistent most of the numbers are year after year, though I watched fewer videos this year. Anyway, 4 star stuff in red, stuff in red and bold are "5 star all time favorites". Gray Stuff I wish I hadn't seen.

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LOL Conservatives. "States' Rights! States' Rights! TOO MUCH STATES' RIGHTS! TOO MUCH STATES' RIGHTS!" (ditto "Personal Liberty")

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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) Ancient Greek's 6 Words for Love -- I often still feel weird about use of the word "love" for all sorts of different types of feelings and relationships. Funny that the language of Shakespeare does such a rough job of it.

One night the following winter, the old Dodge van broke down on the freeway near my house, and as I waited for a tow and the bitter cold edged in, I started playing that game I play when I'm feeling lonely, the one where I review all of my prior relationships, marveling that so many sweet, smart, pretty girls have come into my life and that I've found a way to fuck things up with every one of them. This game usually ends with me calling two or three of my exes and leaving miserable voice mails on their cell phones or their machines at home. Inevitably, one of their new beaus calls back to say, "Hey, man, I heard your message. Emilie's down in Chile for two weeks, but you sounded really down ... I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right."

Thanks to work I'm upgrading my iPad to a 2. But I'll miss the stickers on the old guy:

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The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.

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Don't be both Homer and Odysseus--at least not at the same time.

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When you make a mistake on the trumpet, make it a big one.

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The Rise and Rise of Javascript; I need to get into node.js and underscore.js looks intriguing...

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http://kirkdev.blogspot.com/2011/12/osx-vs-windows-redux.html -- UI dev ramble on Win vs OSX modifier keys, fun fun fun!

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There's some luck in every good thing that you earn. Gratitude can't be optional.

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The iPad has super shitty, well nigh non-existent, bulk image select for deleting, nor anything in solution. #applefail #gimmethe4gigsback

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To this day it makes me sad that Outlook thinks a copy and pasted URL should carry font information too. (and why Times New Roman? The browser displayed it in something sans-serif, the default font for my message is Arial...)

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Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk - real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.

How I spent the first day of a new decade with EB's bunch and Amber:

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Interesting conversation with Amber, brought Daoism into idea of coping with seasons; probably of the dao to adapt your life to slower pace of dark winter, but a mistake to let it dominate your life and totally hibernate.

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I love lime and lemon juice in those plastic containers shaped like the fruit; if, say, they were only available in Japan, I would've bought dozens of them. So, lately I've been digging Britney Spear's new song Circus. And now I know why...

Here is the title screen to my original Atari 2600 game JoustPong:


And here is an excerpt from Circus, around 1:18 in...


COINCIDENCE??? I THINK SO!

Considering the inspiration for the JoustPong theme was a cross between a badly tuned toy ukulele and half-memories of what Super Mario Brothers 3 sounds like when paused (actually I think the riff is chromatic), I probably don't have too much of a case here.

Actually, other people can here the similarity, right?

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rstevens It might be worthwhile comparing and contrasting the scientific controversy behind "polywater". It is so cold out there. Reminded me of ducking my head into the supermarket open-topped freezers as a kid to inhale that rich ozone-y smell.

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Video of the Moment

--Paper Airplane over NYC. Beautiful.

The classic paper airplane design is so elegant. I'm not sure if it's the ultimate flier but it has such great lines...

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Livestock of a Past Moment
Boingboing linked to a 1934 Modern Mechanix article on Farming Frogs for Food and Profit. (I think they had a lot of odd money making scheme articles during the depression. But I wonder, what makes it seem like such a non-starter now? Is it just an aversion to eating a meat that's not mammal, fish, or bird? Or is it the legacy of the Muppet Movie, Doc Hopper and Kermit's line about all those little frugs on tiny crutches...?

Quotes of the Moment

Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "Hmmm, that's funny ..."

Innovation is hard to schedule.

UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.

Money Meme of the Moment
So some more-clever-than-me guy figured out a ridiculous way to get a million bucks from the Internet... he's selling advertising space at a buck a pixel, in 10x10 lots. The idea is so attracting enough attention that it's a good deal for him (obviously) as well as the people buying spaces, at least for now. In fact, on a (expensive) whim I bought two locations, one for kisrael.com and one for loveblender. Go to The Million Dollar Homepage, look for the dollar sign on an orange background near the bottom left corner... I put the heart there, and my portrait underneath.

The funny thing is, it's working a bit, I'm probably get 1.5 to 2 times the normal number of unique visitors on this site.

I think I bought in both with some weird voodoo that maybe I'll come up with something remotely as profitably clever, and also because working with 10x10 pixels was such an interesting challenge. It reminded me strongly of good ol' pixeltime.

Of course, the really sad thing is all the people trying to set up slight variations on the theme. "Page 2" is a prominent link above where I set up, and is trying to just do more of the same at 90 cents a block. I've seen one aimed at women, one that allowed animated GIFs (what a nightmare) and one metasite that lets you setup your own service. (Actually, something similar might not be a bad fundraiser if done correctly, a kind of shared graffiti wall, maybe with bigger squares and a built-in editor.)

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Oddness of the Moment
At Harvard Square I saw some bumpersticker graffiti for Lick My Jesus, a very odd comics-from-pictures-of-ourselves-with-speech-balloons kind of site.

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Historical Footnote of the Moment
Wow. The web is letting me down....last night I caught some of a documentary about Operation Archery, an early British Commando/combined forces action against Germans in Norway. They mentioned that one part of the assault was led by "Mad" Jack Churchill (no relation to Winston, though some places claim otherwise)... they say he was quite the character, leading he charge in kilt, with a claymore sword, and maybe even bagpipes, but the web really doesn't have much to say about him.

Quote of the Moment

There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.

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Rude Awakening of the Moment
So I'm finally almost done with this book Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs At The Turn of the Millennium. Put out by the now sadly defunct site Word.com, it's a terrific read; all these people in different careers talking about what they do, and how. (And I have been working on this book for a long while; I think it was my "occasional" reading all the way back at my dotcom Event Zero...) Today I read the essay "Nurse", and it shattered some illusions I had about the work. Ever since my dad got his RN degree thinking he might have a job change I've had this thought "gee, if all else fails, maybe I can go to school and do that". But according to this essay, the "nursing shortage" is a bit of a myth...heh, it osunds like it's not a lack of qualified workers but a lack of HMOs and other groups wanting to shell out for enough staff. And I knew it was grueling work, but man, it sounds like in this day and age of managed costs it has gotten really, really bad. Sigh. Always a little disconcerting when your Plan...well, not Plan B, more like G or H, falls though, even if you hope you'd never need it.

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Second Rude Awakening of the Moment
As far as I can tell, this isn't particularly worrisome for my current position, but the "75% of time" project I was on was canned in lieu of a different, more limited approach. Which in many ways I'm fine with; the project looked like it was biting off more than it could chew anyway, and there seems to be a lot of work here and I've acquired a lot of specific knowledge. But one thing I've learned is when other people on a project seem really lackadaisical about getting things done, watch out: either they're slackers, or they know something you don't.

• 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.

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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
Recently, I've realized that I tend to think of being able to see the grass and dirt and everything as nature's 'natural' condition, and things being covered with snow as something wrong...almost like a wound. And I'm getting the feeling that this is going to be one of those winters where that wound never quite heals...just as it seems to be getting a bit beter, bam, another storm comes along and dumps a few more inches.

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Article of the Moment
My Life as a Nontraditional Ticket Reallocation Specialist. "Do not -- repeat, do not -- call me a scalper." Seems like a pretty good deal for all involved, actually. Link of the Moment
Ranjit pointed out a new service of Google: catalogs.google.com. Unlike their brilliant Usenet and image searches, this one seems pretty sketchy. If you do a search, say for "sewing machine", the results are in the form of catalog cover, page from the catalog, then a graphical close up of where the search words appear, with the words highlighted...in other words, the system is entirely based in scanned in versions of the mail-order catalog, unlike most online catalogs, which are product and database driven. Google's idea is all too freaky retro-future for me, like what some C=64 using computer geekling in 1985 would think the future of online shopping would look like.

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Interview Response of the Moment

Q: So what would an intelligent car be like, for example?
A: Well, there may never be such a thing . But we used to have intelligent cars; they were called horses. And they used to know stuff that our cars don't know. They used to know where they lived and how to get home and how not to knock over people. Even how to refuel themselves. The amazing thing was that they could even make new cars. The intelligent car would be like a horse. Something that really enjoyed a good drive and prided itself on not knocking people down.

One of these things is not like the other... This is the stairmaster Mo and I have in our apartment. Mo and I decided it was worth the money to invest in our health, she knew it was an exercise she would faithfully do, and I've followed suit. It is a pinnacle of modern exercise equipment, precision engineering, with electronic programs so that it can be precisely adjusted to our precise workout needs. It cost over $2000. This is the watercup I use when I'm on the stairmaster. It's made of not particularly durable plastic, its lid is now cracked and it still has its original straw. It was free with a value meal at taco bell.

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Quote of the Moment:

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.