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Somewhere along the line, I became a fervent reader. I think I started to boil over in junior high, which is, let's admit, a very stressful and complicated time in everyone's development. I spent (literally) one year reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and I forced myself through the other two LOTR books as well. I was stuck with that distorted mindset that told me I had to finish everything I started reading.

The summer between 7th and 8th grade I plowed through around 15 of the Xanth books, one of Piers Anthony's fantasy series. The series was a delicious mix of Greco-Roman mythology, good old-fashioned magic/wizardry, puns (lots of puns), and strong emotions and young love affairs and I devoured those books. I had had my fill after about a year, though, and years later when I tried to re-read one of the books, I just cringed. (I still have 'em, though.)

There was also a notable C.S. Lewis and Isaac Asimov phase during this time. But, unfortunately, none of these authors and books will make my favorites list, simply because I haven't revisited them and I don't know whether they were just a product of that phase of my life. I'm not a big re-reader (for whatever reason), but I'd like to try to be one.

So, here is a list of the books I had most fun reading.

Fiction

Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov

Catch-22
Joseph Heller

Something Happened
Joseph Heller

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Hunter S. Thompson

The Ogre (Le Roi des aulnes)
Michel Tournier

The Mezzanine
Nicholson Baker

The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
Bill Watterson

Nonfiction

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain

Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
David Foster Wallace

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers

Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself
David Lipsky — An extended interview with David Foster Wallace

Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson
Corey Seymour & Jann Wenner — Interviews with HST's friends

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I'm kind of snooty when it comes to movies. It's just something about what people enjoy watching that I think says a lot about them. But, then again, it's hard to pin down what it is. Because a movie can be liked for various reasons. I may like 300 for the art and fantasy achieved, but others may like it because it's brutal and badass or whatever. I try not to fool myself — yes, that machismo appeals to me on a level, too — but I try to hold movies to a high standard too.

My favorite movie, The Big Lebowski, is a cult classic. I love it because of its endless replay value and endless quoting value. It's also kind of just like life. There seems to be a story there, and you go along with it for a while, and then some new people are introduced, and you forgot where you were headed in the first place. There are morals, yes. And there are rules. But only when it comes to certain things. (Bowling, for instance.) Anyway, that's all I got for now.

. . . Oh, wait. No, I've got something else. Like my favorite books, some of my favorite movies I've replayed a lot. Others, I've only seen a couple times. Some of these are too much of a downer to watch on a regular basis, but I enjoyed them, so I'll list them here.

The Big Lebowski

Wall-E

Grosse Pointe Blank

Rushmore

Kill Bill

I <3 Huckabees

Lost In Translation

Let the Right One In

Adaptation

Hot Fuzz

Moon

Broken Flowers

Everything Is Illuminated

Shaun of the Dead

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

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"We didn't order chicken,
Not a problem we'll pick it out
I doubt they meant to mess us about
After all we're all adults not louts."

—The Streets, "The Irony of it All"

I'm really not a picky eater. I just simply don't enjoy seafood. I'm not sure if there's any reason for that. Anything else is pretty much okay with me.

Jessica has impacted my eating habits a lot. Growing up, I didn't think about what I was eating. In college, I didn't really think about what I was eating. Man, college was great. My friends and I'd go out to restaurants, and eat junk food, and everything. I didn't gain the notorious Freshmen 15, but I did put on about 20 pounds in my junior year, when alcohol was added to the mix. I was never a heavy drinker, but those are just empty calories.

When Jessica and I started living together after college, I started becoming more aware of what I was eating. I realized that I usually ate entirely too much. Now, I try not to eat at restaurants so much, and if I do, I make an effort to save half the meal for later. Because most restaurant dishes have too big of portions. Really.

So now I'm down to lighter things, and Jessica is cooking dinners most of the time. We'll hit some soups, work with quinoa, use tofu products. We picked up a vegetarian cookbook, and we're making a different recipe a week now. It's great.

I don't really have a lot of foods I can list here. I like Thai food. I like Indian food. I like hummus. I still like pizza, but I like substituting naan bread, pitas, or some other lighter thing for the usual crust and I like using fresh ingredients.

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I wrote about music in general on my Music page, so I'll just list some things here.

Spoon can do no wrong.

Radiohead can do no wrong.

Wilco (esp. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)

The National (esp. Boxer)

Neutral Milk Hotel (esp. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea)

The Hold Steady (esp. Separation Sunday)

The Smiths (esp. The Queen Is Dead)

Morrissey (esp. Bona Drag)

The Clash (esp. London Calling)

Joe Strummer / Mescaleroes (esp. Global a Go-Go)

Led Zeppelin

Kanye West (esp. College Dropout)

Jay-Z (esp. The Blueprint III)

Biggie Smalls

Lightning Bolt

Weezer (Weezer (1994) & Pinkerton only)

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Due to my desk job, I spend more than 40 hours a week online. It's sort of a love/hate thing, and I don't really follow any websites very religiously.

Information

Google
It's all you need, really. There are a lot of related services that I'd recommend if you don't know about them: Google Mail, Google News, Google Books, Google Reader, Google Chrome. All fantastic.

Wikipedia
Truly amazing.

IMDB
The Internet Movie Database.

Allmusic
Comprehensive, albeit kinda clunky.

Humor

Homestar Runner
A favorite in college, but I don't really check it anymore. Note the lack of advertising on the site — they make all their money from merchandise.

Dinosaur Comics
A great idea for a comic. Pretty funny (and thought-provoking), too!

The Parking Lot Is Full
A very zany, very un-PC comic.

i can has cheez burger
I once read about the history/origins of Lolcats. Consequently, I found the LOLCat Bible. Ahh, the Internet.

Information & Humor

The Internet is full of news outlets, filters, digests, aggregators... the gatekeepers that point us towards the important stuff. There are a lot of places to go. Here are some.

PopURLs | Fark | Boingboing | Reddit | Digg | Dvice
HuffPo | Videogum | A&L Daily | Jezebel | Wired

Of course, you can make your own personalized news feeds by signing up for Twitter and following your favorite Internet entities. Or you can give Google Reader a shot — it allows you to grab updates from your favorite websites and read them all in one place.

If you want to check out what I've been looking at recently, see my Updates page.

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