the list of 10

Some stuff I'm chewing on/enjoying lately (while pretending I haven't posted anything in almost six months):

1. Zunafish. Great little site I read about in the New York Times. Essentially a 21st century trading post, you can swap books, CDs, DVDs, and games with other members. All trades are one to one, meaning any CD can be exchanged for any other. There's no cash trading hands, except for the one dollar transaction fee which goes to the website for each trade. The biggest catch: if you want something that's hot, you better have something equally in demand to trade!

2. Yahoo Music/Launchcast. I'm totally addicted. You rate artists, songs, albums, etc., and the big Yahoo jukebox in the sky plays songs based on what you like and what you don't. Like having a friend with an endless collection of music and who knows exactly what you like. Which is kinda like my friend Tony, aka Uncle Fester (see www.fastnbulbous.com). Except Launchcast won't laugh at me when I admit my weakness for Duran Duran. :-)

Thing about Launchcast is, it's not compatible with Apple/Mac OS X. iTunes is great for buying music, but let's face it, Apple, your selection of radio stations sucks. Can't even hold a candle to Yahoo Music's site. Either catch up, or someone please twist Yahoo's arm so us poor Apple users can enjoy the benefits of their great site.

3. E3/Sony PS3 launch. Could care less. Still trying to catch up with games like Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Guitar Hero for PS2. I'm seriously considering picking up a used Xbox, however, so I can be the last person on the planet to play Halo.

4. Google Earth. I'm totally addicted to this cool little app. Think of Mapquest combined with satellite imagery of the entire world. Amazing. I looked up the hotel I stayed at in Glacier National Park last summer, and it popped right up, right down to the little cars in the parking lot. Ah, memories!

5. Tombstone (the movie). I rented this 'cuz I'm in a Western mood. Not too impressed - I thought the dialogue was rather clunky, and the storyline was predictable and full of cliches. On the plus side, Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday was great, and I rather enjoyed spotting such unlikely actors as Jason Priestly and Thomas Hayden Church in cowboy getup. Looking forward to Wyatt Earp and Maverick next. Best of all, the second season of Deadwood comes out on DVD next week!

6. NewsRadio. I love this show. Been watching seasons one and two on DVD from Netflix, and I think it's held up remarkably well since it was on the air ten years ago. The cast is uniformly solid. It's probably not a fair comparison, but I've seen a few episodes of The Office (UK version), and I think NewsRadio does the office humor bit so much better. But that's just me.

I still mourn the loss of Phil Hartman, one of the funniest men I've ever seen. It's creepy, though, that the theme of his death runs as a side-story in several early episodes, and his character is borderline-paranoid that random people are out to kill him. Phil, you are missed.

7. Mission Impossible 3. Loved it. One reviewer trashed it because she couldn't separate Tom Cruise the actor from Tom Cruise the scientologist, couch-jumping, Brooke Shields-bashing guy. I don't have that problem. Thought the movie was terrific in terms of sheer popcorn action escapism, and the helicopter/bridge scene is bound to go down as a classic (although that particular setup is starting to get a little cliche - haven't we seen it before in Matrix 2 and Alias?) And yes, everyone is right: Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the best bad guy I've seen in long, long time.

8. United 93. Loved it, for exactly the opposite reason as MI3 (I refuse to put in those ridiculous colons - stupid, people!). Harrowing, of course. My heart was beating like a madman for almost the entire film - it's strangely a relief when the terrorists finally hijack the plane. The end left me in tears. It took me a while to figure out what exactly I found compelling. But here's one thing: although it's largely speculative, the movie defines, for me at least, what heroism really is. I don't care that much of what happens in the film is surmised. I don't care whether the passengers indeed managed to break into the cockpit or not. What matters, to me, is the fact that this plane never reached its intended target, and that is due to the passengers who decided to make a stand, knowing full well that they would not live. Those, my friends, are heroes.

The movie also represents what seems like a new genre. It's not a documentary, but it's based on actual events. Not just based on events: it's been pointed out ad nauseum that the director went to great lengths to be as accurate as possible in recreating the event. He cast people who resembled the actual passengers, and dug up the cell phone transcripts so the conversations were identical to what actually was spoken that day. So the movie tries, as closely as possible, to recreate what happened on 9/11. But it's not a documentary in the sense that there is no attempt to try and explain or understand or put into context what happened. In that sense, the movie still hews to the oldest of art forms: a story. But herein lies the second irony: the movie tells a story without two central components: there are no central characters, and there is no resolution. So, you see, the movie falls into a grey area. And that is the other reason, I suppose, I appreciated it. I guess you have to see it to understand what I mean. But it's not for everyone, needless to say.

9. A cool site for those of you interested in preserving parts of this country's history/heritage/memory: 11 of the most endangered historic sites:

http://www.nationaltrust.org/11Most/

Note that Fort Snelling in St. Paul, and the lone stairwell of the World Trade Center are two of the sites.

10. Metacritic. Another one of my favorite, nay, essential! websites. As its title implies, this site compiles online reviews of whatever makes you weak at the knees: movies, books, music, DVDs, videogames. Click on, say, Mission Impossible 3, and the site kicks out capsule summaries from virtually every newspaper and online critic you can think of. Not only that, but it arranges the reviews in order from highest marks to lowest and even AVERAGES the scores to give you an overall snapshot of whether critics like or dislike the film (or book, or DVD...) in question. Great site design and an indispensible tool for those who want to be in the know.

11. (I'm feeling generous!) Ping pong, aka table tennis. Played it last weekend with some friends of LeAnn, and within the space of a half-hour I became a ping pong paddlehead. Like tennis, except I can actually keep the ball in play for more than fifteen seconds. Oh, and when I DO hit it into the net or across the living room, I don't feel like my head's going to explode with frustration. Must be those cute little paddles! Must...play...more...ping-pong...