East of Eden and Lolita. American Gods really did it for me as well. My relationship with books and how I respond to them, as with any media, is really dependent on my emotional state when I read them.

Movies/shows -- the pantheon way up at the top of The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and the Sopranos, followed well behind by Dexter, Arrested Development--Parks and Rec is also pretty damn awesome. I loved the first season of Game of Thrones. Planet Earth/Life/BBC Nature documentaries. As with books and music, I go through stages of mass consumption with movies, and then months/years without adding any new favorites. I think I'm still on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as my favorite film, Memento was amazing, and now that I think about it, I pretty much loved most of the Pixar films -- especially the Incredibles, Wall-E, Up, Ratatouille -- love the innovation, the ability to connect real adult themes in ways that they are more easily understood by a mass audience. Michel Gondry is pretty amazing as well--his collaborations with Bjork are among my most re-watched things (and in general I'm not really much of a re-watcher--it's almost always newness that I seek in my media). If you like HomestarRunner you immediately get four bonus points with me--especially if you can quote any of the emails.

Music-wise it's been a few years since my last huge influx, so right now it's invariably Ratatat or Beirut. I love Radiohead, Aesop Rock, some of Buck 65's stuff is among the most honest I've heard. Chali 2na and Dangerdoom almost always make me laugh. My favorite song is "Release" from Blackalicious -- specifically Part 2 with Saul Williams is among the most beautiful things I have ever heard in my life, and always sends chills up my spine.

Food-wise there is very little I don't love--I am not a foodie per se, but many of my closest friends work in the food industry, so I end up sampling a lot of great food and restaurants. I love Thai food and eat it at least twice a week--every time I move, I have to find my local Thai take-out place and immediately become friends with the owner. I've always been adventurous with food, but a recent discovery of a garlic allergy has put the kibosh on some of that exploration.

The internet maybe? I can go without it while traveling -- my experiences traveling have made answering questions like this somewhat impossible. There's nothing that's indispensable. Dr. Bronner's soap is pretty good when you can only choose a small number of things, as is one of those special moisture-wicking traveling towels from REI.

How to bring my passions, desires, and talents to bear--and specifically how to switch up my career so that I can integrate these passions and desires more fully into the activity of my day-to-day life, in a way that positively impacts other people. How to bring more creativity into my life. Honestly, I think a lot about systems--human-populated systems (political, religious, business institutions) as well as finite systems (as in a game with a specific set of rules). I've been working recently on expanding my personal philosophy into something more concrete, but that's just something I do for kicks on the side (My tongue is only partially in cheek for that sentence).

I'm almost always thinking about people's experiences, relationships, the multiplicity of perspective and how people filter information. I have gone through periods of time where I consume information in a specific field voraciously, but then I inevitably hit somewhat of a wall, and go through the process again with a different field of information. I don't retain a lot of specifics; as I've aged, I find that I am far more interested in ideas and concepts than in details.

Inevitably I do spend a lot of time thinking about my personal relationships with other people as well, and the ways in which I and other people communicate -- I am especially impressed with people who can communicate incredibly complex ideas in a simple manner.

Meta-shit, obviously :)