Books - Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash and The Baroque Cycle),
Lois
McMaster Bujold (the Vorkosigan series), Tolkien, Orson Scott
Card
(the Ender stuff, and Songmaster), and the Harry Potter books.
I
should also put anything by Joe Kurmaskie, and Miles from
Nowhere
by Barbara Savage. Really any good book about bike touring -
well,
really I'll read the bad ones too, so I guess any book about
bike
touring. I'm also developing something of an intellectual crush
on
Sara Vowel.
I don't watch many movies, but Kevin Smith is my favorite
director
(and no, I'm not a stoner, nor am I overly fond of dick jokes
-
there is a lot of other stuff going on in most of his movies!),
and
when I do watch movies I tend to prefer thrillers or art
house
comedies - and I can't remember ever seeing a Horror movie.
My
favorite movie is Chasing Amy, though it might be High Fidelity.
I
did grow up on Star Wars, though, and am very fond indeed of
the
Lord of the Rings movies. Oh, and my niece and I have always
gone
to the midnight opening of the Harry Potter movies, but I
suspect
that she will have less interest in that since by the time the
next
one comes out she will be 17. I was shocked that she wanted to
see
the last one with me, having been 15 at the time! I will likely
cry
watching any version of
Cyrano de Bergerac which
doesn't change
the ending, and then I'll watch it again. "My life has been
to
prompt others, and be forgotten. But I say this as I die;
Molière
has genius, and Christian had good looks."
As for TV, ever since
The Wire went off the air, the only
thing
on TV worth watching regularly is
The Daily Show. Which I
watch
on the internet. My TV sits in it's corner cold and lonely,
yearning for the days when I actually cared enough to buy the
damn
thing. I'd try to sell it, but its a old analog CRT, and so
is
basically worth nothing. When they were on, I loved Homicide:
Life
on the Street, and Babylon 5. Although I didn't discover it
until
it was off the air, I'm also a real big fan of
Firefly.
At the moment, though, I am spending an inordinate amount of
time
watching TED talks. I wish I had the money and influence to
be
invited to that conference. I'd go in a heartbeat! I think
the
coolest thing I've ever hear of was on TED - a landmine
detecting
flower! I'm deeply saddened they stopped working on it.
Music: Of late, my favorites are Elvis Costello, The Police,
The
Beatles, Imogen Heap, Jeff Buckley, PJ Harvey, Aesop Rock, and
of
course The Clash. Also, Joan Osbourn, Missions of Burma, Jeff
Beck,
The Blue Man Group, a bunch of local bands (757's, The Haves
Have
it, etc.), Stax/Volt (Otis Redding, Booker T. and the MG's,
etc.),
Inara George (every thing she has put out, either on her own
or
with The Bird and the Bee, has been my favorite album of that
year), and a lot of female singer/songwriters (Amiee Mann,
Jill
Sobule, Ani DiFranco, etc.). I also always get season tickets
to
the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra with my mother and niece;
I've
loved every single piece I've heard Osmo Vanska conduct. Last
year,
I went out to Seattle to see The Police and Elvis Costello
play,
spending a couple grand I didn't really have, and I consider it
to
be one of the best things I've ever done with money!
Food: I'm not real big on seafood (though I'm kind of trying to
get
over that), and I could never give up meat, but I love any and
all
good food. I have a particular love of Thai and Indian food.
The
best restaurant meal I've ever had was at Bouchon in Las Vegas,
and
I can tell you just about every detail of the meal I had. My
favorite local restaurant is probably The Signature Cafe - try
the
pot roast!
