Six Years

Today marks the six year anniversary of my blog. Should I feel guilty that I have blogged a lot less over the last year?

Monosyllabic

A recent thread on Metatalk (subsite of metafilter) neatly summarizes how I feel about people who insist on posting their opinion of anything and everything, especially when said opinion is usually "Cool!" or "Lame!" or even "I saw this already!". The internet has allowed everyone to inflict their banalities on everyone else. These kinds of comments are pretty useless when it comes to things like movies, books, youtube videos or anything other widely available media. They only become powerful when aggregated into a rating system. I don't care that nycgal94 didn't like the book. I care that 95% of those who rated it didn't like the book.

So I try to keep my mouth shut (ha!) when it comes to media nuggets that I didn't like, unless I am asked directly or have a specific point to make. I will tell you that I hated the Matrix if you ask me, but if you post about it I'm not gonna post "hated it".

Five Years of Blogging

Today my blog turns five, and I always post the following list on my blogiversary.

Here are my top ten movies of the year-so-far:
Baby Mama
Burn After Reading
The Dark Knight
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Iron Man
Pineapple Express
Smart People
Tropic Thunder
Wall-E
Vantage Point

Based on previous year's data, 5.5 of those will probably show up on my Top Ten of 2008 list.
The movies most likely to take the place of any of the above are Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, The City of Ember, Zack and Miri, and Twilight. I have not allowed myself to see Nick and Norah yet. I am using it as the proverbial carrot on the end of my school-stick. Basically I can't see it until I finish my paper. More on that later.

Top Ten of the Year so far

3:10 to Yuma
300
The Bourne Ultimatum
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Knocked Up
Pan's Labryinth
Reno: 911: Miami
The Simpsons Movie
Superbad
Waitress

Last year's list is here. And me posting this means that I have been blogging for four years.

Local Blog Shoutout

Local blogs

• Aaron was the only local friend of mine who had a blog that was regularly updated and that the average person could access.* But then myspace came along and more of them started and Aaron switched over.
  
• Jodi is almost always funny, except when she's not.
• It makes me sad that Tequila Mockingbird only posted twice last year.
• One of these days, I will actually go to one of Scooter's Game days.
• MNSpeak has a local blog aggregator and City Pages has local directory.

*Are you a local friend of mine who has a blog that I don't know about? Why are you reading mine while keeping yours a big secret, huh?

I haven't been neglecting to post on purpose, I was just a bit busy moving 90% of my worldy possessions to a new apartment.

Three Years of Blogging Today

So, in the grand tradition, here are my top ten nine movies of the year so far:

• Clerks II
  
• Friends with Money
  
• The Lake House
• Last Holiday
• Little Miss Sunshine
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Something New
• V for Vendetta
• X-Men 3

I have only seen 13 movies in the theater this year

Learning you Good

According to this, 10% of my words are 3 or more syllables and it takes only 5 years of school to be able to understand my blog.

Deflated

I drove over a screw that stuck in my tire on Sunday, so I had to put my spare tire on last night. Last time I needed a tire change, Ombre De Chevalier was nice enough to do it and give me lessons. So, I loosened the nuts, jacked up the tire, removed it and put the spare on. Tip: to tell which side of the tire should face out, check for the inflation valve.
Anyway, I was a filthy mess, but I had to run to the corner store after that to get some cash so I could do two loads of laundry. As I am getting cash and buying a soda, I hear a rather strange conversation between one of the workers there and a customer. My friends and I started a blog called Overheard in Minneapolis, which is a blatant rip-off of Overheard in New York, so I posted it on that blog and you'll have to go there to read it. We certainly aren't the only ones who had that idea, and there is a list of other Overheard blogs on the sidebar, which are great mood elevators.

Truth in Blogging

About a year ago, I posted something false on my blog. I just found out about it now, and have posted the correction as a comment. I found out by browsing through Snopes.com, which bills itself as the Urban Legend Reference Pages. Often when I get an email or hear a rumor, I'll look it up on Snopes to get the real deal. Here is what I have learned over the past few years:

Companies are not going to give you free things for forwarding emails.

The day after Thanksgiving is not the busiest shopping day of the year.

Ligers and Tigons really do exist. Also real are a wholphin (whale-dolphin), cama (camel-llama), and Dzo (cow-yak), as well as many zebra-donkey-horse combinations which include mule, hinny, zorse and zeedonk.

The racist remarks attributed to Elvis, Tommy Hilfiger and Lauryn Hill are all false.

We are Legion

This is probably one of the best blog posts I've ever read. It's on Waiter Rant, which is an always interesting look into the lives of servers.

I Resolve...

To keep a list of all movies I see this year.
To read more and post reviews of all books that I read this year.
To get more organized and stay on top of the mundane details of life.
To travel more this year.
To post more often and look into new blogging software.
To get my Explorer working or reinstall Windows.
To clean my desk at work and both my work and home computers.

These are just the ones I feel like sharing.

Okay, you talked me into it.

This is my 2004 year-to-date top 10:

Before Sunset
Garden State
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Hidalgo
King Arthur
Passion of the Christ, The
Saved!
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Spider-Man 2
Troy

First Entry

Ok, first blog entry. Um, I'll start with listing the reasons I set this up:

- I have a need to keep track of my random thoughts over the course of time.

- I am always running across cool sites/songs/etc that I want to share with the world.

- I'd like an electronic version of the diaries/journals I have kept over the years.

- This will serve as a nice gateway to some of my other pages.

Here is the blog that inspired me to make my own: kottke.org. It wasn't the first one I ever read or the first time I thought I should start one, but this one made me finally do it.