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Alice told me she was composing a literary bat-list (similar to reguluar bat-list, w/ more literature), and, sure enough, she did . Amazon's So You'd Like to... features are kind of like blogs, and linking to one is kind of like blogging on my part, so I'm done for the day!

Recent DVD purchases include my favourite two movies of last year: I (Heart) Huckabees and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . If I somehow didn't manage to drag you along to Huckabees during one of my many viewings in the theatres, be very suspicious if you get invited over for a movie night. Oh, and I have Google adverts now. I like Google when they're giving me money.

Well, we made the... Post ? Okay.

Regardless of what I accomplish in my lifetime, it hurts to know that the Times will never run a story about me whose lede graf begins "Jeffrey Posnick, Coney Island Math Team prodigy..." Maybe I could get FFH or Rich to profile me. That would be cute. I was at least as dominant as Marbury was, brining Lincoln top math nerd honors in the city one year, and getting top individual scorer awards mutliple times as well. We beat Stuyvesant, for goodness sakes. And since everyone copied off me, I clearly had more to do with us winning than Marbury had in basketball, who ostensibly played with four other guys contributing on the court at any given time.

I was talking with Banana about blogging (well, she was talking with me about English major windbags, but all conversations with Banana wind back to blogging), and we decided that Very Hipster Windbag would be a great name for a blog. As we both have blogs already, we're throwing it out there to the general population (read: spambots) who've been dying to blog but couldn't, for lack of a catchy name.

Since the mainstream media doesn't do any reporting anymore (unless it's to detail the influence of blogs ), 34 picks up the slack: Bill Keller, the Executive Editor of the Times , spoke at last night's Blue Pencil Dinner (& Lecture!). I tend to, ummm, drink a bit during these sorts of events and don't always focus on exactly what the speaker is saying, but when he started talking about blogs I perked up. The Times news section, I take it, isn't too crazy about the blog phenomenon, and Keller believe that they're a fad that will die out sooner rather than later (because who really expects the Internet to be around in three years?). Exhibiting the type of tact that you'd expect from the most powerful editor at the most powerful media entity, Keller dismissed small-operation blogging enterprises with questionable or nonexistent journalistic standards as "one man circle-jerks." Attempting to display the tiniest shred of journalistic integrity,

I'm honoured to be the first to blog congratulations to Sarahs on her acceptance to Yale 's English Ph.D. programme. I'm sure she'll get into the other places as well, so start your East Coast lobbying early.

Everyone (and I mean everyone ) is writing about Haruki Murakami nowadays because of his new book . So I won't do that. I did just finish The Wind-up Bird Chronicle though and found it highly enjoyable. I have been procrastinating on my book review assignment for FFH for the longest time now, on the subject of Steve Erickson's oeuvre (I'm surprised that a lot of those books are back in print; perhaps he's not as obscure as I thought he was). What I've read of Murakami ( Wind-up Bird , Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World , some of his short fiction in the New Yorker ) shares a fundamental dreaminess with Erickson's work. There are differences in pacing; while even Murakami's short fiction flows languidly, Erickson's is frenetic, jumping between viewpoints, time, and location in recounting his shared nightmares. If you do a search on Amazon for "Steve Erickson," "Haruki Murakami" comes up as one of the related searches

I guess it's kind of incumbent on me, as a vital part of the liberal blogging elite, to disseminate follow-ups to previous stories . The West End reopened a day after it was shut down, in case you didn't hear. I think it was my (or Jeff Posnik's) letter to the editor that did it. Retroactively. Because much like their author, my letters to the editor don't really believe in time.

I was walking to (or at least in the general direction of) work this morning and saw a truck double parked. It must have been a media truck of some sort because there was a huge advert for Sly magazine affixed to the truck's side. In general, things with huge adverts on their sides are associated with the media. Analogous to O , the magazine written, designed, and printed exclusively for Oprah (who's powerful enough to demand that Mary Gordon provide her with personal book recommendations , it turns out), Sly is the magazine for Sly (Stallone). I am not sure if you are allowed to read it if you are not Sly Stallone; I have trouble enough making it through the New Yorker each week, so I will probably take a pass on Sly regardless. The premiere issue of Sly is summarized on the ever helpful GetBig.com , just in case you're interested and can't find it on your local newsstand. Mind the advice on the bottom of the page: "When you do a web search for Sly Magazine,

Not sure what to do with that degree in Linguistics? Ever want to work for Evil ?

One more reason to be glad that you didn't attend Princeton.

Not to be morbid or anything, but with Arthur Miller deceased, I move up one spot in the famous living Lincoln High School alumni rankings. Stephon Marbury, Neil Diamond, and Marv Albert are still ahead of me (watch your back, Marv!), but at least I'm in front of Joseph Heller--primarily because of the second half of Catch-22 .

Happy Mirer (née Cash) Wednesday. Happy Large East Asian Country (née Chinese) New Year. I'm so glad my cell phone lets me enter accented characters.

Heheh .

Google's new mapping service is amazing. And I only begrudingly admit when Google's technology is amazing. They did it all with DHTML and JavaScript too, so it works without plug-ins. That normally means the user experience doesn't compare to Flash or an ActiveX control, but their web developers really know what they're doing. If you're ever in my neighborhood, pick up some candy before coming over...

Oh, man. The Feds (and by Feds, I mean Cities) shut down the West End. As the Spec notes , "Apparently, the West End serves alcohol to minors." I feel bad for the kids, an in no way do a suggest that this is karma for having gone from $4 pitchers of Black Star to $9 pitchers of Bud.

It must be interesting to live in David Brook's world, where organized labor doesn't exist . He's clearly been shopping at Wal*Mart too much as part of his sociological "research."

For those Spec cies out there, check out the new alumni website I worked on: RetroSpec . It's my way of justifying the bandwith 34 eats up on the same server...

As it turns out, there a lot of things you can do with Altoid tins to get them to produce music , above and beyond that pleasant rattling sound you get from shaking them .

I've been putting this off, but I guess I need to get these in before Bush outlaws 'em : Asbestos provides a mellower, less-trippy high, compared to other hallucinogens. Asbestos and legumes, when eaten together, constitute the type of complete proteins your body can't otherwise synthesize. Asbestos recognizes the value of a good tax shelter. Asbestos comes from the Greek word for "tort reform." Asbestos is starved of iron to the point of anemia in order to acquire that appetizing pink colour. Asbestos totally toured with the Stones back in the '70s. Their guitar player could really shred!

I wait with bated TiVo: The show, which will begin production sometime after Ms. Stewart is released from prison in West Virginia in March and while she remains under house arrest, will feature Ms. Stewart as a less brusque but equally imperious business legend in search of an assistant to help run part of her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Okay, it's from two days ago: Perhaps no single event creates as much demand for exotic stretch limousines as the Super Bowl, and this year's game, in the relatively limousine-challenged city of Jacksonville, has prompted a high-stakes frenzy worthy of a Carl Hiaasen novel, as limo owners from around the Southeast flood the town in their gas-guzzling stretch rides, mood-lights ablaze, preparing to do battle for the high-paying clientele.

Ever topical, David Brooks takes the opportunity today to really stick it to... Communists ? Hrmmm.